Pakistan says it is ready to host talks between the U.S. and Iran.
But are there signs a meeting will take place as the US deploys Marines to the region and Iran attacks US troops in Saudi Arabia?
I'm Michelle Martin, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News.
President Trump says Iran agreed to most of his 15-point plan to end the war, but he also threatened to obliterate Iran's energy infrastructure if a deal isn't reached soon.
So what's behind the mixed messaging?
And some TSA workers are finally getting paychecks after more than a month without them.
But Congress still hasn't reached a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
So when will their next paycheck come?
Stay with us.
We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
Iran is allowing some ships to pass through the state of Hormuz, but the vast majority of oil and gas tankers remain trapped.
And despite thousands of US and Israeli attacks on Iran, it's still launching dozens of missiles and drones daily at Gulf countries.
Joining us to talk about the latest from the Gulf is NPR international correspondent Aya Birchawi in Dubai.
Aya, good morning.
Thanks for joining us.
Good morning, Michelle.
So what's it like there today, more than a month into the war?
Well, to begin with, this is supposed to be the peak tourism season here, but the hotels are pretty empty.
The government did approve a financial package to help businesses here that are suffering just yesterday.
And the central bank is also allowing local banks here to draw from cash reserves to help with liquidity as people move their money out or defer on payments or maybe even require more loans.
And then there's what we call the new normal here.
You know, this is a safe haven.
People are not accustomed to coming under attack.
And this city does not have shelters because Dubai was never attacked by missiles before this war.
But this is what it sounded like this morning, just a few hours ago from my balcony.
So that was the sound of missiles overhead being intercepted.
There's also fighter jets overhead chasing and shooting down Iranian-made Shahed drones, which are relatively cheap to make and have caused extensive damage.
Interceptors are expensive and in limited supply and they're being saved to shoot down those missiles you just heard.
And then there's the smaller things.
I've noticed Michelle, like restaurants still offering premium Wagyu beef and other luxury items on their menus.
But then I had to go to a few different grocery stores yesterday to find carrots.
Dubai imports most of its food and the main port here has been inaccessible because the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed now, for the past month,
Well, that sounds really scary.
Yeah.
So President Trump said in an online post yesterday that if a deal isn't reached soon with Iran to open the strait, the US would blow up and obliterate Iran's electricity plants.
So what can you tell us about efforts to open the strait?
Pakistan says it's ready to host the US and Iran for a meeting in the coming days, but there is no sign that a meeting is actually happening.
If anything, a couple thousand Marines are now in the area and the 82nd Airborne Division was deployed last week.
It's unclear if Trump will order them to take Iran's car island that holds most of Iran's oil.
But the Trump administration says US diplomacy is working and they say that's why some ships are moving through the strait.
Iran, though, says there are no talks with the U.S., and it is controlling the strait.
Pakistan says Iran agreed to let an additional 20 Pakistani ships pass through the strait, but that's just two a day.
That's a fraction of what was passing before this war.
Ananya, you just played us that sound of missiles being intercepted above you in Dubai.
What can you tell us about Iran's counterattacks on other parts of the Gulf?
So key aluminum plants here were hit and there was extensive damage to the one in the UAE and then also in Bahrain.
And in recent days, authorities in Kuwait say Iran attacked a water desalination and power plant, damaging a service building there.
Now Kuwait, like other Gulf countries, relies almost entirely on desalination to draw seawater out and then turn that into drinking water.
And that attack came after.
Iran says there were power outages in parts of Tehran over the past two days from US.
Israeli strikes.
Also, NPR has confirmed from a US official not authorized to speak publicly that more than a dozen US service members were wounded in a Friday night attack that also damaged two aircraft at Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Air Base.
Now, these aircraft were equipped with radars that are key to detecting incoming threats, and they were damaged.
That is NPR's Aya Bertawi in Dubai.
Aya, thank you.
Thanks, Michelle.
That social media post from President Trump about the state of Hormuz, touting negotiations while making escalating threats, is just one example of his inconsistent messages about the war.
On Truth Social.
He talked about how serious negotiations with Iran are and he was probably going to make a deal soon.
In that same sentence, he also threatened to quote conclude our lovely stay in Iran with more strikes if a deal is not reached.
Monday night in another post, he shared video of what the Associated Press reports is a likely US attack on the city of Isfahan.
NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivran is with us now to tell us about this.
Good morning, Deepa.
Good morning.
So tell us more about what President Trump is saying now.
Yeah well, President Trump said yesterday on social media that the US is in discussions with a quote new and more reasonable regime in Iran.
Though at the press briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt declined to go into detail on what that meant.
Of course, anything that they say to us privately will be tested, and we will ensure that they are being held accountable to their word.
And if they are not?
The president has laid out the military consequences that the Iranian regime will see if they don't hold true to the words that we are hearing privately behind the scenes.
And the president's post said something similar to what he's been saying for weeks that great progress has been made in the negotiations so far, but there isn't yet an agreement on opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is a critical route for oil transportation.
And Trump had previously said that April 6th was this deadline for reopening the Strait.
Now in his post online, he's saying that a deal needs to be reached, quote, shortly.
If it's not, the US, he says, will resume strikes on Iran.
And Trump says they'll hit electric plants, oil wells, and possibly desalinization plants.
So the timeline the administration has set for the war to end was roughly six weeks.
This conflict is now in week five.
But thousands more troops were sent to the region this weekend.
Do we have a sense of what the administration actually believes and is planning for?
Yeah, this is where some of that mixed messaging really comes in, because the president has been saying things like talks with Iran have been Moving forward.
He thinks that a deal will be reached on the street.
He's even said that the U.S. is actually way ahead of schedule on achieving their goals in Iran.
So maybe that means things would wrap up early.
But while he's saying all that, he's sending thousands of U.S. troops to the region.
There's going to be about 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East.
Now, Caroline Levitt said yesterday that this is about giving the president options.
It doesn't necessarily indicate any new decisions from the president, but it does leave a lot of questions as to how successful US operations are going and how much longer this war is really going to last, how much more involved US personnel might be.
And, I should note, while all of that is happening, Iranian leaders are denying that there are ongoing negotiations with the US at all.
So as you just told us, the president has been touting this war as a success so far.
But what do voters think?
Right.
So for his base.
Republicans are largely supportive of the war and support US military action in Iran.
But a majority of independents and, of course, Democrats oppose it.
And that's according to polling from Quinnipiac from last week.
The president continues to both do this dance of ramping up pressure on Iran, threatening more military action, while also trying to push negotiations.
And whichever direction he goes in will have political consequences as well as massive impacts in the region.
And here at home, midterm elections are just about six months away.
I was talking to a Republican strategist, Alex Conant, who is telling me that war usually just brings in a lot of uncertainty, which isn't really boding well for the administration right now.
But he says the election isn't tomorrow.
There's still time.
That is NPS Deepa Shivram.
Deepa, thank you.
Thank you.
Security screeners at most U.S. airports are finally getting paid.
TSA officers have started receiving their first payment since the Homeland Security shutdown began more than 40 days ago.
But the shutdown has not ended.
And when agents will be paid next is still unclear.
NPR's Joel Rose is with us now with the latest.
Good morning, Joel.
Good morning.
So what do we know about these payments?
Well, we know they started hitting the bank accounts of many TSA screeners yesterday.
And that is some relief for the roughly 50000 TSA security officers who had been working without pay since funding lapsed more than six weeks ago.
I talked last night with Johnny Jones.
He's a leader with the union that represents TSA workers.
The employees are happy they're receiving some money, right?
There's a sense of relief there, because most people's bank accounts were negative by the time they got this payment.
But at the same time, Jones says there is still a lot of anxiety and concern.
These screeners still have not gotten the full amounts that they were owed.
DHS says most screeners have been paid for the two full paychecks they missed, but they have not been paid yet for part of a third missed paycheck.
DHS says it is working aggressively to process that one.
Where is the money coming from to pay these officers?
Good question.
President Trump signed a memo last week ordering Homeland Security to find the money to pay TSA workers after Congress repeatedly failed to reach a deal to fund the department.
Lawmakers have disagreed over calls for tighter restrictions on immigration enforcement after Homeland Security officers killed two US citizens in Minneapolis in January.
That said, we still don't know exactly where the money is coming from.
A lot of the Trump administration's critics are wondering if it is even legal for the White House to do this.
If it is legal, why didn't it happen sooner?
Thousands of TSA officers have called out of work since the shutdown began.
Many have picked up second jobs, leading to some of the longest security lines in the agency's history.
But we still don't know when those security screeners will get paid next.
And, of course, none of this helps other DHS staff who are still not getting paid as the shutdown continues, including staffers at FEMA and at the Coast Guard.
That's a good point.
There are still people who are not getting paid at all.
Okay, to those security lines, are those long lines now behind us?
Well, the initial signs are good.
Security lines were generally much shorter on Monday, closer to normal.
But the fallout from this episode is likely not totally over yet.
I talked to Caleb Harmon Marshall.
He is a former TSA security officer who now writes a newsletter called Gate Access.
TSA as a whole is going to have a huge problem once this is all over and done with trying to get new candidates to come and work this job.
More than 500 TSA officers have quit during this shutdown, according to DHS.
John, one thing people were wondering is why some airports had long lines and not others.
Do you know?
I've wondered that, too.
I mean we tended to see the longest lines at airports where there was a high volume of travel that day, combined with a high percentage of call outs at TSA, which sometimes hit 40 percent or more.
I talked yesterday to a former high ranking TSA officer at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which had four hour security lines at times over the past month.
He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He told me Houston has always been a tough labor market for TSA and that when the oil and gas industry was doing well, his workforce would often quit and take jobs there.
So maybe that was a factor this time in Houston.
But why did we see such high call outs at other airports, in places like Atlanta, in New York, in New Orleans, in Baltimore?
I don't know if we're ever going to know.
That is NPR Transportation Correspondent Joel Rose.
Joel, thank you.
You're welcome.
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And that's Up First for Tuesday, March 31st.
I'm Michelle Martin.
And I'm Layla Faldin.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Jerry Holmes, Rebecca Metzler, Russell Lewis, Mohamed Abardisi and Adriana Gallardo.
It was produced by Ziad Butch and Ava Pukach.
Our director is Christopher Thomas.
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And our technical director is Carly Strange.
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Join us again tomorrow.
