Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst.
Iranian State TV confirms that Israel killed two of its top officials overnight.
“Ali Lerajani was the head of the country's Supreme National Security Council and acted”
as the country's De facto Leader. It was also a close confident of the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Kemeni. And here's Emily Fang as more on what his death means for the U.S. Israeli War in Iran. There are fears that in his absence, his replacement might be even more hard-line than Lerajani.
Lerajani was seen as very, very pragmatic, someone who could work with, outside powers while still being very, very loyal to the Supreme Leader to the office of the Ayatollah. And here's Emily Fang.
Israel also killed Brigadier General Selamani, the head of the powerful militia that's aligned
with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. President Trump is pushing back against claims by director of National Counterterrorism Joe Kent about his motivation to attack Iran.
“Kent quit today, saying he can't in good conscience, back a war that he believes is Israel's”
doing. Trump says Iran is a tremendous threat. As head of the center, Kent, a former green beret and political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was in charge of an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.
He was a Trump supporter because Trump said he opposed wars in the Middle East.
To keep foreign bad actors like terrorists and drug traffickers out of the country, the federal
government often imposes financial sanctions. Anyone on the sanctions list is barred from doing business here. But as in here's Robert Benacasa reports, the Treasury Department's sanctioned programs have taken a new direction under President Trump. The Treasury Department under Trump has sanctioned people after they've criticized
the President or his political allies.
“For example, shortly after Trump took office, he sanctioned judges and prosecutors at the”
international criminal court after the court issued arrest warrants for his really prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes allegations. Secretary of State Mark Arubio has called the International Court's actions politicized, but critics of the administration's use of sanctions make the same claim. David Presman, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, says sanctions should reinforce the country's
strategic interests and not quote advanced personal vendettas, Robert Benacasa and PR News Washington. Dr. Mehmed Oz, the head of Medicare and Medicaid, is asking Florida officials to explain how they root out health care fraud, saying the state's long been a hotspot for that kind of fraud this the day after President Trump signed an executive order creating an anti-fraud
task force for federal benefit programs. Florida is at least the fifth state Oz has targeted, but is the first Republican led one to get questions from Oz. He was futurist contracts are trading lower at this hour, you're listening to NPR News. The Vatican appeals court declared a mistrial today in the conviction of a cardinal in several
other people for financial crimes. The appeals court ruled the late Pope Francis and prosecutors made procedural errors nullifying the original indictment. The court said a new trial date, in June.
The case is about the Vatican's $413 million investment in London property, prosecutors
alleged brokers and monsooners fleece to the holy sea of millions of dollars in fees and commissions to acquire that property and then extorted the church to relinquish control of it. A new study of diet and disease finds the more ultra-processed food a person eats, the higher the risk of developing heart disease, impures Allison Aubrey has more.
The study included more than 6,000 adults aged 45 to mid-80s and found that with every additional serving of ultra-processed foods, people reported as part of their typical diet, the higher the odds of a heart attack or stroke, Dr. Amir Hyder of UT Southwestern, authored the study. If you're in the top 20% of those who can send the most ultra-processed foods, which was
about 9 servings per day, you had a 67% higher risk. The study looked at several ethnic groups, including Asian black and Hispanic participants, Hyder says prior research shows junk foods have been more heavily marketed toward minority populations, which is one factor that may help explain the more pronounced relationship with black Americans, Allison Aubrey and PR News.
And I'm Jeanine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington. That's on the Ted radio hour podcast, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
