Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright.
Three weeks into the US is rarely war with Iran, more American Marines are on their way
to the Middle East.
“NPR's Quil Lawrence reports more than 2,000 Marines are being deployed now.”
The USS Boxer Group of 3 ships carrying thousands of Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditioner Unit has left California, and will take about three weeks to reach the Gulf, according to 2 US officials who are not authorized to speak publicly. That's in addition to the USS Tripoli Group, with more than 2,000 Marines, expected to arrive soon from Japan.
Centcom would not comment on the deployment or its mission, but Marines are traditionally ground troops. Quil Lawrence and PR News. Speaking to reporters outside of the White House a little while ago, President Trump once again called on allies to help reopen the straight-of-home moves.
The average price of regular gas is 3.91 now, NPR's Camilla Domenoscape reports Internet search data show more people are considering electric vehicles. Since the start of this month, the war in Iran has pushed gasoline prices up sharply, and on the autosite Edmonds, the share of shoppers considering electric vehicles grew about 15% to its highest level all year.
Now searching for vehicle is not the same as buying one. There are lots of factors in a purchase. Ivan jury is the director of insights at Edmonds. Can answer to, you know, $5 gallon gas is not buying a $50,000 car, but it's definitely
“something that you should put in your consideration set.”
But analysts say if prices remain high, it can push shoppers to put a higher value on fuel savings as they choose vehicles. Camilla Domenoscape and PR News. The Trump administration says it's moving significant management of the nation's federal student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.
And PR Sequoia Carrillo reports President Trump is continuing his effort to eventually close the Education Department. In the administration's latest move to shift responsibilities away from the Department of Education, management of much of the country's student loan portfolio worth nearly $1.7 trillion will be phased over to the Treasury Department.
The administration says Treasury is better equipped to manage the program.
Loans in default will move over first followed by loans that are in good standing.
And in the final phase, Treasury will take over the free application for federal student aid or FAFSA.
“More than 40 million borrowers hold federal student loans while about 12 million of them”
are either in default or on their way there. Sequoia Carrillo and PR News. PR has learned CBS News is laying off 6% of its workforce. Network officials say the cuts were painful but necessary. The cuts include the end of CBS News Radio in May, according to an internal CBS memo
obtained by NPR. CBS News Radio is heard on about 700 affiliate stations. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. A new study finds that humans and animals have shared acoustic tastes and PR's Nate Rod has more.
Animals make a lot of sounds to attract mates and scientists know that some are more effective than others. Take the Pacific Field Cricket. Echo is less appealing to other crickets than this one. And it turns out, according to the new study published in the journal Science, it's more appealing
to people too. Scientists have more than 4,000 volunteers listen to pairs of calls from 16 different species in pick which ones they prefer. Do you prefer this song Sparrow? Or this one.
And they found that overall humans agreed with the animal's preferences. Suggesting, we share a sense of beauty with the natural world. Nate Rod and PR News Muslims around the world celebrate our celebrating Ead Elfiter today, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. It's a time of prayer, celebration, and family to break the fast of Ramadan.
The holiday comes as the Middle East is embroiled in the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran.
It is the first day of spring.
South West is in a heat wave that's supposed to last for a while. It'll get over 100 degrees in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Vegas today. It's early in the year for weather that hot even out west. The spring equinox also falls the same week, parts of the upper Midwest got pummeled with snow.
It's no fall broke records and Michigan's upper peninsula where Marquette got over three feet and they're still cleaning up. This is NPR News from Washington.
