Israel intensified its air and ground operations in Lebanon overnight, with airstrikes hitting southern Beirut and millions displaced as the war shows no signs of letting up.
President Trump is scolding NATO allies for not doing more to protect the Strait of Hormuz — as European leaders remain hesitant to get involved in the war with Iran.
And Trump says he expects to "take Cuba" just as the island suffers another catastrophic blackout, with nearly 11 million people left in the dark amid a U.S. oil blockade.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Hannah Block, Tina Kraja, Tara Neill, Miguel Macias, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Iman Maani and Nia Dumas.
Our Director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
Our Supervising Senior Producer is Vince Pearson.
(0:00) Introduction
(1:55) Iran Lebanon
(5:28) NATO and Hormuz
(9:32) Cuba Grid Collapse
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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders - S12 E10: Dane Witbeck, Pinwheel
Dane Witbeck grew up in Georgia, and has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He was the kid selling ripped CD's in school, along with other odds and ends. He went to Georgia Tech to study engineering, and eventually went on to join a startup called Meshify, in the iOT place - which eventually was bought by a large insurance company. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids. He is involved in many entrepreneurial groups around Austin, and is the proud owner of a 1969 Ford Bronco - which he enjoys getting out of town in and camping.
Post his prior startup, Dane was on the lookout for problems to solve. He observed his son's friend getting a hand-me-down iPhone, and it hit him that he was going to have to monitor this as his children got phones. As he started to dig into what was available, he realized there wasn't a good solution... and decided to build his own.
This is the creation story of Pinwheel.
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Headlines From The Times - FCC Chair Threatens to Revoke U.S. News Licenses and El Pollo Loco Announces Expansion Plans
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is threatening to revoke the licenses of news outlets that fail to align their reporting with what his agency deems the public interest. Meanwhile, leaders of the country's top airlines are urging Congress to end the partial government shutdown, which has left tens of thousands of TSA agents working without pay. The CEOs of American, JetBlue, Delta, and Southwest sent an open letter to lawmakers Sunday, calling on them to restore funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA. In business, El Pollo Loco plans to open 20 locations outside of California after reporting high sales numbers last year, and the luxury outdoor mall Victoria Gardens sold for $500 million dollars to a real estate venture group. Read more at https://LATimes.com.
Marketplace All-in-One - AI-powered workplace tools keep tabs on employees
More and more companies are incorporating artificial intelligence into their workflows — from AI assistants that record and analyze meetings, to AI notetakers that keep track of what's said, to AI summaries and analyses of emails.
Workers may know this technology is being used, but some of these tools, which record and monitor, can still catch them off guard. Still, Josh Bersin, an human resources industry analyst and consultant, says the productivity gains from these tools mean many employers are embracing them.
Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes had him walk her through what he’s seeing businesses try and what they're using at his company — including one HR tool that his company makes and sells called Galileo.
Marketplace All-in-One - Bonus: Does Money Stress You Out? From “Happier with Gretchen Rubin”
For a lot of us, money is a source of anxiety and guilt. Reema recently joined the podcast “Happier with Gretchen Rubin” for a roundtable conversation with Gretchen and Haley Sacks (a.k.a. Mrs. Dow Jones) about why money feels so emotionally loaded – and the small, realistic changes that can make managing it feel easier.
The Daily - Chosen by War: The Rise of Iran’s New Supreme Leader
At the heart of the Iranian regime’s defiant stance toward the United States and Israel in the war is Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader and a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s longtime ruler.
Farnaz Fassihi, who covers Iran for The New York Times, discusses the extraordinary jockeying that led to his selection and whether the United States and Israel helped motivate Iran to replace one hard-line leader with another.
Guest: Farnaz Fassihi, the United Nations bureau chief for The New York Times. She also covers Iran and how countries around the world deal with conflicts in the Middle East.
Background reading:
- Inside the deliberations, power plays and rivalries that led to the ascension of the younger Khamenei.
- Who is Iran’s new supreme leader?
Photo: Saeid Zareian/picture-alliance/dpa, via Associated Press Images
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Start Here - Israel: Limited Ground Operations Begin in Lebanon
With nearly a million Lebanese residents displaced from their homes, some Israeli troops begin pushing into southern Lebanon. President Trump pushes Congress to vote on legislation that would dramatically reform voter ID laws. And federal prosecutors ask a judge to allow them to subpoena Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
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The Daily Detail - The Daily Detail for 3.17.26
Alabama
- Congressman Moore urges Alabamians to be involved in primary voting
- Sen. Tuberville offers 2 bills to address foreign influence in US Universities
- Gambling interests are donations to several AL lawmakers' campaigns
- A "Pick up the Mic" event to be held in North Alabama and includes state lawmaker Ernie Yarbrough
National
- US Pentagon and CentCom give updates in Iran conflict
- President Trump appoints JD Vance to task force that roots out fraud in states
- Democrats make criminal referral of Kristi Noem to DOJ re: statements made under oath
- Federal judge blocks HHS from reducing childhood vaccine schedule
- NBC reports that North Korea tech workers are hired by US companies
- Just the News reports on documents re: China and US voter registration data from 2020
New Books in Indigenous Studies - Joseph Weiss, “Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada” (UNC Press, 2026)
Since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has attempted reconciliation with Indigenous Nations through varied efforts: treaty processes, government commissions, rebranding campaigns for settler-owned businesses, workshops for state and local officials, school curriculum changes, and a recently christened national holiday. However, Joseph Weiss argues, these state-driven initiatives reinforce Indigenous subordination to the settler state. This incisive study of the varied responses from both Indigenous Nations and individuals illuminates how reconciliation is implicated in ongoing colonial erasure.
Critically engaging with a variety of fields, including Indigenous studies, anthropology, history, political theory, semiotics, and museum studies, Weiss captures the multiple scales at which these contested dynamics unfold and explores their underlying technologies of erasure. Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada (UNC Press, 2026) unpacks how reconciliation offers amends for anti-Indigenous violence while disavowing responsibility for that violence, and argues that settler promises of reconciliation cannot be reconciled to the fact of Indigenous sovereignty. Nevertheless, Weiss illustrates how Indigenous Peoples refuse erasure at every turn, instead building alternate futures and lived worlds that are not always already colonially overdetermined.
Joseph Weiss is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, American Studies, Science and Technology Studies at Wesleyan University and where he also chairs the anthropology department. He is also the author of Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii: Life Beyond Settler Colonialism
Elliott M. Reichardt, MPhil, is a PhD Candidate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University. Elliott's research interests are in capitalism, colonialism, and socio-ecological health in North America. Elliott also has long standing interests in medical anthropology and the history of science and medicine.
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What A Day - Meet Trump’s Pick To Lead DHS
This week, the Senate will hold a confirmation hearing for Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security Secretary. In some ways, he’s not very different from his predecessor. Mullin also smeared Renee Good and Alex Pretti following their killings by federal immigration officials in Minnesota. He endorses the President’s debunked theory that the 2020 election was stolen. And he threatened to fight the head of the Teamsters union back in 2023 during a Senate committee hearing over a Twitter spat. Burgess Everett, Congressional bureau chief at Semafor, joins the show to talk more about Senator Mullin, the DHS shutdown, and what else to watch for on the Hill this week.
And in headlines, FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testify before Congress about global security threats, thousands of workers go on strike at a Colorado meatpacking plant, and Trump continues to insist the war with Iran will wrap up “soon.”
Show Notes:
- Check out Burgess reporting – www.semafor.com/author/burgess-everett
- Call Congress – 202-224-3121
- Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy
- What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast
- Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/
- For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday