Iran’s missile attacks are slowing down. Is this why?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Iran’s Missile Attacks Are Slowing Down. Is this why?

Podcast: Apple News Today
Host: Cecilia Ley
Date: March 10, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Apple News Today, hosted by Cecilia Ley, centers on the ongoing war between the United States and Iran, with a focus on why Iran’s missile attacks have dramatically decreased. The episode also covers the political repercussions of the conflict, a stirring act of resistance by Iran’s women’s soccer team, the Trump administration’s interventions in the U.S. coal industry, and other notable news stories.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Sharp Decline in Iran’s Missile Attacks

• Iran’s Missile Stockpile Depleted:
  • David Cloud (Wall Street Journal) reveals that Iran’s ability to fire missiles is now "hampered" due to "severe losses in their stockpile."
    (00:15)

    "The evidence we have right now is that they are suffering severe losses in their stockpile, and that's really hampering their ability to continue to fire missiles." — David Cloud (00:15)

• U.S. and Israeli Strikes Are Effective:
  • In the conflict’s early days, Iran launched hundreds of missiles daily, but this number has plunged as U.S. and Israeli forces target missile launching sites and underground bunkers.
    (02:07, 02:56)

    "In the early days, there were hundreds of missiles fired in a day... That has dropped off... as the US And Israeli attacks on their missile launching sites have continued." — David Cloud (02:07)

• Bunker Strategy Backfires:
  • Iran moved its remaining missiles into deep underground bunkers to protect them, but these sites have been effectively targeted by U.S. and Israeli intelligence and airstrikes.

    "...they started digging deep bunkers... but that may have been a tactical mistake." — Cecilia Ley (02:47)

2. U.S. Response and Political Rhetoric

• Triumphant Tone from U.S. Leaders:
  • President Trump has oscillated between declaring the war “very complete” and cautioning that “the conflict wouldn't be over this week,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth celebrates the U.S.'s rapid destruction of missile launchers.
    (01:10, 03:24)

    "We could call it a tremendous success right now... but the big risk on that war has been over for three days. We wiped them out the first." — Pete Hegseth (01:10) "As soon as they sent a missile up from a launcher, we were able to knock out that launcher within a period of 5 minutes or less accurately, right on the noggin." — Pete Hegseth (03:24)

• Uncertainty Remains:
  • The exact extent of Iran’s remaining missile arsenal is unknown, making the long-term outlook of the conflict unclear.

3. Iranian Women’s Soccer Team’s Protest

• Powerful Public Defiance:
  • In the Asia Cup in Australia, the Iranian women’s soccer team refused to sing the national anthem, a defiant stand against the regime.
    (04:28-04:38)

    "Now, this might not seem like a very big deal to us, but it's really a strong act of resistance that can get them and their families into a lot of trouble." — Naseem Kadem (04:28)

• Swift and Severe Backlash:
  • Iranian officials threatened punishment, possibly as extreme as execution, and forced the team to perform later displays of loyalty under strict surveillance.
• International Support and Asylum:
  • Protests in Australia supported the players, some of whom sought asylum, and the Australian government offered humanitarian visas.
    (06:02, 06:29)

    "The Iranian Australian community here has been just so incredible, rallying behind these women." — Naseem Kadem (06:02)
    "Australians have been moved by the plight of these brave women. They're safe here and they should feel at home here." — Anthony Albanese (06:29)

4. The Trump Administration’s Coal Policy

• Government Intervention for Coal Plants:
  • The administration has ordered the U.S. military to purchase more coal-powered electricity and used emergency authority to prevent several coal plant closures, arguing this is necessary for grid stability and national security.
    (07:23-07:34)

    "We're going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now, and it's going to be less expensive and actually much more effective..." — Pete Hegseth (07:23)

• Industry Pushback:
  • Utilities and state governments—such as Colorado's—are resisting, citing cost, existing green infrastructure, and constitutional concerns. There is also ongoing litigation against these federal orders.
    (08:29, 09:09)

    "...the federal government's intervention forcing us to keep this coal plant open amounts to an unconstitutional taking of our private property." — Sam Brash (09:09)

• Legal and Environmental Implications:
  • The administration’s use of the Federal Power Act is unprecedented outside wartime or disaster response, and court challenges may soon test these policies’ legality.

5. Other Major Stories

• Attempted Terror Attack in NYC:
  • Two men inspired by ISIS attempted—and failed—to detonate explosives at a New York City protest site. They are in custody, and city officials reaffirmed the right to protest freely.
    (11:37)

    "While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred..." — Mayor Zoran Mamdani (11:37)

• Live Nation Settlement:
  • The giant entertainment company reached a $280 million settlement with the Justice Department in an antitrust case, without full separation from Ticketmaster.
• Chimpanzees and Alcohol:
  • A new study finds chimps actively seek out fermented fruit, lending credence to the "drunken monkey theory" linking human attraction to alcohol with our evolutionary ancestors.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On missile degradation:

  "The evidence we have right now is that they are suffering severe losses in their stockpile, and that's really hampering their ability..." — David Cloud (00:15)

• On rapid targeting of missile launchers:

  "As soon as they sent a missile up from a launcher, we were able to knock out that launcher within a period of 5 minutes or less accurately, right on the noggin." — Pete Hegseth (03:24)

• On the soccer team’s protest:

  "It's really a strong act of resistance that can get them and their families into a lot of trouble." — Naseem Kadem (04:28)

• On free speech after attempted terror attack:

  "While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not belong only to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone." — Mayor Zoran Mamdani (11:37)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:15: David Cloud explains Iran's missile stockpile problems
• 01:10: Pete Hegseth comments on U.S. success in the conflict
• 02:07-02:56: Decline in missile launches; bunkers targeted
• 03:24: U.S. rapid targeting of launchers
• 04:28-06:29: Iranian women’s soccer team protest and asylum efforts
• 07:23-10:24: Trump administration’s coal policies and legal pushback
• 11:37: NYC Mayor's remarks on right to protest after terror attempt

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Takeaway

This episode provides a snapshot of escalating global tensions and domestic policy shifts, underlining the hidden costs and unexpected consequences of war—both on the battlefield and at home. It captures high-stakes resistance in both military and civilian contexts, the repercussions for those who dissent, and the ripple effects on U.S. policy and energy infrastructure. The human stories behind the headlines—as told by journalists, officials, and protesters—put a personal face on the news of the day.

Transcript

[Cecilia Ley]

Good morning. As economic uncertainty intensifies, Trump boasts military successes in the war. The Wall Street Journal explains how Iran was caught off guard.

[David Cloud]

The evidence we have right now is that they are suffering severe losses in their stockpile, and that's really hampering their ability to continue to fire missiles.

[Cecilia Ley]

What to know about the attempted terrorist attack in New York City and how Iran's women soccer players stood up to the reg and one asylum in Australia. It's Tuesday, March 10th. I'm Cecilia Ley and this is Apple News. Today, President Trump told CBS News on Monday that the war with Iran is, quote, very complete. Pretty much. Stocks climbed at those words, but then just a couple of hours later, he amended his previous statement, saying instead that the US hadn't, quote, won enough. At a press conference last night, he cautioned that the conflict wouldn't be over this week, but did reiterate that the US had made major strides.

[Pete Hegseth]

We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further, and we're going to go further. But the big risk on that war has been over for three days. We wiped them out the first. And in the first two days since

[Cecilia Ley]

the war began, Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have struck a triumphant tone in their updates on the battleground. And so far at least, the damage and the death tolls appear to be mostly on one side. Though it's hard to know exactly what remains of Iran's capabilities. So far, this has been a war fought in the skies. One tactic from Iran has been to utilize cheap drones. The BBC estimates that Iran has launched around 2,000 of them since the war started. It's fired out hundreds of ballistic missiles, but as David Cloud from the Wall Street Journal told us, that rate has declined sharply.

[David Cloud]

In the early days, there were hundreds of missiles fired in a day, often in sort of large salvos. That has dropped off the table as the US And Israeli attacks on their missile launching sites have continued. And so now you're just seeing sporadic firing.

[Cecilia Ley]

Cloud reports that Iran has now turned to deep underground bunkers for the remaining stockpile.

[David Cloud]

In order to protect themselves, they started digging deep bunkers to both store the missiles and potentially to fire them from in order to make sure that they were as much as possible protected from airstrikes from the US And Israel.

[Cecilia Ley]

But that may have been a tactical mistake. These deep bunkers haven't offered the kind of security the Iranians hoped for. Instead, they their precise target.

[David Cloud]

The US And Israel have been pouring over satellite shots for years to try to identify where these places are. And since the war started, they've been hitting them heavily, both on the surface but also as the campaign has gone along, you know, to try to get underneath the surface to destroy the bunkers by collapsing them.

[Cecilia Ley]

Trump alluded to this in his address last night, suggesting that they had seen a 90% decline in Iranian missile launches.

[Pete Hegseth]

As soon as they sent a missile up from a launcher, we were able to knock out that launcher within a period of 5 minutes or less accurately, right on the noggin.

[Cecilia Ley]

It's possible that the regime is now rationing supplies. One research analyst told Cloud that because no one can fully count Iran's arsenal, it's hard to predict how long they could last in a conflict. It began with an act of political defiance on a soccer field Last week, Iran's women's soccer team walked out to play their first game in the Asia cup, held in Australia. That was the Iranian national anthem, but what you can't hear is any singing. That's because the players refused, an act that was seen as a protest against Iran's regime. Naseem Kadem is a correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, based in Melbourne.

[Naseem Kadem]

Now, this might not seem like a very big deal to us, but it's really a strong act of resistance that can get them and their families into a lot of trouble.

[Cecilia Ley]

Kadem says the reaction from Iranian officials was swift and severe, with some labeling the players as traitors.

[Naseem Kadem]

Iranian state TV broadcast saying that these women should basically face punishment when they come back for what they did and that they should face a revolutionary court. And of course, we know that can lead to arrests, that can lead to potentially even as far as execution.

[Cecilia Ley]

In the team's next two matches, players did sing the national anthem and gave a military salute, though it's not clear if this was the result of pressure from above. Kadem says by that point, it was apparent that they were under a watchful eye. And Australian officials expressed concerns that the team's chaperones from the Iranian regime were controlling the women's ability to move and speak freely. After their elimination from the tournament, they were due to go back to Iran. And public pressure on the Australian government to protect the women started to build. In a chaotic scene from last Sunday night, dozens of protesters surrounded the Iranian women's soccer team bus as it left Gold Coast Stadium. At least one team member could reportedly be seen conveying SOS signals with her hands. Since then, a family member of one player said they had sought asylum. And Kadem told us that the Iranian Diaspora had come together to support their cause.

[Naseem Kadem]

The Iranian Australian community here has been just so incredible, rallying behind these women. We've seen a lot of support for regime change in the diaspora and a lot of protests. Standing in solidarity with protesters in Iran, with the people of Iran.

[Cecilia Ley]

Yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed they had offered humanitarian visas to five of the players, and the government said the others were welcome to stay.

[Anthony Albanese]

Australians have been moved by the plight of these brave women. They're safe here and they should feel at home here. We're willing to provide assistance to other women in the team, noting that this is a very delicate situation and it is up to them. But we say to them, if you want our help, help is here.

[Cecilia Ley]

As the Middle east conflict drives up prices and strains global production, the Trump administration is pursuing its own agenda for US Energy at home. Its one focus on saving the coal industry. Just last month, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to buy more electricity from coal plants.

[Pete Hegseth]

We're going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now, and it's going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years.

[Cecilia Ley]

The administration has argued that closing coal plants would raise power bills and threaten grid stability. So to counter the closures, the White House has issued emergency orders to keep them open past their planned retirement dates. According to npr, those orders have impacted eight coal units so far. But some utilities that operate these plants have been asking themselves, is this worth it?

[Sam Brash]

We've seen utilities again and again decide these facilities aren't worth maintaining. We don't want to remodel and revitalize them because it's often cheaper to switch to other resources like solar, wind and natural gas. So we've seen hundreds of coal fired power plants close since 2005 or so, according to federal government data.

[Cecilia Ley]

Sam Brash is a climate and environment reporter at Colorado Public Radio. In his state, the federal government push has actually been met with some resistance.

[Sam Brash]

The first unit, the oldest unit, is Craig 1, and that first opened in 1980. They resolved way back in September 2016 that they wanted to shut this down by the end of last year. So December 31, 2025, and they were planning to do that. And then the US Department of Energy intervened with an emergency order, forcing them to continue to keep it available to generate power for 90 days.

[Cecilia Ley]

In response, the owners of the plant filed a petition asking the Department of Energy to reconsider. They said that they've built sufficient solar and wind farms and that keeping it open would be a constitutional violation and raise their bills.

[Sam Brash]

What's really interesting about the dispute over Craig One is that it's the first time utilities have actually stood up to the federal government and said, we don't think that this is necessary. We don't think that there should be an emergency order forcing us to keep this open. And their specific argument is that the federal government's intervention forcing us to keep this coal plant open amounts to an unconstitutional taking of our private property.

[Cecilia Ley]

The Department of Energy declined NPR's request for an interview, but sent over a statement that commended President Trump's leadership on American energy, saying the US Needs a lot more electricity generation to support domestic manufacturing and the AI boom. The owners of the utility also declined an interview. The Trump administration has intervened in power plant operations using a law called the Federal Power Act.

[Sam Brash]

A report authored by the Congressional Research Service looks back and was like, when have these orders been used in the past? And it's pretty much always for two circumstances, either during wars like World War II or extreme weather disasters. So cold snaps, hurricanes, times when the weather is making it hard to produce power in one place. So the federal government intervenes and says we need you to produce power at this power plant.

[Cecilia Ley]

One expert told Brash that courts could soon weigh in on whether the recent actions to keep plants open are within the confines of this law. In the meantime, environmental groups in several states are pushing back. Last week, Colorado's attorney general also filed a federal lawsuit to resist other efforts from the administration to keep coal fired power plants running in the state. And finally, a few other stories were following. Two men have been charged with terror offenses after police said they attempted to bomb a protest outside the New York City mayor's home. The two men reportedly told police they were inspired by isis. Amir Bilat and Ibrahim Kayyumi were accused of traveling from Pennsylvania with explosive devices and targeting a small group of far right anti Muslim protesters whose presence had drawn counter protesters. Videos of the incident show failed attempts to detonate the explosives. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani criticized the nature of the event that was targeted, but he defended their right to express themselves without fear of violence.

[David Cloud]

While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not belong only to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone.

[Cecilia Ley]

The two suspects, ages 18 and 19, are in custody and face five federal counts each. A long awaited trial that was going to determine the future of the live entertainment industry giant Live Nation has come to an abrupt end. On Monday, a settlement was announced between the company and the Justice Department in an antitrust case that threatened to separate it from Ticketmaster. The the federal government and many states had sued Live Nation in 2024, alleging that the company, along with Ticketmaster, had monopolies on parts of the live music industry, including promotions and venue operations. Pending approval from the court, Live Nation will have to pay $280 million in damages to suing states, cap service fees at 15% and allow competitors to sell tickets on its platform. But some argue that the offer doesn't go far enough to address monopoly, including New York's attorney general Letitia James, who said she and other states will continue their lawsuit. And finally, chimpanzees, it turns out, love alcohol. And it could provide a clue as to why humans like booze, too. Popular Science reports on a new study that revealed chimps consume quite a bit of alcohol in the form of fermented fruit and will even seek it out. Since we are descendants of apes ourselves, the research hints that our tendency could have links to that same habit. One researcher told NPR it's possible when chimps smell sugar, it means they have found a more densely caloric food. That habit of associating sugars with reward may be where humans attraction to liquor comes from. It's been dubbed the drunken monkey theory, researchers say despite ingesting a fair amount of the fruit, it's likely not enough for the monkey to get drunk, which illustrates, according to the author, a profound mismatch between the way we live today and the way we've evolved. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next, Vox reports on daycare facilities for older adults and how centers are helping family members navigate the challenge of caring for an aging loved one. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.