MONITOR TIC

“US and Iranian delegations are set to hold peace talks in Islamabad starting on Saturday. The negotiations led by vice president JB Vance are aimed at preserving a fragile ceasefire between the two countries. NPR's Carrie Khan reports Israel's ongoing offensive in Lebanon is threatening to derail those efforts.”

“If you look at how many forehands Alcaraz hit, the number is, 98 versus a 112 backhands. That's amazing. It's really hard to get Carlos to hit that many more backhands compared to forehands. Sinner, on the other hand, hit a 117 forehands to just 80 backhands. The only way that that's possible is that you're playing a lot of points if you're Yannick Sinner getting to hit your forehand into Alcaraz's backhand.”

“The emperor penguin is now listed as endangered. The International Union for Conservation of Nature made the declaration because emperor penguins in Antarctica rely on sea ice for many purposes, but it is melting rapidly. The Antarctic fur seal was also moved to the endangered category.”

“George Peery is an emeritus professor of political science. Other than taking out the leaders of a corrupt and repressive regime, he sees nothing good about the war. I think it's a disaster from the beginning. It is separating us from our NATO as well as their Arab allies, and it is impacting the world's economy in ways that I don't think this administration had any clue about.”

“2023 also saw the roots of a global banking crisis arise out of four American regional banks, the two largest being Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. 2021's inflation surge moderated in 2023, while the Federal Reserve continued to raise its interest rates in the first half of the year.”

“Iran is charging $2,000,000 for every ship that passes through the Strait Of Hormuz. And they have said in the agreement that they have full sovereignty over the Strait, and now they're gonna charge people for moving goods through it. So I guess the question is, one, do you think that that holds? And two, how significant is it from an inflation perspective? Because it seems like that is, yes, ships can pass through, but now there's a toll.”

“World Cup tickets are getting even pricier. FIFA, the international governing body for professional soccer, is adding a more expensive tier. A ticket for a front category one seat at the US opener against Argentina in Los Angeles will cost as much as $5,470 according to the Associated Press.”

“US district judge Paul Freeman sided with The New York Times earlier this month in deciding that the department's new credential policy violated journalists' constitutional rights to free speech and due process. On Thursday, he ruled the Pentagon had tried to evade his ruling by expelling all reporters from the building unless guided by escorts. The judge called the actions a blatant attempt to circumvent a lawful order.”

“Zeldin celebrated the EPA's decision to stop regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. He says that policy was government overreach and focused too much on the worst case scenarios, despite scientific research showing that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the highest level in human history.”

“Representative Eric Swalwell says he's suspending his campaign for California governor. He made the announcement Sunday in a social media post saying that he's deeply sorry for mistakes and judgment that he's made in the past. Allegations of sexual misconduct with a former staffer were made public on Friday.”

“Feels pretty close to script, more or less. You know, the president has gone down this path in other ways. And when push comes to shove, when markets start to react, when stock prices are down, when interest rates are up, and in this case, when oil prices are up, he figures out a way to pivot, to stand down, and to declare victory and hopefully move on.”

“I think Anthropic has proven that it's very good at two things. One is product releases. The second is scaring people. And we've seen a pattern in their previous releases of, at the same time, they roll out a new model or new model card, something like that. They also roll out some study showing really the worst possible implication of where the technology could lead.”

“Within hours of those reports, nearly all of his major endorsers abandoned him. On x, Swalwell apologized for mistakes in judgment but denies the allegations. He's now facing calls from fellow Democrats in California to resign his house seat.”

“The Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it has opened a sexual assault investigation against California congressman and Democratic candidate for governor Eric Sawell. He is facing allegations of sexual abuse, one involving a reported incident in September 2024 at a New York City hotel involving a former staff member. Other women have come forward to accuse Sawell of sexual misconduct.”

“If they wanna have nuclear weapons, they're not gonna have nuclear weapons. I've been saying that for thirty years. I would never allow that to happen before I was in politics, and that country will not have nuclear weapons.”

“The US Central Command says it will begin a blockade on all Iranian ports beginning in seven hours. The action is in response to the collapse of peace talks in Pakistan this weekend. The blockade is an effort to force Iran to reopen the Strait Of Hormuz to shipping.”

“For nearly a week, slow moving convoys of tractors and trucks have blocked major highways and roads across the country, including some of the busiest streets in Ireland's capital, Dublin. Protestors are demanding more support from the government as fuel prices continue to rise because of The US and Israel's war against Iran. The Irish government has been meeting with farmers and truckers over the weekend and say more support is coming.”

“House kills effort to release all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports.”

“This is just the beginning, and there's nothing that we can accomplish when we pull all of our differences together, not in spite of them, but when we pull them together and we work on something big for the good of everyone.”

“The scientists found that the same neurons that fire when someone looks at an object also fire when a person imagines that object. The finding supports earlier evidence from brain scans suggesting that seeing and imagining activate the same circuits.”

“The federal government has awarded $50,000,000 for EMS agencies around the country to expand prehospital blood transfusion programs. NHTSA says roughly 2% of the nation's 15,000 EMS agencies have prehospital blood programs now, but they're hoping to grow that number rapidly.”

“People are hurting. They're hurting because of sheer lack of quantities. If you are in The Philippines, you're queuing the same way people were queuing here in the seventies to fill your tank. They are hurting because, they may be in need of helium for semiconductors.”

“Fans in LA went from ecstatic to heartbroken when they logged on to buy Olympics tickets and saw prices in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Seats at the games start at $28, but go as high as 5,500, including a whopping 24% service fee on each ticket.”

“Yannick Sinner is Monte Carlo champion 2026. His first big clay court title, his fourth straight 1,000 title, slowly but surely, chipping away at that Carlos Alcaraz head to head, having won three out of the last five. And he becomes number one in the world. I think both players, Alcaraz and Sinner, have made it clear that that is a footnote in their heads, and I think it should be a footnote in our heads as well.”

“If I’m putting on my coach's hat and I see Sinner at 50 unforced errors, which is of course really high in a two set match, I'm saying that's okay. Jannik has to play attacking tennis. He needs to get on Alcaraz and be on his front foot and and take charge with big aggressive ground strokes. We saw what happened, I think, when he played a safer style against Carlos throughout 2024. It just did not work.”

“I think prices are permanently higher. I mean, when I say permanent, nothing's permanent, but at least in the foreseeable future, this year, next year, the year after. You know, we're not there's no going back to the $60, $65 bucks a barrel we were paying before all this mess. You're still left with a fee that's not inconsequential, and then, of course, insurance companies are gonna demand a higher insurance premium for insuring the traffic that moves through this strait because, you know, who knows what will happen in the future.”

“It was also miraculous, one could say, that the ceasefire with Iran came just in time as Israeli authorities reopened the Church of the Holy Sepulchre following wartime safety restrictions on gatherings. Israel's foreign ministry says torches carrying the holy flame were flown to Orthodox Christian communities in Greece, Russia, Poland, Georgia, Romania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, and Moldova.”

“Marie Luizeta is no stranger to breaking barriers. She became the Bundesliga's first female assistant coach just over two years ago, and she was the first woman to lead a Bundesliga side from the touchline, deputizing for the then manager during a one nil win over Darmstadt.”

“President Trump says the US Navy will block the Strait Of Hormuz from all ships, and the US military says that starts tomorrow. This after peace talks between The US and Iran and Pakistan yesterday failed to produce a deal. NPR's Mara Eliasson has more on what happens next.”

“Up six bucks today.”

“The resilience of the American consumer continues to surprise analysts, even as borrowing costs remain at decade highs.”

“There are hundreds of tribally owned gas stations, by and large exempt from paying state fuel taxes, savings they can pass on. The gas stations also provide revenue for reservations to reinvest in their communities, concentrated in Western states where the priciest gas in The US is found.”

“The law is set to take effect on January 1 targeting platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The prime minister announced the plan directly to young people online saying it's meant to protect them from rising anxiety, stress, and sleep problems linked to screen time.”

“Let's spend a hundred days using advanced AI to find and to fix and to harden these software vulnerabilities before hackers exploit them. Now what I think this represents, Jason, is a threshold that we're crossing. Mythos and Spud, which is going to be out from OpenAI any day now, represent the beginning of what I would call AGI models.”

“The straight as they call it, and I think it's gonna go pretty quickly. And if it doesn't, we'll be able to finish it off one way or the other. It's going well. They've been talking for forty seven years with other presidents, and we're not doing much talking.”

“These are models with massive step function improvements and intelligence, and they're just too smart to be released immediately. You know, and by the way, there was nothing that said that every time you finish a model you gotta immediately release it GA. So they set up this idea of sandboxing, building defensive alliances, in order to move away from that regime.”

“Democrats in congress are gonna force votes attempting to constrain the president on this war. The constitution, of course, gives congress the power to declare war, although it hasn't worked that way in practice in quite a while. Those votes are expected to fail as have all of their past go rounds at this.”

“I view this as a part of a broader, a very corrosive trend, and that that's the deglobalization of the economy that The US is pulling away from the rest of the world very quickly. I mean, you know, tariffs, immigration policy, what we're doing geopolitically. And then, of course, now the rest of the world is pulling away from us very quickly. If we are deglobalizing and this is just one more thing that will cause that process to continue and potentially even accelerate, it has all kinds of corrosive effects.”

“They're recovering from the trauma that they experienced living in captivity. And for them to open up and trust you while you are there with them, helping them work through it, it's indescribable.”

“So far, the average refund is about 11% higher than this time last year, about $350 more according to data from the IRS. Michael Pierce with Oxford Economics expects that average will go up. That's because higher income filers typically procrastinate on filing and seem to be benefiting more from the new tax changes.”

“The Hungarian government under Orban has not been using the veto to protect Hungarian interest. It was using the veto to protect Russian interest. So that very clearly will need to stop.”

“And now the Straits of Hormuz have been closed for a couple of days, and that's putting pressure on China.”

“The first two days of the ceasefire have been shaky with strikes of varying severity happening in Lebanon, Iran, Israel, and the Gulf Arab states. The Iranians I spoke to at the border didn't wanna be named fearing reprisal upon their return, and none of them believed that the temporary truce would hold.”

“Rory McIlroy has become only the fourth golfer to have back to back wins at the Masters. McIlroy pulled away Sunday with a pair of birdies around Amen Corner and finished the day with a one under 71. That was good enough to give him a one stroke win over Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley.”

“Hungarian voters rejected the reelection bid of prime minister Viktor Orban on Sunday. Officials say voters turned out in the largest number since the fall of communism. The vote is seen as critical for Europe and Ukraine.”

“The US has dozens of tribally owned gas stations, by and large, exempt from paying state fuel taxes, savings they can pass on. The gas stations also provide revenue for reservations to reinvest in their communities, concentrated in Western states where the priciest gas in The US is found.”

“Magdi's victory was hard won in an electoral system that over the past sixteen years, Orban had stacked in his favor from gerrymandering to controlling the media. As Brussels now looks forward to working with a more pro European Hungarian leader, Moscow and the current White House administration have lost in Orban, a key ally in Europe.”

“The resilience of the American consumer continues to surprise analysts, even as borrowing costs remain at decade highs.”

“The US is a big economy—it's the largest on the planet—so, you know, it's still gonna play a very central role, but increasingly less of one as we move forward. We have benefited enormously from the globalization process and the fact that The US is central and the US dollar is central to everything that goes on in the world. And that is now gonna be under pressure; it was under pressure before all this, and it will be under even more pressure going forward.”

“The San Francisco Chronicle first reported that all six trustees were terminated last week. Lisa Petri is a spokesperson for the trust. She says the park will continue to operate normally. Trump signed an executive order last year cutting any federal funding to the trust, but Petri says it has been self sufficient since 2013.”

“This week, Spain categorically denies White House claim it will cooperate on Iran war.”

“Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the cease fire from 4PM Saturday through end of Easter Sunday, a proposal to which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed. Yet the Russian side accused Ukraine of launching overnight drone attacks on several border regions injuring civilians, and Ukraine blamed Russia for waves of drones and shelling that killed several people and injured scores more.”

“If you take no rest, no rest, you've got six days of prep on a surface you haven't played on in six months. And then you have to play five matches in six days in a condensed format, very high level competition, pretty much every round. That's tough. You've gotta be cut from a a different cloth to manage that, and he becomes the first to do it successfully since Novak Djokovic in 2015.”

“NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, who went to space twice as a private astronaut, was on the ship with workers from the US Navy and NASA. And what do you guys think? We just brought some astronauts back from the moon. It was the first time that the US Navy and NASA had teamed up for a spacecraft recovery since the end of the Apollo lunar program in 1972.”

“President Trump is threatening to blockade the Strait Of Hormuz, one of the several key sticking points in failed peace talks with Iran. Negotiations in Islamabad broke down overnight with disputes over nuclear ambitions, sanctions, and control of the critical oil route.”

“It took McIlroy years to win his first Masters last year. Now the world's number two golfer joins greats Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Nick Faldo as the only players to win two in a row. McIlroy now has six majors. Along with another green jacket, he also takes home a $4,500,000 purse.”

“Fans in LA went from ecstatic to heartbroken when they logged on to buy Olympics tickets and saw prices in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Seats at the games start at $28, but go as high as 5,500, including a whopping 24% service fee on each ticket. And the cheap seats sold out fast.”

“Israel's military says this weekend, it struck more than 200 Hezbollah targets, and Hezbollah said it continued rocket, drone, and artillery attacks on Israel and Israeli troops inside Lebanon. Lebanon says the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington will hold their first direct meeting Tuesday at the state department to discuss a ceasefire and a date for starting negotiations.”

“It shows you can trust the industry and market forces in coordination with the government. They were talking to the government about this, but they're not relying on some top down regulation in order to do this. They laid out a blueprint that seems to me very pragmatic that now that we're at this threshold, we're gonna sandbox these things.”

“The astronauts will hit Earth's atmosphere going nearly 24,000 miles per hour. One source of anxiety, the heat shield. After a test flight without a crew found some unexpected damage a few years ago, NASA investigated and changed the reentry procedures to deal with this issue. The Artemis two astronauts were heavily involved; they were not just doing what we were telling them to do.”

“The company realized it would wreak havoc. They ran their own vulnerability testing. They saw that it would allow offensive hacking and people to expose browsers and browser history, expose credit cards, you know, on the Internet. So, you know, what I like about this is they didn't need government to hold their hand on this.”

“Saturday night will mark his first major concert since the cancellation of his Justice tour in 2022. There are other big names in store too. Rock star Jack White was a last minute addition to the lineup. The English indie band, the XX, is reuniting this year for the first time since 2018.”

“Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops in Lebanon Sunday as Israeli and Lebanese diplomats prepare to hold their first direct meeting between government officials in decades on Tuesday. Israel and Lebanon's ambassadors to The US are set to meet in Washington to discuss a ceasefire.”

“The rise of artificial intelligence and large language models dominated not only the economy but has also been at the root of a Hollywood double strike conducted by Writers Guild of America and a SAG APTRA strike. These were part of a larger phenomenon of labor strikes across the country, in which such large diverse groups, such as Teamsters and Auto Workers won new contracts.”

“I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a mistake. I've certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past, but those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.”

“Additionally, the latter half of the year saw many large mergers and acquisitions, some of the largest announcements being in oil and gas with ExxonMobil's purchase of Pioneer Natural Resources for nearly $60 billion and Chevron's acquisition of Hess Corporation for $50 billion, both in October and pending regulatory approval prior to closure.”

“The dominant political story of the year has been the 270-day-long speakership of Representative Kevin McCarthy, whose slim majority in the House of Representatives has enabled a far-right rebellion to exert more weight over the lower chamber. The battle between the rebellious Freedom Caucus and McCarthy has been at the heart of an averted debt ceiling crisis and the annual budget debate nearly devolving into a government shutdown.”

“President Trump said today in a post on social media that the US Navy will begin to blockade any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait Of Hormuz. He also said any ship that paid a fee to Iran to pass through the waterway will not have safe passage through the Strait. Trump said the US Navy will begin destroying all mines that Iran has put in the Strait, and he called the mining of the Strait extortion.”

“US futures contracts are trading lower at this hour. Dow futures down about 1%. Nasdaq futures down 1.2%. This is NPR news.”

“30 percent AI is sentient like it's a living mechanism, like it has a certain things for itself. And that's concerning.”

“Sinner was not really allowing Carlos to play that high ball into the backhand because he was so proactive in taking the slower ball into his backhand and making sure I'm gonna utilize that time to make forehands and then play on the rise at shoulder level. That was sort of the positioning that Sinner was typically looking for when Carlos played the high ball. I saw him getting around a lot of forehands and flattening it out inside out.”

“The US military is blocking ships from entering or exiting Iranian ports absent a peace agreement. The blockade was due to take effect two hours ago. US central command says the action will not, quote, impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait Of Hormuz to and from non Iranian ports.”