The American naval blockade of Iranian ports is eight days old. No deal has been reached. The two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan is running out, and both sides are discussing whether to return to Islamabad for a second round of talks before it does, Time reported. UN Secretary General António Guterres said it is “highly probable” that talks will restart, according to UN News. President Trump said “something could be happening” over the next two days, CNN reported. The sticking points haven’t moved: Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.
What has moved is the number of countries paying attention.
China called the blockade “dangerous and irresponsible” on April 14, CNBC reported. China is the largest buyer of Iranian crude. The blockade cuts off that supply directly. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said only a comprehensive ceasefire can “fundamentally create conditions for easing the situation in the strait.” Sanctioned tankers have continued transiting the Strait despite the American presence, Al Jazeera reported. The United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, Spain, and the European Union have all expressed opposition to the blockade, according to CNN.
In November 1956, a dispute over a waterway turned into something larger. Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. Britain, France, and Israel invaded. The United States and the Soviet Union, on opposite sides of nearly every other question, both demanded they stop. The canal carried two-thirds of Europe’s oil. The crisis ended European colonial influence in the Middle East in a matter of weeks. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly twenty percent of the world’s oil supply. Seventy years later, a different waterway, different governments, and the same question: what happens when a regional conflict closes a shipping lane that the rest of the world depends on. In 1956, the answer reshaped the global order. The answer in 2026 hasn’t been written yet.
Lebanon and Israel sat down across from each other at the State Department on April 14 for the first direct diplomatic talks between the two countries in decades. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the meeting, which he called a “historic opportunity,” NPR reported. Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador Nada Mouawad met for two hours, according to Al Jazeera.
The two sides came to the table with different objectives. Lebanon wants a ceasefire first, then negotiations toward a comprehensive peace agreement. Israel has rejected a ceasefire and insists on the disarmament of Hezbollah. Hezbollah itself urged the Lebanese government to pull out of the talks, calling them “futile,” Al Jazeera reported.
The last bilateral agreement between Israel and Lebanon was signed on May 17, 1983, during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. It called for Israeli withdrawal and the establishment of normal relations. Syria opposed it. On March 5, 1984, the Lebanese government formally cancelled the agreement under pressure from Damascus and rival sectarian factions. It lasted ten months. Forty-three years later, the two countries are talking again, in a different city, with a different mediator, about many of the same questions.
Two members of the United States House of Representatives resigned on April 14. One was a Democrat. One was a Republican. Both faced sexual misconduct allegations and both left before their colleagues could vote to remove them, CNN reported.
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California resigned after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault. Three additional women alleged other misconduct, including unsolicited explicit messages, according to CNN. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas resigned after admitting to an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide, the Texas Tribune reported. Behind the scenes, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, had each drafted expulsion resolutions targeting the member of the opposing party. The deadline they gave both men was 2 p.m. Eastern. Both resigned before it arrived.
In 236 years, six House members have been expelled from Congress. George Santos was the most recent, in December 2023. James Traficant was removed in 2002 after his conviction on ten federal counts including bribery and racketeering. Before that, you have to go back to the Civil War. Two resignations under bipartisan threat of expulsion on the same afternoon is something the modern Congress hasn’t seen before.
The story that deserves more attention than it’s getting this week is about children, and it involves a number the federal government doesn’t track.
An estimated 5.6 million children in the United States are citizens who live with at least one parent who doesn’t have legal immigration status. Of those, 2.6 million have two parents without legal status, the Brookings Institution reported. When immigration authorities detain a parent and no family member or friend can take temporary custody, the children can end up in the foster care system. As of February, at least 32 children in seven states had been placed in foster care after their parents were detained, according to reporting by NOTUS. Kentucky reported ten. Maryland reported at least nine.
California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Virginia are now rewriting their custody laws to address the problem, the 19th reported. The legislation varies by state, but the aim is the same: keep citizen children with families or guardians rather than placing them in state systems when the reason for the placement isn’t abuse or neglect. The federal government doesn’t track how many children enter foster care because of immigration enforcement, according to KFF Health News. Nobody knows the actual number. The 32 is what reporters have documented. It’s almost certainly not all of them.
Peru held a presidential election on April 12 and still doesn’t know who won.
Thirty-five candidates ran. That is the largest field in the country’s modern history. Electoral authorities failed to deliver ballots and ballot boxes to dozens of voting stations, leaving more than 63,000 people unable to vote. Voting was extended into Monday in Lima and in two cities in the United States, NPR reported. With 72 percent of ballots counted, Keiko Fujimori leads with roughly 17 percent. Rafael López Aliaga is second with about 13 percent. A runoff is scheduled for June 7, according to Al Jazeera. Peru is choosing its next leader from a field of thirty-five, and 63,000 citizens who showed up to participate couldn’t because the ballots weren’t there.
And this. In waters nobody had explored, scientists found more than a hundred species nobody knew existed.
Marine taxonomists announced this month that they’ve identified more than 110 fish and invertebrate species new to science from Australia’s Coral Sea Marine Park, according to CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. The specimens were collected during a 35-day expedition aboard the research vessel Investigator, which left Brisbane last October and traveled more than 1,000 kilometers off the Queensland coast. The creatures were found between 200 and 3,000 meters below the surface. They include brittlestars, crabs, sea anemones, sponges, two new species of ray, a deepwater catshark, and a ghost shark.
The Coral Sea Marine Park covers nearly a million square kilometers. Most of it has never been explored. Researchers say the final count of new species from this single expedition will likely exceed 200, Yale E360 reported. More than 95 percent of the deep ocean hasn’t been surveyed. Thirty-five days of looking, in one park, turned up more than a hundred and ten things that were always there and that nobody had seen before. That’s the day.
