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Chapter 1: What recent developments have occurred in the Strait of Hormuz?
Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The U.S. and Iran are declaring that the Strait of Hormuz is open again to commercial vessels. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports it's for the remainder of Israel's new 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon.
Iran has announced that it's reopened it to commercial shipping, so long as that shipping is on this narrow route that previously was delineated by Iranian authorities. Iran's foreign minister said on social media that this was in response to the ceasefire with Israel.
And oil prices dropped right after, but shipping companies are bound to be a little bit cautious as they assess the risks of going through a strait that everyone feared the Iranians had mined.
NPR's Quill Lawrence on NPR's Morning Edition. Iran itself is still facing a U.S. naval blockade of its ports. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire expires next Tuesday. Oil prices have fallen sharply. The international benchmark has fallen below $90 a barrel. And U.S. oil has dropped close to 80.
Chapter 2: How are oil prices affected by the U.S.-Iran ceasefire?
That's a drop of more than 12 percent. NPR's Camilla Dominovsky reports this is expected to bring relief to drivers in the weeks ahead if the ceasefire holds.
Oil prices have been on a real roller coaster, and there is the risk that things change again. But if these lower prices stick around, drivers should feel the benefit. Patrick DeHaan is with the app GasBuddy. He says prices at the pump will start dropping very soon.
There's an element of immediate relief, and more relief will be coming in a month or two when things really start to get fully back online.
But getting gasoline prices all the way back to the pre-war average could take until the end of the year, he predicts. Demand is high in the summer, and it will take time for the global oil market to recover from the last seven weeks. Camilla Dominovsky, NPR News.
Uncertainty around natural disasters and immigration policy is also causing uncertainty in the housing market in the U.S. That's according to a new report from Oxford Economics. The report lowered the number of houses that are needed in the United States. NPR's Stephen Basaja reports that is due to fewer migrants in the country.
Long term, there's uncertainty around how many homes will need replacing due to extreme weather events.
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Chapter 3: What impact does immigration policy have on the U.S. housing market?
Oxford economics Nancy Vandenhouten also says declining U.S. birth rates mean immigration policy will also play a role.
I mean, if immigrants are going to make up a larger share of the population and there's more uncertainty about how many immigrants we're going to have, That creates more uncertainty for our forecasts for the amount of needed housing.
There's also short-term uncertainty due to the war with Iran driving up borrowing costs. The National Association of Home Builders Index on Builder Sentiment is the most pessimistic it's been in seven months. Stephen Basaha, NPR News.
The Dow is up 939 points or nearly 2%. This is NPR News. Forecasts are calling for another round of severe storms that could spawn more tornadoes, some as strong as EF3 in the central U.S. Tens of millions of people in major cities in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and other states are facing heightened risk today.
The National Weather Service also warns of flood-generating rainfall with rates of as much as 2 inches an hour in some areas. The U.S. Supreme Court is unanimously siding with oil and gas companies who argue that their challenges of environmental laws should be moved from state to federal court.
Chevron and ExxonMobil led the company's legal battle in Louisiana over who should pay for degradation to the state's coastline.
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Chapter 4: What are the latest forecasts for severe weather in the U.S.?
A team of engineers says it's closer to training robots to do household chores or manual labor. And PRS Katie Riddle says that's long been a goal in the field of robotics.
Humans have long been able to train robots to do individual tasks. But teaching them to adapt and course-correct their own behavior has flummoxed many engineers. A team in Switzerland say they have cracked this code using a type of AI called machine learning.
Chapter 5: How is the Supreme Court ruling impacting environmental regulations?
While this may eventually allow for robots to help with lots of human conveniences, it also poses a danger that they could learn something we don't want them to do, like hurting people. That's according to Susan Schneider, who studies AI at Florida Atlantic University.
These are robots. major AI safety challenges, their major philosophical challenges, and of course, their incredible engineering feats.
The new research was published in the journal Science Robotics. Katie Riddle, NPR News.
This is NPR. This week on Consider This, NPR investigates a Republican lawmaker from New Hampshire. He officially proposed a known Holocaust denier join a state commission overseeing history lessons in public schools. A story about extremism normalized and creeping into mainstream politics.
Chapter 6: What advancements are being made in household robotics?
This week on Consider This, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.