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Chapter 1: What are the implications of the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz?
The U.S. threatens to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, setting up a new showdown with Iran. Plus, oil surges, and economists warn of higher inflation and slowing U.S. growth as hopes for a quick end to the war fade. And Trump ally Viktor Orban loses Hungary's election in a historic landslide.
It's really been seen as a race between the choice of Europe on one hand and Russia on the other.
It's Monday, April 13th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal.
Chapter 2: How is the collapse of U.S.-Iran peace talks affecting oil prices?
And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. A U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is due to take effect this morning at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Donald Trump has said that all exports and all vessels coming out of Iranian ports for one week would be blocked. Iran cannot export crude oil, which it has continued to do. And that could involve as well deliveries of food.
That's Journal correspondent Benoit Faucon.
Chapter 3: What led to Viktor Orban's historic election loss in Hungary?
The blockade comes after peace talks between the U.S. and Iran this weekend stalled, with Trump saying that he doesn't care whether Tehran returns for another round of negotiations.
So basically, the talks between the US and Iran to end the war effectively collapsed because of very different demands on both sides.
Chapter 4: What are the economic forecasts following the Iran conflict?
The US wants a long-term abandonment and dismantling of the Iran nuclear enrichment facilities because they see it as a gateway towards building a nuclear weapon. Iran knows it can't enrich right now because its facilities are damaged or they're buried underground. under rubble, but Iran wants to be able to resume within a few years.
Less than a week into the ceasefire, Trump is reportedly considering limited strikes on Iran, saying that its water and electric plants would be easy to hit. In response, Iran's armed forces warned that if the Strait of Hormuz is threatened, no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will be safe. And Benoit says the blockade would be considered an escalation of the conflict.
because there's such a large U.S. warship presence in the region, how will Iran respond? That's really the question mark. Will there be an outright war between both sides at sea?
In an interview on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, President Trump tried to clear up some of those question marks, but he didn't exactly calm market jitters in this exchange with Maria Bartiromo.
I just have the greatest economy ever. Everything's going along. And I say, I'm sorry.
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Chapter 5: How has the political landscape shifted in Hungary?
I tell my economic advisors, They say, I'm sorry, fellas. We're in great shape. We have to go and take a little journey down to Iran, and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. They all said, we agree.
So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?
I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be the same or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same.
Oil prices are surging in the wake of the breakdown in talks, crossing back above the $100 a barrel mark. Journal editor Anthony DeBarros oversees our quarterly survey of economists, the most recent of which dropped over the weekend and said the conflict is driving an increasingly cloudy economic outlook.
One reason is they see persistent inflationary pressure in part from rising energy costs as a result of the Iran war, which we saw reflected in Friday's inflation data from the federal government. But they also say the recent Supreme Court ruling that invalidated the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs won't offer much relief on prices either.
Their consensus calls for inflation to remain above 3 percent through the year.
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Chapter 6: What actions is California Rep. Eric Swalwell facing after misconduct allegations?
Economists have also lowered their yearly U.S. growth forecast to 2 percent from a prior 2.2 and predict a weakening hiring landscape, though Anthony said that most don't think the war will actually knock the economy off its rails.
Over the past few years, consumers have shown a surprising ability to keep on shopping even though prices keep rising. And what worries economists now is that additional price increases caused by the war could finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back and forces consumers to tighten their budgets.
But other economists point to continued massive spending on AI infrastructure and also resilience among wealthy consumers that is going to help the economy avoid a major downturn.
Meanwhile, the Philippines has ordered Meta to curb panic-inducing content amid a national energy emergency fueled by the Iran war.
Chapter 7: What are the labor developments in the U.S. meat processing industry?
That includes misleading claims around exaggerated oil price increases and energy supply disruptions, which the government said risked causing economic disorder. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has already implemented resource-saving measures, including a four-day government workweek, and warned that Meta has seven days to comply with local laws or face consequences.
To further combat disinformation, the government is also launching a public reporting platform for social media users. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Hungary's Viktor Orban has been voted out of office, ending his 16-year run as one of the global standard bearers of right-wing populism. Our Matthew Luxmore is in Budapest this morning.
Matthew, what sealed Orban's fate here? He had held off challengers before in 2014 and 2018, as well as in 2022, and there have been concerns going into this election about whether there could even be a fair vote in Hungary.
Well, what's sealed it can really be summed up in one word, the economy. Orban has really, according to most analysts we've talked to here, focus much less on domestic issues such as falling real wages, inflation, and allegations of corruptions among the party's highest ranks, and much more on foreign policy and this Orban effort quite successful to rally the international conservative movement
Chapter 8: How did Rory McIlroy secure his second consecutive Masters title?
notably big connections back to president trump and his administration exactly exactly he's become close allies with president trump who endorsed him last week and sent his vice president jd vance to come and campaign alongside orban and urge hungarians to vote for him as the safest choice and of course that did not make a difference for orban he lost by a landslide and the largest margin
in Hungary's post-communist history since it regained independence in 1989.
You mentioned there some of the ways this race had taken on some larger overtones. And I guess we saw that on the other side of things. The cheers that went up last night among the crowd celebrating the win of Peter Magyar included chance of Europe and Russians go home.
Yeah, it's really been seen as a race between the choice of Europe on one hand and Russia on the other. There have been widespread allegations over the last few weeks that this campaign has been really heating up, that the Fidesz party is cozying up to Russia.
There were leaked telephone calls released in the past couple of weeks where the foreign minister is speaking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and offering to forward him internal European Union documents and also help him with an effort to get Western sanctions on a Kremlin-linked oligarch's sister removed.
But on the other hand, Magyar has promised to regain funds withheld by the EU because of allegations of democratic backsliding in Hungary, and he's promised to be far more friendly to the European Union.
In our final seconds, is this the end of Orban? You know, we've highlighted some of the links back to Trump, who, of course, lost an election himself and then was right back in power four years later.
The thing with Orban, anyone who has been watching him for a while will tell you is you should never write this guy off. And in his speech yesterday, he said, we will never stop fighting. Never, never, never. So that's quite a clear message that he intends to come back. But how he does that after such a
a huge loss with two-thirds of hungarians voting against him is difficult to see with such a sweeping mandate to make reforms in the country of a two-thirds majority in parliament magyar's hands are untied really and it's a very very different outcome if he had won by a slimmer margin which again would have left the door open for urban to work behind the scenes to undermine the new government.
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