Morning Report - Hungary ends its Orbán era

TODAY’S IRAN WAR story

Trump vows Iran naval blockade after talks fail

What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran in Pakistan failed to produce a breakthrough. The U.S. Navy will blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait,” he said on social media. But U.S. Central Command said it would block only vessels entering or departing “Iranian ports and coastal areas,” starting today.

Who said what
A U.S. naval blockade would cut off a “key source of financing for Iran’s government and military operations,” CNN said. But a blockade could be a “blow to the rest of the world as well,” exacerbating the “war-driven global energy crisis” and raising U.S. gas prices, The Washington Post said.

The problem for Trump is that “Americans have a much lower threshold of pain than the Iranians,” Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said to The Associated Press. The Iranians “can sustain this for far longer than the world economy” and “the Americans,” and Trump doesn’t have “any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever” he can use “to get his way.”

What next?
The face-to-face peace talks, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance (pictured above), “were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals” since 1979, the AP said. Iran said it was open to continuing the talks, and “neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.”

TODAY’S Religion Story

Trump attacks Pope Leo amid Iran war criticism

What happened
President Donald Trump last night sharply criticized Pope Leo XIV, an increasingly vocal opponent of his Iran war. The first U.S.-born Catholic pontiff is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump said on social media. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he told reporters. “He’s a very liberal person.” Shortly afterward, Trump posted an AI-generated image “depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background,” CNN said.

Who said what
Trump’s “angry counterpunch to the soft-spoken Leo” starkly “illustrated how differently two of the world’s most powerful Americans handle conflict,” The New York Times said. Trump’s broadside came after the pope held a vigil for peace at the Vatican on Saturday and suggested that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fueling the war. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of war!”

It’s “not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes,” The Associated Press said, but it’s “exceedingly rare” for them to openly criticize each other. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “disheartened” at Trump’s “disparaging words about the Holy Father.”

What next?
Trump’s “extraordinary public criticism” of the pope could put him “at odds with some Catholics, tens of millions of whom live in the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal said. Pope Leo leaves today for a four-country tour of Africa, Catholicism’s fastest-growing region.

It’s not all bad

A nasal DNA vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) is being developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine. This vaccine could give a boost to people with drug-resistant TB, as it fuses together two TB genes with the “goal of directing the immune system to fight drug-tolerant bacterial survivors,” said Good News Network. TB is among the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, and the World Health Organization is calling on scientists to create new therapeutic vaccines.

Under the radar

The rise of culturally specific dating apps

A new dating service has sprung up in Japan that aims to get around the country’s ban on married couples having different last names. In a series of matchmaking events held this spring, every participant shared the same surname. The concept is simply that “two people who already have the same last name won’t have to agonize over which one to use after marriage,” organizers told the Japanese daily The Mainichi.

Dating back to the 19th century, Japan’s civil code specifies that a husband and wife must use the same family name. While there’s no stipulation which name the couple adopts, in the country’s male-dominated society, it’s the man’s in 95% of cases. Critics claim this affects women’s employment prospects, contributes to Japan’s low birth rate and leaves young couples with added pressure when trying to find a life partner.

For would-be couples in Iceland, the problem is being related to your partner. With a population of just 330,000, the risk of pairing up with someone genetically similar is high. “Now, as social media and apps expand the dating pool,” many people are turning to a website to “ensure they aren’t swimming in the same gene pool,” said The Wall Street Journal.

In China, meanwhile, a few “sharp-eyed” dating businesses are “directly targeting a different demographic: anxious parents with strong purchasing power,” said the South China Morning Post. “Instead of trying to persuade single young adults who resist matchmaking,” these parents are “increasingly turning to ‘find a daughter-in-law’ or ‘find a son-in-law’ platforms online, turning partner-seeking into direct negotiations between parents.”

On this day

April 13, 1997

Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament with a hefty 12-stroke victory, becoming the first Black green-jacket champion and the youngest, at age 21. He went on to win four more Masters and remains one of the sport’s most prestigious players, though his widely reported personal struggles include a DUI arrest last month. Rory McIlroy won the Masters yesterday with a one-stroke lead.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Fruitless meeting’

“Hungarian voters reject Orbán after 16-year rule,” The Wall Street Journal says on Monday’s front page. “Orbán concedes in Hungary, slowing global tilt to the right,” The New York Times says. “Blockade of Iran announced after fruitless meeting,” The Washington Post says. “Swalwell suspends campaign for governor,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Detainee’s wife: Local ICE facility overcrowded,” with “33 men sharing one cell,” the Arizona Republic says. “Alligator Alcatraz phones were cut off. Then the beatings began,” the Miami Herald says. “ICE’s echoes of Latin American regimes” evoke “painful memories of ‘disappearances’ in the ’70s and ’80s,” says the Chicago Sun-Times. “People united around Artemis II’s big, small moments,” USA Today says. “NASA has next voyage in its sights,” says The Dallas Morning News.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Winning by a nose

Magawa, an African giant pouched rat that sniffed out more than 100 landmines in Cambodia, is being honored there with a seven-foot statue. During his five-year career, Magawa cleared more than 1.52 million square feet of land, covering an area in 20 minutes that would take a person several days to demine. He was trained by the nonprofit organization Apopo, and impressed their crew with his excellent sense of smell and “calm and focused” nature, project manager Michael Raine told The Washington Post.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.