Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Hello everyone, this is your morning Run for Thursday, March twentieth. The Morning Run now guaranteed by six thirty am Eastern Time Monday through Friday. I'm Amy Robots and I'm TJ.
Holmes. Yes, Thursday, March twentieth, also known as the Happiest sporting day of the year, the NCAA Tournament officially kicks off in a major way today. This is the day. Today and tomorrow are they have to be the best sporting days of the year every single year.
Wow, the passion that just spring out of your voice this moment talking about March madness. It's palpable. You have home. How many screens set up today?
There will be four screens because yes, every game is on in its entirety over several networks, so you don't miss a thing. So people, you still have time to get your brackets in until games kickoff at noon. You can still submit them online to all these bracket challenges. Subdue that thing. But we are going to get through this morning run because I got other stuff to do today. So thanks. Get going on this Thursday on the run.
Today we will be talking about Trump continues to work the phones, and now President Zelenski and President Putin have agreed to a partial ceasefire.
And Israeli troops head back into Gaza after breaking a two month ceasefire with massive airstrikes that killed hundreds. And another signing ceremony today in the Oval Office as President Trump plans to sign an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education amid legal questions and lawsuits.
Also, the Trump administration is withholding one hundred and seventy five million dollars from one university, why because they allowed a transgender athlete to compete on a women's team. Also this morning, the markets rallied yesterday after they liked what they heard from the Fed on interest rates.
Plus another positive announcement from the Vatican about Pope Francis as he continues to show signs of improvement, and the DoD dee eyed Jackie Robinson and then reinstated a tribute to him just hours later.
Also today on this run, Bye bye winter and happy first day of Spring. But are you, as an American actually happy? The World Happiness Report has just been released, and where do you think the US ranks in the world here's a hint, not very high.
We're gonna do our best, though, to raise that happiness quotion with this morning run today. So we'll begin our run with progress. Another day, another phone call, another step towards ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
President Trump and President Zelensky had what Trump says was a very good call yesterday. Zelensky called it a substantive and frank talk. And after that chat, the two sides announced that Ukraine had agreed to a partial ceasefire with Russia.
It was just a day earlier that Trump was on the phone with President Putin, who rejected a full scale ceasefire, bus agreed to a pared down version of that ceasefire. The partial ceasefire was specific Russia would stop attacks on certain targets in Ukraine. A bit of discrepancy right now about which ones?
Okay? So yeah, devil in the details here. Ukraine announced it agreed to a partial ceasefire in which Russia would stop attacks on energy and other infrastructure targets in Ukraine, while the US announced the partial ceasefire would stop attacks only on energy targets. So that discrepancy, which is a significant one, still needs to be worked out.
But what was very notable was a stark, starkly different tone from Zelenski in his message yesterday on AX. We remember in days and just how long ago was it? Not even two weeks ago where we had that very dramatic and difficult to watch meeting between you.
You say dramatic and difficult, disastrous, disastrous.
That Okay, we'll just keep all the d's in there. Yes, So, yes, we all saw what was happening between those two men, and specifically what zelen said and wrote on Twitter, well, our ex excuse me yesterday, a very different tone. Here's just some of what we heard from Zelensky on X. He said, we believe that together with America, with President Trump and under American leadership, lasting peace can be achieved this year.
Wow.
I mean, hey, we'll take it.
He understands the assignment a little better now and somebody got in his ear, but yes, he was very effusive in his praise, not just in saying thank you, but he was directing a lot of that towards President Trump. And maybe we can understand why, but that discrepancy needs to be worked out. But how many months are we into President Trump's presidency this is the most movement of anything related to a ceasefire and stopping that war that
we have seen. Don't like his methods. A lot of people argue with sure, but this is movement that some people have a hard time disagreeing with and not applauding at least that something is happening.
More has happened in these three months than in the entire three years since this war began, for sure.
You continue here on our run this morning, though with Israel, apparently they were not bluffing after breaking the months long ceasfire on Tuesday with that surprise barrage of air strikes that killed four hundred people in Gaza, Israel vow, do you remember that was just the beginning.
They've now followed up with more deadly air strikes yesterday and now a ground incursion. Reports say anywhere between twenty to forty people were killed in this new round of air strikes. Meanwhile, Israeli troops moved back into Gaza for the first time since the ceasefire was put in place. Israel says it's reclaimed some sections of land that served as a buffer zone.
Israel is making clear they will keep this up with the goal of eliminating Hamas. The Israeli Defense minister put it this way, quote, if all the Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not eliminated from Gaza, Israel will act with forces you have never known before. Quote.
For its part, Hamas called the Israeli air strikes a violation of the ceasfire, but said it was still committed to that ceasefire is really Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah, who says he ordered a resumption of strikes against Gaza because of a lack of progress in peace talks.
Yeah, that first phase of the ceasefire largely held in several exchanges of hostages in Palestinian prisoners took place like they were supposed to. But that first phase came and went. It ended March first, and there wasn't a lot of movement after that. There was no next phase of the ceasefire deal. So Prime Minister Benjamin NATANYAHUO said we are going to go back at it. They said, we spoke about this yesterday. Any deal now, any stop in fighting is going to be done under fire. There will be
no more ceasefires. We're not messing around with us.
That's heartbreaking, it's heartbreaking to watch, all right. Next up on the run, President Trump is taking another step at eliminating the Department of Education. Today. He's scheduled to sign an executive order at the White House that instructs his Education secretary to begin dismantling the department, even if he can't legally completely shut it down on his own.
Yeah, the day. He was created during the Order administration in nineteen seventy nine by Congress and can only be eliminated by Congress. Still, the President can essentially cripple the department through a series of actions. The administration has already cut the department's workforce in half, so he can make it almost impossible for the department to function.
Yes, the executive order instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States. Trump will be joined by Republican governors for the signing ceremony. McMahon will be there as well, and you can bet the lawsuits, yes, will continue.
DeSantis, former rival, is going to be there as well. He was supposed he talked about for a while for Department of Defense. Yes, for a little bit, but they have gone at it. But some Republican governors will be back and like you said, what's going to happen here?
Though?
I mean, they can make it what usaid. You can take all the money, you can do all these things and cripple the agency to the point it just doesn't function.
It can't function.
It can't function, so he can shut it down. It was it wasn't interesting, Linda mcmahonny told her at the beginning. Your job is to put yourself out of a job. Yep, as Education.
Says, and he's moving forward with that plan.
All right. On the next leg of our run here, let's head over to Pennsylvania. Check this out. That Trump administration is with holding one hundred and seventy five million dollars from an Ivy League school there for allowing a transgender swimmer to compete on its women's team.
Leah Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win a Division one national championship as swimmer. As a swimmer on the twenty twenty two University of Pennsylvania women's team. Thomas's story and success set off a national and sometimes ugly debate about trans athletes.
So President Trump signed an executive order last month stating that federal money could be withheld from schools that allowed transgender athletes to compete on girls and women's teams, and soon after that order, the administration started looking into Penn.
That's right. The administration now says one hundred and seventy five million dollars in funding is being withheld from the school. However, Penn claims it is in compliance with NC double A rules and Leah Thomas hasn't competed at the school since twenty twenty two, that's when she graduated.
So at that time, back in twenty twenty two, the NC DOUBLEA did allow for individual sports and their governing bodies to set their own rules for participation by transgender athletes. They changed that policy and are now in compliance with Trump's order. So still it's a little confusing. They weren't in violation of his order in twenty twenty two because he wasn't president, but he's still making this move and this is sending a very big message.
It certainly is, and I wonder what could be done by Penn at this point to correct it if they're in compliance now and they just weren't three years ago when Trump wasn't president. Clearly, this is certainly a warning to any other school who chooses not to comply.
Is that the strategy?
I believe that would the only thing that makes sense with this action. Yes, exactly, all right, next up on the run, we're going to head to Wall Street. The US stock market rallied after the Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest rates unchanged as expected.
Yeah, indicated there will be two quarter point interest rate cuts later this year. The markets have been wildly unsteady as investors try to gauge how President Trump's tariffs are going to affect the economy, also trying to figure out which ones are coming, which ones are going, which ones are going to be in place, which ones are going to go away because of legal action. Is just uncertainty, and the markets hate.
That, they certainly do. But the Federal Reserve also forecast slower economic growth for the US and higher inflation. And despite that, the Dow closed nearly four hundred points up following their announcement, and the NASDAK rose by one point four percent. So hey, we'll take an update on Wall Street. We certainly have had several down ones.
All right, we'll stay with us here on this Thursday morning. Ron when we come back, good news for the Pope. Jackie Robinson gets kicked out of the military. Spring is here and America apparently is not a very happy place. Welcome back to this morning's run, and the next leg of the run will take us to Rome, where we have some more encouraging news. The Vatican says Pope Francis is no longer using mechanical ventilation to help him breathe at night.
Yes, and they added that as doctors believe the Pope will continue to improve even further. Pope Francis has been in the hospital now for nearly five weeks, battling double pneumonia.
Well, he's still receiving oxygen through a small hose under his nose, but doctors say his blood tests are normal, his infection is under control. No word on when he might be released from the hospital. Robes, We've been doing these every day for a full month, and every time I'm relieved.
A Thank goodness, it's an I's it kind of feels a little bit like a miracle. I don't think any of us will, at least I didn't expect this outcome, and certainly happy that that is what's happened.
There were some dark days, there were some really scary days. Can you imagine the moment he shows back up at Saint Peter Square. That's the image. Now I can't get out of my head that possibility.
That I just got chills when you said that, because there are still so many people The New York Times that a huge article on this, still believing that the pope is dead, so many social media influencers and TikTokers still trying to storm the hospital looking for him. So those rumors are still out there, and there are people who actually believe that the Vatican is hiding the pope's
true condition, the fact that he might be dead. So yes, the moment where we see the Pope leaving the hospital, or at least coming out there on Saint Peter Square and a wave, a nod, a smile, that will be everything.
We can people think he's dead, they put out a picture confirming he's fine.
Sorry, that very revealing photo from behind where you can't even see if his eyes are closed or open. You mean that one? Oh okay, all right, next up on our run, well head back here to the us of a Robinson got deied right out of American military history. But he's back. He's back now. A tribute to Jackie Robinson's military service was taken down from the Defense Department website.
Okay, so how does this happen? Apparently this is part of a purge of DEI content from the Department. But the pentagona is saying that Jackie Robinson's tribute page was mistakenly deleted now apparently, and they can't go through page by page and line by line trying to scrub a DEI from the Pentagon page. So they say they use whatever algorithm, and they're using keywords. It finds those keywords throughout and eliminates those pages. They say, that's what happened here.
It happened also with the Tuskegee Airmen. They had a dedication page that was also removed mistakenly, So that's how they say it happened. But they saw the era. The page is back up. We did look at it this morning and can confirm. The article is called sports Heroes who Served Baseball Great Jackie Robinson was a World War or two soldier. It is back up.
Wouldn't you love to know what the keywords are?
They didn't give them to black history.
I don't know. I was just trying to.
Figure that out that could come up through that stuff.
I kind of need to know what the keywords were.
Into What did he do he integrated baseball? He I mean, what would a word have been just black?
I mean right, That's why I was like black history. Pentagon spokesperson explained what happened this way. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms, but added they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans period.
Okay, acknowledged that we are doing what we want to do and sometimes there is a mistake, but they have several they need to put back up. This is just
one of those shocking things. Look, maybe it was probably was a mistake, but it's just so jarring to think that this is how they're going about it, that even Robinson could get kicked out of the military and a part of American history Oopsie, based on some words were not even sure of next up on the run here, folks, I have to let y'all know Robot stopped me while we were working on the rundown this morning and said, ooh, countdown, we only have a few minutes left in winter.
It was six minutes. We had six minutes left in winter. I just wanted you to know.
I just wanted to go away. Should have told me, hey, we got spring in six minutes. But that's what was going on. Yes, Spring officially started at five one a m. Eastern this morning, so fun fag this is the first day of spring. It's actually called the vernal equinox. Well, yeah, everybody knows that.
Yeah, duh. It's only one of two times each year when the Earth's equator is not tilted towards or away from the Sun, so there are equal amounts of daylight and darkness across the world, across all latitudes. That's pretty cool. I don't think I realized that. The other time that happens is on the first day of fall, or the autumnal equinox. It's different than the solstice, which is the longest and shortest day of the year. So this is when daylight and nighttime are exactly equal.
Is there anything attached to this like a full moon? They say people started at start acting weird at times and stuff, happenings with the Earth and things and planet.
Name my moods and my behaviors once a month on the full moon.
But this is not the equinox. Is not a thing where they think people are odd behavior.
I don't know, but if I have some strange behavior today, I'll just blame it on the.
Equal How would I notice it's all weird?
Right?
Okay, we get the final leg or you're on this Thursday run. Now, the annual list of the Happiest Countries on Earth was just released. So where do you think the United States ranks.
Here's a hint. We're not even in the top ten. We're not even in the top twenty. All right, let's start at the top of the list. Though. Let's start with the good news. This is the annual list put out by the UN, and for the eighth year in a row, Finland has ranked as the happiest country on Earth.
Okay, Finland might not be for you. You don't want to move there. How about you move to the second happiest country in the world, Denmark? You know what, not a big Denmark guy myself. Not for me necessarily, So let's go to the third happiest place. You want to go to Iceland? Okay, what about the I love Iceland? Iceland? You go to that one. So the fourth happiest place on Earth is Sweden. So have you noticed the theme here? The top four happiest places on Earth are all these
Nordic countries. Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, your top four.
You know what, They're never in the news? Are they for anything negative? It just all seems like they got it going on. No news is good news. That is the same top four, by the way from last year. We're gonna have more on why these countries are at the top and just a moment. So where does the United States rank? Well, it's not good. In fact, it is the lowest happiness ranking the US has ever had in the history of this list. We are at number twenty four.
Okay, if it feels like this story is going to be a depressing one, we're gonna bring it home here in just a second, all right. So this is the first time the United States has ever ranked outside the top twenty and these rankings, so what's behind our drop? The re searchers are telling us that it is being driven by younger folks, people under the age of thirty who are pessimistic about the direction of their own lives
and report feeling less supported by friends and family. They also report feeling less freedom.
That's so interesting, right. The list has been compiled by the UN for the past thirteen years in conjunction with World Happiness Day, which is today. By the way, maybe
it's because it's the first day of spring too. Also, it uses Gallop pulling data from people in more than one hundred and forty countries who are ranked on happiness based on average life evaluations, and it looks at several key variables including social support, healthy life expectancy, generosity, perceptions of corruption, among other things.
So let's go back to that top four, the Nordic countries. Why they consistently rank at the top, Well, the researchers tell us they have a virtuous cycle of society, which means certain segments of society all kind of tie in together and feed into each other in a productive way. So you're talking about democracy, you're talking about good and trusted government, talking about low crime, good general welfare benefits all come together and it makes for a good society.
And yes, low crime has a lot to do with that. So the countries that do rank. We talked about the top four. The ones at the bottom of the list not necessarily a surprise when you hear them, but Afghanistan once again last on the list, and then Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Malawi and Zimbabwe round out the bottom five.
We loved this quote from one of the editors of this Happiness report. You found this TJ. And this is something we can all take with us today on World Happiness Day.
Look, we always do a quote of the day. We have one at the bottom, but this one, Folks, if you don't listen to anything else in this podcast, please listen to this quote that Robot is about to give you.
Look seriously at the people with whom you are working with, whom you are living, who are on your streets, and put on a rosier set of glasses when you're dealing with them. And that'll change your behavior in traffic, It'll change your behavior in political discussions, It'll change everything. Talking less and listening more helps with attitude shifts that can lead to more cooperation. Negativity is poisonous to happiness. Wow.
And so it's in all of us. The power is within all of us to be happier and to spread happiness.
This is from one of the founding editors of this report, and I just keep that with it. If you almost keep that in your pocket you have a bad moment, just pull that out and take a look at it. But it is, it's in each of us. It reminds us in the simplest of ways. I love what he said here, and this is a current quote happening to do with this the current.
List, and it's empowering because it's something that we can all change and it's something we can all do. I found something else really interesting in the report, because you know, I don't mind being alone. I prefer to be with people, but I really can't stand dining alone. I've always told you that for me, it's it's such a it's such some it's an event that I want to share with people. Well, this report found that Americans specifically are spending more and
more time dining alone. They said roughly one in four Americans reported eating all of their meals alone in the previous day, and that's a fifty three percent increase since twenty years ago. So, for whatever reason they just said, dining alone has become more prevalent for every age group in the United States, but especially for young people, and it's those young people who are reporting that they're less happy.
I don't know if one is leading to the other or if the other is contributing to the unhappiness, but it is an interesting note that they made in this report.
That's one thing that we all. It seems so communal right. You can watch a show by yourself, you can do a lot of things on your own. But if you're dining alone, if you see someone dining alone, even it feels sad to some reason, even though it might not be. I love dining alone, as you know, but I never.
Do because I'm always with you, I.
Always people are always around. So I relish a moment that I get to sit and be alone. And we've talked about that plenty. I just we don't even know how that's impact. Even if you're voluntarily dining alone, you're doing it by choice, it's still it might be doing something to you that you don't even realize. I didn't see that note that you pointed out about the dining, but that is it's tough to hear young people are feeling that way and are pessimistic about their own future.
Yeah it is, and so again that quote. We all have the power to make that change and to find a little extra happiness in our life. And if you were curious about the top ten happiest countries, will listen them for you right now. Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, nether Life, Costa Rica, Norway, Israel, Luxembourg and Mexico. That I mean, that's a little bit surprising that list, but interesting to note.
Put happier than all of us. And you know what, we do have a quote of the day. You want to save this one for tomorrow, the one you have, and then in the back and make that quote the quote of the day again to agree from the editor, because that's just a great one, folks. Yes, we always leave you with the quote of the day. We have another one in here we were ready to give you, but this is just a beautiful, beautiful one that ties into World Happiness Day and it's a great reminder that
you should take with you. Maybe we'll post this and you can have it in your pocket later. But by all means, ropes, give them to him one more time, the quote of the day from the editor of this Happiness Report.
Look seriously at the people with whom you are working, with, whom you are living, who are on your streets, and put on a rosier set of glasses when you're dealing with them, and that will change your behavior in traffic, it will change your behavior in political discussions, It'll change everything. Talking less and listening more helps with attitude shifts that can lead to more cooperation. Negativity is poisonous to happiness.
And with that, folks, we hope you have have some happiness on this world Happiness Day. If you can't find it anywhere else, I can guarantee one place you can find it at noon today, when the NCAA tournament kicks off, So enjoy that. That's exactly what I'll be doing. We always appreciate you running with us, folks, But for now on.
Tejay and I'm Amy Roebuck. We will see you on the run tomorrow. And it's Friday,