Hey, from CNN. I'm AfomaDK with the five things you need to know for Tuesday, April 14th.

We begin with historic talks between Israel and Lebanon today, held at the State Department and mediated by the U.S.

Here's CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

We heard the Israeli ambassador to Washington who participated in these two-hour-long discussions,

emerging from them with quite a rosy and optimistic take on these talks.

He said that he discovered that Israel and Lebanon are on the same side, he said, of trying

to rid Lebanon of Hezbollah and end what he called Hezbollah's occupation of Lebanon.

Now, we haven't heard from the Lebanese government yet, but critically, Ambassador Leiter did not

address the question of whether or not Israel would agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon.

And that's because that was the critical demand from the Lebanese side going into these negotiations. But this certainly was a historic

meeting, the first, the highest level meeting, I should say, between Israeli and Lebanese officials

in more than 40 years. The State Department said the two countries agreed to hold further direct

negotiations at a later time. Also, the U.S. and Iran may try to restart negotiations before the ceasefire expires in a week.

Today, President Donald Trump told the New York Post that something could be happening over the

next two days in Pakistan, where talks over the weekend collapsed. Meanwhile, the U.S.

military says six merchant ships turned around and went back to Iranian ports because of the U.S.

blockade, limiting traffic through the Strait of Formos that took effect yesterday.

A U.S. official told CNN the blockade only applies to ships entering and leaving Iranian ports along the entire Iranian coastline.

The U.S. Central Command says the blockade involves more than 10,000 U.S. service members and 12 Navy ships. Sancom says no ships made

it past the blockade in its first 24 hours. More news coming up, including a gloomy economic

outlook over the war with Iran. The International Monetary Fund has trimmed its global economic growth forecast this year because of the Iran War.

In the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook Report published today, it now expects global growth of 3.1% in 2026,

...