Morning Wire - Evening Wire: Lebanon Ceasefire Begins & Murder-Suicide Rocks VA | 4.16.26

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

A ceasefire goes into effect between Israel and Lebanon, a tragic murder-suicide rocks Virginia, and Dairy Queen deploys AI in the drive-thru. Get the facts first with Evening Wire. - - - Ep. 2737 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3  - - - Today’s Sponsor: Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text “WIRE” to 83848 to learn more. - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠ morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A ceasefire agreement goes into effect between Israel and Lebanon, a tragic murder-suicide rocks, Virginia, and Dairy Queen deploys AI in the drive-through. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Thursday, April 16th. This is Evening Wire. A ceasefire went into effect today between Israel and Lebanon. Daily Wire, Foreign Affairs reporter Cassie Akiva has the details. President Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire this morning agreed to by Israel and Lebanon. The C-spire is set to begin at 5 p.m. Eastern. Trump says he spoke directly with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the talks productive and the C-spire a step toward broader peace. It's a very nice little package for about a week, and we're not going to have lots of bombs dropping, and we're going to see if we can make peace between Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah stepped up its rocket attacks on Israel before the C-Spire began, but said it will comply with the C-Sy spire. if Israel does. Trump invited Aoun and Netanyahu to meet in person at the White House. The president also addressed the ongoing conflict in Iran. We have a very good relationship with Iran right now, as hard as it is to believe.

And I think it's a combination of about four weeks of bombing and a very powerful blockade. We have a real chance to make a deal very soon with Iran. Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax murdered his wife before committing suicide last night. Daily Wire senior editor Joel Needler has more. Police believe Fairfax shot his wife Serena after a domestic incident at their home in Annandale, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. According to the police, the couple was involved in a messy divorce. In January 2026, Justin Fairfax claimed that he was assaulted by his wife, but that claim was later proved untrue by cameras placed in the home. Fairfax had two children, both teenagers, who were in the house at the time of the murder.

One of the children called the police after discovering his mother's body, at which time he told police he believed his father had stabbed his mother. Justin Fairfax was later found deceased in another part of the home. Fairfax served as lieutenant governor to Governor Ralph Northam from 2018 to 2022. We'll have more on this story tomorrow morning. Automakers are in talks with the Trump administration about manufacturing weapons and ammunition for the U.S. Pentagon officials want to assess how quickly carmakers could shift personnel and factories into weapons manufacturing as the Ukraine and Iran conflicts drain the U.S. military resources.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Defense Department approached commercial manufacturers such as General Motors and Ford before the start at the war in Iran. The talks also involved GE aerospace and machine maker Oshkosh. A maritime intelligence shop says that Iran has bypassed the U.S. blockade to ship tens of millions of barrels of oil to the global market. According to Winward AI, at least 11 tankers carrying approximately 20 million barrels of Iranian oil are positioned offshore Malaysia within a ship-to-ship transfer hub. Winward AI said the ships are likely waiting for others to come and take the oil for distribution and create a so-called dark network to hide where the oil is being sourced.

Russia has launched their deadliest attack of the year against Ukraine, killing 18. Daily Wire contributor Tim Pierce reports. Over 600 Russian drones and 44 ballistic missiles were launched at Kiev and Odessa early Thursday morning. While Ukrainian interceptors were able to stop some of the attack, the damage could not be fully contained. 18 Ukrainians have died, including a 12-year-old boy. Hundreds more were injured. The deadly attack comes after hostilities between the two nations had paused briefly over Orthodox Easter. Former Congressman Eric Swalwell could face decades behind bars if he's convicted of rape.

That's what U.S. Attorney for D.C. Janine Piro told the Daily W. wire's political reporter Cameron Arcand. Here's our tip. Swalwell's political career crumbled over the past week after he was accused of sexual misconduct, including two allegations of sexual assault. Piro suggested that Capitol Hill is rife with a culture of abusive power dynamics, but confirmed that no other lawmakers are on her radar currently, but she's asking for tips. When you think about it, who has more power than someone in Congress? You know, power, they're is wielded on a daily basis. They make laws, they repeal laws, they amend laws.

This is an incredible imbalance in the power between a perpetrator and a victim. And I think that it is time for this to end. I want to tell you about our friends that Alliance Defending Freedom and a critical issue they're fighting for parents all over the country. You've likely heard stories about schools socially transitioning vulnerable young kids in secret, telling a boy that he's a girl or a girl that she's a boy behind parents' backs. It's really concerning and a lot of families are suffering because of it. Parents in Massachusetts are asking the Supreme Court to step in.

Their 11-year-old daughter was struggling, so they got her some counseling and told the school not to interfere. But the school ignored their instructions and started treating her as, quote, genderqueer, referring to her using fake pronouns and calling her by a boy's name. And it hid all of this from her parents. Alliance Defending Freedom is asking the Supreme Court to hear these parents' case. For a limited time, every dollar you give to Alliance Defending Freedom will be doubled by a special matching grant while these funds last. Go to join ADF.com slash wire or text Wire to 83848 to have your gift

matched. A federal jury ruled this week that Live Nation, the entertainment giant that owns Ticket Master, broke antitrust laws and overcharged customers. Daily Wire homepage managing editor Jordan Schroeder reports. The ruling could spell large-scale changes for the music industry. The judge in the case could now decide to force Live to pay hefty fines or break off from Ticketmaster altogether. The jury found that Ticketmaster has routinely overcharged customers by an average of $1.72 a ticket. That number will be used to calculate damages. Live Nation pushed back against charges of monopolistic behavior during the four-day trial.

The entertainment giant said it faces fierce competition in the entertainment space from sports leagues, other venue operators, and more. Three of the largest U.S. ad agencies are abandoning their brand safety rules after the FTC accused them of blacklisting certain viewpoints, particularly conservative media. Daily Wire legal analyst Heidi Hall has more. Three major multinational advertising agencies, WPP, Publicist, and Dentsu have agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and eight attorneys general that will stop what they alleged to be a coordinated effort by the ad industry to target and deprive mainly conservative

outlets of advertising revenue under the guise of combating, quote, misinformation. government officials allege that rating firms like NewsGuard the Global Disinformation Index Check My Ads and Media Matters for America would label politically disfavored content as, quote, misinformation in order to deprive certain sites of the digital ad revenue that they need to survive. Those ratings would be used by advertising agencies to distort advertising markets and restrict the public's access to news and analysis. Under the 10-year supervised settlement agreement, coordinated targeting of media companies like the Daily Wire by the advertising industry, to an end, opening the door for independent media outlets broadly to fairly compete for ad revenues. This follows a June 2025 consent order between the FTC and two other major multinational advertising

agencies, Omnicom and IPG, prohibiting the same behavior. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a public apology to her colleague Brett Kavanaugh this week for off-the-cuff comments she made at a recent appearance. After summarizing Kavanaugh's stance on an immigration case, Saddamayor called him, quote, man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn't really know any person who works by the hour. Saddamayor has now apologized, saying in a statement, quote, at a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my

colleague. Cavanaugh has not publicly commented yet on the apology. Marijuana use by male partners may double the risk of miscarriage. Daily Wire lifestyle reporter Lauren Bear has more. A Boston University study found that miscarriage in the first two months of pregnancy was twice as likely when the father used marijuana at least once a week, compared to fathers who don't use marijuana. The pattern even persisted when controlling for maternal use of marijuana. Over the past several years, other studies have also linked cannabis to higher rates of misshapen sperm and reduced sperm count. It is believed that cannabinoid receptors in the testes bind to

THC, causing changes in function. Here's fertility doctor. Natalie Crawford on the Huberman Lab podcast. Clinically in the IVF lab, when I see embryos halt at that male developmental stage on day three, we say, oh, here's a young couple. They've got no embryos, and we were expecting them to have some. When we go back nine out of ten times, he is using cannabis that he previously denied. Dairy Queen may soon be introducing AI chat bots at their drive-through window. Here's Daily Wire Assistant editor Andy Valdez.

Company reps have said that in testing, the AI Vival. vastly out-competes human drive-thru operators in order accuracy and customer satisfaction. The AI is reportedly also being trained to upsell customers, encouraging them to add additional items to their orders. The move follows other chains like McDonald's and Wendy's, who have begun phasing in AI drive-thrus. While customers have lamented a loss of human touch, others say that artificial intelligence is much easier to understand

and often more pleasant than the typical drive-thru employee. While AI can handle much of the workload, it's not completely full-proof yet, with around one in five orders requiring a worker to step in and take the order. And an investigation is being launched into two pilots for kitten around on the job, really guys. The pilots stand accused of making cat and dog noises over an air traffic control frequency, including a meow meow exchange. Air traffic control, aka the fun police of the sky, quickly stepped in, reminding the pilots to keep a.mobile to keep a.mobile. a sense of decorum on what's typically a critical communication line. You guys need to be professional times. The FAA says it prohibits non-essential chatter, especially at lower altitudes, where focus is key

to safety. Now, what may have been a moment of humor is being treated as a potential violation, underscoring just how serious cockpit communication needs to be. Those are your drive home updates this evening. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And in case you missed it earlier today, we covered some major stories, including the White House tightening its message on the economy ahead of midterms, a man naturalized under the Biden administration going on an alleged killing spree, and a new California bill igniting debate over fraud and independent journalism. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow morning with another full edition of Morning Wire.