Hey Snackers,
Being in the hospital is stressful enough, whether you’re a patient, loved one of a patient, or a staff member. And there’s one thing that sets everyone in a hospital even more on edge: the relentless, never-ending, cacophony of beeps.
Most of the beeping beeps and ringing alarms don’t actually mean anyone needs to do anything – cue Homer Simpson’s sonically abusive invention, the deafening "Everything is OK alarm” – which means doctors and nurses tend to tune them out. In most cases, that’s not a problem, but when it is a problem, it’s a problem.
So, The Wall Street Journal reports, a Stanford University hospital sorted through the whole gamut of audible alerts in the monitoring equipment it uses and worked to cut out those that were unactionable or likely to quickly and harmless self-correct. The result? As much as a whooping 82% reduction in beeps. Even better, nurses said that they were better at actually responding to patient needs.
Stocks dropped on Monday as Treasury yields rose.
The White House confronts surging diesel prices with no sure-fire policy solutions at hand
If you’ve driven a Ford – or any other type of internal combustion vehicle – lately, you’ve probably noticed that gas is expensive. Really expensive. Prices at the pump are up almost $1.50 per gallon since the US attacked Iran in late February.
Things look even worse if you drive a truck, tractor or anything that runs on diesel, with the national average price per gallon sitting at $6.45, per AAA. Before the war, a gallon of diesel was just $3.75.
Diesel’s surge is pushing transportation and farming costs higher, contributing to the persistently high inflation that is the bane of politicians, consumers, and central bankers alike.
To bring diesel prices down, the White House tried seeking voluntary diesel export limits from refiners last week, Reuters reported. Beyond asking nicely, a full export ban has also been mulled, not least by President Donald Trump, who took his own administration somewhat by surprise by publicly saying he supported the idea.
Also gaining traction in the White House: slashing taxes on so-called red dyed diesel. Federal taxes for regular, un-dyed diesel sit at just under a quarter a gallon. Red-dyed diesel, which is distinguished by the addition of – you guessed it – red dye, can only be used in off-road activities like farming and power generation, is subject to a mere penny a gallon federal tax. The idea under consideration is to allow red dyed diesel to be used for on-road vehicles.
The Takeaway
A full-scale ban on diesel exports would likely lead rather quickly to domestic oversupply, which would cause refiners to cut production, leading rather quickly to scarcity domestically while drastically reducing supplies in Europe, industry officials have argued.
Allowing wider use of red-dyed diesel might not have much of an effect on prices. "I can't think that this would have any impact at all," Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told Reuters. "It's simply diesel with red dye added that's not taxed. It does nothing to improve supply or impact price."
Did Putin Really Think I Was a Spy?
Evan Gershkovich’s story of how he kept writing and reporting while falsely held in a Russian prison on charges of espionage is gripping. The diary he was able to keep and mail out to his lawyer forms the basis for his book, “This Cursed Beautiful Land,” which is excerpted in The Wall Street Journal.
That’s how many drone violations over stadiums the NFL says it recorded between 2021 and 2025, CNBC reported. That onslaught of aerial vehicles prompted the Jacksonville Jaguars to become the first team in the league to publicly disclose an agreement with a drone defense company.
What else we’re Snackin’
Letterboxd is an M&A target for the New York Times and A24, Deadline reports.
Treasury yields keep on marching higher.
Boeing’s 737 Max 10 certification is being delayed by a software issue, CNBC reports.
This is how “nobody makes money,” Luke Kawa writes in the latest Entrypoint newsletter.
Snack Fact of the Day
This year’s El Niño could cost the global economy anywhere from $1 trillion to $7 trillion, according to the Peterson Institute of Economics. The warming of the current in the Central Pacific is especially pronounced this year, on par, researchers say, with the most recent Super El Niño of the winter of 1997-1998.