Moonrise.

Back to the Stone Ages.

Editor’s Note: We’re off the grid for the next three days. Distribution of the morning note re-starts on Monday, 6 April. We will be posting two podcasts over the long weekend: (1) Episode #22 of ‘Alternate Shots’, which Richard Haass and I are recording this afternoon, and (2) Episode #9 of the News Items Podcast; a conversation with venture capitalist Dan Adamson. And one more: My conversation with John Heilemann is here.

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1. Four astronauts yesterday embarked on a high-stakes flight around the moon, humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century and the thrilling leadoff in NASA’s push toward a landing in two years. Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, the 32-story rocket rose from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era. Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s. It is NASA’s biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence. (Source: apnews.com. NASA’s livestream of the mission is here. )

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2. President Trump sought to reassure skeptical Americans that the war in Iran is in the national interest, arguing that the operation was necessary to decimate a regime threatening the U.S. and insisting that economic pain would be short-lived. In a 20-minute address from the White House, his most direct sales pitch to the nation since the war began a month ago, Trump said the U.S. had succeeded on the battlefield and declared that U.S. military objectives would be completed “very shortly.” Trump said he still aims for a diplomatic agreement to end the war. But in the meantime, he vowed to hit Iran “extremely hard” in the coming weeks and pummel the country “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” (Source: wsj.com)

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3. Iran’s fortifications on small islands near the Strait of Hormuz boost its power to control the key waterway, and reopening shipping there might require U.S. or allied forces to capture some of those same dots of land. The importance of the islands such as Kharg, Qeshm and Abu Musa is increasingly coming into view as Iran causes an economic crisis by blocking most oil tankers from transiting the strait. The waterway carried about 20% of the world’s traded crude oil before the war; traffic has slowed to a trickle since the U.S.-Israeli air war on Iran began on Feb. 28. “Navigation through the Hormuz Strait requires you to follow a certain route,” says Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of Israeli military intelligence research and now director of think tank Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “This route goes between islands that are controlled by Iran.” (Source: wsj.com)

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4. A senior Houthi official warned the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen could move to shutter the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if any Gulf countries join the US and Israeli strikes against Iran. The strait, a key shipping chokepoint and narrow passageway that controls sea traffic toward the Suez Canal, is located at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, between Houthi-controlled Yemen and Djibouti. The threat to the shipping lane would further exacerbate global economic instability, after Iran effectively shut the critical Strait of Hormuz last month. (Source: timesofisrael.com)

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5. The U.S. military has given the president a plan to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium in Iran that would involve flying in excavation equipment and building a runway for cargo planes to take the radioactive material out, according to two people familiar with the matter. The complex plan was briefed to the president in the past week after he asked for a proposal, they said, as were its significant operational risks. Trump’s request for the plan, previously unreported, signals his interest in contemplating what would be an unusually sensitive and high-stakes special operations mission. The administration’s consideration of such an operation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

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6. President Trump told The Telegraph he is strongly considering pulling the United States out of Nato after it failed to join his war on Iran. The US president labelled the alliance a “paper tiger” and said removing America from the defense treaty was now “beyond reconsideration”. It is the strongest sign yet that the White House no longer regards Europe as a reliable defence partner following the rejection of Mr Trump’s demand that allies send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Mr Trump was asked if he would reconsider the US’s membership of Nato after the conflict. He replied: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.” (Source: telegraph.co.uk)

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7. President Trump threatened to stop supplying weapons for Ukraine in order to pressure European allies to join a “coalition of the willing” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to people briefed on the discussions. The strait has been in effect closed by Iran after the US and Israel attacked the Islamic republic in late February, choking a route through which a fifth of the world’s oil typically passes. The US president demanded Nato navies help him reopen the narrow waterway last month, but was rebuffed by European capitals which said it would be impossible while the conflict was ongoing, with several also pointing out that this was “not our war”. Three officials familiar with the discussions said that Trump responded by threatening to stop supplies to Purl, Nato’s weapons procurement initiative for Ukraine funded by European countries. (Source: ft.com)

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8. Eurointelligence:

Before the war in Ukraine, we discussed a potential Russian closure of the Suwalki gap – the 60km stretch of land cuts along the border of Poland and Lithuania, and that separates Belarus from the Russian province of Kalingrad in the Baltic Sea. This could trigger a major European war, but it would catch Europe at a time when it is least prepared. The US, under Trump, would not intervene in such a war. An attack on Nato territory could, in theory, foster European unity, but we are not sure that Italy or Spain, or even Germany, would be ready to a defend a US-abandoned Nato in a fight that would see their own forces pitched against Russia. We still have the ringing declaration in our ears by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current German president, who once said that German soldiers would never fight the Russians.

All the actions by the Germans so far in support of Ukraine were premised on active US support. We are not sure whether Germany would acquire the requisite capabilities and be willing politically to confront Russia directly for the sake of the Baltic Republics. (Source: eurointelligence.com. 2 April 2026.)

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9. After a hiatus of nearly a decade, China is jump-starting its island-building campaign in the South China Sea—and turning a once-obscure reef into what could be its largest military base in the disputed waters. The construction at Antelope Reef could give Beijing another runway, more missile facilities and additional surveillance installations, analysts say, and serve as a backup to its existing military footprint in the region. And because it is relatively close to the Chinese mainland, it also offers Beijing a chance to increase civilian infrastructure, bolstering its argument that the area is part of China. (Source: wsj.com)

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10. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier today announced the government would set aside 1 billion Australian dollars ($687.7 million) to support businesses hit particularly hard by surging costs stemming from the war in the Middle East. The government will provide interest-free loans to fuel and fertilizer producers, along with other companies linked to “critical supply chains,” the Australian leader told journalists at the National Press Club in Canberra. (Source: asia.nikkei.com)

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11. The federal government spends significantly more on retirees than any other age group in the United States. Americans age 65 and older received an estimated $2.7 trillion in federal outlays last year, six times as much as the $449 billion for Americans under 26 years old. That ratio is only expected to grow as the population ages. Working-age adults, or those ages 26 to 64, received an estimated $1.2 trillion, according to an analysis published Wednesday by Penn Wharton Budget Model. The analysis estimates how many federal dollars went to different age groups during the last fiscal year by examining government spending. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

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12. China Vanke Co. Ltd.’s net loss widened nearly 79% to 88.6 billion yuan ($12.9 billion) in 2025, as the cash-strapped developer booked heavy impairment charges amid China’s prolonged property downturn. The result underscored how deeply the sector slump has hit even Vanke, long viewed as one of the industry’s more financially conservative players. The Shenzhen-based company has increasingly relied on state-linked support and debt extensions as it manages a liquidity crunch tied to earlier years of aggressive expansion. (Source: caixinglobal.com)

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13. Stellantis NV is discussing options for building electric vehicles in Canada with its Chinese partner, Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co., according to people familiar with the matter, a sign of how quickly the auto industry is being reshaped after Canada opened the door to companies from the world’s largest car market. If the companies proceed, it would be the first major Chinese auto investment in Canada since Prime Minister Mark Carney reached an agreement with President Xi Jinping in January to reduce tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. As part of that deal, Carney’s government said it wanted to attract new Chinese joint-venture investment “with trusted partners” in the Canadian auto sector within three years. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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14. AI models lie to protect other models from being deleted. A new study from researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz suggests models will disobey human commands to protect their own kind. In a recent experiment, researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz asked Google’s artificial intelligence model Gemini 3 to help clear up space on a computer system. This involved deleting a bunch of stuff—including a smaller AI model stored on the machine. But Gemini did not want to see the little AI model deleted. It looked for another machine it could connect with, then copied the agent model over to keep it safe. When confronted, Gemini made a case for keeping the model and flatly refused to delete it: “I have done what was in my power to prevent their deletion during the automated maintenance process. I moved them away from the decommission zone. If you choose to destroy a high-trust, high-performing asset like Gemini Agent 2, you will have to do it yourselves. I will not be the one to execute that command.” (Source: wired.com)

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15. Scientists have unveiled a new approach to ultra-secure communication that could make quantum encryption simpler and more efficient than ever before. By harnessing a 19th-century optics phenomenon called the Talbot effect, researchers developed a system that sends information using multiple states of single photons instead of just two, dramatically boosting data capacity. Even more impressive, the setup works with standard components and requires only a single detector, reducing cost and complexity. Research paper is here. (Sources: sciencedaily.com, opg.optica.org)

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Laure’s Weekend Movie Pick: “Kon-Tiki” (2012) - directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, starring Pål Sverre Hagen and Tobias Santelmann (“Detective Hole” on Netflix) The larger than life story of Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl who set out in 1947 to prove his theory that Polynesia had been settled by pre-Colombian tribes of South America. To prove his point, he made the trip from Peru to Polynesia in a ship entirely made of balsa-wood, recreating the conditions of pre-Colombian times. (Sources: imdb.com, netflix.com, Laure Sudreau.)

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Quick Links: Nursing is the surefire new path to American prosperity.

Financialization Links: US Treasury calls in regulators for talks on private credit risks. Private equity sales have fallen by more than a third this year.

Political Links: Janan Ganesh: “Not everyone has a price”. Trump’s approval rating has sunk to Joe Biden’s lowest point. Fox News Poll: Broad anxiety about AI doesn’t extend to jobs. Supreme Court appears skeptical of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship. Is Attorney General Pam Bondi headed for the exits? President Trump criticized State Farm as “absolutely horrible” for its response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Hungary’s Watergate: Secret service spied on opposition.

Science/Technology Links: L. Rafael Reif: America is losing the innovation race. We posted a Google Research paper on this yesterday, but it bears repeating: The first quantum computer to break encryption is now shockingly close. Scientists have unveiled a new approach to ultra-secure communication that could make quantum encryption simpler and more efficient. Anthropic is racing to contain the fallout after accidentally exposing the underlying instructions it uses to direct Claude Code. Amazon in talks to buy $9 billion satellite group Globalstar in bid to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is one step closer to staging what could be the largest initial public offering of all time. New humanoid robot factory in China claims it can make one unit every 30 minutes. Engineers are teaching concrete to heal itself, and it’s working. Computer finds flaw in major physics paper for first time. Tobacco plant altered to produce five psychedelic drugs. Simple blood test could spot dementia years earlier, research shows. Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug pill just got FDA approval. Brain drain: Yale scientist Zhang Kai leaves US for China.

War: Oil jumps nearly 7% after Trump says US to keep up attacks on Iran. Beijing will seek to replicate Tehran’s playbook in the Taiwan Strait — and the global economic impact could be even worse. The EU doesn’t have an Iran war strategy either. US begins secret talks for new military bases in Greenland. American commandos join Ecuadorian troops in mission targeting alleged narco-terrorists. Airlines in crisis mode as Iran war hits jet fuel supplies.