Over the weekend, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it intentionally attacked two aluminum producers in US-allied nations in the region in response to earlier attacks on two Iranian steel plants. The development underscores concerns that the conflict could drive prices of the metal higher.

What happened

On Saturday, the top producer in the region, Emirates Global Aluminum, said an Iranian drone and missile attack caused “significant damage” to its production plant in Abu Dhabi. The company said several employees were injured, but not fatally.

That same day, an Iranian attack hit Aluminum Bahrain (known as Alba). The company, home to the world’s largest aluminum smelter (a high-energy industrial apparatus), said in a statement yesterday that it’s still assessing the damage. Earlier this month, Alba said it temporarily suspended 19% of its production capacity due to being unable to get supply through the Strait of Hormuz.

Another element to consider

Aluminum is the most abundant metal on the planet, but it requires large amounts of energy to extract and process, making it susceptible to natural gas shipping problems in the Strait of Hormuz:

• Under normal conditions, the Middle East is responsible for producing about 9% of the global aluminum supply.
• A plant in Qatar, jointly owned by QatarEnergy and Norwegian company Norsk Hydro, scaled its aluminum production back to about 60% capacity because it had trouble getting the gas it needed to extract the metal, according to the WSJ.

It’s not just the Middle East: Hindalco Industries in India, which provides aluminum to auto manufacturers, notified customers it would invoke force majeure clauses in its contracts to avoid fulfilling orders. Anonymous sources told Bloomberg it was due to issues stemming from the Iran war, including disruptions to gas supplies. That issue can ripple to smelters around the world as the conflict continues.

Big picture: Aluminum prices were rising in the US before the war started because of President Trump’s 50% tariffs on the metal. The US gets most of its aluminum from other countries, and domestic production has been dropping for years. According to the London Metal Exchange benchmark, prices of aluminum (pronounced the British way) are up about 4% since the war started on February 28.—BC

Yemen’s Houthis entered the Iran war, and first US ground troops arrived in Middle East. On Saturday, Houthis from Yemen, which is on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, said they launched missiles at Israel, marking their first direct participation in the Iran war. Also on Saturday, the US Central Command said that 2,500 Marines trained in amphibious landings arrived in the Middle East aboard the USS Tripoli. In an interview with the Financial Times yesterday, President Trump said that his preferred tactic in Iran would be to “take the oil,” comparing it to the US’ actions in Venezuela, and mused that the US could also seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump is also weighing the possibility of using a military operation to extract 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran.

US allows Russian oil tanker to enter Cuba. The vessel, named the Anatoly Kolodkin, carrying 650,000 barrels of Urals crude, is reportedly being allowed to enter Cuba by the US despite the oil blockade it has been enacting since January to put pressure on the Maduro-aligned nation. While the reason for the exception is unknown, blocking the tanker would likely have raised tensions between Russia and the US in the sea. The blockade of Cuba has worsened its energy crisis and has caused multiple power outages. The San Juan Daily Star interviewed six doctors in Cuba who said that the oil crisis there was leading to rapidly deteriorating conditions in clinics and preventable deaths. Last night, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he had “no problem” with the tanker bringing oil to Cuba because “they have to survive.”

Zillow’s new “Preview” feature gains new partners, popularity. The homebuying website recently rolled out a new feature that lets participating brokerages show off homes to potential buyers as pre-listings before they even hit the market. Five brokers, including Keller Williams and Remax, were part of the debut on March 17. Since then, 24 more firms have joined them. In turn, Homes.com, Realtor.com, and ComeHome.com launched their own pre-market offerings. The rub: Many of these deals require brokerages to enter exclusivity agreements, so if avid homebuyers want to check out everything in their desired neighborhood as soon as humanly possible, they will be rotating among online real estate marketplaces as if they were streaming platforms.—HVL

Eli Lilly made a $2.75 billion deal with Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine, a startup that uses AI to accelerate drug discovery. Under the terms:

• Insilico will receive $115 million up front and can earn the full value of the deal if the drugs it produces and Lilly licenses reach certain regulatory and sales milestones, as well as through royalties.
• Lilly gets the exclusive rights to sell an Insilico-developed GLP-1 drug for diabetes, per the Financial Times.

It’s not just about GLP-1s. Lilly’s weight loss and diabetes injectables helped it become the first drugmaker to reach a $1 trillion valuation late last year. But to find its next success cycle, it’s turning to AI investments.

The next major breakthrough may be in China

The country’s significant investments in research and the comparatively low cost of running trials there are making it attractive for drug discovery targets.

Chen Yu, the founder of biotech investment firm TCGX, told CNBC that through licensing, American drug companies can “get clinical proof of concept” of a drug in China and then bring it to the US “for the expensive clinical development when we actually know the drug works.”

However, if American lawmakers take umbrage at large drugmakers paying China for assets rather than acquiring US drug startups, legislation or an executive order could shut down this avenue.—HVL

The March jobs report will be released on Friday: Winter is over, but we’re still waiting to see whether the US labor market has warmed up after a brutal February that saw a decline of 92,000 jobs. According to Reuters, analysts anticipate the March report will show an increase of around 55,000 jobs. February’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) will be released tomorrow, and initial jobless claims data will be released on Thursday.

Apple turns the big 5-0 on Wednesday: Over the past couple of weeks, Apple has been hosting celebrations all over the world to commemorate its 50th anniversary, and it plans to wrap things up this week with a big event at its Cupertino headquarters. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman hinted that Paul McCartney could headline the finale. Maybe for the 60th anniversary, Sir Paul will change his name to Paul MacBook.

To the moon and back: After years of delays and more than $44 billion spent, the launch window for NASA’s Artemis II mission will open on Wednesday evening. If conditions are right, four astronauts will blast toward the moon, travel around it, head back to Earth, and blow your spring break vacation stories out of the water. If conditions aren’t right, additional launch windows will be available each day through April 6. The mission will last about 10 days—enough time for the crew to listen to The Dark Side of the Moon about 335 times.

But wait, there’s more:

• March Madness heads into April. The men’s Final Four is set: It’s Illinois v. UConn and Michigan v. Arizona. Both games will be played on Saturday. The women’s Final Four gets decided tonight. The women’s title game will then be played on Sunday, while the men will wrap things up next Monday.
• Wednesday is April Fools’ Day, so keep your head on a swivel.
• February’s US retail sales report will be released on Wednesday.
• The Jewish holiday of Passover starts on Wednesday.
• Easter is on Sunday. It’s also a cruel reminder that you never found that final egg last year.

This one goes out to all those who just want to get away from it all—that’s what Chesney the kangaroo did. He hopped his 8-foot enclosure at Sunshine Farm in Necedah, WI, which offers animal exhibits, a petting zoo, and other public animal encounters, after some stray dogs rushed his enclosure and spooked him last week, according to the Associated Press.

Chesney’s keeper, Debbie Marland, walked about 37,000 steps per day looking for him (meanwhile, his ’roo buddy Kenny stayed home—seriously). A local aerial drone service, more commonly called upon to help locate lost dogs, tracked Chesney’s heat signature, which the drone operator said looked like “a dinosaur running through the woods.”

After three days of tracking, Marland was able to catch up with Chesney, pick up the unharmed 40-pound marsupial, and head home, where she added a mesh top to his digs.—HVL