Russia woos students for its drone forces with large financial packages.
 

Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Trump touts gains against Iran but gives no timeline to end war, Russia woos students for its drone forces in Ukraine with large financial packages, and NASA launches the world's first crewed lunar mission in half a century.

Plus, the Canadian GMO mustard wars: Dijon vs canola.

Today's Top News

 

A customer watches Trump address the nation on the Iran crisis from the White House. Times Square, New York. April 1, 2026. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado 

War in the Middle East

  • President Donald Trump said in a televised speech that the US military had nearly accomplished its goals in Iran, but offered no clear timeline for ending the monthlong war and vowed to bomb the country back into the "Stone Ages."
  • Hopes for a swift end to the war faded after Trump vowed more aggressive strikes on Iran, sending oil prices back well over $100 a barrel in a blow to consumers around ‌the world.
  • If Trump ends the war with Iran without a deal, he risks leaving Tehran with a stranglehold over Middle East energy supplies and Gulf oil and gas producers grappling with the fallout of a conflict they did not start or shape.
  • More than 270 pieces of missile debris have fallen on the West Bank. With no bomb shelters, there is nowhere to hide. Read our photo essay about the Palestinian refugees who now face Iranian rockets.

In other news

  • Four astronauts blasted off from Florida on NASA's Artemis II mission, a high-stakes voyage around the moon that marks the United States' boldest step yet toward returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade in a race with China.
  • Trump took the short trip from the White House to the US Supreme Court with his signature priority of cracking down on immigration largely intact, given repeated interventions by the nation's highest judicial body in his favor. By the time he left, his luck may have run out.
  • The sidelining by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the advisory panel that decides access to free preventive healthcare is delaying updates to screening guidelines for cancer, heart disease and other conditions, medical experts say.
  • Students across Russia are being offered large financial incentives to join drone units fighting in Ukraine as operators and engineers, while companies in Russia's central Ryazan region have been given quotas to sign up workers for the army, documents show.
 

Business & Markets

 
  • The world's central bankers may be attempting the impossible: to get into the psyche of business executives, labor unions and ordinary households in real time to understand how they are navigating their finances through yet another energy shock.
  • SpaceX has confidentially filed to go public as early as June and it could be the largest stock market listing on record. Echo Wang tells the Reuters World News podcast that loyalty shown to Elon Musk's vision by private investors will be put to the test once his company faces the scrutiny of public trading. Listen now.
  • Some tariff-whiplashed companies are exploring using refund claims as collateral for loans, in the latest example of creative financing arising from the complicated process of getting refunds from Trump's now-overturned "Liberation Day" tariffs.
  • A year on from "Liberation Day", the dollar looks in much stronger shape with its safe-haven credentials reasserted in the ‌face of war in the Middle East.
  • The US FDA approved Eli Lilly's weight-loss pill, setting up its next battle with rival Novo Nordisk for the millions of Americans seeking highly effective GLP-1 medicines.
  • The mega-merger boom persists with Unilever’s $65 billion mayo-to-mustard combo while beauty giant Estée Lauder holds talks with Puig. In this week’s Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists debate whether the good times will keep rolling or if CEOs will get spooked by oil prices and AI.
 

The Canadian GMO mustard wars: Dijon vs canola

 

Canola crops grow at a farm in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. REUTERS/Ed White/File Photo

Farmer Dallas Leduc can't wait for a new genetically modified mustard plant that can grow in his sandy, heat-stressed soil in a corner of Saskatchewan once thought too arid to farm.

But Trent Dewar, who farms elsewhere in the Canadian semi-desert known as Palliser's Triangle, fears the new GMO mustard plant will ruin the ‌pure mustard he grows for the premium Dijon bottlers in France, the United States and Japan.

Read more
 

And Finally...

Louise Henriques looks at her giant chocolate egg. Brussels, Belgium. REUTERS/Yves Herma

Forty leading patisserie chefs and chocolatiers in Belgium came together to showcase artisanal chocolate with Easter egg-themed edible artworks in the country's capital.

Bel’Oeuf is an initiative by Belgian chocolatier ‌Marc Ducobu in collaboration with Carlo Ferrigno, the manager of Hotel Amigo, a luxury hotel near the Brussels town hall in the historic Gothic Grand-Place square.

Read more