March 31 2025

America’s Deep Ties to Ukraine War Exposed

DOGE Plans Social Security Tech Overhaul

MAHA Commission Targets Child Health Threats

xAI Acquires X in $113 Billion Deal

China Unveils Quiet Supersonic Jet with 50% Longer Range than Concorde

All Top Seeds Reach NCAA Final Four

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FLASH...In Political Earthquake, France’s Populist Presidential Aspirant Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement…Barred From Seeking Office...Likely To Further Destabilize French Politics…

1. America’s Deep Ties to Ukraine War Exposed

The war in Ukraine is at an inflection point, with President Trump seeking rapprochement with the Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, and pressing for an end to the fighting. But for nearly three years before Mr. Trump’s return to power, the United States and Ukraine were joined in an extraordinary partnership of intelligence, strategy, planning and technology whose evolution and inner workings have been known only to a small circle of American and allied officials. With remarkable transparency, the Pentagon has offered a public accounting of the $66.5 billion in weaponry it has supplied to Ukraine. But a New York Times investigation reveals that America’s involvement in the war was far deeper than previously understood. The secret partnership both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field. Here are…takeaways from the investigation.

* A U.S. base in Wiesbaden, Germany, supplied the Ukrainians with the coordinates of Russian forces on their soil.

* U.S. intelligence and artillery helped Ukraine quickly turn the tide against the Russian invasion.

* The Biden administration kept moving its red lines. From the first, administration officials sought to lay down a red line: America was not fighting Russia; it was helping Ukraine. Still, they worried that steps taken to accomplish that might provoke Mr. Putin to attack N.A.T.O. targets or perhaps make good on his nuclear threats. Even as the administration developed an ever-greater tolerance of risk to help Ukraine meet the evolving threat, many of the most potentially provocative steps were taken in secret. Easing a prohibition against American boots on Ukrainian ground, Wiesbaden was allowed to put about a dozen military advisers in Kyiv. In 2022, the U.S. Navy was authorized to share targeting information for Ukrainian drone strikes on warships just beyond the territorial waters of Russian-annexed Crimea. In January 2024, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers in Wiesbaden jointly planned a campaign — using coalition-supplied long-range missiles, along with Ukrainian drones — to attack about 100 Russian military targets across Crimea.

* Ultimately, the U.S. military and C.I.A. were allowed to help with strikes into Russia. The hardest red line was the Russian border. But in spring 2024, to protect the northern city of Kharkiv against a Russian assault, the administration authorized the creation of an “ops box” — a zone of Russian territory within which U.S. officers in Wiesbaden could provide the Ukrainians with precise coordinates. The box’s first iteration extended across a wide swath of Ukraine’s northern border. The box was expanded after North Korea sent troops to help fight the Ukrainians’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. The U.S. military was later allowed to enable missile strikes in an area of southern Russia where the Russians staged forces and equipment for their offensive in eastern Ukraine. Longstanding policy barred the C.I.A. from providing intelligence on targets on Russian soil. But the C.I.A. could request “variances,” carve-outs to support strikes for specific objectives. Intelligence had identified a vast munitions depot in Toropets, 290 miles north of the Ukrainian border. On Sept. 18, 2024, a swarm of drones slammed into the munitions depot. The blast, as powerful as a small earthquake, opened a crater the width of a football field. Later, the C.I.A. was allowed to enable Ukrainian drone strikes in southern Russia to try to slow advances in eastern Ukraine.
Source: NYT

2. DOGE Plans Social Security Tech Overhaul

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk. The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Editors note: COBOL was created in 1959
Source: WIRED

3. MAHA Commission Targets Child Health Threats

The MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] Commission held its first meeting on March 12 at the White House. Established a month earlier by President Trump, the Commission is chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and includes top federal officials, including the USDA Secretary, FDA commissioner, Centers for Disease Control director, and more. They have 100 days to submit a "Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment" to President Trump to address "threats posed" by "over-utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures." The Commission's assessment is also meant to look at the prevalence and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.
Source: Substack

4. @elonmusk: xAI Acquires X in $113 Billion Deal

@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt). Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.
Source: X

5. China Unveils Quiet Supersonic Jet with 50% Longer Range than Concorde

The first details of C949, a supersonic airliner project, have been quietly unveiled by Chinese state-owned aerospace giant Comac, signalling its ambitions to dominate the skies with the radical new jet that could redefine global air travel. In a recent academic paper, Comac engineers revealed the blueprint of a 1.6-Mach airliner designed to fly further and much more quietly than the retired Concorde – a feat that could position China at the forefront of a 21st century supersonic renaissance.

Source: SCMP

6. All Top Seeds Reach NCAA Final Four

One of the chalkiest NCAA Tournaments in history has reached its logical conclusion: All four No. 1 seeds are headed to the Final Four for the first time since 2008. That tournament gave us an all-timer of a championship, with Mario Chalmers’ miracle sending the title game to overtime as part of a Kansas victory over Memphis. And just like this Final Four, that tournament ended in San Antonio.

Editors note: in 2008, as an 18 year old, that Chalmers shot was a big part of the reason I went to KU that fall. A wonderful decision, in hindsight. Btw I picked all Final Four teams correctly and my bracket is in the 99.7 percentile, ranked 65k in America, nbd.

On Sunday, Houston and Auburn advanced, joining Duke and Florida, who’d punched their tickets on Saturday.
Source: NYT Athletic, WSJ

March 31, 1985: The first-ever Wrestlemania is held at Madison Square Garden, a nine-match event headlined by Mr. T and Hulk Hogan smacking down Rowdy Piper and Mr. Wonderful. Also there: Muhammad Ali as a referee and Liberace as a timekeeper.

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Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/world/europe/us-ukraine-military-war-takeaways.html (NYT)
2. https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/ (WIRED)
3. https://open.substack.com/pub/unsettledscience/p/maha-takeover-of-washington-whats?r=d9vo5&utm_medium=ios (Substack)
4. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1905731750275510312 (X)
5. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3304082/comac-c949-china-unveils-quiet-supersonic-jet-50-longer-range-concorde?share=%2FVG%2Bb3G62yl8UbXG3GLtlhMLOleTrTksXzv%2FY7gHgMBX8Cl7oGLTVj%2BYf%2FDF6A%2FHJZIgv05HzAuPlGd2xytqbGG5xaItMlRiUWQNIETjQZg%3D&utm_campaign=social_share (SCMP)
6. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6242257/2025/03/31/mens-march-madness-final-four-power-rankings/ and https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/final-four-duke-houston-florida-auburn-a3156fbe?mod=sports_lead_story (NYT Athletic, WSJ)