Top 5 US news stories
April 2 2026
NASA Launches Artemis II, Sending Astronauts Moonward for First Time in 54 Years
Trump Makes Prime-Time Case for Iran War, Vows Swift End
Nursing Emerges as America's Most Reliable Path to the Middle Class
SpaceX Files Confidentially for IPO Valued at More Than $1 Trillion
GOP Leaders Revive Deal to Reopen Department of Homeland Security
NASA Launches Artemis II, Sending Astronauts Moonward for First Time in 54 Years
A NASA rocket lifted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday evening, sending four astronauts on the first crewed lunar voyage since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission, carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen aboard the spacecraft Integrity, will travel more than 695,000 miles around the moon and back over roughly 10 days before splashing down in the Pacific on April 10. "After a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. The mission will set a distance record of 252,799 miles from Earth, surpassing Apollo 13, and the crew will observe portions of the lunar far side never before seen by human eyes.
The launch also marks the opening salvo of what analysts describe as a new Cold War in space, with the U.S. and China racing to establish permanent footholds on the moon's south pole and claim its frozen water, hydrogen and helium. China, which has already landed robotic craft on the far side of the moon and retrieved samples — feats no other nation has accomplished — plans to put astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of 2030, two years behind NASA's 2028 target. But experts say Beijing's centralized planning and decades-long funding commitments give it a structural edge, and even NASA acknowledges it may not win. Unlike the original Cold War space race, the stakes are not just symbolic: whichever nation establishes a sustained presence first will have outsized influence over the rules governing lunar resources and deep-space exploration for decades to come. President Trump congratulated NASA and the astronauts during his Wednesday evening address.
NYT
Trump Makes Prime-Time Case for Iran War, Vows Swift End
President Trump delivered a 20-minute prime-time address from the White House on Wednesday, his most direct appeal to the public since the monthlong war with Iran began, arguing the operation was necessary to prevent a hostile regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. He declared that U.S. military objectives would be completed "very shortly" and said the Strait of Hormuz would reopen once the conflict ended, bringing down gas prices and restoring stock markets. Analysts say the U.S. and Israel have struck more than 12,300 targets, sunk over 155 vessels and killed senior Iranian figures including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the campaign has also produced strategic setbacks, with Iran tightening its grip on the strait and its nuclear ambitions not fully neutralized. Trump framed the war as the culmination of nearly 50 years of Iranian threats, and his decision to deliver the address reflected advisers' desire to tamp down fears the conflict could become another open-ended American military engagement.
Wall Street Journal
Nursing Emerges as America's Most Reliable Path to the Middle Class
As automation, globalized manufacturing and artificial intelligence erode traditional routes to economic security, healthcare jobs — nursing in particular — have become the surest pathway to middle-class stability in the United States. The median annual wage for registered nurses stands at $93,600, nearly double the $49,500 median for all occupations, and nurse practitioners with advanced degrees earn a median of $132,050. Healthcare has generated some of the most consistent job growth of any American profession since the early 1980s, driven by soaring spending and an aging population, and the sector was the largest source of job creation last year. Total healthcare employment surpassed both manufacturing and retail in the early 2000s, and the gap has continued to widen.
Wall Street Journal
SpaceX Files Confidentially for IPO Valued at More Than $1 Trillion
SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company founded by Elon Musk in 2002, filed confidentially on Wednesday for an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk is aiming to raise $50 billion to $75 billion from the debut, which the company is targeting for June, making it potentially one of the largest public offerings in history. SpaceX values itself at more than $1 trillion, placing it behind only Saudi Aramco's $1.7 trillion IPO valuation in 2019 among companies reaching the stock market. The offering could signal a wave of enormous IPOs, with OpenAI and Anthropic also exploring the possibility of going public. In February, Musk merged SpaceX with xAI, his artificial intelligence company, bringing Starship, Starlink, the Grok chatbot and the social network X under the SpaceX umbrella. The company accounts for five of every six U.S. launches into space, according to Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
NYT
GOP Leaders Revive Deal to Reopen Department of Homeland Security
Senate and House Republican leaders announced an agreement Wednesday to move forward with legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, resurrecting a bipartisan deal that President Trump and the House GOP had rejected last week. The plan would fund the department through Sept. 30 but omit money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which would continue to be paid from funds Republicans pushed through Congress last year over solid Democratic opposition. Democrats have refused to approve spending for those agencies without new restrictions on federal immigration agents' conduct, a demand that intensified after immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. GOP leaders hoped to push the bill through without debate or a formal vote as early as Thursday morning, though hard-right Republicans signaled they might block quick passage.
NYT
April 2 1979: Deadly Soviet Anthrax Leak Exposes Secret Cold War Bioweapons Program
In April 1979, a missing filter at a Soviet biological-weapons plant in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg) released airborne anthrax spores, killing at least 66 people and sickening dozens more, along with nearby livestock. The Soviet government initially blamed tainted meat, but it wasn’t until 1992 that officials admitted the outbreak was caused by an accidental release from the covert bio-weapons facility.
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