Art Heist, Cuba Delivery, and Barbie Dream Fest

 Need To Know 

$10M Art Heist

Four masked men stole three paintings (w/photos) worth over $10M combined from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation outside Parma, Italy, officials confirmed yesterday. 

The thieves reportedly entered the museum through the front door on March 22 and stole Paul Cézanne’s “Still Life With Cherries,” Henri Matisse’s “Odalisque on the Terrace,” and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Les Poissons,” which alone is worth about $7M. A fourth piece was left behind after an alarm was triggered, prompting the men to flee by climbing a fence. Officials said the heist was highly coordinated and lasted just three minutes. The museum has remained open, keeping the news of the theft from the public for a week. No suspects have been identified as of this writing. 

What might the thieves want to do with the art? Stolen art is typically ransomed instead of resold. Here's why (w/video). 

... and learn about eight art heists gone wrong here.

xAI Cofounders Exodus

All 11 cofounders of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI have now departed, capping a two-year exodus that accelerated after Musk's rocket maker, SpaceX, bought the company in February. The final two cofounders left last week.

The departures at xAI—which was founded in 2023 by researchers from Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and OpenAI—unfolded in waves. The first exits came in mid-2024 and early 2025, with the pace quickening after SpaceX completed its all-stock acquisition of xAI that valued the latter at $250B. Reported reasons for the exits include a shift in priorities, internal disagreements, and changes in workplace culture. Musk has said xAI "was not built right the first time around." See an overview of events here. 

The reset comes as SpaceX moves toward a midyear initial public offering (what are IPOs?), targeting a valuation of up to $1.75T. Investors are likely to scrutinize xAI, given the loss of its founding team and regulatory concerns surrounding its Grok chatbot. 

Cuba Oil Relief

A Russian oil tanker arrived in Cuba yesterday carrying around 730,000 barrels of oil. The delivery breaks a monthslong US blockade that has led to daily blackouts. It is not clear as of this writing if the US will allow other ships to reach the island. 

President Donald Trump instated the effective blockade in January, citing national security concerns and accusing Cuba of harboring terrorist organizations. The move came weeks after the US ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. It has led to speculation that Trump aims to control Cuba, with Trump suggesting he could “take” the island and that, after Iran, “Cuba is next.” In recent weeks, Cubans have relied increasingly on solar energy from China to supplement the failing electricity grid.

The oil can be refined into other products like diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel; refinement and distribution are expected to take roughly four weeks. Learn how blackouts have impacted Cuba here (w/audio).

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture

> NCAA Women's Final Four set, with No. 1 UConn facing No. 1 South Carolina and No. 1 UCLA facing No. 1 Texas Friday (More) | Connecticut Sun reach deal to sell WNBA team to Rockets owner for $300M, will move to Houston in 2027 (More) 

> Jeffrey Epstein TV series in the works with Sony Pictures, based on the book "Perversion of Justice” by Julie K. Brown, a journalist who investigated the late sex offender (More) | Listen to an interview with Brown (More)

> Céline Dion announces comeback shows in Paris, four years after stiff-person syndrome diagnosis (More) | Peter Alexander to join MS NOW as chief national reporter; he is leaving the "Today" show after 22 years with NBC News (More) 

Science & Technology

> French AI startup Mistral raises $830M in debt financing to fund data center powered by Nvidia chips near Paris; Mistral is one of the few European companies building foundational AI models like OpenAI, Anthropic (More) 

> Parasite behind sleeping sickness edits genetic material in real time to evade immune system detection, often making cases fatal by the time they're identified; new insight could lead to earlier detection (More) | What's sleeping sickness? (More)

> Sequenced squid genomes reveal how squid and cuttlefish began rapidly evolving about 100 million years ago, surviving the mass extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs (More) 

Business & Markets

> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.4%, Dow +0.1%, Nasdaq -0.7%) as US crude oil settles above $100 per barrel for first time since 2022 (More)

> Air Canada CEO to step down after facing criticism for his largely English condolence message to the LaGuardia crash that killed two pilots; Canada's largest airline is based in French-speaking Quebec (More) | JetBlue Airways raises bag fees as fuel prices rise amid Iran war (More) 

> Sysco—America's biggest food distributor—to acquire family-owned Restaurant Depot for roughly $29B (More) 

Politics & World Affairs

> Israel's parliament approves law making death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of carrying out deadly terror attacks (More) 

> Justice Department sues Minnesota over state's policy of allowing transgender girls to participate in female high school sports (More) 

> Spain closes airspace to US military aircraft in protest of US war with Iran (More) | See war updates (More) 

In-Depth

> Look Up

The Guardian | Oliver Holmes. Meet the British lawyer whose job is to sound the alarm on dangerous asteroids. In December 2024, she thought the big moment may have come. (Read) 

> What Is This, a Black Market for Ants?

BBC | Wycliffe Muia. Explore the illicit world of international ant trafficking, where a giant African harvester ant queen can sell for $220, and ants survive for months on moist cotton wool. (Read) 

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In partnership: Coal’s "Rockefeller Moment" could be here, and you can get in early at $7.77/share.*

In partnership: Final hours to back Green Coffee Company’s US expansion.*

Clickbait: $450 Barbie Dream Fest was a huge letdown.

Historybook: Eiffel Tower opens in Paris (1889); US makes first switch to daylight saving time (1918); American track legend Jesse Owens dies (1980); Singer-songwriter Selena killed (1995); Rapper Nipsey Hussle killed (2019).

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