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It’s Tuesday, April 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Coleman Hughes on Ibram X. Kendi’s latest provocations. New York City claims 5 million of its residents can’t afford to live there. And much more.
But first: Frannie Block reports from Mission Control.
Yesterday, three Americans and a Canadian traveled farther from Earth than any human has gone before—and then carried on. The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission circled the dark side of the moon, a part of the solar system few people have ever laid eyes on, where they lost touch with Mission Control for 40 minutes. It’s a triumph for the world’s greatest space agency.
It’s strange to think that less than a week ago, all four astronauts were in Florida. They launched into space from Cape Canaveral last Wednesday evening. I was watching from the beach, with hundreds of other Americans who had traveled across the country; it was the first time I’d ever seen a rocket launch, and it blew my mind. As the Orion spacecraft disappeared into the universe, I wanted to know: What’s next for NASA?
So two days later, I flew to Mission Control—which is, of course, in Houston, Texas—to talk to the man best placed to answer this question: the guy who leads NASA, Jared Isaacman.
A high school dropout who became a billionaire businessman, he’s wanted to be an astronaut since he was a toddler—so he used his riches to finance and command two SpaceX ventures, before his controversial nomination to be NASA administrator in December 2024. The right was suspicious of his donations to Democratic candidates; the left was suspicious of his relationship with Elon Musk. But Isaacman’s eyes are on the prize: He wants NASA to achieve “the near impossible.”
“Ten years from now, we’ll have, like, our Uber and Lyft fleets on the moon doing wild things,” he told me.
But for all Isaacman’s futuristic talk, the Mission Control that I saw seemed stuck in the past. There’s a very ’80s mural on the wall that looks distinctly like the title cards of Back to the Future—the female astronauts have perfectly permed hair, and the spacesuits look decidedly retro—and at one point the elevators broke down.
How’s Isaacman planning to bring this calcified, crumbling agency into the 21st century—and beyond? Read my report to find out:
—Frannie Block
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESSTHE NEWSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit on March 11, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blueprint for how to regulate and tax AI yesterday, responding to worries about AI disrupting society, labor, and privacy as we know it. The document went live within hours of a New Yorker investigation into Altman’s professional conduct, in which critics repeatedly called him “sociopathic.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Department of Justice to dismiss a criminal case against Steve Bannon, who had been accused of defying a congressional subpoena during the investigation of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The Trump ally’s lawyer said the order was “a welcome correction.”
A federal judge dismissed 10 of 13 claims actress Blake Lively brought against Justin Baldoni last week—including claims of sexual harassment. Three claims will proceed to trial; they relate not to Baldoni’s behavior on set but his response to Lively’s accusations. (For more on the bitter fight between two former co-stars, read Kat Rosenfield’s piece, “Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and the Art of the Smear.”)
The Nigerian army rescued 31 Christians from an attack on a church in northwest Nigeria on Easter Sunday, according to military officials. Earlier this year, Madeleine Kearns spoke to the wife of Nigeria’s president, who is Christian; to understand religious persecution in the nation better, read her profile: “Is the First Lady of Nigeria Scared?”
Sixty-four days after her mother’s disappearance, Savannah Guthrie returned to Today. In February, camera footage showed a masked man on 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie’s front porch. Police are investigating the case as a kidnapping.
Trump endorsed the British American Republican Steve Hilton for California governor on Monday. (For more on the crowded race, in which two GOP candidates sit improbably atop the polls, read Peter Savodnik’s piece: “Could a Republican Win the California Governor’s Race?”)
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service have struck a new tentative agreement on package delivery. Amazon had warned it would reduce its USPS shipment volume by roughly two-thirds by this fall, but under the new deal, that reduction has been scaled back to just 20 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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By Bari WeissIt’s Tuesday, April 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Coleman Hughes on Ibram X. Kendi’s latest provocations. New York City claims 5 million of its residents can’t afford to live there. And much more.
But first: Frannie Block reports from Mission Control.
Yesterday, three Americans and a Canadian traveled farther from Earth than any human has gone before—and then carried on. The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission circled the dark side of the moon, a part of the solar system few people have ever laid eyes on, where they lost touch with Mission Control for 40 minutes. It’s a triumph for the world’s greatest space agency.
It’s strange to think that less than a week ago, all four astronauts were in Florida. They launched into space from Cape Canaveral last Wednesday evening. I was watching from the beach, with hundreds of other Americans who had traveled across the country; it was the first time I’d ever seen a rocket launch, and it blew my mind. As the Orion spacecraft disappeared into the universe, I wanted to know: What’s next for NASA?
So two days later, I flew to Mission Control—which is, of course, in Houston, Texas—to talk to the man best placed to answer this question: the guy who leads NASA, Jared Isaacman.
A high school dropout who became a billionaire businessman, he’s wanted to be an astronaut since he was a toddler—so he used his riches to finance and command two SpaceX ventures, before his controversial nomination to be NASA administrator in December 2024. The right was suspicious of his donations to Democratic candidates; the left was suspicious of his relationship with Elon Musk. But Isaacman’s eyes are on the prize: He wants NASA to achieve “the near impossible.”
“Ten years from now, we’ll have, like, our Uber and Lyft fleets on the moon doing wild things,” he told me.
But for all Isaacman’s futuristic talk, the Mission Control that I saw seemed stuck in the past. There’s a very ’80s mural on the wall that looks distinctly like the title cards of Back to the Future—the female astronauts have perfectly permed hair, and the spacesuits look decidedly retro—and at one point the elevators broke down.
How’s Isaacman planning to bring this calcified, crumbling agency into the 21st century—and beyond? Read my report to find out:
—Frannie Block
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESSTHE NEWSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit on March 11, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blueprint for how to regulate and tax AI yesterday, responding to worries about AI disrupting society, labor, and privacy as we know it. The document went live within hours of a New Yorker investigation into Altman’s professional conduct, in which critics repeatedly called him “sociopathic.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Department of Justice to dismiss a criminal case against Steve Bannon, who had been accused of defying a congressional subpoena during the investigation of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The Trump ally’s lawyer said the order was “a welcome correction.”
A federal judge dismissed 10 of 13 claims actress Blake Lively brought against Justin Baldoni last week—including claims of sexual harassment. Three claims will proceed to trial; they relate not to Baldoni’s behavior on set but his response to Lively’s accusations. (For more on the bitter fight between two former co-stars, read Kat Rosenfield’s piece, “Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and the Art of the Smear.”)
The Nigerian army rescued 31 Christians from an attack on a church in northwest Nigeria on Easter Sunday, according to military officials. Earlier this year, Madeleine Kearns spoke to the wife of Nigeria’s president, who is Christian; to understand religious persecution in the nation better, read her profile: “Is the First Lady of Nigeria Scared?”
Sixty-four days after her mother’s disappearance, Savannah Guthrie returned to Today. In February, camera footage showed a masked man on 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie’s front porch. Police are investigating the case as a kidnapping.
Trump endorsed the British American Republican Steve Hilton for California governor on Monday. (For more on the crowded race, in which two GOP candidates sit improbably atop the polls, read Peter Savodnik’s piece: “Could a Republican Win the California Governor’s Race?”)
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service have struck a new tentative agreement on package delivery. Amazon had warned it would reduce its USPS shipment volume by roughly two-thirds by this fall, but under the new deal, that reduction has been scaled back to just 20 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal.