It’s Friday, April 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on the five men running Iran. Olivia Reingold on Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days as the mayor of NYC. Why did President Donald Trump ask for a $1.5 trillion defense budget? And much more.
But first: AI isn’t about to change your job, your health, or the music you listen to. It already has.
This week, Anthropic quietly rolled out its most powerful model yet: Claude Mythos. It’s the first artificial intelligence model that officials believe could cripple a Fortune 100 company, disable vast swaths of the internet, or penetrate national defense networks. In testing, Claude Mythos autonomously identified and exploited vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser, some of which had lain dormant and undetected for decades.
That’s the version governments are scrambling to contain, for fear that it could rewrite human civilization. But farther from the headlines, and in a less dramatic way, AI is already remaking everyday life for ordinary people. The evidence is in three fascinating essays we’re publishing today.
Evan Gardner reports on how machines are throwing the music industry into turbulence. There’s the North Carolina banjo player who logged onto Spotify to find songs she had never recorded uploaded under her name. There’s the Mississippi choir singer who used AI to land a $3 million record deal. And there’s the billion-dollar platforms where you can type in “Write a song about my dog that sounds like Taylor Swift,” and it’ll do it in minutes.
“They’re not just stealing our work,” one artist told Evan. “They’re stealing us.” Read more here:
Then there’s Andrew Rodriguez, whose 25-year-old girlfriend has a brain tumor that has defied two surgeries—and was missed by multiple medical professionals. Rodriguez decided to take matters into his own hands: Armed with some AI chatbots and a background in biophysics, he began combing through research papers her doctors hadn’t seen. This is the future of medicine. Read it here:
And finally, Melanie Pasch had never written a line of code in her life. Then her boss told her that using AI as a tool wasn’t enough anymore—and asked her to rebuild her entire job around it. Melanie works in corporate communications and, in one night at her parents’ house, she built an automated system that lets her team of two operate like a team of 10. Click here to find out how AI could become your favorite colleague:
—The Editors
War Watch
Our coverage of the Iran war continues. Today, Eli Lake reports on who is actually running the Islamic Republic right now. He breaks down the five-man council with whom Vice President J.D. Vance will negotiate in Islamabad, Pakistan, this weekend and what that means for the ceasefire’s chances. Read the full thing here:
Haviv Rettig Gur argues that no matter what America decides, the war is far from over—and that Israel, unlike the United States, does not have the luxury of walking away:
Elsewhere, Michael Oren writes about the disappointment the ceasefire has brought Israelis, and why so many feel the war ended just short of finishing the job:
And on School of War, Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins Aaron MacLean to discuss what’s actually at stake in the Islamabad talks, where the two sides are almost aligned, and where they’re miles apart. Listen here:
A hundred days in, and the rent is still unfrozen, the buses are not free, and universal childcare remains a distant promise. Olivia Reingold takes stock of Zohran Mamdani’s first months as New York’s democratic socialist mayor—the early compromises, the budget standoff with Albany, and the gap between campaigning and governing.
Donald Trump just asked Congress for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget—a move that’s drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle. Tanner Nau breaks down why the proposal is a massive gamble for a president who ran on an America First agenda, at a time when just 31 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy.
Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, is finally on trial, and nobody has been waiting longer for this moment than Tommy Dorfman. The independent promoter, who filed his own suit against the company 15 years ago, tells Poppy Damon and Evan Gardner that Live Nation destroyed his career, fueled soaring ticket prices, and ruined concerts for music lovers.
What finally brought Rome down—and does this part of history look familiar? Neal Stephenson joins Shilo Brooks to discuss his passion for Edward Gibbon’s "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"—and what the work reveals about our own age. Shilo will be in Philadelphia on May 18 with historian Jon Meacham for a live podcast taping—use code TFP for $50 off tickets!
EDITORS’ PICKS
Earlier this week, we published an exclusive report about an unprecedented meeting between the Vatican and the Pentagon, which took place after Pope Leo XIV’s “state of the world” address in January, in which he criticized those who chose war over peace.
Mattia Ferraresi reported that, days later, the Holy See’s then-ambassador to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, was summoned to have a conversation with Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, and other U.S. officials. Those with knowledge of the meeting told The Free Press that it was tense. One U.S. official reportedly referenced the Avignon Papacy—the period in the 14th century when the French Crown leveraged its military power to dominate the papal authority.
After we published this report, the vice president was asked about it by a journalist. Vance said: “I would actually like to talk to Cardinal Cristophe Pierre and, frankly, to our people, to figure out what actually happened.” The Department of Defense then released a statement: “Recent reporting of the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted.” Meanwhile, the Financial Times, among other publications, has corroborated details of our report—including a U.S. official’s mention of the Avignon Papacy. “It went wrong. It was very bad form. Somebody misspoke,” one source told the London-based paper.
The four astronauts aboard Artemis II’s Integrity splash down off the coast of California tonight—and everyone is holding their breath as they wonder: Will the heat shield hold? Frannie Block reports on the known flaw in the spacecraft’s shield: It cracked and charred on the last unmanned mission, and NASA didn’t have enough time to design a new one. During reentry, the crew will pass through temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and have no way to communicate with Mission Control. One veteran NASA engineer said, “We’re basically playing Russian roulette.”
This week in our newsletter tracking the global rise of antisemitism: Rabbi Jen Lader of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield writes about watching Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed offer condolences after a man drove a truck into her synagogue, only to pivot the next day and say “Hurt people hurt people.”
Our own Olivia Reingold dove deeper into the coalition behind El-Sayed’s rise. “At this point, man, you can’t be pro-Israel. That’s like being pro-Nazi,” one socialist supporter told her at a rally in Ann Arbor. Reingold reports on how the Senate hopeful, dubbed “Michigan Mamdani,” is winning over Arab Americans and young progressives with a mix of affordability politics, anti-Israel hostility, and the support of Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.
Regarding Anthropic and its new super hacker AI:
The time has come for corporations and government agencies to close all external ports and connections to their computerized operations.
Why does a power plant need to be reachable over the Internet? What a stupid vulnerability. If it is a must-not-fail service (power, communications, hospital operations), stop leaving the door unlocked.
Hackers can't hack when there's nothing to hack.
I used to keep a single open port on my home network, so that I could SSH in from any location on the global internet. It was so convenient! I could access files, run processes, even view my office through the computer's camera.
Then one morning around 4am my phone startled me with a message: "Did you authorize this login?" I ran downstairs and discovered someone had taken over my Mac; the mouse was moving itself, opening PayPal and wiring money to some recipient in the U.K., deleting my Google browsing history. They were smart and thorough. I powered down the computer and contacted PayPal, which promptly canceled the transaction and (I believe) removed the hacker's account. I changed all my passwords on the computer and network, closed the port, and hopefully have had no further break-ins. Though, malware still can get in if you open the wrong website and click the wrong link.
I still have no idea how they did it. A dictionary attack (trying a billion different passwords) would take a long time. Apparently there was some other way to get in.
Now think about government and corporate systems that are full of vulnerabilities, some known and some not. Approximately several times a year, we hear of some major government site that was compromised and a couple hundred million names, social security numbers, birthdates etc. were leaked. Several times a year I get a vaguely worded email from some internet services provider to my health insurer or credit card company, informing me "There has been an incident" and offering me some measly bit of credit toward ID theft tracking.
Just close it down. If you can't be on site to do your work, you probably shouldn't access the computer systems from outside of work. That's how dangerous the world is now.
Mythos has not been quietly rolled out. It wasn’t released. There’s a very interesting story here on what the internal testing revealed and Project Glasswing. A simple fact check would have found this.