Good morning. It’s Tuesday, April 1st — yes, the April Fools’ Day, when your friend who thinks they’re a comedic genius will text “I’m pregnant” and expect a standing ovation.

On this day in 1957, BBC casually aired a very serious segment about spaghetti trees. Yes, actual footage of Swiss farmers plucking fresh noodles off trees. Viewers ate it up. 

But don’t worry — we won’t mess with you. No pranks here. No fake news. No “just kidding” at the end. You can trust us. Just not anyone else today.

Today’s stories:

• Japan creates ocean-dissolving, truly biodegradable plastic

• Trump Media boosts NYSE Texas’s Wall Street ambitions

• AI-driven startup unearths minerals where others failed

• Utah bans fluoride, sparking public health concerns

• Bezos plans extravagant Venice yacht wedding

• Airbus replaces Roscosmos for ExoMars lander

• Trump hints at TikTok sale before deadline

• Hyundai pledges $20B for U.S. expansion

• Musk merges xAI with X in $33B deal

• HBO’s The Last of Us returns April 13

  and more…

Wall Street had a mood swing but ended on a high note. The S&P 500 recovered from an early drop to close up 0.55% at 5,611.85, while the Dow jumped 417 points (1%) to 42,001.76. The Nasdaq lagged, slipping 0.14% to 17,299.29, thanks to struggling tech stocks—Nvidia fell 1.2%, Tesla dropped 1.7%, and AI’s former golden child, Nvidia, is now 30% below its peak. Investors played it safe with Coca-Cola and Walmart instead.

Meanwhile, Trump is doubling down on tariffs, promising a broad “reciprocal” tax on imports. Reports say he’s pushing advisors to go even harder. Markets aren’t thrilled.

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TikTok Ban... Again?

Trump says a deal to sell TikTok is coming before the new April 5 deadline — because banning the app is still somehow on the table in 2025. He claims there’s “tremendous interest” and “a lot of potential buyers.” Blackstone’s sniffing around, reportedly looking to join a group of U.S.-friendly bidders. Trump wants TikTok to “stay alive.” Congress wants it de-Chinatized. Meanwhile, TikTok’s just sitting there, waiting to see who gets custody this time.

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Hyundai goes full Made-in-America (sort of). Hyundai just pledged $20 billion to bring more of its operations to the U.S., with a $5.8 billion steel plant headed to Louisiana. The facility will crank out 2.7 million metric tons of steel a year and create 1,400 jobs. At the White House rollout, Trump, Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung, and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry took turns patting each other on the back. Chung called it Hyundai’s biggest U.S. investment ever. Trump called it proof that tariffs “very strongly work.”

Musk buys himself. Elon Musk just merged his AI startup xAI with his social media platform X in what’s basically a $33 billion stock swap with himself. xAI is now valued at $80 billion, and X at $33 billion. He framed it as a visionary move to combine “data, models, compute, distribution and talent.” Investors like a16z, Sequoia, Fidelity, and Saudi royalty are along for the ride, whether they fully understand what just happened or not.

Trump Media rides first into NYSE Texas. Trump Media just became the first company to list on the brand-new NYSE Texas. Truth Social’s parent company (yes, that one) handed NYSE Texas an early win as the state tries to become the next big playground for Wall Street wannabes. Its main listing stays on Nasdaq, but the move boosts NYSE’s new Texas arm as it gears up to brawl with Nasdaq and the upcoming Texas Stock Exchange — backed by money giants like BlackRock and Citadel.

Japan Invents Plastic That Doesn’t Suck

Researchers in Japan have cooked up a new plastic that actually dissolves in seawater — no microplastics, no guilt, no sushi sprinkled with synthetic trash. Developed at the RIKEN Center, the plastic is recyclable, biodegradable, and customizable. Made from ionic monomers and a food additive, it’s strong, flexible, and turns into fertilizer when it breaks down. It can be tailored to act like hard plastic, soft rubber, or whatever else humans insist on overpackaging. Unlike the “biodegradable” frauds still haunting our oceans, this stuff actually disappears.

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UK boots Russia, takes over Mars mission. Airbus is officially replacing Roscosmos in the long-delayed ExoMars mission, after the whole invading Ukraine thing made the partnership a bit awkward. The UK firm will now build the lander that’ll drop the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars — the first to dig two meters down for signs of life, or at least something more exciting than red dust. The mission was originally supposed to launch in 2020 with Russia. Before that, it was NASA. Now it’s ESA + Airbus, with NASA back on rocket duty. Launch in 2028, landing in 2030 — assuming no one else needs to be kicked off the project by then.

AI digs deep. Earth AI, the mining startup powered by algorithms and audacity, just found a buffet of minerals in Australia — copper, cobalt, gold, silver, and more — buried in places the industry had ghosted for decades. The company started as a grad school project by Roman Teslyuk, a Ukrainian PhD student in Sydney who had a wild idea: use Australia’s decades of archived geological data — literally millions of data points — and feed it to an algorithm smart enough to learn from humanity’s long list of mining flops. Teslyuk’s logic was simple: if no one’s using the data, might as well let AI use it better than a bunch of rock-huggers with clipboards. He launched Earth AI as a software company pitching predictions. But investors were not impressed. Turns out, dropping millions on “trust the algorithm” didn’t sit well with the mining dinosaurs. “Mining is a very conservative industry,” Teslyuk said. “Everything outside of the approved dogma is considered heresy.” But now that Earth AI is actually finding stuff, the heretic looks more like a prophet.

Jeff and Lauren’s Modest $500M Wedding

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are getting married this summer in Venice, likely aboard his $500 million megayacht — because apparently a land-based wedding is too relatable. The over-the-top details have sparked backlash, with critics calling the whole thing “morbidly wealthy.” Bezos already denied rumors of a $600 million Aspen blowout, but let’s be real — when your wedding has its own marina, the number barely matters.

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Utah bans fluoride. Utah just became the first state to ban fluoride in its public water supply. Governor Spencer Cox signed the bill, which goes into effect May 7, and some experts warn it’s basically a fast-track to dental disaster — especially for kids. Fluoride’s been in U.S. tap water since 1945 to prevent tooth decay, but Utah decided it’s time to roll back the clock. The law doesn’t even mention public health, but the bill’s sponsor, Republican lawmaker Stephanie Gricius, says fluoride might mess with kids’ brains. She claims people should get to choose if they want fluoride. Other states like Florida and Ohio are now flirting with similar bans. 

The Last of Us returns. Two years after wrecking everyone emotionally — and scoring a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes — The Last of Us returns April 13 on HBO and Max. Season 2 dives into the sequel game but promises new characters, new twists, and plenty of heartbreak. It’s only seven episodes this time, but don’t panic — the story will stretch across at least three (maybe four) seasons. Misery loves pacing.

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TikTok of the day: watch here