Five Things That Mattered This Week | March 6, 2026

The fog of war is ever thick. 100+ blackout hours in Iran. Claude is already a war vet. The Ayatollah has perished. Fighting continues on the Durand Line. We've got just the Friday art & music!

Good morning! It’s Friday, again. And what a Friday, indeed.

We are at war. The fog remains: unanswered questions, confusion, fractured alliances, empty negotiation tables.

Iran is still in a blackout. Political prisoners whereabouts remain unknown. Missiles are flying. Suicide drones dominate skies. Claude AI was used in Iran and Venezuela with Project Maven. Greece, Italy and the UK are sending reinforcements to Cyprus. The Ayatollah is dead under the shadows of ancient Persia. The Strait of Hormuz is quickly turning into a chokepoint and potentially its own war zone.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are still fighting at the Durand Line. The Russian war in Ukraine remains at a stalemate. France expands on nuclear. Iceland demands in on the European Union. Anthropic’s Claude briefly became the #1 most-downloaded free app in Apple’s U.S. App Store, surpassing ChatGPT, though overall ChatGPT is still in the lead with number of users. The surge came after controversy over OpenAI’s Pentagon AI deal, which pushed some users to switch to Claude. Hungary blocked the recent EU loan to Ukraine.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme. When do we officially get bored of the same old patterns? — Ali & Asli