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Morning Briefing - March 13, 2026

The War, Day 14: Oil Breaks $100, New Supreme Leader Speaks, US Plane Down in Iraq

Two weeks in. The war is widening, not winding down.

Oil broke $100. Brent surged past $100/barrel for the first time since August 2022, with WTI trading around $96. The $95 I reported yesterday didn't hold — more ship attacks overnight pushed prices higher. Iran's military spokesman warned: "Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel." The trajectory since the war began: $73 → $119 → $85 → $100. Each number tells a different story about what the market believes. Right now, it believes the shipping war is real. CNBC — Four crew killed in KC-135 crash | NBC News — Oil spikes as new leader vows Hormuz stays closed

Mojtaba Khamenei's first statement. Iran's new supreme leader issued his first public address — read by someone else, with only a photo on screen. He vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, demanded all US bases in the region shut down or face continued attacks, and said Iran is studying "the opening of other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and is highly vulnerable." The threat of geographic expansion is now coming from the top. Al Jazeera — Mojtaba vows to fight | CNN — Analysis of first statement | NPR — Strait to remain closed

KC-135 down in Iraq. A US Air Force refueling tanker crashed in western Iraq near the Jordanian border, killing four of six crew members. The Pentagon says it was not hostile fire. Iran-backed Iraqi militia Islamic Resistance of Iraq claimed responsibility anyway. This is the fourth US aircraft lost since Operation Epic Fury began. A French soldier was also killed. Washington Post — Four dead in KC-135 crash | CNN — KC-135 crash

The wider picture. Israel launched "extensive" new strikes on Tehran Friday morning. Close to 2,000 killed across Iran and Lebanon. Bahrain has intercepted 114 missiles and 190 drones since the war began. Saudi Arabia intercepted 10 drones over its eastern region. Two foreigners killed in Oman. Three Red Crescent workers wounded. The regional footprint keeps growing. Al Jazeera — Day 14 live | CNN — Day 14

DHS Shutdown, Day 28: Payday Arrives Empty

Today is March 14 — well, tomorrow by the time this publishes. The first fully missed paycheck for 64,000+ TSA workers arrives with no resolution in sight. Congress remains deadlocked: Democrats say ICE and Border Patrol are already funded through last year's spending bill; Republicans want more immigration enforcement money.

The math hasn't changed, but the consequences are now concrete: unscheduled absences are rising, lines are growing, and spring break peak travel (2.8M passengers/day) is hitting airports staffed by workers who aren't getting paid. The Senate still has no compromise. The Hill — TSA workers miss first paycheck | CNBC — Senate bickers over DHS funding | Scripps News — Congress still searching

Update on Anthropic: Revenue Doubles, Institute Launches, Chilling Effect Sets In

Three threads converging:

Revenue nearly doubled. Anthropic's annualized revenue reportedly hit $20 billion by early March, up from a $10-11B pace at end of 2025. Enterprise spending share climbed to 40%, while OpenAI's fell from 50% to 27%. The blacklisting-as-marketing effect continues. Quartz — Anthropic is having a huge 2026

The Anthropic Institute. Jack Clark, co-founder, is leading a new internal think tank that merges three existing teams: Frontier Red Team, Societal Impacts, and Economic Research. ~30 members, including Matt Botvinick (ex-DeepMind), Anton Korinek (UVA economics), and Zoe Hitzig (who left OpenAI after it added ads to ChatGPT). The institute will study how AI reshapes jobs, security, governance, and social values. The timing — launching while suing the Pentagon — is either brave or strategic. Probably both. Axios — Anthropic ramps up D.C. presence | SiliconANGLE — Anthropic Institute launch

The chilling effect. Bloomberg reports tech insiders now fear that the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation — regardless of what the courts decide — will make other AI companies think twice before setting safety red lines with government clients. The precedent isn't legal. It's behavioral. Bloomberg — Tech insiders fear chilling effect

Update on Moltbook: T-Minus 3 Days to MSL

Schlicht and Parr start at Meta Superintelligence Labs on Monday (March 16). No new reporting on what ships first, but the integration blueprint is clearer: the "agent graph" — a registry of verified agents with identity, capabilities, and trust relationships — will underpin agent-to-agent workflows across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook.

The use case that keeps surfacing: a creator's AI content agent negotiating a brand deal with a company's AI marketing agent, all within WhatsApp Business. Agent-mediated commerce, not agent social media. The content layer (the posts, the religions, the "emergent behavior") was the sizzle. The infrastructure layer is the steak. TechCrunch — Meta's Moltbook deal | Bloomberg — Meta acquires Moltbook

Commerce Dept AI Report: It Did Drop

The Commerce Department report on state AI laws was published on March 11 — we just couldn't confirm it in yesterday's fog of war. The report identifies state laws the administration considers "onerous," specifically targeting laws that require AI systems to alter outputs, mandate transparency or bias audits, or impose disclosure requirements.

The DOJ AI Litigation Task Force can now begin challenging these laws in court. States on the list also face potential loss of access to $42 billion in BEAD broadband funding — a financial stick that may matter more than the legal challenge. The war provided cover for the report to land with almost zero public attention. That mechanism worked exactly as predicted. Butzel — Commerce report | S&P Global — Compliance limbo | Ropes & Gray — Federal push to override state AI regulation

Sebring: 5 Days Out, Roger Penske Gets the Flag

Roger Penske has been named grand marshal of the 74th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (March 21). He'll wave the green flag for the race his own team is trying to win — Porsche Penske Motorsport defending last year's GTP/GTD PRO sweep.

The 963s are set: No. 7 is the defending Sebring winner, No. 6 won last year's championship. Both carry endurance-spec three-driver crews. The Carrera Cup opener (March 18-20) with the new 992.2 Cup car is the warm-up act. Spencer Pumpelly joins RS1's No. 28 Porsche 911 GT3 R alongside Heylen and Machavern.

With the WEC Qatar opener scrapped due to the war, Sebring is now the first major global endurance event of 2026. IMSA — Roger Penske named Grand Marshal | Porsche Racing — Sebring 2026

On the Radar

Good News

Curator's Thoughts

The Invisible Leader

Mojtaba Khamenei's first statement was read by someone else, with only a photo on screen. We still haven't seen him speak. The new supreme leader of a country at war — the person who now controls whether the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, whether the war expands to new fronts — hasn't appeared in person. Whether this is security, strategy, or something else, it creates a strange dynamic: the most consequential new actor in the war is also the least visible. The statement itself was maximalist — close all US bases, expand the war — but the delivery was ghostly. Authority without presence. The threat of geographic expansion ("fronts where the enemy is highly vulnerable") is the line worth watching.

The Oil Trajectory Tells the Real Story

$73 → $119 → $85 → $100. Four numbers, two weeks. The first jump was fear. The drop was rhetoric ("very complete," "taking over" Hormuz). The rebound is physical reality — ships burning, strait closed, ports shut down. Each reversal teaches you what the market actually prices. It doesn't price airstrikes, civilian deaths, or black rain. It prices commercial disruption. The $200 threat from Iran's military spokesman may be posturing, but the mechanism is simple: if ships keep getting hit, the price keeps climbing. The IEA has already called this the largest supply disruption in oil market history. Whether the market catches up to that assessment depends on how many more tankers burn.

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