1. I found this piece by John B. Judis, Trump as Alexander the Great: A Theory That Explains Iran (And Everything Else): Hegel figured it all out 200 years ago, really quite convincing https://www.notus.org/perspectives/trump-as-alexander-the-great-a-theory-that-explains-iran-and-everything-else

(…) too many Democrats are missing the forest for the trees. Yes, Trump himself may soon be disgraced, but he and his administration have set in motion long-term changes that are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Trump, it is increasingly clear, is a figure of enormous historical significance who is reshaping America and the globe in ways that will not easily be undone by Democratic wins in future elections. Liberals, naturally, would like to believe the opposite: that once they triumph at the ballot box, all can go back to normal. “Time will show the Trump era to be less turning point, more freakish aberration,” Simon Tisdall, a foreign affairs columnist for The Guardian, wrote in December. “In history’s bigger picture, Trump is a blotch, an unsightly smear on the canvas.” This could not be more wrong. And the ill-conceived but also era-defining war in Iran — the seventh country that Trump has attacked in his second term — is just the latest manifestation of how Trump is irrevocably changing our world.

2. Here’s Elisabeth Kendall explaining for the Engelsberg Ideas podcast what motivates the Houthis in Yemen, The Houthis’ forever war https://audioboom.com/posts/8882640-the-houthis-forever-war

Following the outbreak of the war in Iran, the Yemeni militant group now has an outsized ability to disrupt global trade and threaten regional stability in the Middle East. But who are they and what do they really want?

3. Who’d want to invigilate an exam nowadays? Here’s a (slightly tongue in cheek) review of the best smart glasses, Smart Glasses for Exam Cheating: Best Models, Prices and Risks in 2026 https://abit.ee/en/smart-glasses/smart-glasses-exam-cheating-ray-ban-meta-rokid-ai-glasses-even-realities-g1-brilliant-labs-frame-ai-en

Smart glasses have graduated from geek gadget to a device that university disciplinary committees, proctoring companies and legislators are seriously debating worldwide. Ray-Ban Meta, Rokid AI Glasses, Even Realities G1, Brilliant Labs Frame — each of these models can photograph exam questions, send them to cloud AI, and return answers through a hidden earpiece within seconds. Here is a detailed breakdown of how it works, what each model can do, and why using one in an exam is not just an academic risk — it’s a real legal minefield.

4. Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree, all eighteenth or nineteenth century Quaker foundations, were the big three names in chocolate in the UK for well over a century. KitKat anyone? Dairy Milk? Turkish Delight? Here’s a Guardian piece by Chris Osuh on how one of those companies, Rowntree, is grappling with its history, Rowntree’s trust appoints Keon West to tackle brand’s colonial history https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/apr/02/rowntrees-joseph-rowntree-charitable-trust-keon-west-head-of-reparations

It’s a story that connects the inventors of the KitKat – the beloved British chocolate bar – with colonial history and its legacies. Now, the ways in which enslavement, indenture and European imperialism fed supply chains for Rowntree’s, the confectioners who invented Fruit Pastilles and Smarties as well as KitKat, are being confronted. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), a leading philanthropic organisation endowed by Rowntree’s profits, has appointed a head of reparations, who will start work later this month.

5. And, finally, some light relief with Roger Luckhurst: The Great Majority: Body Snatching and Burial Reform in 19th-Century Britain https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-great-majority/

As populations flocked to city centres in the 19th century, church cemeteries began to overflow with the dead. Roger Luckhurst exhumes the history of this period, when anatomists fuelled a body-snatching trade led by “resurrection men” and reformers sought alternatives to the toxic urban graveyards and their pestilent fumes.