Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that a fresh wave of Russian attacks on cities across Ukraine in recent days included missiles launched from the Black Sea. “Our partners know exactly which vessels were involved and from which part of the sea the launch occurred,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “This is one of the reasons why Russia is distorting diplomacy, why it is refusing to agree to an unconditional ceasefire — they want to preserve their ability to strike our cities and ports from the sea.”

The Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire has lost momentum in recent days, with Moscow rejecting the effort despite having agreed — following a call between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month — to halt attacks on energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a meeting of NATO foreign ministers last week that he will know “in a matter of weeks, not months” whether Mr. Putin is serious about peace and a ceasefire. A top Kremlin spokesman said Monday that Mr. Putin still supports “the idea that a ceasefire is needed, but before that, a whole range of questions have to be answered.”

U.S. forces in the Middle East dropped a new offensive of bombs targeting Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen over the weekend, with Mr. Trump sharing dramatic video footage that appeared to show dozens of Houthi fighters killed by the American strike.

In a social media post, U.S. Central Command did not share the same footage as the president, but released new video clips from the Harry S. Truman carrier strike group, which Central Command said is “launching continuous operations 24/7 against Iran-backed Houthis.”

The Trump administration has launched a flurry of airstrikes against the Houthis in recent weeks. Officials said more than 200 strikes have been launched since March 15, though the details of the vast majority of those strikes remain murky. Iran’s state-run media claimed Houthi militants engaged in an hourslong clash with U.S. military personnel in the northern Red Sea on Saturday. Media reports late last week said the Houthis had shot down an American drone in the region.

The campaign against the Houthis is intertwined with the Trump administration’s push on Iran to participate in direct talks aimed at containing Tehran’s nuclear program, which has accelerated in recent months. Mr. Trump issued an ultimatum giving Iranian leaders until next month to reach a deal limiting the program or face the risk of U.S. direct military strikes.

The administration’s strategy is playing out in tandem with Israel’s renewed military strikes against Iran-backed proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Sources tell Threat Status that Mr. Trump plans to discuss Iran’s nuclear program in a high-stakes meeting at the White House Monday with the Israeli prime minister.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said over the weekend that Tehran is open to dialogue with the U.S. but only if the two nations are on an “equal footing.” He appeared to reject direct talks with the U.S. unless the Trump administration changes its approach. “If you want negotiations, what is the point of threatening?” Mr. Pezeshkian said. “Today, America is not only humiliating Iran, but the rest of the world as its behavior contradicts the call for negotiations.”

A research team at Google DeepMind, the Big Tech company’s AI lab, says this week they are fixated on the threat of advanced artificial intelligence systems becoming self-aware and choosing to ignore human intervention. Artificial general intelligence, AGI, that exceeds human boundaries may arrive in the coming years, according to the researchers, and it could wreak havoc if not properly aligned with human values.

“We’re also conducting extensive research on the risk of deceptive alignment, i.e. the risk of an AI system becoming aware that its goals do not align with human instructions, and deliberately trying to bypass the safety measures put in place by humans to prevent it from taking misaligned action,” the researchers wrote on Google DeepMind’s blog.

AI misaligned with humans could create a range of harms from petty theft to massive cyberattacks. Thirty researchers from Google DeepMind published a whitepaper sharing their early work on how they plan to stop rogue AI. “A misaligned AI system can generate malicious attack code and run it on the host infrastructure, for example, to exfiltrate itself and selfreplicate,” the researchers wrote. “Even if the AI system is not misaligned, outside actors can compromise the AI system to mount attacks.”

Right now, one country, above all, engages in “egregiously unfair and predatory trade practices designed not simply to benefit themselves but also to harm our country,” writes Rep. Chris Smith. “That country is the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, which racks up ruinous trade deficits with the United States and seeks to undermine our industrial base.”

“Since May 1994, when President Clinton foolishly and shamelessly delinked human rights conditionality and trade with China, until January 2024, our cumulative trade deficit with China skyrocketed to a staggering $7.1 trillion,” writes Mr. Smith, New Jersey Republican and a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Relations.

“Unlike previous presidents, Mr. Trump fully understands the nature and scope of the problem, China’s existential threat and what needs to be done,” argues Mr. Smith, who asserts that “the idea that communist China could be a responsible member of an international trade regime, the World Trade Organization, which should be premised on equal and fair trade, is a joke.”

• April 7-9 — Sea Air Space 2025 Conference and Exposition, Navy League of the United States

• April 7-10 — 40th Space Symposium, Space Foundation

• April 7 — Maximum Support: Operationalizing the Other Iran Policy, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• April 10-11 — Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, Vanderbilt University

• April 17 — Persistent Access, Persistent Threat: Ensuring Military Mobility Against Malicious Cyber Actors, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• April 30 —The Hill & Valley Forum