--- title: Morning Must Reads: April 2 description: In the news: Over 7 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act; Israel-Palestine peace talks are in peril; Huge earthquake off the coast of northern Chile triggers tsunami; Congress passes Ukraine aid package; Muriel Bowser won DC's Democratic mayoral nomination canonical: https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/ author: Alex Rogers article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-02T12:17:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:05:21.754Z article:section: Politics og:title: Morning Must Reads: April 2 og:description: In the news: Over 7 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act; Israel-Palestine peace talks are in peril; Huge earthquake off the coast of northern Chile triggers tsunami; Congress passes Ukraine aid package; Muriel Bowser won DC's Democratic mayoral nomination og:url: https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Morning Must Reads og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Morning Must Reads: April 2 twitter:description: In the news: Over 7 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act; Israel-Palestine peace talks are in peril; Huge earthquake off the coast of northern Chile triggers tsunami; Congress passes Ukraine aid package; Muriel Bowser won DC's Democratic mayoral nomination twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Morning Must Reads: April 2 > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Apr 2, 2014 12:17 PM UTC  The early morning sun rises behind the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. The early morning sun rises behind the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Apr 2, 2014 12:17 PM UTC * “Defying the United States and Israel, the Palestinian leadership formally submitted applications on Wednesday to join 15 international agencies, leaving the troubled Middle East talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry on the verge of breakdown.” \[[NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/world/middleeast/middle-east-peace-talks.html?hp&%5Fr=0)\] * “A mighty 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Chile late Tuesday, triggering small landslides, cutting power and generating a tsunami.” \[[CNN](http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/01/world/americas/chile-earthquake/)\] * “President Barack Obama, applauding the news that 7.1 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, set the stage Tuesday for Democrats to move beyond the law’s rocky rollout and go on the offense.” \[[WSJ](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304432604579475290414036568?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304432604579475290414036568.html)\] * All the President’s Celebrities: How the White House Used Stars to Sell Obamacare \[[TIME](http://time.com/45613/obamacare-celerbrities-7-million-ellen-degeneres/)\] * “Back in the fall, conservatives seized on the flubbed Obamacare rollout as proof that President Barack Obama’s brand of liberalism doesn’t work. Now, the law’s opponents aren’t about to say that critique was wrong — but they’ve lost the best evidence they had.” \[[Politico](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/obamacare-enrollment-105268.html?hp=f1)\] * “Congress is sending President Barack Obama a bill to provide $1 billion in loan guarantees to cash-poor Ukraine and take punitive measures against Russia for its annexation of part of the former Soviet republic.” \[[AP](http://time.com/46172/congress-sends-obama-bill-to-aid-ukraine/)\] * “House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on Tuesday released his fiscal year 2015 budget, in which he cuts $5.1 trillion in spending, mostly from health care, to balance the budget by 2024.” \[[TIME](http://time.com/45314/new-paul-ryan-budget-cuts-trillions-in-spending-faces-difficult-vote/)\] * Ryan Budget is High-Risk, Modest-Reward Strategy in an Election Year \[[Roll Call](http://blogs.rollcall.com/hawkings/ryan-budget-election-year-risk/?dcz=)\] * “Muriel E. Bowser, a low-key but politically canny District lawmaker, won the Democratic mayoral nomination Tuesday, emerging from a pack of challengers in a low-turnout primary to deny scandal-tarnished incumbent Vincent C. Gray a second term.” \[[WashPost](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/muriel-bowser-declares-victory-in-dc-mayoral-primary/2014/04/02/7176390e-b5b8-11e3-b899-20667de76985%5Fstory.html?hpid=z1)\] * All the President’s Celebrities: How the White House Used Stars to Sell Obamacare \[[TIME](http://time.com/45613/obamacare-celerbrities-7-million-ellen-degeneres/)\] * “Back in the fall, conservatives seized on the flubbed Obamacare rollout as proof that President Barack Obama’s brand of liberalism doesn’t work. Now, the law’s opponents aren’t about to say that critique was wrong — but they’ve lost the best evidence they had.” \[[Politico](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/obamacare-enrollment-105268.html?hp=f1)\] * Ryan Budget is High-Risk, Modest-Reward Strategy in an Election Year \[[Roll Call](http://blogs.rollcall.com/hawkings/ryan-budget-election-year-risk/?dcz=)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/"},"headline":"Morning Must Reads: April 2","datePublished":"2014-04-02T12:17:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:05:21.754Z","description":"In the news: Over 7 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act; Israel-Palestine peace talks are in peril; Huge earthquake off the coast of northern Chile triggers tsunami; Congress passes Ukraine aid package; Muriel Bowser won DC's Democratic mayoral nomination","url":"https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Rogers","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Morning Must Reads","caption":"Capitol","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/46611/morning-must-reads-april-2/","name":"Morning Must Reads: April 2"}}]}] ```