According to a Sunday report from Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, the United States has laid down a firm, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to Tehran. Both sides are still trying to patiently wait out the Hormuz crisis, hoping to inflict more economic pain on the other until they blink.

At the top of the list, the US is demanding a near-total dismantling of Iran’s atomic ambitions, “allowing only one Iranian nuclear facility to remain operational.” 

The list includes direct rejections in response to Iran’s own five conditions from a week ago, which President Trump said were “unacceptable” and “garbage”.

For example the US is refusing to pay compensation for damage caused during strikes on Iranian territory – a ‘maximalist’ sticking point which Tehran had demanded previously.

Washington is also reportedly insists that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium be transferred from Iran to the US, while only one active nuclear facility would remain operational inside the Islamic Republic.

Iran for its part has recently vowed to never transfer its nuclear material out of the Islamic Republic, calling the issue a matter of national sovereignty and energy security which it alone has say over. This after even Russia offered to take it.

The newly reported five conditions by the US side further states that the US does not intend to release more than 25% of frozen Iranian assets. Tehran has demanded the dropping of all US sanctions as a key basis for lasting settlement.

Here are the five newly proposed Washington conditions, which some pundits have called ‘wishful thinking’:

1. No war compensation from US
2. Give up 400kg of Highly Enriched Uranium to US 
3. Iran can only have on nuclear facility to remain active
4. Not more than 25% of frozen assets to be unfreezed 
5. Halting war on all fronts depends on negotiations

So this leaves a huge distance between the Washington list and Tehran’s list, as the seemingly unbridgeable gulf remains, also as Iran is digging in its heels.

As a reminder, the below is the Islamic Republic’s list, which it hasn’t backed down from. It has offered the following as the only basis on which to restart talks:

1. Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon
2. Lifting all sanctions
3. Releasing frozen Iranian assets
4. Compensation for war damages and losses
5. Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz

US response to #Iran includes zero compensation, not even 25% of frozen assets released, keeping only one #nuclear facility active, handing over 400kg of highly enriched uranium to the US, and ending the war on all fronts dependent on the negotiations. https://t.co/riS7M4fEeF

— Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) May 17, 2026

While a Pakistani-mediated ceasefire managed to take effect on April 8, subsequent talks in Islamabad completely collapsed, but then President Trump later extended the truce indefinitely, likely to buy time and to figure out “what’s next” – while seeking a complete blockade of Iranian oil exports, and of all vessels entering or exiting Iranian ports.

With Washington demanding total disarmament and Iran demanding control over the world’s most critical oil transit choke point, the stage is set for a likely coming renewal of direct clashes, given the zero sum demands of each side now on the table.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via substack,

The state has two monopolies it must protect whatever the cost: the monopoly on decreeing what is legal tender and on force.

We’re entering an era in which push comes to shove will lead to immovable objects encountering irresistible forces. All sorts of verities and vanities will be bulldozed as kicking the can down the road descends into desperation to stave off collapse, a desperation that unleashes second order effects the desperate did not anticipate. The only responses at this late stage are even more desperate, so desperation is self-reinforcing.

The previous eras of institutional-state desperation were 1) The 1930s Great Depression, 2) the 1973-74 Gas Crisis and 3) the inflationary recession of 1980-82. The desperation in the 1930s was truly serious: banning private ownership of gold other than coin-collecting, attempting to remake the Supreme Court, one new federal program after another, slashing the wages of municipal / city employees to keep as many people employed as the shrinking revenues could allow, and so on.

The desperation of the 1970s and 80s were relatively narrow in scope, but felt serious at the time: gas rationing and wage/price controls in the 1970s, and then rocketing bond yields / interest rates in the early 1980s that triggered millions of layoffs in interest-sensitive sectors such as autos and housing.

The strong-arm policies of the 1970s and 1980s worked, and were relatively brief. The crises lasted around two years, and then things normalized.

The strong-arm policies of the 1930s didn’t work, and desperation slid into despair. The official happy-talk continued, but it rang increasingly hollow as the decade ground on.

Given the present-day confluence of disintegrative forces, a.k.a. mutually reinforcing polycrisis, hopes for a brief recession and a quick return to “growth” may be misplaced. If inflation and scarcities intensify, the usual bag of tricks–dropping interest rates to zero, flooding the financial sector with credit / liquidity, increasing federal pork spending, etc.–will not just fail, they will be counter-productive, fueling inflationary forces not in assets that enrich but in real-world goods and services that impoverish.

The footprint of the Central State–and state/county/local government–was relatively modest in the 1930s compared to the footprint of the state now: 36% of GDP in the US (23% federal, 13% state/local) and much higher in many developed nations.

Note that in a recession, GDP drops and state spending tends to rise to compensate for the contraction of private sector spending. so this ratio can climb very quickly.

To a degree few question, the state is the nation. The nation is defined by the state’s legal structure and its ability to enforce that structure. If the state collapses, the nation is in dire straits.

Should the state’s finances enter a self-reinforcing death-spiral, the desperation will quickly reach a level in which nothing is off the table–no extreme is too extreme. The typical self-reinforcing death-spiral is a currency crisis in which the currency loses value so rapidly that everyone holding it wants to convert it into some other form of value. That selling is self-reinforcing.

But that doesn’t exhaust the possibilities of the state’s finances becoming unsustainable, either financially and/or politically. A slow-moving crisis can phase shift into a fast-moving crisis like an avalanche no one is prepared for.

States face an insoluble dilemma: the powerful interests that dominate state decisions find higher taxes on corporations, trusts, foundations and the wealthy unacceptable, while the public living off the state’s largesse finds cuts deep enough to matter unacceptable.

Recency bias kicks in hard: after decades of “growth” and expanding state spending, anything that smacks of discipline or sacrifice is rejected out of hand as needless: why can’t we just go on as we have for the past 17 years, where assets soar in value, and the state spends more every year?

This leads to the illusory “solution” of kicking the can down the road: monetary policy tricks, fiscal sleight of hand, fake policy-tweak fixes presented as “solutions,” and so on. This magic can prop up the illusion of sustainability for years, but since every trick eventually makes the problems worse, this illusory “solution” actually hastens the push comes to shove moment where everyone is seated at the banquet of consequences.

Those tasked with saving the state’s finances from collapsing will view themselves as absolutely The Good Guys, working to saving the nation from greedy leeches on the state, speculators, financiers and those hoarding wealth acquired back when the state could afford to be generous. Now that things are at risk of unraveling, the fun and games are over and we need to do whatever it takes to save the nation–i.e. the state.

The wealthy trying to evade the new taxes will consider themselves The Good Guys: we worked hard for our wealth, created jobs and innovations that benefited the nation. Why should we give our hard-earned wealth to a corrupt, spendthrift state?

In the lower reaches of the economy, those evading taxes will also see themselves as The Good Guys: I’m just trying to support my family, and it’s the rich who should make the sacrifices as they have more than enough.

Those enforcing the expropriations / taxes will develop a unit-cohesion us-vs-them esprit de corps–the ultimate Good Guys who have to put up with both sets of greedy weasels: the weasels sucking off the state and the weasels trying to evade their civic duty to pay what they owe. Their tolerance for the self-serving claims of being “the good guys” by those protesting massive cuts in state spending and massive increases in taxes will be low to start and drop from there.

The state has two monopolies it must protect whatever the cost: the monopoly on decreeing what is legal tender and on force. So when the NSA is tasked with ferreting out miscreants cheating the state, tax-evading millionaires and other federal agencies are tasked with renditioning those who reckon they evaded their responsibilities by fleeing overseas, these are the tip-of-the-spear Good Guys who are trying to save the nation from the terminal rot of a citizenry that has long since lost any sense of civic duty that demands sacrifice and frugality.

Should push come to shove, nothing will be off the table. It will be too late to whine that we’re one of the Good Guys; the money from the state will stop flowing, and the safety deposit boxes and overseas accounts will be opened by force. As the cries of anguish increase, the demands to close down the tax havens of the super-wealthy will reach fever pitch, and whomever is tasked with saving the nation will have an agenda that reverses the order and the priority of wealth and power.

The super-wealthy are safe until they’re understood as the key impediment to saving the state. Right now, nobody thinks push could come to shove to the point that nothing will be off the table in terms of force. States that wait too long to act find their ability to apply force is insufficient to save the state, and this will weigh ever heavier on those tasked with protecting the state from financial collapse.

The irony here is the forces protecting their self-interests by kicking the can down the road are hurrying the collision of immovable objects and irresistible forces. Those who reckon they’ll do fine if the state collapses will find themselves nostalgic for the days when they could whine about a tax on second homes worth in excess of $5 million.

Chaos Unleashed: When “Irrational” Makes Perfect Sense.

I’m not saying I “like” this or that it’s inevitable; I’m saying the longer illusory “solutions” of kicking the can down the road are substituted for real solutions, the more likely a crisis of the state’s financial coherence becomes. Betting on which one wins–immovable objects or irresistible forces–might be a lose-lose proposition.

The only dinosaurs that survived the meteor strike were small birds that didn’t need much to get by, were mobile and were adapted to tough conditions. The descendants of those birds are the ones we see today.

How birds survived the dinosaurs’ doomsday (Scientific American)

The nationwide average price of regular gasoline marginally increased on Thursday, after five straight days of decline, the American Automobile Association (AAA) said in a May 14 statement.

The national average price is “at the same range as it was in 2022, the year gas prices hit record highs. Travelers are preparing to hit the road in record numbers next week, and drivers will be facing the highest Memorial Day gas prices in four years,” AAA said.

On Friday, prices declined less than a cent to $4.52 per gallon from Thursday’s $4.53. In six states, average gas prices exceeded $5: Illinois, Nevada, Alaska, Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington. Prices exceeded $6 in California. Texas had the lowest price at $3.99 per gallon.

While Thursday’s average gas price was lower than last week’s, prices at the pump continue to remain elevated as crude oil hovers around the $100 per barrel price level.

With prices near record highs as Memorial Day looms, Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times that the federal government has taken various measures to ease the pressure on gas prices.

On May 11, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it would loan 53 million barrels of oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to petroleum companies.

“Deliveries will begin immediately as the Department continues to move swiftly to address short-term supply disruptions and strengthen U.S. energy security,” the DOE said.

Earlier, the U.S. government had removed sanctions on Iranian and Russian crude oil stranded at sea to ease the global oil supply shortage.

In late March, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a temporary fuel waiver allowing gasoline with higher ethanol blends to be sold nationwide beginning May 1 to curb rising prices. The waiver will remain in effect until May 20.

Since the U.S.–Iran war began in late February, Tehran has repeatedly attacked and threatened commercial ships in the critical Strait of Hormuz, a waterway located south of Iran through which over a fifth of global seaborne oil trade is transported. This has disrupted shipments through the strait, pushing oil prices higher.

On Feb. 27, a day before the conflict began, Brent crude oil futures closed the day at around $72 per barrel. On May 15, oil was trading at around $108 as at 9:10 a.m. ET.

Washington and Tehran have yet to negotiate an end to the war, which has kept markets tense and oil prices elevated.

Tight Oil Market

Since the start of the war, crude oil output from OPEC has fallen by more than 30 percent, the group said in a May 13 report.

Current OPEC output is at 18.89 million barrels per day, down from 28.65 million barrels before the conflict broke out. The organization cut its outlook for the year, predicting global crude oil demand would grow by less than 1.2 million barrels per day, down from its previous forecast of 1.4 million barrels per day.

However, “global economic growth continues to show resilience for this year despite geopolitical tensions,” the report said.

In a May 14 post, ING Bank said that the oil market is “eagerly awaiting” the outcome of the meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Trump’s summit in China ended on May 15.

“The market could be pinning too much hope on the US–China talks yielding some positive results on Iran,” ING said.

“Some hope that China could exert pressure on Iran to reach a deal with the US, to end the war and lead to a resumption of energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.”

Morgan Stanley said in a May 12 report that the risk of prolonged oil supply disruption, especially around the Strait of Hormuz, has now increased.

Prior to the conflict, around 32 ships used to traverse the strait daily between January and March, a number that crashed to roughly two during March–April. There is now a 12 million-barrel-per-day shortage in global oil production.

“While a 12 million barrel-per-day difference may not appear large in a global context, it represents the largest supply shock since the 1970s OPEC oil embargo,” Morgan Stanley said.

“Further, its persistence amplifies the risk of broader economic impacts. Moreover, the timing of this disruption further compounds the issue, with the gasoline-heavy summer driving season (May through August) quickly approaching.”

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

📈Technical Backdrop – Friday Selloff Tests The Tape

The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,408.50, surrendering Thursday’s historic first close above 7,500 with a 1.24% decline. The semiconductor names that powered the rally became the source of Friday’s selling. Intel fell 5%, Micron 4%, AMD 3%, and Nvidia 4.4%. From a purely technical standpoint, Friday’s reversal was the first real distribution day in three weeks and the mean-reversion signal we have been flagging.

The deviation numbers are the story. At 7.0% above the 50-DMA (6,921) and 9.3% above the 200-DMA (6,780), the index is stretched to a degree that has preceded every meaningful pullback over the past two years. The RSI, however, tells a more nuanced story: at 67.15, it has already pulled back below the 70 overbought threshold. Friday’s selloff did real work in resetting the oscillator. The MACD, while still positive at +1.54, has narrowed significantly from the 40+ readings earlier in the week, with the signal line (148.10) now nearly converging with the MACD line. A bearish crossover is likely on Monday, even if the market stabilizes.

The erratic style rotation we discussed in this week’s Daily Market Commentary, value leading Monday, growth getting slapped Tuesday, then flipping again on Wednesday, intensified into Friday’s close. Single-stock implied volatility is running 2.5x the index VIX, meaning the calm headline masks violent sector-level moves. The gamma feedback loop driving the semiconductor surge works in reverse on the way down: when call flow dries up, market makers sell the underlying to flatten their books. Friday’s action in MU, AMD, INTC, and NVDA is the process beginning.

The bull case: the primary trend is up, the RSI has already pulled back below 70 without breaking any support, and the 20-DMA at 7,260 should attract dip buyers on an initial pullback.

The bear case: the 7% and 9.3% deviations above the 50- and 200-DMAs are extreme, the MACD is on the verge of a bearish crossover, and the gamma unwind in semiconductors has only just begun. 

The base case is a pullback toward the 20-DMA (7,260), not a breakdown. A deeper correction to the 50/100-DMA cluster near 6,913–6,921 would represent a 6.6% decline from Friday’s close, painful but technically healthy. Use the 20-DMA as the near-term line: a close below opens 6,921 quickly. Trail stops, take profits in extended names, and use any test of the moving average cluster as an opportunity to add.

💰 Market Leadership Is Narrow

Tech is carrying the tape. Most other sectors aren’t. Here’s what history says about that setup, and how we’re positioning around it.

Look under the hood of this year’s rally and the tape isn’t nearly as healthy as the headline number suggests. The S&P 500 sits up roughly 8.4% year-to-date through Friday’s close, but the strength is being carried by a small group of sectors doing all the heavy lifting. Technology is up north of 23%. Healthcare is down almost 8%. Financials have given back more than 6%. Equal-weight, which gives every name an identical vote, has only managed about 6.5%. That gap is the story of 2026 so far, and the story has a name. Narrow market leadership. We’ve seen this movie before, and the ending is rarely as clean as the bulls would like to believe.

Chart of Equal Vs Market Cap Weight

The clearest sign of narrowing market leadership is the spread between the cap-weighted S&P 500 and the equal-weight version. The cap-weighted index, where Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and a small group of mega caps carry outsized weight, has outpaced equal-weight by roughly 200 basis points in just over four months. That sounds modest until you remember both indices hold the same 500 companies. The entire performance gap is a weight effect. A handful of names are doing the work for the whole index.

Drill into the table, and the picture sharpens. Technology and Energy are doing the bulk of the index’s heavy lifting, but the way they’re doing it matters. Energy carries just over 4% of the S&P 500 by weight. That’s one of the smallest slots in the index. The sector is the year’s best performer at nearly 28%, but at a 4% weight, even a stellar return only adds about a percentage point to the index. Technology is the opposite story. Tech accounts for roughly a third of the index by weight, and at +23.5% YTD, it alone accounts for the better part of three-quarters of the year’s gain. Strip Tech out, and what’s left of 2026 looks closer to a market in retreat than a market grinding toward new highs.

The bigger problem lies with the heavyweights who aren’t pulling. Financials, the second-largest sector at almost 13% of the index, are down 6.5% year to date. Healthcare, the fifth-largest at 9.5%, has dropped almost 8%. Communication Services at roughly 10% is slightly negative. Consumer Discretionary at nearly 10% is flat. Those four sectors together represent more than 40% of the S&P 500 by weight, and, as a group, they’re a drag rather than a contributor. The bull market isn’t getting help from the heavyweights that should normally be participating, and the dispersion chart above is the visible result.

Here’s why that matters. Sustainable bull markets pass the baton. When Tech gets tired, Financials or Industrials step up. When growth stumbles, value takes over. Right now, the second, third, fourth, and fifth largest sectors of the index aren’t passing the baton. They’re sitting it out. Without those sectors starting to lead, or at minimum starting to participate, this bull market becomes much harder to sustain. The index can ride one sector for a stretch. It can’t ride one sector forever, and that’s exactly what narrow market leadership looks like before it cracks. This isn’t a broad bull market. It’s a Tech-led tape with a thinning bench underneath.

Historical Precedents For Narrow Market Leadership

History gives us several clean playbooks for what happens when market leadership concentrates this aggressively into one or two sectors. The first is the Nifty Fifty of the early 1970s. Roughly fifty large-cap growth names carried the index higher into 1972 while the average stock had already started rolling over. When the bear market hit in 1973-74, the Nifty Fifty names lost 45% or more, and the broader index drew down nearly half its value, as participation had been weakening for months beforehand.

The second is the late-1990s dot-com era. By 1999, technology was running away from every other sector. Breadth deteriorated sharply through the back half of that year. The advance-decline line peaked well before the S&P did. When the unwind came in 2000, the Nasdaq lost 78% of its value over the following two and a half years. Importantly, defensive sectors actually outperformed through the worst of it. The third, and the one most relevant for current conditions, is 2021. Mega-cap technology drove the indices to fresh highs while small caps and cyclicals quietly topped out months earlier. The Russell 2000 peaked in November 2021. The S&P 500 didn’t peak until January 2022. The market then spent most of 2022 catching down to what breadth had already been telling investors.

In every one of those cases, narrow market leadership wasn’t the cause of the downturn. However, it was a reliable warning that the underlying participation was thinning out before price followed.

“Investors who own the cap-weighted index right now think they’re diversified across 500 names. In practice, they own a concentrated bet on roughly ten companies with 500 tickers attached.”

What Narrow Market Leadership Tells Us About Risk

Make no mistake, narrow market leadership isn’t an automatic sell signal. Markets can run further than seems reasonable when momentum and passive flows pile into the same names. The 2024-2025 mega-cap run is a recent reminder. But narrow market leadership changes the index’s risk profile in a way most investors don’t appreciate.

Here’s the problem. The same passive flows that drive mega caps higher on the way up reverse on the way down. When the largest weights sell off, they drag the index down, and the already-thin breadth gets even thinner. Drawdowns under narrow market leadership tend to be deeper and faster than drawdowns from broad-based rallies, because there’s no rotation to absorb the selling. Volatility behaves differently, too. When leadership is wide, sector rotation cushions the index. When it isn’t, the index moves with whatever the top five names are doing. Risk goes up. Most investors don’t see it.

The fingerprints of that risk are clear when you look at how far the leading themes have moved from their long-term means. Reversion is mathematical, not optional. Eventually, prices come back to their averages, and when the deviation gets this stretched, the round trip is rarely small. The table below lists the most extended subsectors of the current market leadership rally, the 200-week moving average for each, and the percentage decline required to reset to that average.

Read the right-hand column. These aren’t 10% pullback numbers. Semiconductors and Quantum themes would need declines in the 50% to 60% range just to touch their 4-year means. The broad Technology sector, the heaviest weighting in the S&P 500, would have to give back roughly 40% to do the same. The Momentum factor itself sits 57% above its long-term mean, indicating the entire momentum trade is concentrated in the same overextended names. Energy, despite leading the year, looks comparatively reasonable at 29% above the mean. Mean reversion isn’t a forecast. It’s an arithmetic statement about how much price has been pulled forward into the current market leadership names. The deeper the deviation, the bigger the eventual round trip.

How To Position Around Narrow Market Leadership

What does this mean for portfolios? Pull the threads together. Tech alone accounts for roughly three-quarters of the index’s gain this year. The four heavyweight sectors below, which together account for more than 40% of the S&P 500, aren’t participating. The historical record for narrow market leadership runs to drawdowns of 35% to 78% in the leading sector. And the most extended themes inside this rally sit 50% to 145% above their long-term means. That’s the setup. The setup dictates the response.

This isn’t about predicting the top. It’s about making sure portfolios reflect what’s already been pulled forward. The actions below are what we’re doing in client books right now.

None of this requires calling the top. We aren’t bearish on the bull market. We are bearish on the assumption that this market leadership will remain durable for another 12 to 18 months without a meaningful reset. The arithmetic of mean reversion and the historical record of narrow tapes both point to the same conclusion.

Position accordingly.

🔑 Key Catalysts Next Week

This is the most important week of Q2 and possibly the year. Nvidia reports Wednesday after the close; the FOMC Minutes land Wednesday afternoon; Walmart opens Thursday morning; and Jerome Powell’s fourteen-year tenure at the Federal Reserve ends Saturday. Each of these events alone would dominate a normal week. Together, they arrive at a moment when the 10-year Treasury yield has surged to 4.55%, the highest in a year, and rate hike probabilities have climbed from 1% a month ago to 45% today. The regime is shifting in real time.

However, Wednesday is a collision day that will define the markets next week. The FOMC Minutes from the April 28–29 meeting drop at 2:00 PM, and they arrive carrying a question the market has never had to ask in this cycle: did anyone on the committee discuss raising rates? With core CPI reaccelerating, oil elevated by the Iran conflict, and the 10-year yield climbing, the minutes will reveal whether the internal conversation has shifted from “when do we cut” to “do we need to hike.” Any hawkish surprise, even a single paragraph acknowledging that hikes were discussed, would detonate the rate-sensitive trade.

Three hours later, Nvidia reports Q1 FY2027. Consensus expects $78.8 billion in revenue, 78% year-over-year growth, and $1.77 in EPS, both above the company’s own $78 billion guidance. But the Q1 number is almost beside the point. The real trade is the Q2 guide versus the $86 billion consensus, Blackwell ramp and GB300 Ultra timing, and any commentary on China H200 reopening after the export restrictions effectively zeroed out Chinese data center revenue. The stock has fallen on four of its last five earnings beats, and options are pricing a 5–10% move, in either direction.

Thursday is the consumer verdict. Walmart before the open is the definitive Main Street read. Estimated revenue is $172 billion, grocery share gains, e-commerce penetration, and critically, how much tariff and inflation costs are being passed through at the shelf level versus absorbed in margin will be key. This is where we learn whether the consumer held up through $100 oil and 4.55% Treasury yields or started to crack. Walmart’s full-year guidance will set the consumer narrative for Q2.

Bottom line: Nvidia tells us whether the AI capex cycle is still accelerating. The FOMC Minutes tell us whether the Fed is considering tightening. Walmart tells us whether consumers are surviving. And Saturday, a new Fed Chair takes over with a fundamentally different worldview. This is the week the narrative for the rest of 2026 gets written. Hedge your book before Wednesday at 2:00 PM.

Trade accordingly.

Abu Dhabi authorities report that a kamikaze drone struck an electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in Al Dhafra. Officials said there were no injuries, no impact on radiological safety levels, and no disruption to plant operations.

Dubai-based newspaper Gulf News cited the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation, which said the one-way drone attack on the Arab world’s first commercial nuclear facility did not affect the safety of the nuclear power plant or the readiness of its essential systems. FANR added that all systems were operating normally as of late Sunday.

Barakah operates four APR-1400 reactors with a combined capacity of 5.6 gigawatts, generating about 40 terawatt-hours annually, or about 25% of the UAE’s electricity. Any successful attack on Barakah would cripple the UAE’s power grid.

The incident comes as the broader U.S.-Iran truce remains fragile, with President Trump recently describing the ceasefire as being on “life support.”

Trump told reporters on Friday that Iran’s latest proposal was “unacceptable” and blamed the Iranians for backtracking on the nuclear issue.

In response to Iranian demands, the Trump administration has set five conditions of its own for Tehran, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Those conditions include:

• No U.S. compensation for damages

• Transfer of 400 kg of uranium from Iran to the United States

• Limiting Iran’s nuclear activities to only one operating facility

• No release of even 25% of frozen Iranian assets

• Linking any ceasefire across all fronts to the continuation of negotiations

Here are the latest headlines from the Gulf region (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Peace Talks

• The US has set five main conditions for a prospective peace agreement with Iran, including no compensation payments, removal of 400 kilograms of uranium, limiting nuclear infrastructure to a single facility, releasing less than 25% of frozen assets, and suspension of certain activities. [BFW]

• Iran’s foreign minister said a lack of trust is the biggest obstacle in negotiations to end the war with the US, citing contradictory messages that have made Tehran reluctant about American intentions. [APW]

• Iran would be open to diplomatic help, particularly from China, to help ease tensions. [APW]

Hormuz Chokepoint

• Iran said transit through the Strait of Hormuz will flow once the conflict with the US and Israel is over, but the sides are no closer to resolving their differences. [BN]

• Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely frozen, with only limited vessel movements observed and most tied to Iranian-linked shipping. [BN]

• A Vietnam-bound supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude, which was halted by US forces after crossing the Strait of Hormuz, has resumed its journey after getting clearance. [BN]

Gulf Attacks

• A drone strike caused a fire at an electrical generator outside Abu Dhabi’s Barakah nuclear power plant on Sunday, with no injuries reported and no impact on radiological safety. [BFW] [APW]

• The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia carried out multiple strikes against Iran after their countries were attacked by the regime in the early days of the war. [WSJ]

• Iran seized a support vessel owned by a Chinese security firm near the Strait of Hormuz, appearing to signal it is unwilling to permit armed protection even for ships sailing on behalf of its strongest global backer. [WSJ]

Economic Impact

• Iraq is currently pumping just 1.4 million barrels a day due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the knock-on impact on production facilities.

• Israel’s economy contracted 3.3% in the first quarter in annualized terms, deeper than the expected 2% drop, due to security-related shutdowns from the war with Iran.

• The Philippines’ gross gaming revenue fell 16% in the first quarter due to economic headwinds from the Iran war impact. [BFW]

Diplomatic Signals

• Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been named Iran’s special envoy for China affairs. [BFW]

• President Trump returned from a two-day summit with China’s Xi Jinping, where both agreed the strait should be open but made no apparent progress toward that goal. [BN]

Energy Market

• Great Global Energy Rewiring Accelerates: UAE To Double Crude Export Capacity Bypassing Hormuz Chaos [ZH]

• World Starts To “Build” Around Hormuz; Japan Buying UAE Oil Bypassing Strait As ADNOC To Spend $55 Billion On Pipelines

• Why One Bank Thinks It’s “Magical Thinking” That Hormuz Reopens In June

Brent Crude

Professional subscribers can read the latest Hormuz reports from Wall Street at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Most Americans can’t afford a new home.

A new analysis from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) shows that 65% of U.S. households are priced out of newly built homes, based on current prices and mortgage rates.

In some parts of the country, the situation is even more extreme. More than 80% of households can’t afford a new home, highlighting how widespread the affordability gap has become.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorosthy Neufeld, shows where Americans are being priced out and where barriers to homeownership are highest.

Ranked: Where Americans Are Most Priced Out of New Homes

At the extreme end, buying a new home is nearly out of reach. In New Hampshire, 83.4% of households are priced out of a new median-priced home.

In total, 11 states have at least 80% of households locked out.

This table shows the share of households priced out of new homes by state in 2026. A household is considered “priced out” if total housing costs—principal, interest, taxes, and insurance—exceed 28% of income, based on median new home prices and a 6% mortgage rate.

While high-cost states like Hawaii and Massachusetts rank among the least affordable, others such as Maine and Wyoming show that affordability pressures are no longer limited to major metro areas.

Affordability Isn’t Just a Coastal Problem

The most striking takeaway is how universal the problem has become.

Even in lower-cost states like Mississippi ($267K) and West Virginia ($309K), a majority of households are still priced out new homes. While buyers need under $90,000 in income—compared to over $200,000 in the least affordable markets—that threshold remains out of reach for many.

In other words, moving to a cheaper state is no longer a reliable solution. Instead, the data points to a deeper issue, which is that incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs across the country.

While existing homes can be more affordable than new construction, this data highlights a key constraint: much of the new housing supply entering the market is already out of reach for most households.

The Bigger Picture

As new home prices continue to outpace income growth, the gap between who can and can’t afford newly built homes is widening. That shift is reshaping where Americans live, how they build wealth, and whether homeownership is attainable at all.

If even the most affordable states are out of reach for most households looking at new homes, the question becomes harder to ignore: where can buyers realistically go next?

Learn More on the Voronoi App 

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on where wealth is moving in America.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has claimed that the decline of the city is a myth and that it’s all just lies being spread by MAGA supporters, Russia, and China through AI-generated content.

In a fresh escalation of his war on inconvenient truths, Khan pointed to a surge in online posts highlighting anti-immigration realities, claiming foreign actors and Trump backers are behind it. He insists the dystopian image of lawless streets and cultural erosion is purely fabricated.

“You’ve got state actors,” Khan said, pointing to supposed evidence of Russian and Chinese involvement (there is none) alongside Make America Great Again backers in the US. He warned that “decent people” might start believing these narratives of a dangerous city with no law and order.

Our city is on the front line in the fight against a new kind of disinformation.

Fake AI-generated content has become a profitable industry – created abroad and used to fuel tensions here.

I’m calling on X, Meta, YouTube and TikTok to at least clearly label this content. pic.twitter.com/oJw8hbwHqT

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) May 15, 2026

“Secondly, we’ve seen individuals and companies trying to monetise and make profit from division,” Khan further claimed.

Doesn’t allow replies so no one can point out all the real examples of how dangerous and horrible London has become. https://t.co/RJlDgAjJZ4

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) May 16, 2026

He appears to be referring to joke AI videos being circulated showing London strewn with rubbish and rats. Of course these videos are fake, everyone realises that. However, they’re being made as a response to the fact that London is strewn with rubbish and rats, public services are woefully underfunded, and mass migration is causing further social breakdown and an explosion in crime.

Instead of taking responsibility and attempting to fix the problems, Khan is continuing his gaslighting campaign to dismiss London’s very real problems as foreign propaganda or American disinformation.

In April, Khan began a push for a government-backed social media “disinformation” unit, demanding Big Tech and the state crack down on criticism of his record, claiming an “outrage economy” is eroding trust.

He told the Cambridge Disinformation Summit that platforms must do better—or regulators like Ofcom should hit them hard. Khan positioned London as the “canary in the coal mine” for global fights against online dissent.

Critics note he often disables replies on his posts, shutting down Londoners who could share firsthand experiences.

While Khan obsesses over algorithms and foreign bots, official figures from his own tenure paint a grim picture. As highlighted in our April report on his disinformation unit push, Metropolitan Police data since Khan took office in 2016 shows:

• Knife crime: +27%
• Robbery: +57%
• Theft from the person: +37%
• Shoplifting: +109%
• Sexual offences: +64%
• Violence against the person: Significant rises in multiple categories.

Recent reminders underscore the pattern: Every hour in London, a rape is reported. Every 34 minutes, knife crime. Every 4.5 minutes, a phone theft. Every 1.8 minutes, a theft overall.

There has been a broad collapse in everyday safety, theft epidemics and gang violence is plaguing the city.

In addition to completely ignoring reality and pretending London is a utopia, Khan is calling for more state tools to police speech, label AI content, and tweak algorithms against “poison and division.”

Civil liberties voices like Big Brother Watch have warned this risks political exploitation—labeling criticism of crime, migration, and multiculturalism as “disinformation” to protect the narrative.

🚨NEWS: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan wants to CRACKDOWN on social media posts criticising the capital, calling for a state-backed disinformation unit.

Disinformation is a real problem – but it’s also a term at risk of political exploitation by governments.

We exposed how counter… pic.twitter.com/OtQuZtOqWu

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) April 10, 2026

Instead of addressing root causes—open borders policies flooding the city with incompatible elements, straining resources, and importing crime—Khan prefers to shoot the messenger.

The mayor’s record speaks louder than any conspiracy: a capital where shoplifting exploded over 100%, knives dominate headlines, and public trust erodes daily. Blaming MAGA, Putin, or Xi won’t fix failing multiculturalism or restore law and order.

Londoners deserve accountability, not gaslighting and speech police. Britain’s elites continue importing problems then censoring the massive backlash.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Luxury watchmakers Audemars Piguet and Swatch have done the unthinkable: unveiling a new, affordable collaboration aimed at younger buyers, with prices ranging from $400 to, of course, $420.

Called the “Royal Pop,” the affordable handheld watch inspired by pop art is clearly a mass-market move aimed at stimulating the Swiss watch market after muted activity over the last few years, following the massive run-up fueled by cheap money during the pandemic.

Keep in mind that the average Audemars Piguet watch is priced at about $36,000 on the secondary market, according to WatchCharts. Its flagship Royal Oak line averages closer to $48,000.

So why collaborate with Audemars Piguet and Swatch?

As CEO, Ilaria Resta noted, “For the joy and boldness it represents because audacity is often the starting point of innovation and new ideas. And because it invites a broader audience, including younger generations, to experience mechanical watchmaking differently.”

Translation: Younger consumers, who will increasingly dominate the labor market in the years ahead, are much poorer than previous generations. If these Swiss watch giants want to stay in business into the 2030s, they must cater to younger buyers.

It appears to be working, with crowds lining up at stores across the West:

A bunch of Swatch boutiques stayed closed and cancelled the Audemars Piguet Royal Pop launch.

Lines out of control at boutiques around the world (see Dubai, Milan, Tokyo below).

Swatch official accounts posted its “not a limited edition” so that people can chill out. Wild. https://t.co/AzWBDVTPXe pic.twitter.com/bnRSTz2YjY

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 16, 2026

Have seen 100+ person lines for Swatch stores with people camping over 24 hours in London, Zurich, New York, Singapore, Bangkok and Osaka.

The Audemars Piguet x Swatch collab gonna sell out real quick and those $400 pocket watches will be immediately listed for $5,000 on eBay. https://t.co/WHz69TPYus pic.twitter.com/wEKmzUUU0i

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 16, 2026

Millet, Milano’da Swatch mağazından Plastik AP saat almak için birbiri ile kavga ediyor. plastik saate 400 euro verip birde bunu almak için kavga etmek için hakikaten başka bir gerizekalılık seviyesi gerekiyor.

Dünya harbi sikko bir yere gidiyor. pic.twitter.com/ERolOSmhKH

— istblu█̶̳̘͛̄̃͒̄̃͜█̴͇̱̅͒̅█̵̻̣̝͒̈̄̈͝͝█̴̞̜̻̝͍̂̽͜█̴̵̴̶ (@istblu0Iut) May 16, 2026

AP x Swatch collab was such a fail 😂 king of prussia mall CLOSED, cops kicked everyone out, do better @Swatch @AudemarsPiguet pic.twitter.com/uJyNqY5L2c

— Danny Dimes (@DanTheSharp) May 16, 2026

NYPD shuts down swatch AP drop in Time sqr pic.twitter.com/hr25F7ucYY

— M. Maali 🔑 (@cryptodronejr) May 16, 2026

Swatch closed in Battersea London as queues force past security #swatchap #swatch #royalpop pic.twitter.com/yZJeU1MXCh

— Elliott William (@ElliottWilldam) May 16, 2026

Related:

• “Winner Takes All”: UBS Speaks With Swiss Watch Industry Insider On “Stabilizing Market”

A bold bet by Swiss watchmakers that may actually pay off. Are pocket watches back?

We’re old enough to remember when Apple had lines around the block for product launches – not anymore… 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The scenario of a US-backed Nigerian anti-terrorist intervention in Mali is becoming increasingly likely.

Trump announced over the weekend that the US and Nigeria carried out a joint operation against ISIS’ second-highest figure, which his counterpart Bola Ahmed Tinubu disclosed took place in the northeast Lake Chad Basin where its ally Boko Haram recently killed over 20 Chadian troops. This is the US’ second military operation in Nigeria after Trump authorized bombing ISIS in Northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day, thus demonstrating the continued expansion of its anti-terrorist cooperation with this new BRICS partner.

The significance of this observation shouldn’t be downplayed since it also sends a message to the Sahelian Alliance, whose de facto Malian leader is embroiled in its own anti-terrorist struggle after radical Islamists and Tuareg separatists kicked the government out of the northeast earlier this month. Although Mali is allied with neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, the latter of which borders Northern Nigeria where the US struck terrorists twice in less than six months, neither have come to its rescue.

That’s because they too are embroiled in their own anti-terrorist struggles against the same radical Islamists in Burkina Faso’s case, “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM), and ISIS in Niger’s. These groups importantly occupy most of their border with Mali as well, thus impeding joint military operations even if they were greenlit. Recently, Nigeria intimated that it might intervene in Mali, and French media revealed that their country is already involved there. Here are three background briefings:

* 26 December 2025: “Why’d Trump Bomb ISIS In Nigeria On Christmas?”

* 3 May 2026: “The Latest Malian Crisis Risks Spiraling Into A Regional War”

* 11 May 2026: “French Media Confirmed That Paris Is Backing Ukraine In Mali”

To elaborate on their relevance to the joint US-Nigerian anti-terrorist operation, they shed light on just how close their security cooperation has become in less than half a year’s time, thus lending credence to the Nigerian Defense Minister’s intimation earlier this month that it might intervene in Mali. In that scenario, the US would likely play a public role as well, even if only limited to sharing intelligence and launching drone strikes from its reported bases in neighboring Ghana or nearby Cote d’Ivoire.

Meanwhile, Nigeria could only reach Mali via either Niger, via Burkina Faso by means of Cote d’Ivoire, or via Ghana, but the first two aren’t expected to authorize transit unless Niger – perceived as the Sahelian Alliance’s weakest link – breaks rank with its allies. As for the Ghanaian route, JNIM isn’t as active in the part of Mali on the other side of the border, so Nigeria would either have to receive permission to transit to the northeast or it might wait to unilaterally intervene till Bamako is seriously threatened to captured.

However the Nigerian intervention scenario might unfold, the top takeaway from the US’ joint operation with Nigeria is that it’s becoming increasingly likely whether the Sahelian Alliance authorizes it or not, which thus suggests that behind-the-scenes talks might already be underway with them. The West wants to break this bloc’s unity so that its countries resubordinate themselves to France, and if this can’t be achieved via diplomatic means under terrorist pressure, then military ones might be soon employed.

The mainstream media’s outrage over religious expressions by government institutions and politicians is highly selective.  At bottom, it the event is Christian, they attack.  If it’s any other religion, they applaud.

Did the mainstream media publish indignant diatribes when leftist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani held Muslim dinners at City Hall and Gracie Manor for Ramadan?  The answer is no, of course they didn’t.  Because Islam is celebrated by modern liberal movements and Christianity is despised.  And, it’s important to take note of what leftists hate, because if they hate it, it’s probably good.

BREAKING – New video shows one of Zohran Mamdani’s Muslim guests at the mayor’s mansion flashing the one finger ISIS salute just days after one of the Muslims who attempted to carry out an attack against conservatives in NYC was seen flashing the same salute while being arrested. pic.twitter.com/fdcuhINTlg

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) March 12, 2026

Progressive outlets are in an uproar this week over a White House sponsored Christian prayer event scheduled to take place on this Sunday at the National Mall.  The Trump administration and the Freedom 250 nonprofit will host “Rededicate 250,” which will feature Cabinet members and conservative religious leaders to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. 

According to event organizers, the program aims to reflect on the faith of America’s founders and serve as a national moment of rededication. Participants include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Leftists journalists and Democrats are accusing the Trump Administration of violating the US Constitution and the “separation of church and state” by sponsoring the event.  This is, of course, a blatant misinterpretation of the 1st Amendment, but it’s also an opportunity to debunk many of the claims made by the left-wing when it comes to religious expression by government officials.

It might come as a shock to those that religiously follow leftist propaganda, but the words “separation of church and state” do not appear a single time in the US Constitution.  The phrase comes from a 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, where he described the First Amendment as building “a wall of separation between Church & State.”

The First Amendment states:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Jefferson was primarily concerned with the use of government as a weapon to persecute people of various denominations that refused to submit to a singular state sponsored church, which was a common practice of the English Crown.  It should be noted that there was, essentially, no other prominent religious groups beyond Christians recognized in the colonies at the time of the formation of the United States, aside from a small population of around 2000 Jewish settlers.  

The US was, by every measure, founded as a Christian nation, even if there was no official state church.  

The Founding Fathers are often described by leftists as “followers of the Enlightenment”, as if this means they were not Christian.  All of them were in fact Christian while also promoting some ideals of the Enlightenment.  Many prominent figures of the enlightenment were religious, including Isaac Newton, John Locke, and Christian Wolff. 

Their goal was to seek harmony between faith and reason, not erase the practice of faith from society or government.  As John Adams said:

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity…I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”  

He also stated:

We have seen how governments devoid of religious principle behave – The atheistic regimes of communist Russia, China, Cambodia and North Korea have murdered millions upon millions in the name of “saving” the populace from the “opiate of religion”. We have also seen how movements like the political left behave when they gain power, injecting authoritarianism and degeneracy into every facet of society and even targeting children with irrational and anti-science indoctrination.  

The phrase “separation of church and state” was popularized by the Supreme Court in 1947, notably in Everson v. Board of Education, as a metaphor for interpreting the First Amendment.  It is not the law, however.  In the sense that it is not illegal for government officials to sponsor religious events or to speak their minds when it comes to religious issues.

Furthermore, it’s not against the law for government officials to point out that the US was founded as a Christian nation; the Founding Fathers did the same.  No one’s religious practice is being suppressed and no state religion is being established by doing so.  The media’s efforts to shame this generational reality by exploiting misinterpretations of the Constitution might have worked a decade ago, but not anymore.