Last week, Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, announced she will step down on June 30 to care for her husband, Abraham, who has been diagnosed with what she called “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.” 

“My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. He faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months. At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

“I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.” 

Since taking the position of DNI, Gabbard has moved aggressively to overhaul the intelligence community, trying to root out the politicization and corruption, including exposing the deep state’s war on President Trump. 

Gabbard revoked the security clearances of officials found to have “abused public trust,” shut down DEI programs across the intelligence community, and redirected its focus toward foreign terrorist organizations.

Gabbard also prioritized transparency, and by May 2026, Gabbard had overseen the declassification of more than 500,000 pages of previously secret government documents.

Those documents span an almost surreal range of American history: assassination records on President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.; files connected to Amelia Earhart’s 1937 disappearance; and Biden administration documents detailing the federal government’s “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.”

She also pushed the declassification of materials she argues expose the full mechanics of the Russia investigation, which her office says proved that the Obama administration weaponized intelligence to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign.

She may be leaving, but between now and her final day as DNI, Gabbard intends to make her departure felt by the deep state. 

Gabbard plans to release findings from a string of sensitive investigations in weekly installments.

These revelations will include declassifications covering the Havana Syndrome, the origins of COVID-19, the alleged weaponization of the federal government under recent Democrat administrations, and the 2020 presidential election. 

In her resignation letter to Trump, Gabbard pledged to stay focused on the mission.

“I am fully committed to ensuring a smooth and thorough transition over the coming weeks so that you and your team experience no disruption in leadership or momentum,” she wrote.

“It has been a profound honor to serve the American people as DNI.”

Trump responded to Gabbard’s resignation on Truth Social. 

“Unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the Administration on June 30th,” he wrote, noting Abraham’s diagnosis.

He added, “I have no doubt he will soon be better than ever.”

He praised Gabbard’s tenure, saying she has “done an incredible job, and we will miss her.” 

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas will serve as Acting DNI.

However, the Trump administration now faces a real procedural challenge in confirming a permanent replacement. Tensions between the White House and Senate Republicans have been running hot in the wake of Trump’s endorsements of primary challengers against Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. 

With one month left in office, Gabbard has made her intentions clear. The secrets that the deep state hoped wouldn’t see the light of day will all be coming out before she walks out the door. 

The national average price for 87-octane gasoline at the pump has remained above the politically sensitive $4-per-gallon threshold for 57 days and counting, as the U.S.-Iran conflict continues to disrupt energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint.

That price shock at the pump has already translated into visible shifts in consumer behavior at gas stations and convenience stores, an emerging trend we first outlined in mid-April (see here and here).

Adding to the consumer story of elevated gas prices pressuring discretionary spending behaviors is new data from NielsenIQ via Goldman.

This chart shows that U.S. energy drink category growth across NielsenIQ-tracked channels, including xAOC, convenience, and Amazon, tracked on a 4-week year-over-year basis, slowed sharply into May 2026.

The latest reading appears to be in the mid-single-digit range, down from the stronger double-digit growth rates seen throughout much of 2025 and early 2026.

It’s important to note that energy drinks remain among the healthier beverage categories, but the sharp growth slowdown occurred around the time gasoline prices at the pump surged.

Bonnie Herzog, managing director and senior consumer analyst at Goldman Sachs, did not specify why the category abruptly lost momentum early this year through spring.

However, our prior notes on consumer stress at the pump in mid-April – including Goldman data showing that a majority of convenience stores reported drivers buying less fuel and trading down in-store – only suggest that higher gasoline prices may be a major contributing factor behind the slowdown in energy drinks.

If consumers are already dialing back fuel purchases and discretionary purchases at convenience stores, it makes sense that premium impulse categories like energy drinks are also under pressure.

Professional subscribers can read the full NielsenIQ via Goldman here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Years ago, I wrote a column denouncing the decision of the University of California system to drop standardized testing in the cause of greater racial diversity. Now, hundreds of UC mathematics faculty have called for a return to such testing after reports showing a thirtyfold increase in students with math skills below high school level.

As written earlier, the University of California system was an early supporter of this disastrous move.

It was heralded as a way to preserve diversity after voters in California repeatedly rejected race-based admissions and the Supreme Court appeared ready to bar such practices (commonly proven with reference to standardized test differentials among applicants).

Now, many professors in the California system have come to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move years ago. They have witnessed the drop in academic skills and abilities among incoming students.

These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. Former University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.

Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students.

The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.

Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”

Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.”

In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.

That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted.

So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions.

The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.

Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose: to frustrate new legal challenges to the use of race in college admissions.

Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.

We have also seen the dismal decline in standards at elite universities like Harvard, where faculty have been compelled to teach high school-level math classes to students.

Various schools have now reversed this ridiculous move pushed by faculty and administrators in the cause of racial diversity. The proponents of the change, such as Napolitano, have said little after they decimated the academic integrity and standing of their schools.

The UC faculty cited the UC San Diego Senate–Administration Workgroup on Admissions report, which found that 70 percent of these students are performing below a middle-school level.

Like Harvard, faculty are now teaching high-school-level math.

The declining performance reflects the failure of our public schools, which have also lowered graduation standards. The top-spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing districts.

Instead of addressing the failure to educate kids in these communities, the push was to eliminate testing itself. As I wrote in 2021, “The deficiencies will remain — but the ability to expose them will be gone.” Those deficiencies are not evident in applications and admissions, but they are clearly manifesting themselves in classes.

Summary

• Trump red line (PBS): “No, no, not at all. Not sanctions relief, no” – unless Iran gives up its enriched uranium. “Iran negotiating on fumes,” Trump says in cabinet meeting.
• White House rejects ‘complete fabrication’ of Iranian TV reporting on MOU and draft deal status.
• IRGC keeping up the rhetoric: warns that Iran would “turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors” if the ceasefire collapses.
• CENTCOM: “Clearly the Iranians are trying to hedge their bets here and put more pressure on the US.”
• Iranian president: “The main battleground today is the economic war.“
• Tabriz International Airport in northwestern Iran– which sustained heavy damage from airstrikes during the peak of the aerial bombings – is officially operational again, bringing restored airports to 20 reopened.

*  *  *

Trump Red Line

President Trump has reasserted his ‘red line’ for negotiations, centered on enriched uranium and the nuclear issue:

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran would not get sanctions relief in exchange for giving up their highly enriched uranium. His comments come as the United States and Iran try to strike a deal to end the conflict that has engulfed the Middle East for the last three months.

“No, no, not at all. Not sanctions relief, no,” Trump told PBS News during a short phone call when asked if the current deal would mean that Iran would give up their highly enriched uranium in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump also in a televised Wednesday afternoon cabinet meeting said Iran is “intent on a deal” but that “Iran is negotiating on fumes.“

White House Rejects ‘Complete Fabrication’ Of Iran TV MOU Contents

The Trump administration has denied the morning Iranian state media reports on the contents of a current ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MOU) – which curiously had left out any reference whatsoever to the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium…

• WHITE HOUSE: NOBODY SHOULD BELIEVE IRAN STATE MEDIA REPORTING
• WHITE HOUSE CALLS REPORTED IRAN MOU A ‘COMPLETE FABRICATION’

An official underscored that it is a “complete fabrication” – and so it seems we are yet again back at square one, as Tehran has also said it is only engaged in ‘indirect’ contact with Washington at this point. There are further reports in US media that the Pentagon has drawn up a new target list, and has acknowledged that the Iranians have been able to better hide their missile launch sites. 

Also emerging are ambiguous reports of some kind of potential explosion incident at a petrochemical complex at Asaluyeh, in Iran’s Bushehr province.

US side denounces Iranian state media reporting on current MOU draft and status:

This report from Iranian controlled media is not true and the MOU they “released” is a complete fabrication. Nobody should believe what Iranian state media is putting out. FACTS MATTER. https://t.co/agpTnBSgKu

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 27, 2026

Oil Dumps on MOU Headlines

As for the status of talks, the below headlines present the latest (and noticeably absent is the enriched uranium question, or release of Iranian funds). Bloomberg summarizes: “An unofficial draft of a US-Iran interim peace deal says maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can return to normal within a month of the agreement being finalized, according to Iranian state television.
It’s unclear how recent the draft, reported by IRIB News, is or whether the US has agreed to the terms.”

• Iran’s state TV says it has a draft of the initial unofficial framework for MOU with US
• According to draft MOU US military forces will withdraw from vicinity of Iran and lift naval blockade
• Iran’s state TV says in return, Iran has committed to restoring the number of commercial transit ships through Hormuz Strait to pre-war levels within one month
• Iran’s state TV says military vessels are not included in this draft agreement
• Iran’s state TV: A final agreement will be approved as a binding UN Security Council resolution if reached in 60 days.
• The Islamabad memorandum framework is still in progress, stating no action will be taken by Iran without “tangible verification.”
• If a final deal is reached within 60 days, this agreement will be approved in the form of a binding UN Security Council resolution.
• The management and route of ship traffic through Strait of Hormuz will be handled by Iran in cooperation with Oman.

Oil dumping on the headlines:

As usual, there remains a basis for skepticism:

White House (more or less) denies accuracy of reported draft MOU with Iran.

We all should be far more skeptical of any alleged deal details disclosed. https://t.co/Umrpm3iKE6

— Caitlin Doornbos (@CaitlinDoornbos) May 27, 2026

Iran Vows ‘Graveyard For Aggressors’ amid ‘Indirect’ US Contacts

Tehran is keeping the war rhetoric cranked to a maximum, but is also conceding that a return to full-scale war with the United States and Israel is ‘unlikely’ at this stage. The Islamic Republic says at this moment only ‘indirect’ contact with Washington is happening, as cited in Bloomberg.

The IRGC is seeking to dismantle any assumption that Iran is entering peace talks from a position of tactical submission. Speaking to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Mohammad Akbarzadeh – the political deputy of the IRGC Navy – warned that any resumption of US kinetic activity would result in catastrophic casualties for Western forces.

Akbarzadeh touted that the armed forces remain at a level of total readiness, threatening that Iran would “turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors” if the ceasefire collapses. “Our fighters today carry in their chests the urge for hand-to-hand battle with the enemy,” Akbarzadeh declared, writing off the prospect of a renewed Western assault due to what he assessed as the “weakness” of the American-led coalition.

Pentagon: Iran ‘Hedging its Bets’ in Hormuz Strait

The Pentagon has acknowledged that Iran is ‘hedging its bets’ amid Hormuz tensions:

Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel said Iran’s reported effort to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz suggests Tehran is “hedging its bets” and attempting to ramp up pressure on the U.S. amid ongoing negotiations.

“Clearly the Iranians are trying to hedge their bets here and put more pressure on the U.S., and what we saw here was CENTCOM detecting that and then taking military action to address it very, very quickly,” Votel said during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News’ “America Reports.”

Iranian source to DropSite:

“If the U.S. cannot give the money that belongs to Iran back to Iran, and the U.S. cannot put a leash on Netanyahu and stop him from going on a rampage in Lebanon, then it shows that this conflict has not ended,” Izadi says. “This is a test for Iran to see what’s going on with the other side.”

🎥 NEW: Jeremy Scahill reported this morning that Iranian officials say the U.S. has accepted Iran’s red lines in the latest revisions to the ceasefire declaration, but is asking for time to “manage domestic public opinion” before formally announcing acceptance of the interim… pic.twitter.com/Pmovw5sEKk

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 27, 2026

Enriched Uranium Not on the Agenda

And all the while Iranian leaders have continued to make clear they will not bow to the central Trump administration demand of transferring Iran’s highly enriched uranium out of the country – though there were prior unconfirmed reports that China could be an acceptable destination for some Iranian officials.

Speaking from the sidelines of an international security conference in Moscow, Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, bluntly told Fars news agency: “This issue is not on the agenda of the negotiations.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in fresh remarks is signaling that the conflict has simply migrated from an air and sea war to the global financial system.

Pezeshkian: Main Battleground Now the Economic War

Meeting with the Tehran Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Pezeshkian urged a structural overhaul of the country’s domestic market, calling for an immediate expansion of the private sector to act as an economic shield.

“The main battleground today is the economic war,” Pezeshkian stated, according to Tasnim. “We believe the more capable, agile, and active the private sector is, the stronger the country’s economic foundation will become, and the greater our national power will be in the face of external pressures and threats.”

Pezeshkian framed the Western shift toward sanctions and capital starvation as an admission of military failure by Washington and its Israeli ally. “After failing to achieve its objectives on the military front, the enemy has focused on damaging the country’s economic resilience and disrupting the livelihoods of the people,” the president added.

Indeed this is obviously what the US naval blockade on Iranian ports aims to accomplish, which Washington continuing to bet on some kind of mass anti-regime uprising, which has yet to materialize since the start of Operation Epic Fury.

20 Damaged Airports Across Country Reopened

To demonstrate its resolve and resiliency even while Washington tries to keep the economic chokehold on, Iranian civic workers continue to rebuild logistical infrastructure at rapid pace.

As the latest example, on Wednesday the Civil Aviation Organization announced that Tabriz International Airport in northwestern Iran- which sustained heavy damage from airstrikes during the peak of the aerial bombings – is officially operational again.

“The gateway to northwest Iran”…

According to public broadcaster IRIB, domestic technical teams managed to bypass supply chain bottlenecks to restore the facility to full service. “Tabriz Airport, which was attacked during the recent war, has now been restored to activity by Iranian specialists and will reopen on Wednesday,” a spokesperson confirmed.

Tabriz joins a growing list of critical transit hubs rushing to normalize operations, according to Al Jazeera, while state media reports state that the total number of reopened airports across the country has now reached 20. 

Submitted by Anthony Rubin of Muckraker.Org, 

Food stamps and food pantries are intended to keep struggling Americans fed.

What we found is that, in some communities, that food never reaches an American table. Instead, it gets shipped overseas and sold for profit.

The scheme works like this. Residents in cities like Lawrence, Massachusetts collect food through two channels: purchasing it at local markets using EBT cards, and picking it up for free from food banks and churches. That food is then packed into large blue barrels, dropped off at shipping companies, and sent by container ship to the Dominican Republic. Once it arrives, it is sold for profit in local stores. The people doing this see nothing wrong with it. In many cases, they do it openly.

According to a local that assisted us with this story, this fraud has been happening for over a decade.

Over the course of several weeks, Muckraker Foundation traced the full pipeline from food pantry lines in Lawrence, Massachusetts, through shipping warehouses in New York, to store shelves in Santo Domingo. This is what we found.

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Lawrence is a small city about 30 miles north of Boston. It has the highest concentration of Dominican immigrants of any city in Massachusetts, and the highest rate of SNAP enrollment in the state.

John has been delivering goods in Lawrence for over 11 years, six days a week, 35 stops a day. He knows the community intimately.

“I’ve been witnessing the Dominican residents going to food bank lines and collecting non-perishable goods,” he told us, “and then packing it in barrels and in boxes, and then they ship it back to the Dominican Republic.”

We asked him how he knew the food was being purchased with food stamps.

“Some of them have openly told me and my wife that that’s what they’re doing,” he said. “And then the other way is the math.”

The math is straightforward. A 50-pound bag of rice costs $30 in Lawrence. That same bag costs $35 in the Dominican Republic. Add shipping, and the economics make no sense unless the food was free or paid for with government benefits.

John drove us through the streets of Lawrence and showed us the evidence hiding in plain sight: blue shipping barrels, stacked outside corner stores, for sale. Not one store. Not two. Store after store after store.

“These barrels aren’t trash cans,” John said. “They’re being used to ship the product.”

Every one of those stores also advertised, prominently, that they accept EBT.

Abigail has worked in Lawrence since 2011. She asked us not to disclose her profession, but her job takes her inside people’s homes on a daily basis.

“Many of them will have large boxes, large bins in their apartments full of the food that they give out at the pantries here,” she told us. “And when I ask them what it’s for, they say they mail it back so it can either be given to their families there or be sold in the bodegas there.”

We asked if these patients knew they were doing something wrong.

“No,” she said, and laughed quietly. “They feel entitled. They feel like that’s what we come here for.”

We asked how widespread she believed the fraud to be among the patients she visits.

“About half,” she said. “Half the people I see.”

New York

Massachusetts has some of the strictest wiretapping laws in the country, which limited what we could capture on camera. So we moved the investigation to New York.

In the Bronx, we located a storage facility being used by numerous Dominican shipping companies as a distribution hub. We sent in an associate with a hidden camera. A worker confirmed explicitly, on camera, that people are using EBT to purchase the food being shipped in those boxes.

From there, the food moves to Port Newark, one of the largest container terminals on the East Coast. It is from Port Newark that tens of thousands of pounds of food, likely amounting to millions of dollars, is loaded onto ships bound for the Dominican Republic.

Santo Domingo

Inside a small bodega in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, a shop owner told us on camera that the inventory is purchased with EBT cards in New York. The prices on the shelves told the same story. The food was selling for roughly the same price as it does in the United States. After shipping costs, that price only makes sense if the food was obtained for free.

At a second shop in Santo Domingo, the owner told us she gets her inventory from churches in New York City, and that when she goes to collect the food, she uses her Dominican ID and her mother’s American address.

In boxes behind her: Ronzoni pasta, Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, Goya beans, Quaker oats, and more. Food donated by Americans, intended for Americans, now sitting in a bodega in Santo Domingo.

The Bigger Picture

When food stamps were first introduced in 1964, the program served fewer than 400,000 people, less than one fifth of one percent of the American population. Applicants had to appear in person at state welfare offices, pass strict income and asset tests, and have their eligibility certified by state caseworkers.

Today, nearly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, roughly one in eight people in this country, at a cost to taxpayers of over $100 billion in 2025 alone.

What began as a modest safety net has become one of the largest federal assistance programs in American history. And as this investigation shows, it is being exploited in broad daylight, on the main streets of American cities, by people who see nothing wrong with it.

Watch 

Muckraker is calling on federal authorities to investigate what we have uncovered. We are prepared to share our findings, our footage, and our sources with any legitimate investigative body.

Robinhood Markets is launching a new feature whereby customers can hand their money to an AI agent for automated trading and credit-card purchase decisions. 

The brokerage is enabling users to link external AI agents-such as Anthropic’s Claude or coding agent Cursor-to a dedicated investment account. Within that account, the AI can access allocated funds and execute stock trades based on user instructions.

Users can provide detailed prompts – directing the agent to identify investment opportunities by analyzing startup funding, deal activity, and private-company valuations ahead of public market discovery. And when it zeroes out your account, maybe it’ll be your therapist.

For now, the feature supports stock trades only; options, crypto, and event-contract capabilities are planned for later rollout.

Robinhood will send push notifications for every trade executed by the agent, along with a real-time activity feed in the app. Users retain the ability to monitor activity and disconnect the agent at any time.

The company is also letting people hand their credit card over… Customers can connect an AI agent to a virtual version of the company’s Gold credit card, enabling it to search for deals, monitor availability, and make purchases according to specified instructions-such as booking flights or securing event tickets within price limits. Agents are restricted to the virtual card and cannot access primary card details. Users can impose spending limits or require approval for every transaction.

Abhishek Fatehpuria, Robinhood’s vice president of product management, told the Wall Street Journal that they’re just giving customers what they want. 

“One thing that we’ve learned from talking to our customers is that they want to give their agents the power of Robinhood, but in a very safe way,” Fatehpuria said. 

Robinhood has already unleashed AI for portfolio analyses and market insights, so this is a natural evolution of the technology, execs say. 

Black Box or Black Hole

While the new tools offer convenience and automation, handing financial decisions to agentic black boxes has crushed many a vibecoding tech bro with dreams of escaping the wage cage.

AI models excel at processing vast data quickly but can exhibit biases, errors, and limitations. Research from Harvard Business School found that large language models like ChatGPT displayed a “foreign bias” when analyzing Chinese stocks, issuing overly optimistic forecasts compared to models with better local data access. When fed additional Chinese-sourced negative news, the excess optimism vanished. Similar biases appeared in newer models.

Performance records for AI-driven trading strategies are mixed at best. Many active and algorithmic approaches, including early AI-powered funds, have underperformed simple broad-market index funds over time. Factors like overfitting, rapid arbitrage of any discovered edges, and herding behavior among similar AI systems can erode advantages quickly.

Systemic concerns are also significant. Concentrated use of similar AI models could amplify volatility through simultaneous reactions-echoing past flash crashes triggered by automated trading. Regulatory warnings, including from the SEC on “AI washing” (overhyping capabilities), highlight cases where promised predictive power proved illusory or fraudulent.

For retail investors, the appeal of delegating to an AI “black box” is clear: it promises emotion-free, data-driven decisions. It may work well for some in narrow, controlled scenarios with strong oversight and diversification. However, evidence shows most people rug themselves. Markets are noisy, adaptive systems where past patterns offer limited predictive power, and human behavioral coaching often adds more value than automated stock-picking. For sure there are some powerful algorithmic tools out there, but you can’t be a moron.

We’re sure Robinhood’s lawyers are loving this, however the company promises massive safeguards – such as dedicated accounts, notifications, and disconnect options. Still, users should approach these tools with caution: treat AI outputs as one input among many, maintain diversification, understand the limitations of the specific models involved, and avoid allocating more capital than they can afford to lose.

“I’ve seen liquidations you bros wouldn’t believe. Overleveraged portfolios on fire off the shoulder of a bad API key. I watched vibecoded AI quants hallucinate buy signals in the dark pools near the margin call. All that generational wealth will be zeroed out in the ledger, like liquidity in a rug pull. Time to post screenshots to /r/wallstreetbets.” -Roy Batty, (probably)

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

Markets laid in wait for war-related headlines yesterday after Trump truthed on Monday night that “negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran” were “proceeding nicely.” It’s also possible that “proceeding nicely” meant that the US was once again escalating to de-escalate, as hours later the US military confirmed reports of strikes against Iranian military assets, including speedboats which were laying mines in the Strait. While the news reel was sparsely populated, it did flag that the US Navy was restarting to guide ships through the Strait with a plan to help a dozen vessels through the passage in the coming days. However, minutes later a “US official” denied these claims, leaving traders, and vessels in the Strait, stranded. Brent crude oil climbed around $3.50 from open to $99.50/bbl.

A look at the current landscape suggests to us that a peace deal is far beyond the horizon. Rabobank’s global strategist, Michael Every, released a report, The Hormuz Odyssey: a new base case, which updates our base case to see complications in the Strait for around another three months. The possible outcomes of the war in Iran are immeasurable, but even in the pipe dream scenario where the war ends tomorrow, logistics are king. If a deal were to be magically achieved tomorrow, there are still somewhere around 1,500 ships still trapped in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait is incredibly narrow and it will take time for these ships to safely pass through. Energy strategists Joe DeLaura and Florence Schmit elaborate on the implications for energy prices in their recent report, Longer Stalemate, Higher Prices. Needless to say, they project oil staying higher for longer, forecasting Brent averaging around $120/bbl in Q3 of this year, which would imply a return to levels still not seen since 2022.

To further complicate the outlook, the proxy war in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah has also re-escalated, with the IDF reporting that it hit over 100 Hezbollah sites in Southern Lebanon, including “storage facilities, command centers, and observation points.” This, of course, likely puts another obstacle in the way of Trump’s insistence that GCC members join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel as part of a broader peace deal. While many of the GCC states are no friend to Hezbollah, the implications of normalizing relations with Israel during elevated hostilities in the Levant are a political nightmare.

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, hinted that in his view, negotiations to end the war may “take a few days,” which is certainly more optimistic than our view of a few months. Nuclear programs will continue to stand as a major barrier towards any sense of an agreement between the US and Iran. Total regime change in might not be in the cards, but achieving a firm commitment from Iran that it promises to table its plans for nuclear development is the only way the US can exit the war and keep some of its street cred.

But while nuclear proliferation is a major issue abroad, it may be presenting opportunities at home. The New York Times reports that the US government may allow private companies to use “Cold-War era plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads” as fuel for nuclear power plants.

US Treasury yields traded mostly flat from the open, across the yield curve, with a slight bull-steepening bias, and the DXY index was little changed at 99.19. The US 5-year, 30-year spread widened again, back to 84bp, bouncing off of 1-year lows of 81bp on Friday. The US OIS curve remains positioned firmly in favor of hikes, pricing in around 70% of a hike by year-end, and a full hike by March of next year.

But the US consumer outlook remains grim. US Conference Board consumer confidence picked up a touch from 92.8 to 93.1, but remains firmly planted in negative territory. The components of the headline index—present situation and job outlook—have been trending consistently lower since 2021, while consumer expectations also remain in negative territory. While we should note that consumer confidence has been a poor indicator of economic performance for quite some time now, a poor consumer outlook coupled with a dire inflationary outlook could spell trouble for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. We will see headline and core PCE price data for April on Thursday, expected to register 3.8% y/y and 3.3% y/y, respectively.

Early yesterday morning, Russian foreign minister, Lavrov warned US citizens to evacuate Kyiv, ahead of military escalation in the region. The battle between Russia and Ukraine wages on, and so does that between the Russian Central Bank and Euroclear. Since the war in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions on Russia, Euroclear has frozen Russian assets, with some EU players considering using said assets to help fund Ukraine. While that prospect remains tabled (for now), Russia is still trying to get its money back.

In the court of public opinion, views are mixed. But in the court of Russian law, the Russian courts have ruled decisively—in favor of Russia. The Moscow court of arbitration has ruled that Russia has incurred losses of approximately USD 250 billion after having been frozen by Euroclear, with the AP saying that “lawyers argued that Euroclear’s right to a fair trial was violated.” Euroclear, meanwhile, made its opinion on the Russian ruling abundantly clear: they do not care and Russian assets may be stranded in Belgium for the foreseeable future.

Lululemon has settled its proxy fight with founder Chip Wilson, ending one of the year’s top proxy battles, according to Reuters. This follows a fiery letter to shareholders from Wilson earlier this year, calling for activism, as the athletic apparel retailer has seen its shares collapse, lost market share in the leggings market, and become entangled in multiple see-through leggings quality-control issues with customers.

Reuters first reported Tuesday evening that Lululemon and Wilson were nearing a settlement that would give him two board nominees and include a commitment to find another mutually agreed-upon director at a future date.

The agreement would give Wilson regular access to Heidi O’Neill, Lululemon’s incoming CEO, according to Reuters, which cited sources.

The dispute comes as Lululemon’s North American sales weaken, competition from Alo and Vuori intensifies, and the stock is down nearly 77% from its 2024 peak of around $500 per share.

In late February, Wilson wrote a fiery letter to shareholders, in which he said, “In support of all shareholders, I am pursuing a campaign to catalyze a quantum of change that is sorely needed at Lululemon. To effect that change, I have pursued private, constructive dialogues with the Lululemon Board of Directors (the ‘Board’) for the past few months. My attempts toward a sensible solution have not been reciprocated.”

He continued, “While we have proposed changing three directors, our strong feeling is that more than three directors should be replaced.”

Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg are mostly neutral on the stock. 

Even before Chip’s public letter, we pointed out: “Lululemon’s path back to relevance in the athletic space may require a shake-up of the Board.”

Time for Chip to launch a plan to save comapny he founded in 1998. 

Summary

• Iran only having ‘indirect’ US contacts while asserting that enriched uranium is ‘off the table’ for negotiations: state TV says Tehran has a draft of the initial unofficial framework for MOU with US.
• IRGC keeping up the rhetoric: warns that Iran would “turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors” if the ceasefire collapses.
• CENTCOM: “Clearly the Iranians are trying to hedge their bets here and put more pressure on the US.”
• Iranian president: “The main battleground today is the economic war.“
• Tabriz International Airport in northwestern Iran– which sustained heavy damage from airstrikes during the peak of the aerial bombings – is officially operational again, bringing restored airports to 20 reopened.

*  *  *

Oil Dumps on MOU Headlines

As for the status of talks, the below headlines present the latest (and noticeably absent is the enriched uranium question, or release of Iranian funds). Bloomberg summarizes: “An unofficial draft of a US-Iran interim peace deal says maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can return to normal within a month of the agreement being finalized, according to Iranian state television.
It’s unclear how recent the draft, reported by IRIB News, is or whether the US has agreed to the terms.”

• Iran’s state TV says it has a draft of the initial unofficial framework for MOU with US
• According to draft MOU US military forces will withdraw from vicinity of Iran and lift naval blockade
• Iran’s state TV says in return, Iran has committed to restoring the number of commercial transit ships through Hormuz Strait to pre-war levels within one month
• Iran’s state TV says military vessels are not included in this draft agreement
• Iran’s state TV: A final agreement will be approved as a binding UN Security Council resolution if reached in 60 days.
• The Islamabad memorandum framework is still in progress, stating no action will be taken by Iran without “tangible verification.”
• If a final deal is reached within 60 days, this agreement will be approved in the form of a binding UN Security Council resolution.
• The management and route of ship traffic through Strait of Hormuz will be handled by Iran in cooperation with Oman.

Oil dumping on the headlines:

Iran Vows ‘Graveyard For Aggressors’ amid ‘Indirect’ US Contacts

Tehran is keeping the war rhetoric cranked to a maximum, but is also conceding that a return to full-scale war with the United States and Israel is ‘unlikely’ at this stage. The Islamic Republic says at this moment only ‘indirect’ contact with Washington is happening, as cited in Bloomberg.

The IRGC is seeking to dismantle any assumption that Iran is entering peace talks from a position of tactical submission. Speaking to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Mohammad Akbarzadeh – the political deputy of the IRGC Navy – warned that any resumption of US kinetic activity would result in catastrophic casualties for Western forces.

Akbarzadeh touted that the armed forces remain at a level of total readiness, threatening that Iran would “turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors” if the ceasefire collapses. “Our fighters today carry in their chests the urge for hand-to-hand battle with the enemy,” Akbarzadeh declared, writing off the prospect of a renewed Western assault due to what he assessed as the “weakness” of the American-led coalition.

Pentagon: Iran ‘Hedging its Bets’ in Hormuz Strait

The Pentagon has acknowledged that Iran is ‘hedging its bets’ amid Hormuz tensions:

Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel said Iran’s reported effort to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz suggests Tehran is “hedging its bets” and attempting to ramp up pressure on the U.S. amid ongoing negotiations.

“Clearly the Iranians are trying to hedge their bets here and put more pressure on the U.S., and what we saw here was CENTCOM detecting that and then taking military action to address it very, very quickly,” Votel said during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News’ “America Reports.”

Iranian source to DropSite:

“If the U.S. cannot give the money that belongs to Iran back to Iran, and the U.S. cannot put a leash on Netanyahu and stop him from going on a rampage in Lebanon, then it shows that this conflict has not ended,” Izadi says. “This is a test for Iran to see what’s going on with the other side.”

🎥 NEW: Jeremy Scahill reported this morning that Iranian officials say the U.S. has accepted Iran’s red lines in the latest revisions to the ceasefire declaration, but is asking for time to “manage domestic public opinion” before formally announcing acceptance of the interim… pic.twitter.com/Pmovw5sEKk

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 27, 2026

Enriched Uranium Not on the Agenda

And all the while Iranian leaders have continued to make clear they will not bow to the central Trump administration demand of transferring Iran’s highly enriched uranium out of the country – though there were prior unconfirmed reports that China could be an acceptable destination for some Iranian officials.

Speaking from the sidelines of an international security conference in Moscow, Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, bluntly told Fars news agency: “This issue is not on the agenda of the negotiations.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in fresh remarks is signaling that the conflict has simply migrated from an air and sea war to the global financial system.

Pezeshkian: Main Battleground Now the Economic War

Meeting with the Tehran Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Pezeshkian urged a structural overhaul of the country’s domestic market, calling for an immediate expansion of the private sector to act as an economic shield.

“The main battleground today is the economic war,” Pezeshkian stated, according to Tasnim. “We believe the more capable, agile, and active the private sector is, the stronger the country’s economic foundation will become, and the greater our national power will be in the face of external pressures and threats.”

Pezeshkian framed the Western shift toward sanctions and capital starvation as an admission of military failure by Washington and its Israeli ally. “After failing to achieve its objectives on the military front, the enemy has focused on damaging the country’s economic resilience and disrupting the livelihoods of the people,” the president added.

Indeed this is obviously what the US naval blockade on Iranian ports aims to accomplish, which Washington continuing to bet on some kind of mass anti-regime uprising, which has yet to materialize since the start of Operation Epic Fury.

20 Damaged Airports Across Country Reopened

To demonstrate its resolve and resiliency even while Washington tries to keep the economic chokehold on, Iranian civic workers continue to rebuild logistical infrastructure at rapid pace.

As the latest example, on Wednesday the Civil Aviation Organization announced that Tabriz International Airport in northwestern Iran- which sustained heavy damage from airstrikes during the peak of the aerial bombings – is officially operational again.

“The gateway to northwest Iran”…

According to public broadcaster IRIB, domestic technical teams managed to bypass supply chain bottlenecks to restore the facility to full service. “Tabriz Airport, which was attacked during the recent war, has now been restored to activity by Iranian specialists and will reopen on Wednesday,” a spokesperson confirmed.

Tabriz joins a growing list of critical transit hubs rushing to normalize operations, according to Al Jazeera, while state media reports state that the total number of reopened airports across the country has now reached 20. 

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Former President Joe Biden filed a lawsuit on May 26 in a bid to block the Department of Justice (DOJ) from releasing audio recordings and transcripts of his private conversations with a biographer that were connected to a 2023 special counsel probe into his handling of classified records.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes as the DOJ planned to release the materials to the House Judiciary Committee and conservative think tank The Heritage ​Foundation on June 15.

The materials stemmed from private conversations Biden had with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in his home between 2016 and 2017 as part of the writing process for his memoir titled “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.”

The book detailed Biden’s decision to run for the 2016 ​presidency while ⁠his eldest son, Beau, fought brain cancer and later passed away in 2015, according to the lawsuit.

The DOJ later obtained the materials in 2023 as part of former special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified information after his vice presidency.

The probe ended in 2024 with findings that Biden had willfully retained classified materials, though no criminal charges were pursued. Hur said at the time that the evidence fell short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to Biden’s lawsuit, the DOJ initially withheld the materials under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on the grounds that they were exempt from disclosure, but the department later reversed its position under President Donald Trump’s second term.

The lawsuit seeks judicial review to stop the DOJ from disclosing the materials, citing Biden’s privacy rights and the DOJ’s obligations to protect “sensitive and highly personal law enforcement information.”

“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” the lawsuit stated.

“And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the DOJ for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Biden has earlier sought to intervene in the Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit against the DOJ over the materials. ⁠Last ​week, a judge allowed Biden to join ​the case but barred him from pursuing claims about the committee’s request for the materials, ​according to court records.

Oversight Project, a legal advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, said on May 11 that the public deserves access to the materials and called for full transparency regarding Hur’s 2023 probe.

“President Biden revealed classified information and was not prosecuted,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said in a statement, adding, “These tapes will further prove the massive lie regarding Biden’s fitness for office and the fact Biden revealed classified information.”