Peace talks appear stalled, or even halted completely – despite President Trump’s denials – and the US Department of Treasury is still swinging hard, as part of the ongoing effort to bring about economic collapse in Iran and ‘solve’ the Hormuz Strait shipping crisis.

In the latest installment of Washington’s economic whac-a-mole, the US on Tuesday unveiled sanctions on Iran’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange – and several others, for allegedly enabling the Iranian government and blacklisted state institutions to thwart US and EU sanctions.

The largest platform, identified as Nobitex, is believed to have assisted in allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to pour into Iran’s central bank and the ⁠Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a sanctions work-around and parallel financial system.

“While Iran’s economy is in free ⁠fall, the regime has chosen to co-opt digital asset technologies for its own corrupt agenda, including evading sanctions and transferring wealth out of the country,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated in announcing the new action.

“Following the commencement of U.S. combat operations in Iran, Nobitex played a role in protecting and moving assets and funds out of Iran to shield regime ‌wealth despite ​internet blackouts,” the statement added.

Nobitex rejected that it has direct government connections and denied that it has been assisting state institutions. It also said it did nothing to conceal the identities of the owners.

As for ownership, Reuters has documented:

…Nobitex is controlled by two brothers from one of Iran’s most ​powerful families, with close ‌ties to the new supreme leader. The two are members of the Kharrazi family, one of the most influential dynasties ‌in the Islamic Republic. Corporate records show that when the exchange started, the brothers were listed under a surname rarely used by members of the family.

The brothers were named by the Treasury as Seyed Mohammad ‌Ali Aghamir Mohammad Ali ⁠and Seyed Mohammad Aghamir Mohammad Ali, who were also subject to individual sanctions, along with the exchange’s chief executive officer, Amir ⁠Hossein Rad.

Last Friday Bessent detailed how the US has seized a total of $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency assets to date as part of the economic component of President Trump’s Operation Epic Fury.

During a speech before the Reagan National Economic Forum, Bessent stated:

“Just outright grabbed the wallets. Some of them may be typing in right now and might not realize their wallet had been grabbed.”

Assets are held “on behalf of the Iranian people” – he described, while framing that the Iranian government had ‘stolen’ the money from the Iranian populace.

Did this action help fuel BTC’s crashing well below $68K on Tuesday?

Today’s sanctions against Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex target the Iranian digital asset exchanges responsible for at least 72% of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025.

Remember that much of the crypto going into Iran has flowed through Binance over the years. With… https://t.co/5SiHwTTGVC

— Max Meizlish (@maxmeizlish) June 2, 2026

As we’ve featured before, for ordinary Iranians – roughly one in six of the population – crypto served as a vital lifeline. Facing relentless rial depreciation (down nearly 90 percent since 2018), chronic inflation of 40 to 50 percent, and frequent power blackouts or internet shutdowns during protests, citizens turned to Bitcoin and stablecoins like U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins (USDT) on the Tron network to hedge savings, facilitate remittances, and move value when traditional banking failed. Spikes in Bitcoin withdrawals to personal wallets often coincided with domestic unrest and regional conflicts.

Yet this parallel financial system has also become a powerful tool for the state. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) steadily tightened its grip on Iran’s crypto flows. IRGC-linked addresses received more than $3 billion in 2025—up from over $2 billion in 2024—with their share rising to more than 50 percent of total Iranian crypto inflows by the end of 2025. These figures represent conservative lower bounds based only on identified and sanctioned wallets.

Washington in the meantime is still entertaining dreams of sparking some kind of anti-regime uprising based on applying the economic squeeze to the Iranian system, but apart from unrest back in January, this has utterly failed to materialize. 

Now that attention within the AI revolution has one again firmly turned toward the cost-benefit equation (i..e., ROI) of tokens (see “From Singularity To Tokenomics: The AI Narrative Just Hit A Serious Snag“) in particular, and the trillions behind the AI spending rollout in general, and we say once again because every few months we get some iteration of the following report from Goldman published almost two years ago today…

… we have more bad news: according to a global survey by Bain, cost savings from automation are broadly falling short of projections. Which means that those expecting big savings from their investments in artificial intelligence, which is most companies, will be disappointed. 

The missed targets “should be making executives uncomfortable,” since many of them are approving increased spending for artificial intelligence on the basis of expected savings, the consulting firm said in a report shared exclusively with Bloomberg News. The problem is there are little actual savings to speak of. 

The survey, completed in April, was based on responses from executives at 951 companies with more than $100 million in revenue, across nine sectors: retail, technology, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, consumer products, energy, financial services, telecom/media/entertainment and insurance.

It found that among companies measuring their AI cost savings, the largest share (40%) realized reductions of 10% or less. Predictably, most had been expecting to see far more meaningful improvement, especially since they spent far more than that on the new technology. 

Here’s the part that Bain found the most troubling: 44% of large companies that are funding their next wave of AI spending are basing those investments on the last round of savings – savings that haven’t yet materialized. 

“The prior wave underdelivered. The savings pool is smaller than assumed,” Bain warned. “And the investment case for the current wave was sized against projections rather than actuals.” Kinda like the bubble in AI forward earnings: based on projections – which as any intern can tell you can flip on a dime – rather than actuals. 

“Self-funding the next wave from past returns sounds like discipline. In reality, it is a circular bet with a structural leak,” the firm cautioned, and concluded that “The technology worked. The value didn’t arrive.”

Whether driven by hope or FOMO or a blend of both, the AI boom is exposing divides between promise and reality. An MIT research report last year showed that 95% of corporate AI pilots fall flat and concluded that the “primary factor keeping organizations on the wrong side of the GenAI Divide is the learning gap, tools that don’t learn, integrate poorly, or match workflows.” 

So Bain’s latest survey wasn’t the first evidence of AI underdelivering so far on expectations. And it’s not likely the last either.

But the Bain report isolated a different problem: “Despite a decade of investments in data modernization running well into hundreds of billions of dollars globally, the No. 1 reason AI programs underperform is that companies cannot reliably get access to their own data,” Bain said.

“Companies that don’t validate their reinvestment math against what automation actually returned, rather than what it was supposed to return, are compounding risk rather than managing it” the Bain report concluded, confirming what many have already sensed: virtually nobody has done effective ROI analysis amid a technological rollout that has already soaked up more than $1 trillion in capital, the return on which appears to be modest at best. 

Bain’s prescription: Instead of waiting to structure all of their data to make it ingestible by AI, companies should start with what’s available to feed into the models, and then use AI to help sort out how to structure the rest.

Meanwhile, companies that were meeting their savings targets reported running into barriers with data structure and accessibility at even higher rates than those missing their targets, but they were less likely to report organizational challenges such as insufficient budgets or competing priorities.

Adding fuel to the fire, a comparable report from Gartner found that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027, due to escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls. 

“Most agentic AI projects right now are early stage experiments or proof of concepts that are mostly driven by hype and are often misapplied,” said Anushree Verma, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner. “This can blind organizations to the real cost and complexity of deploying AI agents at scale, stalling projects from moving into production. They need to cut through the hype to make careful, strategic decisions about where and how they apply this emerging technology.”

As such, Gartner recommends agentic AI only be pursued where it delivers clear value or ROI, noting that “Integrating agents into legacy systems can be technically complex, often disrupting workflows and requiring costly modifications. In many cases, rethinking workflows with agentic AI from the ground up is the ideal path to successful implementation.“

“To get real value from agentic AI, organizations must focus on enterprise productivity, rather than just individual task augmentation,” said Verma. “They can start by using AI agents when decisions are needed, automation for routine workflows and assistants for simple retrieval. It’s about driving business value through cost, quality, speed and scale.” 

The problem, it now appears, is that virtually nobody has done an actual ROI analysis. But with token costs now soaring…

… the time has finally arrived, and as enterprises pull back in horror from the “great promise” of the agentic black hole, one can easily understand why both OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which are extrapolating their burst in agentic revenue in perpetuity, are rushing to go public before the market once again does the ROI math.

A woman riding a MARTA train in Atlanta was killed in a brutal daytime attack Saturday, suffering nearly 20 stab wounds in what investigators say was a seemingly random act of violence, according to the NY Post.

Police allege that 25-year-old John Elijah Matthews approached 66-year-old Margaret Swan after boarding the train Saturday morning. Surveillance video reportedly shows him lingering near Swan before pulling out a knife and attacking her. According to court documents, Swan cried out and attempted to get away, but the suspect allegedly restrained her and repeatedly stabbed her.

Investigators say the assault continued as the train neared Oakland City Station. Matthews allegedly forced Swan to the floor and remained over her while she lay gravely injured.

The NY Post writes that after the attack, authorities say the suspect exited the train carrying the knife, leaving Swan motionless inside the rail car. Responding officers and emergency personnel tried to save her, but she was pronounced dead. The knife believed to have been used in the attack was later recovered.

Witness descriptions helped MARTA police quickly locate and arrest Matthews on the station platform shortly after the incident.

In a statement, MARTA officials described the killing as a senseless tragedy and extended condolences to Swan’s family, as well as those who witnessed the violence firsthand.

The fatal stabbing came just days after another passenger was attacked at Georgia State Station, raising fresh concerns about safety across the transit system. Some riders argued that recent changes to fare collection have made it easier for unauthorized individuals to access trains and stations, though officials have not linked the policy to either incident.

Matthews, who reportedly has no fixed address, remains in custody at the Fulton County Jail. He has been charged with felony murder and was scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Our planet is drying out at a pace that is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Once massive lakes are rapidly shrinking, once mighty rivers are steadily dwindling, and colossal underground aquifers are being pumped dry all over the world. This is an absolutely enormous problem, because very soon we simply will not have enough fresh water to support 8 billion people. In fact, drought conditions are severely affecting global crop production in 2026. If current trends continue, it will become increasingly difficult to grow food. In other words, if the land on our planet doesn’t stop drying out there is no way that we will be able to avoid an era of widespread global famines.

This isn’t something that just started happening recently.

Over the last several decades, the world has been losing fresh water “at an unprecedented rate”…

The world is losing fresh water at an unprecedented rate, two decades’ worth of satellite data has revealed.

Measurements from NASA’s twin GRACE satellites and GRACE follow-on missions have shown that since 2002, the amount of land suffering from water loss has been increasing year on year by twice the area of the state of California. That includes the loss of water from surface reservoirs such as lakes and rivers and underground aquifers, which are an important source of drinking water around the globe.

Mega-drying regions have emerged across the Northern Hemisphere with the worst-hit areas extending across the western coast of North America, Southwestern North America and Central America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Just look at what has been happening to the Great Salt Lake.

Once upon a time it was absolutely gigantic.

But now it has lost approximately 73 percent of its water and approximately 60 percent of its surface area.

Of course this isn’t just happening in the United States.

One study found that 75 percent of the population of the world currently lives in a country that is being affected by “continental drying”…

Much of the Earth is suffering a pandemic of “continental drying,” affecting the countries containing 75% of the world’s population, the new research shows.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, examined changes to Earth’s total supply of fresh water and found that nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries facing a net decline in water supply, posing a “critical, emerging threat to humanity.”

I was stunned when I first read that.

If 6 billion people live in nations that are steadily drying out, what does that mean for the future of humanity?

We aren’t just talking about a few isolated deserts.

The United Nations is telling us that excluding Antarctica, drylands now account for more than 40 percent of all the land on this planet.

And more than three-quarters of all the land on this planet has been getting drier over the past 30 years…

As Earth continues to warm, more and more of the planet is becoming dry. A 2024 UN report found that in the last three decades, over three-fourths of all the world’s land became drier than it had been in the previous 30 years.

Drylands now comprise 40.6% of all global land (excluding Antarctica). In addition, the number of people living in drylands doubled over the last 30 years to 2.3 billion, which represents over 25% of the global population. In a worst-case climate change scenario, this number could climb to 5 billion by 2100.

Many of us have just come to accept that drought is a normal part of life.

If you look at the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, it is a nightmare.

Right now, more than 60 percent of the continental United States is experiencing at least some level of drought…

As of May 26, 2026, 50.77% of the United States and Puerto Rico and 60.77% of the Lower 48 states are in drought.

Some of the areas that are being hit the hardest are where we grow our food.

In particular, wheat farmers in the U.S. are having a very challenging time this year…

It’s a perfect storm of terrible conditions for wheat farmers this year. Drought, dramatic swings in temperature, the skyrocketing price of fertilizer and diesel, plus multiple viruses affecting wheat have all led to one of the most challenging years for farmers in decades.

There are different classes of winter wheat, but they’re all down when compared to last year’s crop, explained Todd Hubbs, a crop marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University Extension.

What are they supposed to do?

If it doesn’t rain, it doesn’t rain.

Unfortunately, it is being projected that the winter wheat harvest in the U.S. will be down by 21 percent compared to last year…

The most widely produced class of wheat in the U.S., Hard Red Winter wheat, has a current production forecast of 515 million bushels. That may sound like a lot, but it would end up being the lowest since 1957, Hubbs said.

Soft red winter and white wheat varieties are also having tough years, with the lowest production volume in 6 to 10 years.

In all, growers will see their smallest wheat crop in terms of production since 1972, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1.56 billion bushels this year, down 21% from 2025.

Are you going to eat 21 percent less wheat this year?

I don’t think that anyone is planning to make that kind of sacrifice.

But there simply won’t be as much wheat as normal in 2026.

Kansas is a key wheat producing state, and a lack of rain has created nightmare conditions in much of the state…

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) data, published May 28, shows 57% of Kansas suffering from drought, Sittel said.

“For the 26-year history of the USDM, the median coverage of drought in Kansas is 22%, which is another way to look at our current conditions against a historical time series,” Sittel said.

Typically, the winter wheat crop receives a few inches of rainfall in the spring, but that didn’t happen this year.

“The majority of the crop didn’t get that extra rainfall, and where we didn’t get any of that rainfall, a lot of times the crop already got terminated and insurance was called upon,” Lollato said. “Or we’re looking at very, very limited yield potentials, like 15–20 bushels per acre.”

We just experienced the driest first three months of a year ever recorded in the United States.

That is really saying something.

In addition to a seemingly endless drought, U.S. farmers are also facing much higher prices for diesel fuel and fertilizer.

On top of everything else, now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions will greatly intensify in many parts of the world.

This may be a good time to remind my readers that the “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 caused horrifying droughts that killed more than 50 million people all over the globe.

Unfortunately, scientists are warning that the “Super El Niño” that will start later this year could be even more powerful.

Yes, we really are facing a catastrophic scenario.

But for now most of the population is still pretending that everything is going to be just fine, and so they continue to party as things rapidly get worse all around them.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Shake Shack plunged on Tuesday, hitting its lowest levels since November 2023, after the burger chain slashed second-quarter guidance only about a month after issuing it.

Baird analyst David Tarantino said the new outlook is viewed as “incrementally negative” for Shake Shack.

Tarantino noted that management had set an “unusually high bar” for 2Q comparable performance with its previous outlook, implying mid- to high-single-digit comps in May and June after -.6%.

He added that the updated guidance ranges may be attributed to new CFO Michelle Hook, who started May 11, and said “desire to set a more achievable bar going forward.”

The burger chain, which has 445 stores in the U.S., now expects second-quarter revenue of $415 million to $420 million, down from its prior forecast of $424 million to $428 million.

Same-Shack sales growth is now expected to be 2.5% to 3%, down from the earlier 3% to 5% range. Shares sank 11% in the late-morning cash session, extending a nearly yearlong bear-market slide.

Here’s a snapshot of the 2Q Forecast:

• Sees total revenue $415 million to $420 million, saw $424 million to $428 million, estimate $421.9 million

• Sees licensing revenue $13.5 million to $13.7 million

• Sees same-Shack sales 2.5% to 3%, saw 3% to 5%

• Sees restaurant level operating margin 22% to 23%, estimate 24.2%

• Sees Company-operating openings about 16, estimate 18

“These results are particularly encouraging in the face of a challenging macro environment and inclement weather,” Shake Shack wrote in a corporate presentation.

The downgrade adds to concerns that higher beef prices and other input prices are compressing margins. There are also concerns that cash-strapped consumers are dialing back purchases on higher-priced menu items.

Related:

• Shake Shack Shares Crash Most On Record; McDonald’s CEO Warns Of Faltering Consumer

Last month, Shake Shack reported a small multi-million-dollar loss in the first quarter despite a 14% revenue increase, reflecting the costs of investments to boost foot traffic.

Shares are now roughly 60% off their peak, a drawdown that has historically coincided with the stock’s bottom. That said, downside pressure could still extend toward the $40 to $50 range, which has served as support during previous selloffs.

Shake Shack’s guidance cut suggests the premium growth story is over for at least now, and the fast-casual restaurant chain may need a clearer turnaround plan to reignite Wall Street optimism. Perhaps that’s what CFO Hook is about to engineer in the quarters ahead. 

Via American Greatness,

The Pentagon announced Monday that reporters will no longer have open access to the War Department’s public affairs office after the space was redesignated as a classified facility to accommodate staff handling sensitive material.

The announcement marks the latest effort by the Pete Hegseth-led War Department to tighten operational security and reshape longstanding media access practices inside the Pentagon.

Under the new policy, the Pentagon’s public affairs office has been converted into a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, commonly known as a SCIF.

The office had previously allowed journalists to enter without escorts and directly approach military public affairs officials with questions.

Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez said the change was necessary because speechwriters working in the office routinely handle classified material and require access to secure government systems.

“This is the most transparent War Department in history. No amount of spin from the Fake News media will change that,” Valdez wrote in a post on X.

This is the most transparent War Department in history. No amount of spin from the Fake News media will change that.

The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War… https://t.co/tlWb1XIeOk

— Acting Press Sec Joel Valdez (@JoelValdezDOW) June 1, 2026

“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material and require SIPRNet access. As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that,” he added.

Valdez said reporters will still have access to the Pentagon press secretary and the Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs through scheduled appointments.

The policy change comes months after War Secretary Pete Hegseth imposed additional restrictions on media operations at the Pentagon.

Last October, the department introduced new rules allowing officials to revoke press credentials from reporters designated as security risks.

The New York Times subsequently filed two lawsuits against the Pentagon, arguing the restrictions violate First Amendment protections. Both cases remain pending in court.

Copper is inching closer to its mid-May all-time high of $14,153 a ton on the London Metal Exchange, trading around $13,832 on Tuesday morning, as Goldman raised its year-end price targets and HSBC warned that commodities face a “super-squeeze” with the Hormuz maritime chokepoint still largely shuttered in early June.

Let’s begin with HSBC analysts, who wrote in a note to clients that “metal prices are generally in an upswing, driven by supply disruptions for some commodities due to the Middle East conflict and strong structural demand.”

They warned that commodities were facing a “super-squeeze” with the Strait of Hormuz still blocked.

HSBC’s note comes after Goldman analysts led by Aurelia Waltham told clients Monday that the core issue with copper markets right now is supply:

• Year-to-date data does suggest that supply recovery from previous disruption events has trailed our expectations. Accordingly, we lower our 2026 global mine supply forecast by 350kt, equivalent to ~1.5% of global mine supply, including ~200kt less from Grasberg (Indonesia) and Kamoa-Kakula (DRC) combined, with neither returning to full capacity until 2028.

At the same time, she said stronger-than-expected US copper imports in the first half of 2026 are tightening the ex-US market:

• Furthermore, US copper imports in H1 2026 have exceeded our previous forecast, tightening the ex-US balance. As a result, we now expect US inventory to build by 900kt in 2026 (vs. 550kt previously), even as our base case remains that no copper tariff will be announced this year.

The combination of soft mine supply, US stockpiling, tariff uncertainty, and long-term demand tied to AI buildout and grid-upgrade themes prompted Waltham to upgrade her end-of-year 2026 and 2027 copper price forecasts:

• We raise our end-2026/average 2027 LME copper forecasts to $13,735/$13,800 from $12,465/$12,150 previously (vs. forwards at $13,630/$13,610).

She mapped out three price scenarios for copper:

1. Strait of Hormuz Remains Closed for Longer: While we would expect limited impact on the global copper balance as the demand hit from lower economic growth is largely offset by lower copper supply due to sulfur shortages, a substantial pullback in global risk appetite could push the LME price down to its fundamental support level at ~$12,600 in H2 2026, before resuming an upward trend.

2. US Copper Tariff Announced for January 2027: If a US copper tariff is announced prospectively in June 2026, to start in January 2027, we would expect US copper imports to accelerate in H2 2026 (vs. our base case of a slowdown in imports), tightening the ex-US balance and raising prices to over $14,000 in H2 2026. However, we would expect prices to retreat in 2027 as imports stop once the tariff is imposed.

3. Announcement of No Copper Tariff: A definitive decision against the tariff would reduce the size of our ex-US deficit forecast in 2026 and push the ex-US market back into surplus in 2027 as imports fall to a negligible level. In this scenario, we would expect the price to fall to an average of $12,800/t in 2027.

Mapped out here:

Professional subscribers can read the full copper note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

With Hormuz still all but shuttered and only a 22% chance that the critical waterway reopens by the end of June, according to a Polymarket bet, it would take many months, if not quarters, to normalize shipping flows. This indicates that the commodities cycle will likely remain bullish into early summer.