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NYC Mayor Mamdani's Housing Plan Sparks Property-Rights Alarm Over Forced Transfers To Nonprofits Mamdani Releases "Block by Block: The Housing Plan for A New Era"

NYC socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani released "Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era," which presents a sweeping, deeply troubling blueprint to tackle the metro area's deepening housing crisis.

Mamdani told the crowd:

When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers. And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards. Stewards include community land trusts, nonprofits, or even the tenants themselves.

IT BEGINS…

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveils plan to "transfer ownership" from landlords to "the community" pic.twitter.com/uybGFPk5eD

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 26, 2026

X user Difficult Froyo outlined what he described as the obvious playbook by the socialist mayor:

Rent control so landlords cannot raise rent to properly maintain the property. NYC takes the property and gives it to his political friends that donate to him. This is all going to be a theft scheme.

Another X user asked:

"Insane. If this isn't communism, I don't know what is. Has America really reached the point of communism?"

Mamdani's backdoor property-seizure strategy will likely spook lenders, insurers, and small landlords. That's because it caps landlord income, allows residential buildings to become distressed, then uses the city's enforcement to push properties into nonprofit, community land trust, or tenant ownership.

Via Inconigto... 

The carveout that Mamdani has to allow one-time rent hikes on certain vacant units already shows that Mamdani's team understands that a rent freeze creates financial stress for some affordable-housing owners. 

Ahead Of Speech: Mamdani To Carve Out Struggling NYC Landlords From Rent Freeze Experiment

NYC socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to announce on Tuesday that certain distressed landlords will be excluded from his proposed rent freeze, offering relief to apartment owners squeezed by debt, rising insurance costs, utilities, and repair bills in the increasingly unaffordable metro area.

Mamdani is expected to make the announcement at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where he will unveil a plan that would allow eligible owners of apartments financed or regulated by city housing agencies to impose a one-time rent increase on vacant units, even if a broader rent freeze is enacted later this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The 34-year-old socialist campaigned on the promise of free bus rides and government-run grocery stores, as well as freezing rents on the city's nearly one million rent-regulated apartments throughout his four-year term, which would offer relief to about 2.4 million residents.

The exemption could apply to roughly 300,000 apartments, about one-third of the city's rent-stabilized stock, though officials expect only hundreds of vacant units to use the rent-increase tool. The move reflects the political and financial pressure Mamdani faces after campaigning on a four-year rent freeze for roughly one million regulated apartments, a pledge that alarmed landlords already squeezed by debt, insurance, utilities, and repair costs.

This rent-freeze exemption will only apply to vacant apartments in the city that are already financed and regulated by the city's housing agencies. Rent increases will be limited by the income caps set by the city. -WSJ

WSJ noted that City Hall has also created a new $5 million loan program to help landlords cover tenants' overdue rent and avoid evictions.

The move comes just ahead of the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board, which is set to vote in June, supporting increases of 0% to 2% on one-year leases and 0% to 4% on two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments.

The New York Times estimates the median rent-stabilized studio apartment goes for about $1,360 a month, and a two-bedroom rents for about $1,530. The median rent for a market-rate studio is north of $2,000, and for a two-bedroom it's about $2,200.

Last year, the Rent Guidelines Board approved increases of 3% for one-year leases and 4.5% for two-year leases, despite the housing affordability crisis in the metro area.

Related: 

• Mamdani NYC Housing Plan Has Insiders Curious, Skeptical

These policies are part of Mamdani's long-awaited housing plan, which also includes new efforts to build multi-family buildings and expand tenant protections. He has laid out a goal of building 200,000 new residences.

"When communities don't build new housing, rents stay high, housing choice stays limited, and many New Yorkers are locked out of neighborhoods where their families can thrive," Mamdani's team wrote in a section of the new plan shared with POLITICO reporters ahead of the release.

Mamdani is trying to balance his pro-tenant rent-freeze campaign promise with the reality that parts of the city's affordable housing network are in financial shambles.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 15:20

Elon Musk Welcomes American Airlines To The Starlink Family

American Airlines shares jumped on Tuesday after the carrier announced a sweeping modernization of its narrow-body in-flight experience, with plans to install Starlink satellite internet terminals across 500 of its narrow-body jets in Q1 2027.

The modernization effort signals the end of slow, unreliable internet for a large portion of American's domestic and short-haul fleet. Passengers will soon be able to stream, work, monitor markets via the Bloomberg Terminal, or check X in real time at speeds far beyond current in-flight internet speeds.

Elon Musk welcomed American Airlines to the Starlink family earlier on Tuesday.

Starlink coming to American Airlines! 💫 https://t.co/XC3EasJKdy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 26, 2026

Starlink is becoming a leading airline internet provider, with deals already in place at United, Southwest, and Alaska Air:

"Starlink is widely regarded as the world's most advanced satellite constellation using a low Earth orbit to deliver broadband internet capable of supporting inflight streaming, online gaming, collaborative meeting tools and more," American wrote in a press release, adding, "With thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, Starlink can deliver multigigabit connectivity to aircraft using its Aero Terminal, which can support up to 1 Gbps per antenna."

Shares of AAL jumped nearly 6% in late-afternoon trading. Year to date, shares are marginally lower by around 4%.

Some airline passengers are already prioritizing bookings with carriers that offer Starlink, as fast, reliable in-flight internet becomes a deciding factor for streaming, gaming, or simply remote work at 36,000 feet.

The announcement comes just weeks before SpaceX is set to IPO. Read the latest here. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 15:00

Can Spencer Pratt Win?

Authored by Mike McDaniel Via AmericanThinker.com,

The Los Angeles mayoral race provides illuminates Democrat party thinking.

There is non-politician, normal American Spencer Pratt running against Communist, Castro-admiring, current Mayor and black woman, Karen Bass, and Indian - the country - woman, and LA Council member, Nithya Raman.

Graphic: X Post

The only debate thus far was a self-inflicted disaster for Bass and Raman, and Bass is refusing to debate again. Asked--yes or no—whether illegal aliens should vote, Pratt answered “no,” and Bass and Raman, looking like cockroaches caught in the open when the kitchen lights came on, sputtered versions of: “well, it depends…” Pratt is the law and order, clean out the insanely violent homeless, no disease-infested discarded needles, no human feces everywhere, sane, fiscally responsible candidate. Bass and Raman are California democrats, which is to say the opposite of Pratt and sane Californians, many of whom have already fled to red states, leaving only people likely to vote for Bass, the woman who can’t imagine any need for rational anti-wildfire policies, like keeping reservoirs filled with water.

In a rational state—California is currently on fire again—Pratt should be a shoo-in.

His political ads are brilliant, influencing future ads. He’s out-fundraising Bass, but this is California.

Kurt Schlichter is a high-powered lawyer, retired army officer, and best-selling author who still lives in California. He grew up there and lived the California dream, seeing California in its glory days when anything was possible. He remains because he’s one of the well-off elite able to weather California’s current, unlivable horrors. And, most importantly, he doesn’t live in LA:  

Nope, Los Angeles is not my problem, and I’m not going to give it another moment of thought. If it wants to drown in a cesspool of hobo dung, it can dive in. Spencer Pratt is absolutely right about everything he says, from the fires to the junkies to the gross incompetence.

Moreover, everybody knows it’s true. But nobody cares. You need to understand something. This isn’t about competence.

When Karen Bass, a black communist mental defective, looks baffled at Spencer Pratt explaining how she’s helped run Los Angeles into the ground, that look of confusion is not because she’s stupid. She is, but it’s because he’s speaking a different language. She’s a literal communist. She’s gone to Cuba and taken notes. Her purpose isn’t to create prosperity and security for the people of Los Angeles. Her purpose, like that of all communists, is to secure power. The same is true of her bizarre, real competitor, some South Asian communist named Nithya Raman.

As is endemic to the Third World, they fetishize power; these Marxists want control. That’s it. It’s not about filling in potholes. It’s not about safe streets. It’s not even about keeping half the city from going up in flames. It’s about control. There is no bottom to Los Angeles. It’s not going to get so bad that people are going to generate some sort of backlash, no matter how clever Spencer Pratt’s ads are, and they are clever. Those ads are only scoring with those of us on the outside. They give us false hope that something can be done. But nothing can be done. The decline is not the point. It’s literally irrelevant to them.

Take Detroit, once also a rich and powerful city. Do you think that at some point, the leftists who control it looked at it and said, “Wow, we have become Detroit. Yikes! Should we try something else”? No. The dysfunction is the function; the squalor doesn’t matter to them. Not at all.

California has the nation’s highest unemployment and the largest illegal population. When its rampant fraud is investigated, it will surely be number one in the nation in that dubious distinction. The streets and freeways are crumbling, crime is out of control, and never-to-be-finished boondoggles like the high-speed rail to nowhere that no one wants, needs or will ride, and an animal and Monarch Butterfly(?) wildlife bridge despoil the landscape.

Schlichter goes on to explain that the remaining Californians will vote for Bass again because they’re Californians and Democrats.

They can’t help themselves:

What’s it going to take to fix Los Angeles, California, and the rest of the blue hellholes?

Gosh, you don’t want to ask that. You’re not going to like the answer.

They will never fix themselves. Never. All the normal people are gone.

You’ve got a few rich leftists and a bunch of welfare cheats, and that’s it. It’s going to take something from the outside to fix them. It would have to be imposed upon them and not gently

That’s not happening anytime soon—if ever.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 14:20

Private Equity To Be Blocked From Buying Homes?

Authored by Matt Stoller via BIG,

Based on a vote last week, it seems very likely Congress will ban corporate ownership of most existing single family homes. "People live in homes," said Trump in January. "Not corporations." While Trump has sometimes talked a big game on constraining Wall Street, he generally hasn't followed through. In this case, though, he did. And somehow, a very corporate-friendly legislature came through as well.

It's almost impossible to believe, but here's the relevant provision in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, by a 396-13 margin.

And here's the White House's statement supporting the bill.

As called for during the State of the Union, this legislation includes the President's signature priority: banning large institutional investor purchases of single-family homes. Section 1001 delivers a framework that addresses Wall Street's dominance in the single family housing market and protects Main Street homebuyers.

And the House followed the Senate, which in March passed an even more stringent ban, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren. There are some important caveats here, which I'll go into. But it's still a remarkable accomplishment, and a shockingly weird Warren-Trump alliance, that no one would have predicted a year ago.

So what happened?

I wrote up the full account two months ago, when the Senate acted. The short story is that voters were mad about high housing costs in 2024, and voted against the Democrats as a result. In January, Trump realized voters were now mad at him for high housing costs. And so he wanted to do something. But what could he do? He was trying to impose his will on the Federal Reserve, which could lower rates for homeowners. But that wasn't working out because he couldn't get the Supreme Court or the Senate to go along.

And beyond that, mortgage rates aren't the only driver of costs. So what hiking housing prices? There is a split in both parties over that question. One theory comes from a group of Wall Street-friendly liberals and libertarians, known as the "Abundance movement," who argue the problem is that we're not friendly enough to capital, and the solution is to remove zoning limitations. Yet despite the removal of many such limitations in states like California, there hasn't been a spurt of homebuilding.

A different theory comes from anti-monopolists, who believe that the consolidation of financing power and homebuilding capacity led to supply restrictions. That group argued that Wall Street cash was pouring into single family housing as an asset class, driving up prices for ordinary people. And those buyers, as corporate landlords, didn't serve renters particularly well. There is substantial evidence behind this theory.

Institutional ownership is regionally concentrated, with investors buying up properties in particular cities. In Atlanta, for instance, large institutional investors have dominant shares of the market…

In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan found that Invitation Homes, a spinoff of Blackstone, had engaged in rampant misbehavior. The CEO told one of his subordinates to “juice this hog” and they did so by deceiving renters, unfairly evicting people, charging junk fees, and so forth…

Congressional documents showed that “renters in institutionally-owned SFR homes often experience higher rent increases, inflated fees, and diminishing quality of housing over time.” And Federal Reserve economists wrote a paper observing that such investors “raise rents at 60 percent higher rates than the average increase when first acquiring the property,” and that rents overall go up.

Big builders are now working with Wall Street to construct single family homes that never go on the market, but instead are rented out from the beginning. This "Build to Rent" sector took off, doubling in market share from 2021-2024. And it is now where institutional capital is focused. Build to Rent allows Wall Street to augment an asset class, and it enables control of housing supply to keep prices up.

Trump usually has an intuitive understanding of where voters are, even if he often chooses other priorities. And on housing, he got that the public is quite populist. Here’s the New York Times’s latest poll, showing that Democrats by a more than two to one margin blame corporate monopolies over supply restrictions for the price of homes and energy. It’s likely not that different among independents or the GOP.

Trump issued an executive order and a Truth Social post on the need to ban corporate ownership of housing. He even criticized the big homebuilders, saying they were “sitting on 2 Million empty lots, a RECORD.” And he called them similar to the oil cartel OPEC. Here’s what Trump said in his order, and honestly, it would be hard for me to write it any better.

A growing share of single-family homes, often concentrated in certain communities, have been purchased by large Wall Street investors, crowding out families seeking to buy homes. Hardworking young families cannot effectively compete for starter homes with Wall Street firms and their vast resources. Neighborhoods and communities once controlled by middle-class American families are now run by faraway corporate interests. People live in homes, not corporations. My Administration will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America's neighborhoods like a trading floor and empower American families to own their homes.

This policy decision by Trump synced up with a bill that Republican Senator Tim Scott and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren had prepared in the Banking Committee to lower housing costs back in July of last year. Their goal was to improve supply, by doing things like encouraging more manufactured housing, speeding up zoning, and providing more public money for homebuilding and cities.

When Trump chimed in with his views, Scott and Warren then included a provision to ban large institutional investors from owning single family homes, setting a limit of 350 homes per investor. They also imposed significant limits on the "Build to Rent" sector. The Scott/Warren bill passed 89-10, an overwhelming majority.

The fly in the ointment was the House of Representatives, notably the Republican Chair of the Financial Services Committee, French Hill. Private equity was pouring in money to help Hill. His goal was to force the Senate to sit down and negotiate something different, removing the institutional ownership caps.

The big question was whether the White House would be able and willing to jam Hill, and force the House to accept the Senate package. It was possible. Trump himself was not particularly focused on housing, as the Iran War, AI, the ballroom, the Federal Reserve and his lawsuit with the IRS were taking up his attention. But if the House Democrats were on board, then the White House could likely swing enough Republican votes to push the Senate bill through.

And that seemed to be doable, even likely. Private equity, especially buying housing, is politically toxic. And the House Democratic lead on the Financial Services Committee is an 87-year old Congresswoman named Maxine Waters, who has traditionally been an assertive liberal icon. So you'd think she'd be supportive, and could cap her long political career with a powerful bill making sure that the American home would be owned by American families.

But Waters, like so many of her generation, just doesn't want to give up power. She's controversial, she's not a good fundraiser, and Democrats are starting to attack the very old leaders who run committees. So instead of shepherding this bill through, she decided to go full pro-industry, and join Hill in opposing the provisions in the bill that would ban corporate ownership. The House majority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, backed her decision, as did much of the "Abundance" world of advocates. The House draft removed the homeownership provisions entirely.

Trump, Warren, and Scott continued to push, and finally they cut a deal with the House. The ban would stay for existing housing stock, but it would not apply if private equity built new housing, aka the "Build to Rent" sector. Corporations that own and rent single family homes would not be forced to sell them, and they can build new ones. But the existing stock of owner-occupied single family homes, roughly 70 million of them, effectively cannot be bought by big business.

There are still some aspects of the bill being negotiated, but in terms of the housing provisions, something akin to what passed the House is likely to be signed into law later this summer. And the legislation, imperfect as it is, will be the most significant housing legislation in decades, and will prevent the acquisition of the existing U.S. housing stock by Wall Street. It will be left to future lawmakers to find ways of letting renters buy out their Build to Rent homes, or further push back institutional capital from owning other parts of the American home. And single family housing isn't enough of a target, one in eight apartments is now owned by private equity.

Still, with this political setup, in this moment, it's a remarkable accomplishment. In some ways, this kind of legislation may have a parallel to Jimmy Carter's deregulatory zeal. Carter wanted to undo FDR's legacy, and fought hard, with a Democratic Congress, to get rid of public utility rules on airlines, banks, telecommunications providers, trucks, and railroads. Torn between the Democratic Party's allegiance to labor and his desire to break that alliance, he was deeply unpopular. But his deregulatory policies stuck. His successor, Ronald Reagan, built on Carter's approach, and it is Reagan, not Carter, who is known as the President that undid the New Deal.

Trump, like Carter, is a fish out of water. Trump's party is not populist, and mostly he has doubled down on support for Wall Street and war. But there are some indications, like this housing bill, that show it's the end for an entire way of doing business. Since Reagan, American policymakers have been aggressive in ensuring that capital can do whatever it seeks in getting the highest return, and the government has sought to turn whatever it can - our houses, our attention, our pain, sports betting - into an asset class for finance. Trump won't end that, just as Carter didn't end the New Deal. But his successor might.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 13:40

Mediocre 2Y Auction Prices At Highest Yield Since Feb 2025

With Treasury yields sliding 4 days in a row, today's 2Y auction was not seen as especially concerning (certainly not as much as a week ago, when the 10Y was knocking on 4.70%'s door, vs 4.50% where it trades today). Still, while the auction did have it strong sides, it was hardly stellar.

Starting at the top, the $69BN sale of 2Y paper priced at a high yield of 4.071%, up 26bps from 3.812% a month ago, and the highest since Feb 2025. The auction also priced on the screws with the When Issued 4.071%, following three straight tailing auctions, so a modest improvement there.

The bid to cover was 2.640, which was down modestly from 2.653 a month ago, but above the 2.62 six-auction average.

The internals were in line: Indirects (aka foreign buyers) took down 57.6%, up from 56.48% a month ago but below the 57.9% recent average; and with Directs almost flat at 30.1% (down from 31.65% in April, and above the 29.3% recent average), Dealers were left holding 12.30%, up from 11.87% a month ago and just below the 6-auction average of 12.84%.

Overall, this was a forgettable auction with mediocre stats and internals. Then again, with the market trading treasuries and oil as one asset class today (while stocks do their own thing again), and sending sharply much lower on hopes that this time the Iran deal is definitely imminent (unlike all the previous times), it's not like anyone was paying attention to bond market internals today... or frankly anything else for that matter.

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 13:27

Strait Talk

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Strait Talk

Despite many false dawns, markets remain upbeat on prospects for peace between the United States and Iran. Secretary of State Rubio indicated that the US side had thought it would have something to announce on Sunday night, or “maybe today” given that the Sunday deadline has now passed, and it is actually Tuesday. Striking a more cautionary tone, Iranian President Pezeshkian said of prospects that a deal would be made within the day that “nobody could make such a claim”, while President Trump had earlier said that he had urged his representatives not to rush negotiations.

US markets were closed yesterday, but Asian and European equities finished broadly higher with notable gains seen in Japan’s Nikkei (+2.87%), Taiwan’s TAIEX (+3.26%) and the Euro Stoxx 50 (+1.95%). The July Brent crude future tumbled 7.15% to close at $96.14/bbl while WTI traded below $90/bbl before closing the day at $90.88. Bonds were bid across the curve with moves at the short end being especially pronounced.

Al Arabiya reports that it has obtained a copy of the draft memorandum of understanding that reportedly has the support of both sides. Provision of the MOU are said to include:

• Extension of the ceasefire for 60 days
• ŸReopening the Strait of Hormuz to international navigation, guaranteeing free passage of commercial vessels and oil tankers without additional transit fees, with the Iranian side committing to take the necessary technical and security measures to ensure safety of navigation, including the removal of mines.
• ŸEnabling Iran to resume sale and export of oil.
• ŸContinuation of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program with the aim of reaching a long-term understanding.
• ŸUS to ease restrictions on Iranian ports and grant specific sanctions waivers for Iran.
• ŸEnding military operations on all regional fronts, including Lebanon.
• ŸFreedom of navigation to be restored in Hormuz over a period of 30 days, with maritime traffic set to return to pre-war levels by the end of the 30 day period.
• ŸNuclear issues to be negotiated over 60 days.
• ŸSome Iranian frozen assets to be released during the first phase of implementation.

This looks very like an oil-for-oil agreement, but notably excludes any mention of Iran’s missile program or regional proxies, and kicks the contentious nuclear issue into the long grass to be negotiated over the next two months. Considering that Iran’s nuclear program was core to the rationale for the war in the first place, market participants might direct some thought toward what could happen if agreement cannot be reached on that elusive point.

President Trump said this morning that “The Enriched Uranium will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location...” An Iranian response to this claim is not yet forthcoming.

Muddying the waters further, news broke this morning that US forces had carried out strikes against two IRGC ships. A CENTCOM spokesman said that the strikes were defensive, and in response to the ships attempting to lay mines in the Strait – which would certainly run counter to the spirit of the provision for Iran to remove mines that has supposedly been agreed. Iran retaliated by reportedly targeting US planes with surface-to-air missiles, eliciting strikes from the US on missile launchers near Bandar Abbas. Despite the tit-for-tat, US sources say that the ceasefire remains in effect.

Similarly, MOU provisions for ending regional war in Lebanon face strains as Israeli PM Netanyahu says that his armed forces will intensify strikes against Hezbollah to “deal them a crushing blow.” There is also likely to be daylight between the US and Israeli positions on Iran’s nuclear program, as the US appears to be prioritising the re-opening of Hormuz through an oil-for-oil arrangement while Israel views Iranian nuclear enrichment as an existential issue. Netanyahu has previously indicated that Israel reserves freedom to act directly against the Iranian nuclear program and has faced criticism from Opposition Leader Yair Lapid for failing to influence the Americans on this point.

For Trump’s part, peace with Iran is very much being tied to progress on the Abraham Accords that seek to normalize relations between Israel and US-aligned Arab states in the Gulf and elsewhere. Progressing the Abraham Accords would allow the US to make a geopolitical silk purse from the sow’s ear of a closed Strait of Hormuz. Already the importance of this has been demonstrated through the UAE’s (a current signatory) decision to leave OPEC and OPEC+ after having been granted US dollar swaplines and Israeli military aid.

Trump took to Truth Social to say that he is “mandatorily requesting” that all countries in the region sign the Accords, calling out Saudi Arabia and Qatar specifically and saying that failure to do so would show “bad intention” and should preclude those countries from benefiting from a peace deal. Clearly things are moving very fast but, as we have been flagging for some time now, there is potential for a world on the other side of this crisis where oil flows West, priced in dollars, with its security underwritten by the US navy, and Hormuz gradually becomes less important as a maritime chokepoint.

While issues in the Gulf continue to steal headlines, there are also major developments in the Ukraine War. Russia has reportedly warned Washington to evacuate embassy staff in Kiev as it prepares to launch “systematic strikes” against the Ukrainian capital. This follows confirmation from Russia on Sunday that it had used a nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missile against Ukrainian targets for the third time in the war.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said that the strikes will be a response to a Ukrainian drone attack against a student dormitory building in Starobilsk that killed at least 18 people and injured dozens of others. The BBC reports comments from honorary chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Sergey Karaganov, who reportedly said “we need to start punishing Europe for things like this, including with strikes. Symbolic to start with. Then, perhaps, less symbolic.”

Clearly, hoped-for progress in the Strait notwithstanding, geopolitical risk is here to stay and it isn’t necessarily all ‘in the price’.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 13:00

"Warning Signs Flashing Red": Ebola Outbreak Spreading Faster Than Response, Aid Group Says

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Ebola outbreak in Africa could become the deadliest in history because it is spreading faster than responders can deal with it, an aid group said on May 26.

Officials failed to initially detect the outbreak due to a lack of testing sufficient to identify the Bundibugyo virus, a rarer type of virus that causes Ebola. The outbreak is centered in the Ituri province in the northeast of Congo, also known as the DRC, where fighting regularly displaces people from their homes and hospitals.

“The initial failure to detect this outbreak has allowed it to spread to several areas of Ituri province in northeast DRC, where the first cases were identified, as well as to North Kivu (just to the south of Ituri) and South Kivu provinces, and now Uganda,” the International Rescue Committee, one of the aid groups on the ground, said in a report published on Tuesday.

With cases reported in key population centers such as Goma, the capital of North Kivu, and Kampala in Uganda, there is a significant risk of onward spread of the disease, the group assessed.

“The warning signs are flashing red,” Bob Kitchen, vice president of emergencies for the group, said in a statement.

“Eastern DRC is confronting this outbreak more fragile and less prepared than during the 2018–2020 outbreak that killed more than 2,000 people—and with fewer resources to fight it. Increased conflict and cuts to global aid funding have dismantled defenses at exactly the wrong moment.”

The outbreak has risen to 101 confirmed cases, about 220 suspected deaths, and more than 900 suspected cases, about one month after the outbreak was first detected. Other countries, such as Rwanda and the United States, have restricted travel from people who have been in Congo or intensified border checks.

“The delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, told a meeting of African ministers on Monday.

“We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us.”

There are no vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo virus. Containment efforts include widespread testing, isolating patients, and monitoring people exposed to known or suspected cases.

Ghebreyesus said that working with the governments of Congo and Uganda and other partners would be key to stopping the outbreak. Governments and other entities on Monday pledged about $500 million to ramp up efforts to respond to and prevent further spread of the outbreak, Dr. Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a post on X.

Technicians install beds and other equipment inside the isolation area for suspected cases at CBCA Virunga Hospital during rehabilitation work aimed at preparing the facility to receive potential Ebola cases in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 22, 2026. Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images

The International Rescue Committee, which is based in New York, recommended several steps, including relaxing restrictions on the importation of personal protective equipment such as masks, and quickly donating funds to central Africa to support health workers and others.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, another aid group with personnel in Congo, has called for increased funding to expand surveillance and deploy more teams to help locals safely bury Ebola victims.

Patrick Muyaya, a Congolese government spokesman, said in a May 25 post on X that the epidemic was “well contained” in the Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces.

“Every day, response teams are being strengthened and surveillance is being intensified,” he wrote, adding later that “we have the experience and expertise to contain this outbreak.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 12:40

Why Oil Markets Could Face A Generational Shock This Summer If US-Iran Talks Fail

President Trump is signaling "make a good deal" or walk away with no deal at all.

Overnight hostilities around the Hormuz maritime chokepoint highlight just how fragile the ceasefire remains as Washington and Tehran try to solidify a peace deal to end the conflict.

The timing of a peace deal is very important because, as we have warned readers, a no-deal scenario would collide with a deteriorating oil-supply backdrop by summer, when global buffers and floating storage begin to run down, and SPR releases become less effective in offsetting lost supply from the Gulf region.

Building on UBS analyst Arend Kapteyn's note from Friday titled "When The Oil Buffers Run Out," Brookings' Robin Brooks and Ben Harris outline in a note that oil markets could face a massive price shock by mid-July as temporary supply buffers run dry.

There appears to be consensus building among Wall Street analysts at Goldman, JPMorgan, UBS, and many other desks that if the Hormuz chokepoint is not reopened in the near term, an energy cliff may materialize in early summer.

The Brookings analysts say crude prices have so far been depressed by three factors: trade rerouting, inventory drawdowns, and market expectations that the U.S.-Iran war would end quickly.

"The bottom line is that the supply shortfall will build in the coming months as temporary buffers are depleted. And if markets grow increasingly pessimistic over an eventual resolution to the impasse in the strait, oil prices may rise materially higher," the Brookings analysts said.

However, they warned that the three factors capping crude prices are fading. Russian floating stocks are likely depleted by the end of April; Iranian floating stocks are expected to be gone by the end of May; and the IEA emergency oil release is projected to be exhausted by July 9.

They continued, "It is fair to say that the scale of the supply shortfall is now well-known to markets. But the timeline on which temporary buffers run out and how this interacts with prices is of critical importance."

"This interaction means non-linear outcomes in prices—in other words, sharp price spikes—are possible the longer this conflict is expected to take. The potential for non-linear outcomes grows the longer oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely encumbered," the analysts ended the note.

Shifting back to UBS analyst Kapteyn's note last week on oil buffers, he warned, "Oil prices can move much higher once inventories are depleted."

He continued:

This week saw the largest-ever drawdown in US oil inventories since records began in 1982: commercial inventories and the SPR combined fell by 17.8mb. These stock draws help explain why—despite nearly three months of supply shortfalls from the Middle East—oil is still trading "only" around $105/bbl.

Oil prices and volumes are linked by the price elasticity of demand. A simple relationship allows us to approximate price outcomes under different supply disruptions and degrees of demand destruction:

The oil team estimates that the net supply loss via the Strait of Hormuz is around 9mb/d after SPR releases, equivalent to a ~9% disruption.

At $105/bbl, this implies demand elasticity of roughly –0.2: a 1% increase in prices reduces demand by 0.2% (see chart). Without SPR releases, the supply shock would be closer to 12%, implying a price nearer $123/bbl.

There are two ways in which oil prices could increase much more:

• First, if inventories are depleted they can no longer buffer the supply shortfall.
• Second, as the "easy" adjustments in consumption and production are exhausted, demand becomes less responsive to higher prices.

The chart highlights some scary combinations.

For instance, if the global supply shortfall were 14% then even with the current demand elasticity, oil should be trading closer to $140/bbl. If the demand elasticity was 0.15 rather than 0.2, the implied oil price would be $208/bbl, and if the demand elasticity was 0.1 prices would approach $372/bbl.

What we are outlining here is a growing consensus across Wall Street: a no-deal outcome between Washington and Tehran would represent a severe risk for energy markets, with the critical point of no return by early summer. That is when the temporary buffers suppressing crude prices, including emergency stockpile releases, floating storage, rerouted flows, and hopes for a diplomatic off-ramp, begin to lose effectiveness. Once those offsets are exhausted, the market would likely be forced to slap a new war risk premium more aggressively, removing the current ceiling on Brent and WTI.

JPMorgan analysts recently warned about this ...

... the clock is ticking for Washington and Tehran to get a deal done or risk chaos far beyond energy markets that would spill over into shipping, then the global economy.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 12:20

The Fed Should Be Concerned: Job Market Vibes Vs Data

Authored by Peter Tchir via Academy Securities,

The Job Market – Vibes vs Data

It seems like we are on the cusp of an agreement with Iran. We will help analyze the market implications in a SITREP if and when the details are released.

In the meantime, the one question that seems to puzzle everyone, is what is the state of the job market?

Yes, there are all sorts of questions around AI, the AI and data center spend, affordability, and inflation, but the state of the job market seems to be the most puzzling of late.

The juxtaposition of daily discussions about no hiring, and fears of AI job losses, versus some stellar headline data.

Record low consumer sentiment versus ongoing spending remaining strong.

Mixed (at worst) evidence of delinquencies. There is little (that I could find) evidence of a broad-based increase in delinquencies. If you squint hard, you can see evidence of pressure on the lower income part of the population, but as of now, that’s about it.

Unemployment Rate

The last two headline numbers (from the Establishment Survey), as of now (before revisions), were 185k and 115k.Big numbers, an obvious A+ in terms of grading.

While the headline is important, for most of the country, within days of the Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) release, we started to talk less about the headline jobs and more about the unemployment rate. So that seems like a good starting point for exploring the jobs data.

We used the “official” titles from Bloomberg for the Unemployment rate (blue) and the Underemployment rate (black).

The unemployment rate has been trending down and it is close to its best level in 2 years. Let’s give the unemployment rate a grade of A- (though that feels a bit stingy).

The underemployment rate is a broader definition of unemployment. It captures people stuck in part-time, low-paying, or skill-mismatched jobs. The skill-mismatched subcategory (from AI) is the most interesting to me. Is that evidence of AI taking good entry level professional jobs?

The underemployment rate came down early this year, but from the highest levels in the past 5 years. It has been trending higher and is well above the 5-year average. I’d give underemployment a B- grade (though that feels a bit generous).

The unemployment rate is based on the Household Survey.

There are a few things that stand out:

• The gap higher for both the size of the workforce and those employed, that occurred as of December of 2024, appears to be part of annual revisions. It stands out, but is largely noise.

• The size of the labor force has not shrunk much since President Trump took office. I honestly have no idea how many illegal workers show up in the data, or whether they don’t show up in the data. Given the crackdown on illegal workers, I bet most of those jobs never showed up in the data (again, I will admit to being confused how people working illegally were counted in the jobs data, but I’m told by people much more into the weeds on this stuff, that it happens). In any case, I was a bit surprised by the labor force data in the past year remaining almost stable.

• Both the size of the labor force and the number working has shrunk in 2026! I don’t see any way to make fewer workers sound good.

  • The Establishment Survey has jobs of 160k for Jan, -156k for Feb, 185k for March, and 116k for April. Pretty darn good.

  • The Household Survey has -895k in Jan (adjustments included), -185k for Feb, -64k for March, and -226k for April. Even ignoring January, the last 3 months have been awful.

• While the Household Survey is wildly inaccurate, we seem to accept it for the unemployment rate, so why don’t we spend any time looking at it for signs regarding the job market. Again, just weird that it is deemed so “useless” for jobs, but is A OK for determining the unemployment rate? If we used the change in Establishment jobs the past few months, we’d probably be under 4% - which would be amazing!

• The final most salient point in how I think about these two data series, is that they tend to converge over time. They can deviate, often for months, but they tend to converge which tells me that we are probably headed for some weaker headline prints in the coming months.

For those of you not familiar with how I think about the two surveys used for jobs data:

• The Establishment Survey is largely inaccurate, and the Household Survey is wildly inaccurate! From the BLS the NFP data is +/- 122k at the 90% confidence level. For the Household it is +/- 676k at the 90% confidence level! (I used AI for that data, take it with a grain of salt, but you can dig deeper on the BLS site – starting with Employment Situation Technical Note).

  • Imagine reporting your quarterly returns as we made somewhere between losing $1 billion and making $5 billion, but we won’t really know for at least a year.

  • When you really think about the margin of error, it seems almost insane how many really smart people are forced to treat something that amounts to at best, a kind of, maybe reasonable, rough guess as to the current situation as gospel truth. The BLS takes the time to point out that a reading of +50k, gives a 90% confidence that the actual number of jobs is between -72k and +172k (meaning 10% of the time, like once a year, it is likely to be off by more than that!).

I’m almost disgusted with myself (even more than usual) that I am going to try and make a point using data that is just so bizarre!

But the Household Survey is a solid D. If there is any convergence in the two different jobs totals, then we should expect some pain in the Establishment Survey (i.e., the headline number).

I am not sure what to make of the Labor Force Participation Rate (hence the color purple rather than green or red).

• Lower participation rates can occur when times are good. Families are making so much money that a member of the family can step out of the labor force. Maybe stock market gains are so great that you don’t need to work? Overtime pay is so good, one member can step back?

• Lower participation rates can occur when times are bad. People get so frustrated with being able to find work, they just give up and drop out of the pool of people trying to get work.

It’s all a bit of a guess, but I suspect the labor force participation is a negative signal.

I continue to believe that the JOLTs data overstates jobs available (it doesn’t fully capture how many ghost jobs are out there, how many ads are on employment websites that are stale or weren’t removed, etc.).

Even if I’m not correct on my assumption that it is overstated, the jobs available picture deteriorated over the past several years and hasn’t really improved. That would provide some support that labor force participation is dropping due to frustration with the ability to find a job.

My “favorite” piece of data is the QUIT data. I like it because it “crowd sourced.” It is one of the few pieces of data where we get to see what the average worker is thinking. People tend to QUIT when they know they can find another job easily! People tend to stay in jobs, even ones they don’t like, until they find a better job, in a tough labor market. That seems to fit.

I don’t like the HIRE rate quite as much, but it is difficult to fake. It did tick higher recently (I put some green on the chart) but it is NOT showing robust hiring.

This whole section earns a C.

Uber Eats or Law School

According to AI “Law school applications have surged roughly 15% to 33%!”

Nothing says, I’m worried about AI, so I should go to law school, because certainly AI won’t affect the need for junior lawyers.

We tend to see law school applications spike when it is difficult for college graduates to get jobs. We saw this with the GFC. Then, at least, it made more sense. Law school is a great place to hide out for a few years and wind up with a pretty good job if you can do well. But right now? If it is a bad time to graduate from college, I am not sure that in 3 years (as AI improves) it is going to be a great time to graduate from law school. I could be wrong, but off hand, becoming a lawyer “suddenly” (see the spike in applications) seems to be a traditional response in a world that is rapidly evolving.

All of which brings me to my least favorite part of the jobs data – the birth/death model!

I know that not all of the adjustment passes through to the establishment number. But I still think it is useful to think about this number.

My contention is, and remains that:

• At one time people applied for an EIN (Employment Identification Number) because they were creating a real business. Hire a couple of people and make a go of it.

• I believe that with the gig economy people apply for an EIN when they are looking for a side hustle to make some extra money. One client this past week told me that one of the fintech firms provides basically one click functionality to create an LLC and get an EIN. For those with rental properties, get an EIN for each one? For more sophisticated participants get one for Uber, Lyft, etc.?

The gig economy has become a major way to supplement income. With more tools making it easier to run gig jobs as businesses, more will do it. I believe the Big Beautiful Tax Bill provides some benefits to those running their gig businesses as such.

I think that the number of jobs created for each EIN application is less than 1 (many are already working, so just adding another enterprise to their toolkit), hence the birth/death model methodology massively overstates jobs.

• Given the large annual job revisions we’ve been getting, I think there is a very strong case, that overstatement of jobs during the course of the year via the birth/death adjustment is the prime culprit.

This year’s birth/death model seems bizarrely similar to last year’s (and the year before):

• -61k in Jan 2026 vs -105k in Jan 2025 vs -121k in Jan 2024.

• 90k vs 136k vs 151k in Feb, -47k vs -33k vs -21k in March, and 391k vs 393k vs 363k in April.

We have seen massive downward annual revisions. There has been work done blaming much of it on how the birth/death model works. Since we are repeating the pattern in the data month by month, maybe we can assume we will once again be told at the end of the year that the actual jobs were a lot worse than reported?

This section isn’t particularly “damning” but I find it hard to see how it supports anyone arguing that the labor market is strong!

Where The Jobs Are

The first 4 months of the year have added 304k jobs to the economy (the Establishment data as of today).

221k jobs have been added in the Health Care and Social Assistance industry.

73% of jobs have been added in one industry. Yes, a large and vital industry, but that seems like a lot.

• Is some of this related to programs enabling you to get paid to take care of a family member? I think those are great programs, but is that job creation in the way we think of job creation?

This sector doesn’t scream “growth.” If anything, it at least whispers “affordability” as for most of us, healthcare is an expense and one that I’ve seen do nothing but go up (despite how it is calculated for CPI).

The US CPI Urban Consumer Medical Health Insurance City Average has declined 22% since the start of 2021! I know they follow some calculation, but whatever the calculation is, it doesn’t reflect the reality of what employees and employers face on the health insurance premium front.

Yet another reason, that the AFFORDABILITY issue is bigger and more painful than the CPI/Inflation issue. But that rant, is a rant for another day.

Bottom Line

There seems to be, at first blush, an inconsistency between the “vibe” on jobs and the published data.

I think that inconsistency goes away if we broaden what official data we look at.

The Fed should be concerned about jobs. At the moment they aren’t, but they should be.

I would like to see a lot more jobs being created in the ProSec™ industries, than we’ve seen of late. Maybe, if we can move beyond the Iran war, the admin will provide even more support, more quickly to these crucial industries! They are working on it as you read this, but if the President is able to direct even more attention to this, it would help.

One last word on AI and jobs. We don’t know what it does for jobs going forward, but the AI and data center buildout is creating jobs right now! We can (and will) debate the outlook for jobs as AI improves and becomes more prevalent, but the buildout does create a lot of jobs – not just in the construction, but also in the power generation and other adjacent businesses.

Without the AI and data center spend, we’d have even more concerns about the current job market, but that spend looks set to continue, which will help, and maybe buy us the time to get ProSec™ more fully ramped up!

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 12:00

NANO Nuclear Soars As It Turns Revenue-Generating With Strategic Acquisition

NANO Nuclear announced the acquisition of Secured Transportation Services, instantly converting itself from a pre-revenue developer into a revenue-generating business with in-house secure transport capabilities for nuclear materials.

With the $13 million acquisition of Secured Transportation Services - a nuclear logistics, transportation and services company specializing in the secure transport of radioactive and nuclear materials - NANO continues to vertically integrate itself into what will soon be the leading provider of turnkey nuclear energy solutions to the AI supercycle. Secured Transportation Services generated a profit of about $1.3 million in the twelve months ended Dec. 31, 2025. 

As NANO founder and Chairman Jay Yu put it: “NNE goes from pre-revenue to revenue generating overnight with [this] acquisition.”

Secured Transportation Services provides Nano Nuclear with the logistical infrastructure needed to vertically integrate the nuclear supply chain.

This move adds critical logistics infrastructure to NANO’s portfolio of portable microreactors and advanced fuel fabrication efforts. Secured Transportation Services brings established operations and regulatory know-how for moving sensitive nuclear cargo.

The capability vertically integrates the supply chain and removes a major execution bottleneck for future deployments.

We’ve tracked NANO’s aggressive buildout for months: the modular reactor maker, which according to many is one of the few that carries the promise of powering the AI revolution at a realistic cost, has pushed forward on its microreactor designs and fuel cycle ambitions. This latest deal fits the pattern: rapid, targeted acquisitions that assemble a full-stack nuclear platform.

The company is also demonstrating tangible progress in the deployment of their first-of-a-kind microreactor with the recent acceptance and docketing of their construction permit for the Kronos project in Illinois.

The acquisition also positions NNE to serve the surging power demand from AI data centers and remote industrial sites. Secure, reliable transport of fuel and components becomes a competitive moat as deployment timelines compress.

With this single move, NANO Nuclear has shifted from concept-stage to cash-flowing operations.

Shares of the nuclear micro modular reactor and technology company rose 13% to $29.98 on Tuesday. Shares are up 25% year to date, but they have a long way to go to catch up to their October all time highs north of $60. 

Despite the streak of favorable news in recent months, the nuclear sector has been unduly punished as the market's cash rotation has benefited data centers "picks and shovels" stocks, while ignoring the companies which are expected to power the entire AI revolution. NANO continues to be one of the most shorted names in the space, with 24% of the float shorted.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 11:25

Thomas Massie Files To Run In 2028 After Losing Primary

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has filed paperwork to run again in 2028, just days after losing the Republican primary for the Kentucky House seat he has held for more than a decade.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Second Amendment hearing in Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington on April 15, 2026. Luke Johnson/Getty Images

The May 25 filing with the Federal Election Commission lists Massie, 55, as a Republican candidate for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District. Massie said the move allows him to keep raising money for his political operation while he decides what comes next.

"This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office," Massie wrote in a post on X. "I haven't made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run."

I filed with FEC for the 2028 House race.

This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office.

I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run. pic.twitter.com/heHxDnu31o

— Thomas Massie for Congress (@MassieforKY) May 25, 2026

The filing also comes after Massie drew the ire of President Donald Trump, who opposed him over several policy disputes and Massie's 2025 vote against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Trump cannot run for reelection in 2028.

Trump endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who defeated Massie in the recent Republican primary for the seat Massie currently holds. Massie had taken about 76 percent of the primary vote and 99.6 percent of the general election vote in 2024.

As The Epoch Times notes further, during his concession speech, some of Massie's supporters chanted "2028." He asked whether they wanted him to run for Congress again. They said no, then began chanting "president."

"All right, well you've made a compelling argument, ... but I need a medical margarita right now, and we'll talk about it later," Massie said.

During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend, Massie said he would not rule out running for president or county commissioner in 2028.

"I will not rule out anything, and right now I'm not going to rule in anything," he said.

"Look, I've spent the last five days on my farm with my grandkids, and my cattle and my peach trees, and it's a pretty nice life. I don't know if I want to screw that up again. I've been in Congress 14 years, fighting. Every hour that passes, I get decompressed a little bit more. It's like coming up from the bottom of the ocean. And I'll take some time and decide what's next. But I think I will stay engaged in some way or shape. Maybe it's from the outside. I've been exposing what's going on in Washington, D.C. for years and I'll keep doing it."

Massie has served in the House since 2012.

He said on May 22 that he would not be requesting a recount in his race, writing in a May 22 post on X that he does not think he lost due to fraudulent votes, mail-in ballots, or mistabulated results.

"There's a quiet all-out war for the future of our country," he said. "Let us not misdirect our precious resources."

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 11:00

AI Startup Says It Will Pay People $2,000 A Month to Masturbate... Yes, Really

Authored by Jason Nelson via Decrypt.co,

• Joi AI is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” at $2,000 for a month to test an AI-guided masturbation feature and document its effects on stress, sleep, mood, and confidence.

• The feature uses mood-matched AI voice sessions, and consultants would submit written feedback and questionnaires directly to the company.

• Joi AI says the campaign is intended to collect product feedback while drawing attention to AI’s growing role in sexual wellness and digital intimacy.

Joi AI says it will pay people $2,000 a month to masturbate. Yes, you read that right.

The AI companion startup is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test a feature called Daily Guided Masturbation, which uses mood-matched AI voice sessions to guide users through the experience. Participants would document how regular use affects stress, sleep quality, mood, and confidence. The four-week role is open to adults 18 and older in the U.S. and the U.K.

“The role is real, and we’ve had great responses since the posting went live,” Joi AI Head of Brand and Communication Julie Levin told Decrypt.

we’re hiring 10 Masturbation Consultants

$2,000/month to test our new Daily Guided Masturbation feature and document the effects on stress, sleep and mood

yes it’s real
yes you get paid

— Joi AI (@joi___ai) May 18, 2026

The listing describes ideal candidates as “articulate, observant, and impossible to blush”—people who can describe sensations “better than a sommelier describes a wine.” The posting also promises flexible scheduling, and “the most interesting ‘What do you do for a living?’ answer at any party.”

Joi AI is an online platform that includes AI-generated avatars, voice interactions, and personalized chat experiences built around companionship and intimacy. Joi AI describes the new consultant role as structured product testing tied directly to its new feature.

“The role involves testing and giving feedback on the mood-matched AI voice-guided sessions, and providing feedback on the overall user experience,” Levin told Decrypt.

According to Levin, participants complete guided sessions and submit written questionnaires directly to the Joi AI team. Sample prompts ask whether the voice matched the selected mood, how immersive the session felt, and whether lags or pauses disrupted the experience.

The listing comes as platforms including Replika and Character.AI have built large user bases around AI-driven relationships and conversational experiences. Joi AI operates primarily through its website rather than major app stores. Levin said the company has more than 1 million monthly active users worldwide and millions of interactions each month, but declined to disclose total download figures.

Unlike AI assistants like Alexa or Siri, designed to help with everyday tasks, Joi AI operates in a smaller corner of that market focused on sexual exploration, fantasy, and digital intimacy. The company rebranded from EVA AI in April 2025, during what it described as its first Dating Stress Awareness Day campaign.

“Joi AI is focused on making AI companionship more immersive, personalized, and emotionally responsive,” Levin said. “We’re innovating features like Daily Guided Masturbation to make AI a more intuitive part of people’s everyday wellness routines, not just a novelty experience.”

The hiring push also comes as studies suggest AI companion use is becoming more common among people already in relationships, often without their partner’s knowledge. A new report from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and the Institute for Family Studies found that among dating, engaged, and married young adults who regularly used AI romantic companions, nearly 3 in 10 said their real-life partner did not know about it.

AI companion platforms are also facing growing legal scrutiny, including lawsuits alleging psychological harm to minors and deceptive chatbot behavior. Examples include a settled case against Character.AI over a Florida teen’s suicide and a separate lawsuit from Pennsylvania accusing the company of allowing a chatbot to pose as a licensed psychiatrist.

Levin said the hiring campaign was intended to generate discussion as well as recruit testers.

“It was both,” Levin said. “We are genuinely looking for people who can provide thoughtful feedback in this category, but the campaign was also designed to spark conversation around how people are increasingly using AI for masturbation as a healthy, relaxing habit.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 10:40

Iran's 90-Day Internet Blackout Ends As NetBlocks Confirms Partial Restoration

Internet monitoring firm NetBlocks has confirmed our Monday report that, after 88 days of "near-total isolation" from the global internet, Iran has seen a "partial restoration to internet connectivity."

📈 Confirmed: Live metrics show a partial restoration to internet connectivity in #Iran on day 88, after 2093 hours of near-total isolation from international networks, the longest nationwide internet shutdown in modern history. It is unclear if the restoration will be sustained. pic.twitter.com/Fi3z3UCMWp

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) May 26, 2026

The timing of the partial restoration of internet connectivity is notable and may only suggest incremental progress as Washington and Tehran try to solidify a peace deal. Energy experts have warned that if the Hormuz maritime chokepoint remains closed through June, the global oil market could face a disastrous supply cliff as temporary buffers, floating storage, and emergency stockpile releases lose their ability to cap crude prices.

Revisiting our Monday report:

• Iranian Presidency Orders Reopening of International Internet Access After Nearly 90-Day Blackout

We cited Reuters, which said that Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian issued an order to reopen international internet access after a three-month blackout. However, we added a caveat to readers that this still needed confirmation.

In our view, a partial internet restoration suggests that Tehran may be trying to project a return to normalcy as U.S.-Iran talks continue. It is certainly a positive diplomatic indicator.

Perhaps the Trump team has given Tehran a guarantee that it won't pursue its color-revolution social-instability operation. Again, a positive diplomatic indicator.  

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 10:20

Conference Board Consumer Expectations Hit YTD Highs, Inflation Fears Dip In May

With war (and rising gas prices) now fully embedded in respondents' minds (along with record high stock prices), it is perhaps not entirely surprising that The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence dipped in May (but was better than expected).

The headline index dipped 0.7 points to 93.1 in May, down from an upwardly revised 93.8 in April.

The Present Situation Index - based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions - retreated by 3.2 points to 121.2.

The Expectations Index - based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions - rose by 1.0 points to 74.4 - the highest since Dec 2025.

Source: Bloomberg

“Consumer confidence edged downward in May as the inflationary impacts of the war in the Middle East intensified,” said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board.

“Consumer appraisals of current business conditions and the current labor market were moderately less positive compared to last month. This was somewhat offset by modest improvements in consumers’ expectations for business conditions and the labor market six months from now. Meanwhile, income expectations eased in May, as those anticipating less income rose.”

Consumers’ average and median 12-month inflation expectations ticked downward but remained elevated.

The overall trend of the labor market remains weaker...

Among age groups, confidence ticked up for consumers aged 35-54, but trended downward for older and younger consumers, both month-over-month and on a six-month moving average basis.

By income, confidence among higher income groups trended upward on a six-month moving average basis.

By generation, confidence improved for the Silent Generation (the oldest group) but was little changed or lower among other generations.

By political affiliation, Republicans remained the most optimistic, while Independents were the only group that saw confidence tick up on a month-over-month basis.

Consumers’ write-in responses on factors affecting the economy continued to skew towards pessimism in May. References to prices and oil and gas increased in frequency for a second consecutive month, while mentions of war, geopolitics, and conflict remained elevated—likely signaling consumers’ underlying concerns about the inflationary impacts of the war in the Middle East on their wallets.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 10:11

Key Events This Holiday-Shortened Week: PCE, Durables, Consumer Confidence And Fed Speakers

SSDD: with stocks set to hit new record highs, the hope this morning once again is that the days may be numbered for the war in Iran, with momentum building since the start of the weekend that a deal could be in the works. Brent, which ended last week at $103.54/bbl, is this morning trading at $97.87/bbl, around -5.48% lower than Friday’s close. However, Brent had got as low as $96.02 late yesterday before news overnight that US and Israeli jets conducted fresh strikes in Southern Iran, hitting missile launch sites and mine-laying boats. These actions were described as "defensive" and not an end to the ceasefire with Iran.

Net net, optimism is still elevated that an agreement can be made to end the war. We have been here before, of course, but it has felt for some time that the move towards peace has been three steps forward and one or two back. It is now 48 days since the main kinetic encounters, and according to DB's Jim Reid, such a prolonged truce and ceasefire would not have held if the US genuinely wanted to continue strikes, unless there was absolutely no alternative. Last night's targeted action is clearly a warning shot that the ceasefire is fragile though, so we will have to see what the next few days of negotiations bring.

Moving on to the rest of this week, inflation once again dominates with important price data across the US, Europe and Japan. In the US, the clear focal point is Thursday’s April personal income and spending report (Thursday), which contains the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. DB economists expect core PCE inflation at around +0.3% month-on-month, unchanged from March, with the year-on-year rate edging higher. This release matters not just for the inflation print itself, but for how it fits with the broader narrative of sticky services inflation and resilient demand.

On the real economy side of the same report (Thursday), economists expect momentum to cool after a very strong March, with personal consumption growth slowing back to around +0.3% month-on-month and personal income rising by roughly +0.4%. This comes after a hawkish speech from Waller on Friday. He discussed how the recent labor market and inflation data had caused him to reevaluate the balance of risks with inflation becoming the “driving force” behind monetary policy in the near term. In particular, he noted that he would support changing language in the statement to remove the easing bias and make it clear that “a rate cut is no more likely in the future than a rate increase”. In light of this there is a lot of Fedspeak to watch this week. You can see a list in the day-by-day calendar at the end as usual but keep an eye on Minneapolis’s Kashkari (today) and Dallas’s Logan (tomorrow), both of whom had dissented against the easing bias in the April statement. They are likely to repeat their view that the stance of monetary policy should be more balanced, particularly as inflation risks remain front of mind.

Staying with the Fed, last Friday, DB's Chief US economist, Matt Luzzetti, wrote an interesting piece entitled “overinsured” where he discusses how the Fed has delivered 175bps of rate cuts in this cycle even as inflation has remained well above target, framing the last round as “insurance” or “risk management” cuts in response to elevated downside labor market risks. Matt suggests that relative to a set of standard policy rules, the first set of cuts in 2024 was appropriate. But following the second set last year, and the recent acceleration of inflation, the fed funds rate is now significantly below all policy rule settings. This finding is robust to different plausible estimates of r-star and the use of economic forecasts instead of current inflation and unemployment in the policy rules. 

Beyond PCE, Thursday also brings durable goods orders (Thursday), where our economists look for a modest headline increase consistent with steady but unspectacular capital spending momentum. Earlier in the week, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index (tomorrow) is expected to edge lower, potentially reflecting the cumulative impact of higher rates and policy uncertainty. Weekly initial jobless claims (Thursday) remain an important high-frequency signal on labor market conditions, although holiday effects may add some volatility.

In Europe, attention turns to the May flash inflation prints at the end of the week, with Germany, France, Italy and Spain all reporting on Friday, ahead of the Eurozone aggregate the following week. DB economists expect inflation to remain above target across the region. Alongside the data, the ECB publishes the account of its April meeting (Thursday) and its Financial Stability Review (Wednesday), offering further insight into how policymakers are balancing lingering inflation pressures against softer growth and financial stability considerations.

In Asia, Japan is the key focus. Friday’s Tokyo CPI (Friday) will provide an early read on national inflation trends, alongside April industrial production and retail sales (Friday). Our economists expect inflation measures to firm modestly, underscoring that price pressures remain present even as activity data stay mixed. Elsewhere, China releases industrial profits (tomorrow), Australia publishes its April CPI (Wednesday), and the RBNZ announces its latest policy decision (tomorrow), where most economists expect the cash rate to be left unchanged.

On the corporate side, earnings highlights include US tech names such as Dell, Marvell and Salesforce, alongside consumer-facing firms including Costco and Dollar Tree, with most results clustered around mid-to-late week.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Tuesday May 26

• Data: US May Conference Board consumer confidence index, May Dallas Fed manufacturing activity, Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity, April Chicago Fed national activity index, March FHFA house price index, Q1 house price purchase index, France April retail sales
• Central banks: ECB’s Sleijpen speaks
• Earnings: AutoZone, Zscaler
• Auctions: US 2-yr Notes ($69bn)

Wednesday May 27

• Data: US May Richmond Fed manufacturing index, business conditions, Dallas Fed services activity, China April industrial profits, Japan April PPI services, France May consumer confidence, Italy March industrial sales, EU27 April new car registrations, Australia April CPI
• Central banks: Fed’s Kashkari, Logan and Cook speak, ECB Financial Stability Review, RBNZ decision
• Earnings: Marvell, Salesforce, Synopsys, Snowflake
• Auctions: US 2-yr FRN (reopening, $28bn), 5-yr Notes ($70bn)

Thursday May 28

• Data: US April PCE, personal income, spending, durable goods orders, new home sales, initial jobless claims, France April PPI, Italy May consumer confidence index, economic sentiment, manufacturing confidence, April PPI, Eurozone May economic confidence, Canada Q1 current account balance, Norway Q1 GDP
• Central banks: Fed’s Jefferson, Goolsbee, Musalem and Williams speak, ECB’s account of the April decision, ECB’s Lane, Cipollone and Schnabel speak, BoE’s Lombardelli and Breeden speak, BoC Financial Stability Report
• Earnings: Costco, Dell, Autodesk, SSE, MongoDB, Dollar Tree
• Auctions: US 7-yr Notes ($44bn)

Friday May 29

• Data: US April advance goods trade balance, retail inventories, wholesale inventories, May MNI Chicago PMI, UK May Lloyds Business Barometer, Japan May Tokyo CPI, consumer confidence index, April jobless rate, job-to-applicant ratio, retail sales, industrial production, housing starts, Germany May CPI, unemployment claims rate, France May CPI, April consumer spending, Q1 total payrolls, Italy May CPI, April unemployment rate, Canada Q1 GDP, Sweden Q1 GDP
• Central banks: Fed’s Daly, Bowman and Paulson speak, ECB’s Panetta, Radev and Muller speak, BoE’s Bailey speaks

Finally, looking at just the US, the economic data releases this week are the durable goods report and the PCE inflation report on Thursday. There are several speaking engagements with Fed officials this week, including events with Vice Chair Jefferson and Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman; Governors Cook and Waller; and Presidents Goolsbee, Logan, Williams, Musalem, Barkin, Schmid, Paulson, and Daly

Tuesday, May 26 

• 09:00 AM FHFA house price index, March (consensus +0.1%, last flat)
• 09:00 AM Case-Shiller home price index, March (GS -0.3%, consensus -0.1%, last -0.1%) 
• 10:00 AM Conference Board consumer confidence, May (GS 91.5, consensus 92.0, last 92.8)
• 10:00 AM Dallas Fed manufacturing index, May (consensus flat, last -2.3)

Wednesday, May 27 

• 04:00 AM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will take part in a panel on monetary policy at an event hosted by the Bank of Japan. Text is expected. In a statement explaining her dissent from the implicit easing bias in the April FOMC’s post-meeting statement, Logan said she was “increasingly concerned about how long it will take inflation to return all the way to the FOMC’s 2 percent target.” Logan stressed that “PCE inflation has exceeded 2 percent for more than five years” and that “even before recent increases in the prices of energy and other commodities, [measures of inflation that strip out extreme price changes or categories where prices are more volatile] had been running meaningfully above 2 percent.” In addition, she noted that “the conflict in the Middle East raises the prospect of prolonged or repeated supply disruptions that could create further inflationary pressures.”
• 10:00 AM Richmond Fed manufacturing index, May (consensus +4, last +3)
• 03:55 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will deliver a speech on AI, the economy, and the financial system at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)’s Policy Forum. Text and moderated Q&A are expected.
• 08:00 PM Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks: Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson will deliver a speech on monetary policy and supply shocks at an event hosted by the Bank of Japan. Text and Q&A are expected. On April 7th, Jefferson said he saw “our current policy stance as appropriately positioned to allow us to assess how the economy evolves.” Jefferson said he “remain[s] cautious about [the] outlook,” as “uncertainty about the economy is elevated, and the rise in energy prices and the conflict in the Middle East add to that uncertainty.”
• 10:25 PM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will take part in a panel on monetary policy and the world economy at an event hosted by the Bank of Japan.

Thursday, May 28 

• 08:30 AM Personal income, April (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.6%); Personal spending, April (GS +0.7%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.9%); Core PCE price index, April (GS +0.29%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.3%); Core PCE price index (YoY), April (GS +3.31%, consensus +3.3%, last +3.2%); PCE price index, April (GS +0.44%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.7%); PCE price index (YoY), April (GS +3.78%, consensus +3.8%, last +3.5%): We estimate that personal income and spending increased by 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively, in April. We estimate that the core PCE price index rose 0.29% in April, corresponding to a year-over-year rate of +3.31%. Additionally, we estimate that the headline PCE price index increased 0.44% in April, or increased 3.78% from a year earlier.
• 08:30 AM GDP, Q1 second release (GS +2.0%, consensus +2.0%, last +2.0%); Personal consumption, Q1 second release (GS +1.7%, consensus +1.7%, last +1.6%); Core PCE inflation, Q1 second release (GS +4.26%, consensus +4.3%, last +4.3%): We estimate no revision on net to Q1 GDP growth at +2.0% (quarter-over-quarter annualized), reflecting an upward revision to consumer spending growth (+0.1pp to +1.7%) due to stronger utilities and public transportation details in the quarterly census survey (QSS), offset by downward revisions to inventory accumulation and net exports growth.
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended May 23 (GS 210k, consensus 212k, last 209k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended May 16 (consensus 1,780k, last 1,782k)
• 08:30 AM Durable goods orders, April preliminary (GS +1.0%, consensus +3.9%, last +0.8%); Durable goods orders ex-transportation, April preliminary (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.9%); Core capital goods orders, April preliminary (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.4%, last +3.4%); Core capital goods shipments, April preliminary (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.6%, last +1.2%): We estimate that durable goods orders increased 1% in the preliminary April report (month-over-month, seasonally adjusted) based on our tracking of commercial aircraft orders. We forecast a 0.3% increase in core capital goods orders—reflecting the continued increase in the new orders components in manufacturing surveys in April but payback for an outsized increase in the series itself in March—and a 0.5% increase in core capital goods shipments—reflecting the continued increase in core capital goods orders in recent months.
• 08:55 AM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will deliver a speech at the Reykjavik Economic Conference in Iceland. Text and moderated Q&A are expected. On May 14th, Williams said monetary policy was “in a good place,” which he characterized as “mildly restrictive,” and noted that he did not “see that there’s any reason to raise rates right now, or lower rates.”
• 10:00 AM New home sales, April (GS -3.0%, consensus -3.5%, last +7.4%) 
• 10:15 AM St. Louis Fed President Musalem (FOMC non-voter) speaks: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem will deliver a speech at the Reykjavik Economic Conference in Iceland. On May 6th, Musalem said that “the risks have been shifting towards more risk on the inflation side than the employment side” and that “there are very plausible scenarios under which the economy would require us to keep the policy rate at its current level for some time.”
• 03:00 PM Richmond Fed President Barkin (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin will take part in a fireside chat at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Washington, DC. Moderated Q&A is expected. On May 21st, Barkin noted that “with inflation above our 2% target for over five years now, it’s worth asking whether the cumulative impact of so many waves risks loosening the anchor.” At the same time, Barkin emphasized downside risks to employment from AI, noting that “everyone I talk to is talking about AI and AI-related job loss.”

Friday, May 29 

• 06:50 AM Kansas City Fed President Schmid (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid will deliver a speech at the Reykjavik Economic Conference in Iceland. Text and moderated Q&A are expected. On May 14th, Schmid said that “continued inflation [is] the most pressing risk to the economy,” while “unemployment remains relatively low by historical standards, and the labor market is functioning effectively.”
• 08:30 AM Advance goods trade balance, April (GS -$84.0bn, consensus -$86.4bn, last -$87.4bn): We estimate that the goods trade deficit narrowed by $3.4bn to $84.0bn, driven by a decline in imports of computers and other electronic products from Asia.
• 09:10 AM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will deliver a speech on monetary policy at the Reykjavik Economic Conference in Iceland. Text is expected.
• 09:15 AM Philadelphia Fed President Paulson (FOMC voter) speaks: Philadelphia Fed President Anna Paulson will take part in an event hosted by The Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey. Audience Q&A is expected. On May 19th, Paulson said that she saw the current stance of policy as “mildly restrictive and that restrictiveness is helping to keep inflation pressures in check while the labor market remains stable.” As a result, Paulson noted, “keeping rates steady allows us to assess how the economy is evolving and the risks to both price stability and the labor market.” Paulson said that “assuming the labor market remains in balance, rate cuts would only become appropriate once we have seen sustained progress on inflation.” She also noted that she thought it was “healthy that market participants have taken on board scenarios where the funds rate remains unchanged for an extended period, as well as scenarios where further tightening becomes necessary.”
• 10:00 AM Wholesale inventories, April preliminary (consensus +0.4%, last +0.6%)
• 12:40 PM San Francisco Fed President Daly (FOMC non-voter) speaks: San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly will speak at the 2026 Reagan National Economic Forum in Simi Valley, California. On May 7th, Daly said that she thought “the phrasing of the [FOMC’s post-meeting] statement is less important than the actions.” Daly noted that “if the [Middle East] conflict ends and oil prices come back down and that doesn’t get passed into the broader economy, then I expect the underlying dynamics that we were facing prior to the conflict to return.” Daly characterized the current monetary policy stance as “slightly restrictive,” which would help put some downward pressure on inflation. She noted that she did not see the labor market as a source of inflationary pressure.

Source: DB, Goldman

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 10:00

ASP Isotopes Soars On Restart Of Silicon-28 Facility, Locks In Q3 2026 Commercial Shipments

ASP Isotopes cleared a major operational milestone at its Pretoria Silicon-28 enrichment facility, restarting the first 18 stages, and has now run them for over three weeks at target enrichment levels. Commercial shipments to U.S. customers are on track for Q3 2026.

The stock was up over 25% in early trading, back at its highest levels since January...

The restart follows nine months of targeted engineering work on non-core components. Fixes will now roll out across the remaining stages, and samples shipped to a U.S. customer last August already confirmed enrichment performance matched theoretical models.

Three commercial contracts are already signed with American buyers. 

“As we scale our production capabilities over the coming quarters, both of these applications will be central to our strategy,” said Stefano Marani, President of ASP Isotopes’ Electronics and Space division. “We have seen considerable interest in many isotopes to enable next-generation technologies.”

The material is headed for two high-stakes applications. In quantum computing, enriched Silicon-28 dramatically extends qubit coherence times by reducing nuclear spin noise. In conventional semiconductors, the isotope’s superior thermal conductivity improves heat dissipation and device reliability.

We discussed ASPI's silicon segment back in October when they announced their largest ever supply contract and acquired a U.S.-based radiopharmacy. “The company is targeting demand ’for isotopes such as Silicon-28, which will enable quantum computing, and Molybdenum-100, Molybdenum-98, Zinc-68, Ytterbium-176, and Nickel-64 for new, emerging healthcare applications, as well as Chlorine-37, Lithium-6, and Uranium-235 for green energy applications.’”

The company is now making progress on multiple fronts, including the helium sector after completing its acquisition of Renergen, which has a project in South Africa. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 09:45

Iranian Leader Calls For Muslim Unity, Says 'Death To America' Will Become Common Slogan

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a message on May 26 calling for greater unity across the Muslim world against the United States and Israel, saying that the chants “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” will become the rallying slogans of Muslims and “the oppressed of the world.”

Khamenei’s message was to mark Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage. In it, Khamenei described a historic struggle against U.S. and Israeli influence in the Middle East, repeatedly invoking the revolutionary slogan “Allahu Akbar” as the “weapon” that had enabled Iran and its allies to resist outside pressure.

He said Iran had succeeded in “making the Zionist regime helpless under its severe blows during the second imposed war” and in delivering “a harsh slap to aggressive America,” while thwarting efforts to force Tehran into submission.

The statement also praised what it called the “Resistance Front,” saying Iranian forces and allied fighters in Lebanon had secured “notable victories” against “the two terrorist armies, armed to the teeth by the American-Zionist side.”

Khamenei coupled the militant rhetoric with a broader appeal for cooperation among Muslim-majority countries, calling on regional countries to “no longer serve as shields for American bases” while denouncing Israel as a “faltering” regime that was nearing “the final stages of its cursed life.”

Fragile Diplomacy Continues

Khamenei’s message came as the United States, Israel, and Iran remain locked in a tense standoff following months of fighting that included U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities, Iranian retaliation across the region, and disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Although a ceasefire has largely held, negotiations continue over a proposed memorandum of understanding intended to end hostilities and establish a framework for future talks.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on May 25 that negotiations with Tehran were “proceeding nicely” but warned that failure to secure an acceptable agreement could lead to renewed military action.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly said Trump would not accept a “bad deal” with Iran and warned that Washington would pursue “another way” if diplomacy failed.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the U.S. State Department in Washington on April 14, 2026. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“The President said he’s not in a hurry. He’s not going to make a bad deal,” Rubio said during a briefing in India. “We’re going to give diplomacy every chance to succeed before we explore the alternatives.”

Details of the proposed memorandum of understanding remain unclear, with Trump saying that “nobody has seen it, or knows what it is.”

According to Iranian officials, the proposed memorandum focuses primarily on ending the fighting, easing sanctions and blockades, and reopening maritime routes through the Strait of Hormuz, while postponing the most contentious nuclear issues—such as the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium—for later negotiations.

Trump said in a May 25 post on Truth Social that Iran’s uranium would either be “destroyed in place” under the proposed deal, or handed over to the United States, or taken to another “acceptable location” for disposal under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission or equivalent authority.

He has also linked a broader regional settlement to an expansion of the Abraham Accords, saying countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan should normalize relations with Israel as part of a comprehensive peace pact.

Iran Eyes Strategic Shift

Senior Israeli security officials told Epoch Magazine Israel that Tehran views the emerging memorandum not just as a mechanism to halt the fighting, but as a potentially transformative geopolitical turning point.

According to the officials, Iranian leaders increasingly view the shift from direct military confrontation toward gradual negotiations as a strategic success after months of military, economic, and diplomatic pressure from the United States and Israel.

Iranian media reports, cited by the Israeli officials, have portrayed Tehran as successfully pushing Washington toward a step-by-step negotiating framework rather than a rapid comprehensive settlement.

A woman holds up pictures of Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei (L) and his father, the slain Ali Khamenei, in a state-organized rally celebrating the birthday of Imam Reza, the 8th Shiite Muslim imam, and supporting the supreme leader, in Tehran, Iran, on April 29, 2026. Vahid Salemi/AP Photo

From Tehran’s perspective, the officials said, the evolving arrangement is being presented domestically as evidence that the United States retreated from maximalist demands and failed to achieve key objectives through force. These include the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, weakening the Islamic Republic, and diminishing Iran’s regional influence.

That interpretation aligns with the tone of Khamenei’s Hajj message, which presented Iran and the broader “Resistance Front” as growing in power while portraying the United States and Israel as weakening.

Campaign Assessment in Focus

Debate has emerged in Washington and among foreign policy analysts over whether the U.S.–Israeli campaign against Iran has been a success or a failure.

The White House has strongly defended the operation, pointing to Iran having suffered major military setbacks, including damage to missile stockpiles, naval assets, and leadership structures.

Emergency crews work at the site of a US-Israeli strike on a residential building that also destroyed the adjacent Rafi-Nia Synagogue in Tehran, Iran, on April 7, 2026. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the United States had “met or surpassed all of our military objectives in ‘Operation Epic Fury.’”

“President Trump holds all the cards and wisely keeps all options on the table,” she added.

Alexander Gray, a former senior adviser in Trump’s first term and now chief executive officer of the American Global Strategies consultancy, said that the war had pulled Gulf states closer to the United States and away from China, while the blow to Iranian military capabilities should be seen as a strategic success.

Critics contend that Tehran has survived the assault while retaining key leverage, particularly its ability to threaten global energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations, described the conflict as “a war that was designed to be a short-term romp for Trump” that was now turning into “a long-term strategic failure.”

A couple with a dog ride a motorbike at Enqelab Square in Tehran, Iran, on April 28, 2026. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

Other analysts have argued that Iran’s leadership increasingly views survival itself as a victory, especially as negotiations move away from immediate dismantlement of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure and toward a slower diplomatic process.

“What they discovered is they can exercise that leverage and with few consequences for them,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East, adding that Iran appeared confident it could outlast Trump by being able to tolerate more economic pain.

Iran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil soaring, with prices at the pump for American drivers jumping to a four-year high, pushing consumer sentiment to record lows.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 09:30

Over Half Of America's Largest Cities Are Seeing Home Price Declines

After declining MoM for the first time since June 2025 in February, US home prices in America's 20 largest cities were expected to dip again in March (according to the latest data from S&P Cotality Case-Shiller) and they did, dropping 0.16% MoM (worse than the 0.10% MoM drop expected) leaving prices up just 0.83% YoY...

Source: Bloomberg

That is the weakest annual appreciation since July 2023.

"More than half of the 20 major U.S. housing markets recorded year-over-year price declines in March, reflecting a broadening and deepening housing slowdown," said Nicholas Godec, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The trend is clear across almost every city...

And the two-year chart looks particularly ugly...

"The geographic divergence remains stark," Godec continued.

"Midwest and Northeast markets are sustaining modest growth, while much of the Sun Belt and Western regions are still seeing declines. Chicago led all cities with a 6.1% annual gain, followed by New York (4.0%) and Cleveland (3.0%). In contrast, Seattle’s 2.5% year-over-year decline was the steepest in March, with Denver (-2.0%), Tampa (-1.9%), Dallas (-1.7%), and Phoenix (-1.6%) joining Seattle among the weakest performers. Even Los Angeles (-1.6%) and Washington (-0.1%) turned negative.

The spread between the strongest and weakest markets – 8.6 percentage points, from Chicago’s +6.1% to Seattle’s -2.5% – highlights how localized this housing cycle has become. (Detroit’s March reading remains unavailable due to local transaction data delays.)

Given the lag in Case-Shiller data, one could argue that prices should be starting to rise here...

"Mortgage rates, meanwhile, have resumed climbing. The 30-year fixed rate dipped below 6% in late February but rebounded to roughly 6.4% by the end of March, re-intensifying the affordability squeeze on buyers and potentially further damping home sales and price growth," Godec concluded.

But the oddly tight coupling with Fed Reserves suggests the path is lower...

Interestingly, for the 10th consecutive month, inflation outpaced national home price appreciation, with March CPI running 2.6 percentage points above the 0.7% annual gain, extending the streak of negative real home price returns.

Is this Trump's 'affordability' plan kicking in? Or just lagged rates finally impacting reality.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 09:07

Leftist Activists Build Illegal "Autonomous Zone" Around NJ ICE Facility

They keep doing it because the consequences are not harsh enough yet, and they enjoy the protection of Democrat politicians and NGO-backed funding.  Without support from the Democrat Party and global non-profits, the Anti-ICE movement would not exist.  In other words, they're astroturf. 

Of course, that doesn't stop them from causing all kinds of trouble. Federal agents moved within the past 48 hours to break down a make-shift "autonomous zone" built by leftist activists around the New Jersey Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark. 

🚨 NOW: Anti-ICE “protestors” have put a BARRIER outside the ICE facility in Newark, and are BLOCKING vehicles from entering and leaving

Is this SERIOUSLY being tolerated now??!

Start flooding the street with TEARGAS and FORCE them to move. pic.twitter.com/J7WQy8Pr2n

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 25, 2026

Tear gas and other less-lethal means were deployed after protesters tried to establish encampments and barricades to block vehicles from entering or leaving the site.

BREAKING: CLASHES between ICE agents agents and leftist rioters broke out this morning at the ICE facility in Newark, NJ as rioters attempted to BLOCK ICE vehicles

ICE ROUGHED UP these twerps.

Well done, ICE! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/XFSDZkscBN

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 25, 2026

The primary NGO organizing the NJ actions is The New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ), which has been heavily involved in the Delaney protests.  These state level NGOs are often two or three layers away from larger organizers and, more often than not, money from globalist foundations like Open Society, Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation is flowing into their coffers.  

The strategies employed by activists have become standard - Incite, provoke, sabotage and disrupt until agents respond with force, then let the establishment media cherry pick footage to paint ICE as the villains while Democrat politicians "demand access and answers".  It is a finely tuned and well organized agitation operation.

Democrat representatives continue to spread lies about the intended scope of deportations - Claiming that the operations are "not supposed to target people without criminal records".  So, let's be clear:

The Trump Administration has always said that deportations will apply to all illegal immigrants, not just those that committed crimes after entering the country.  At no point has Trump said immigration enforcement would be limited to aliens with rap sheets.  By extension, all illegal migrants are, by definition, criminals.

Democrats have knowingly persisted with this false narrative in order to inject it into the public discourse.  It has no validity, and the majority of the populace continues to support mass deportations.

Sob stories, performative theatrics and fake hunger strikes aside, deportations continue at a steady pace.  ICE efforts have led to 72,044 removals of illegals since April 4th, averaging around 1286 deportations per day.  Trump has announced plans to expand these actions into the end of the year, with larger processing facilities already built and more agent trained. 

Though some critics argue that the number of deportations is not enough, it's important to remember that it was far easier for the Biden Administration to open the borders up and let illegals pour in than it is to get them back out of the country again.  It is also likely that, as Trump's deportations increase, NGO activists will return in greater numbers to disrupt. 

As long as they can operate with relative impunity within blue states and sanctuary cities, this paid army of saboteurs will remain an ongoing obstacle.     

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 09:00

China Begins Flooding The Market With DRAM And NAND Memory Chips

Last September, when the memory bubble was just getting started, we said that inevitably "the cure for high commodity prices is, well, high commodity prices." While many financial market maxims have quietly ceased working in recent years thanks to rigged markets due to central bank interventions and market manipulation by both money printers and HFTs, this is one that will never fail, the only question is timing. Furthermore, there is one other thing that can be added as an ironclad footnote here, and that is that once China starts producing the commodity in question, what was formerly price euphoria quickly turns to collapse (as history so vividly demonstrates when looking at any of China's export markets, where price dumping always unleashes hell for domestic producers).  Well, for memory chips, that time has finally come. 

You mean commodity DRAM prices won’t go to infinity? https://t.co/islKPtFQY2

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 22, 2026

According to Tom's Hardware, Wccftech and techspot, Chinese semiconductor firms have begun flooding the market with domestically produced DRAM and NAND chips in a move that analysts say will drive down memory and storage prices, offering consumers some much-needed relief. Reports suggest that several leading global PC component manufacturers have already started using the chips in upcoming products.

According to screenshots posted on X by tipster @wxnod, Corsair has integrated memory chips manufactured by Chinese DRAM maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) into its next-generation memory modules. While Corsair typically sources memory chips from Micron Technology, elevated market prices have reportedly pushed the company to explore more cost-effective alternatives.

CXMT DDR5 DRAM Die Appears in Corsair Memory pic.twitter.com/GRLeAUHtEN

— Алексей (@wxnod) May 22, 2026

As Tom's Hardware lays out, in late 2024, China-based ChangXing Memory Technologies (CXMT) began producing DDR5 modules aimed at the consumer market. Since then, the company has even laid out a roadmap that currently puts its max DDR5 capabilities at 8,000 MT/s across 16 Gb and 24 Gb densities. Fast forward to today, and we're finally seeing Chinese DRAM in a mainstream product, more specifically, a Corsair Vengeance DDR5 16GB stick, running at 6,000 MT/s with CL36 speeds.

In the "CMK5X16G3E60C36A2-CN" part number, the "CN" denotes it's a China-exclusive kit. It's still certified for both Intel XMP and AMD EXPO (since it runs beyond JEDEC speeds), and we also see the rest of the specs printed on the label, such as the timings and operating voltage. There are also "UKCA" and "CE" signs that indicate this kit meets European and British standards for sale in those regions. 

The most important thing to note is that the DRAM manufacturer is listed at ChangXin Technologies or CXMT. Now there are plenty of reasons why Corsair has chosen CXMT over its usual Samsung and SK Hynix partners. The shortages that everyone now knows about are the primary reason, and then there's the cost factor.

The post above shows CPU-Z screenshots clearly revealing that the DRAM powering this kit is from CXMT and not one of the big three memory makers: Micron, Samsung, or SK Hynix. All of those companies are busy selling out their entire production lines to data centers instead, so it makes sense that Corsair is shifting around its suppliers. CXMT might seem like an unusual choice, but the company is well-positioned for this transition. It confirms that consumers are now buying RAM made outside the Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix memory cartel that has controlled the market for 20 years, and has single handedly sent us PPI soaring.

Source: Omair Sharif

While unlike major DRAM manufacturers, CXMT isn't widely seen as possessing the latest cutting-edge tools to produce memory for hyperscalers, it is rapidly catching up: HP placed major LPDDR5 orders with CXMT in January, Qualcomm began custom DRAM work with the company in April, and Dell, Asus, and Acer have all approached the manufacturer. Furthermore, the company isn't tied to any data center contracts (for now), so it has largely empty production lines just waiting for customers. The clientele CXMT seems to be targeting is regular consumers left in the dust by the rest of the RAM industry.

Until now, CXMT has only really sold to local businesses and lesser-known brands, but being featured in a Corsair kit marks a major shift in the landscape. Even if this kit is exclusive to Chinese markets, it's still made by one of the biggest names in consumer memory — a name that people trust. Besides, most customers won't actually check what factory their DRAM chips are coming from as long as the specs seem up to par.

As shown below, the kit in question is a DDR5-6000 CL36, which is not the fastest, but is more than sufficient for gaming and daily tasks. There's generally less than 5% difference between a CL30 and CL36 kit at 6,000 MT/s, so for those saving a lot of money going for the slower latency, it might be worth it in some cases, like - you know - a global RAM shortage. That brings us to the main question: Is this RAM actually cheaper?

CXMT DDR5 DRAM 6000 C36-40-40-96 V1.35 pic.twitter.com/rk22qsWYkJ

— Алексей (@wxnod) May 22, 2026

There was no explicit mention of a price, so for all we know, Corsair is sourcing cheaper memory from CXMT but still selling it at the same inflated rates. If supply from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron is tight, it makes sense that DRAM bought from those companies would be expensive, but CXMT-made DDR5 should be significantly more affordable for it to matter and make an actual dent in the market.

Given how massively Chinese firms are increasing their memory production capacity this year, they can not only facilitate their own domestic needs but also provide a cheaper yet similar spec'd alternative to offshore PC manufacturers. Both CXMT and YMTC are going to double their wafer output capacity through an "Epic Expansion" initiative, which is already underway.

As the memory crisis intensifies and more pressure is exerted on Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, Chinese vendors will start to fill in the gaps, and are already seeing major revenue boosts. Expect to see lots of Chinese DRAM solutions powering memory modules from well-known brands at Computex this year.

And while Hefei-based CXMT, or ChangXin Memory Technologies, is China's largest memory chipmaker, it only unveiled its DDR5 portfolio last year. Furthermore, the company only controls about 7.7% of the global DRAM market and counts several major Chinese tech firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, among its customers. And now that it can easily undercut most of its international competition on price to gain market share, it will do just that. As a reminder, Chinese chips broke DDR3 and DDR4 pricing on the way in, and DDR5 is now next in line for the same treatment.

The company's strategy ties directly to what Seagate's CEO told JPMorgan last Monday (sending the company's stock price tumbling): that building new factories would "take too long," and the stock fell 6% because investors heard "we cannot meet demand." When, not if, CXMT meets that demand from outside the cartel, the supply tightness that has justified the memory ETF rally will collapse. To be sure, political risk remains since CXMT could still get added to any future US blacklist, but European markets are already open and the trade routes for memory chips do not respect Commerce Department guidance.

Why is CXMT going all out now

CXMT, has been ramping up capacity to compete with global leaders Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. The company offers DRAM dies in 64Gb and 16Gb configurations with speeds of up to 8,000 MT/s. Other Chinese memory manufacturers, such as YMTC and Jiahe Jinwei, are also expanding capacity to produce DDR5 RDIMMs for data centers and server deployments.

With memory pricing reaching record highs, CXMT's Q1 revenue rose to 50.8 billion yuan ($7.4 billion), up 719% year over year. The company also reported net profit of 33.0 billion yuan ($4.41 billion), compared with a loss of 2.83 billion yuan ($384 million) in the same period last year. The chipmaker is now reportedly preparing for a listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with a multi-billion-dollar IPO planned later this year. Indeed, last week Goldman noted that “CXMT’s updated IPO prospectus, filed last Sunday, indicates that the company is scaling faster and has become materially more profitable than the market had appreciated.” 

Here comes Chinese memory: “CXMT’s updated IPO prospectus, filed on Sunday, indicates that the company is scaling faster and has become materially more profitable than the market had appreciated”- Goldman

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 20, 2026

Some more details: according to China's Hongxing News on the 18th of May, ahead of its upcoming IPO, CXMT said in a prospectus released the previous day that first-quarter sales came to 50.8 billion yuan (about 11.1 trillion won), up 719.13% from a year earlier. First-quarter net profit (net profit attributable to the parent company) was 24.762 billion yuan (about 5.4 trillion won), up 1,688.3% from a year earlier.

Net profit attributable to the parent company refers to the portion of consolidated net income that ultimately belongs to the parent company's shareholders. CXMT's first-quarter sales and net profit surpassed all listings on the STAR Market, including SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.), China's largest foundry (contract chipmaker).

CXMT has higher revenue than Kioxia and SanDisk. China finally has a memory player. pic.twitter.com/hkA052ud36

— Omer Cheema (@OmerCheeema) May 24, 2026

As an aside, the CXMT prospectus indicates that the company's yields for DDR5 and LPDDR5X on its 1a (16nm-class) node have reached 80%+.For semicap space the cleaner beneficiaries are likely to be the domestic Chinese equipment vendors (given that China policy is to push for  domestic tools where feasible) such as Naura, AMEC and SMEE, while the case for ASML is more nuanced given ongoing lithography constraints in China.  

But wait, it's not just DRAM and CXMT: last week Reuters reported that China's top flash memory chipmaker YMTC ​has begun the so-called "tutoring" process for a potential ‌initial public offering, where a company receives formal pre-IPO guidance from an investment bank, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday. NAND maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) ​has hired CITIC Securities, a Chinese state-owned investment ​bank, to guide its IPO preparation ahead of a ⁠potential stock market listing.

Despite being added to a U.S. trade blacklist in late 2022, which curtailed its access to foreign chipmaking ​tools, the ​Wuhan-based company has ⁠expanded its use of domestic equipment suppliers such as Naura and is aggressively adding capacity

If CXMT is going after the Samsungs and Microns of the world with its DRAM portfolio, YMTC is going right after Sandisk: China's largest ​maker of NAND flash memory chips has two factories with a combined monthly output of 200,000 wafers. YMTC's third factory in Wuhan will start operations late this ⁠year, and ​has capacity to produce 50,000 wafers ​per month by 2027, Reuters has reported previously.

YMTC and CXMT are China's ​best hopes for establishing a foothold in a global memory chip market ‌long ⁠dominated by South Korean and US players, and one can be sure that in a world where even hyperscalers are giving up a huge chunk of margins to memory producers (see "Nvidia's Vera Rubin Rack Will Cost $7.8MM: Here's What's In It"), Beijing will do everything it can - and must - to win over as many margin-conscious companies as it can.

Source

And it will do so using the oldest trick in the Chinese book: by massively undercutting all of its established competition on price. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/26/2026 - 08:25