Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s back to work we go, for America’s three-day weekend is over. It’s back to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, May 26, 2026, unofficially summer and National Paper Airplane Day. Here’s what Guinness touted as the world’s longest paper airplane flight:

The farthest flight by a paper aircraft is 98.43 m (322 ft 11 in) and was achieved by Liu Liwen (China), with the support of Tang Shuai, Yang Shian, Huang Yizhou, Qiao Yuchen and Wang Chenghao (all China) in Shanghai, China, on 28 December 2025.

That’s the length of a football field! Here’s a video about how the record-setting plane was made; it shows the record-setting throw, and also teaches you how to make a plane.

It’s also National Blueberry Cheesecake Day (wrong—the only acceptable deviation from plain cheesecak is one with cherries), National Cherry Dessert Day, Sally Ride Day (the first American woman in space was born on this day in 1951 but died of pancreatic cancer at only 61), and World Redhead Day.  I nominate Karen Gillian, one of Dr. Who’s companions. Here’s a scene showing the romantic tension between Gillian and Dr. Who (Matt Smith):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news, ripped from the headlines.  As we all predicted (well, 90% of us), the fighting in Iran started up again yesterday as the U.S. struck Iranian missile sites:

American military forces conducted what U.S. Central Command said were “self-defense strikes” in southern Iran on Monday “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.”

The targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats trying to place mines, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement.

“U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing cease-fire,” said Captain Hawkins, who declined to say which ships came under fire, where they were located or precisely where the other U.S. strikes took place.

A senior U.S. military official said Iranian surface-to-air missiles threatened some of the nearly two dozen U.S. Navy warships — including two aircraft carriers and their escort vessels — in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea enforcing a blockade against vessels trying to enter or leave Iranian ports. The official added that the U.S. strikes hit near Bandar Abbas, a major port and Iranian navy base.

American and Iranian forces have had other skirmishes since a cease-fire took effect about six weeks ago. But the strikes on Monday came as Iranian negotiators arrived in Qatar for talks on ending the war, and they threatened to upend a fragile potential agreement that President Trump has said could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and relieve the greatest energy disruption in modern times.

It’s a long way to peace, it seems. . . . .

*The NYT also discusses the five “main issues that need to be resolved in a U.S.-Iran peace deal.”

The United States and Iran have signaled that they are moving closer to a deal to end the war in the Middle East. But neither country has released a copy of the possible deal and as of Sunday afternoon, it remained unclear exactly what they had agreed to — or if they had agreed to much at all.

In interviews, American and Iranian officials described basic elements of a deal differently. Notably, they portrayed discussions about the future of the nuclear program — and Iran’s existing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium — in divergent terms.

Here are five of the main issues at stake, and the positions each side has revealed at this point. I’ve added a quotation for each of them:

• 1. Iran’s Nuclear Program

One big question is what Iran would do with its existing stockpile of enriched uranium. It has about 970 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent, and also roughly 11 tons of other uranium that has been enriched at various levels, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A U.S. official told reporters on Sunday that the United States and Iran have agreed in principle to a deal that would include a commitment from Tehran to dispose of its highly enriched uranium. The mechanism for disposal is still being negotiated, the official said.

• 2. Control of the Strait of Hormuz

So one big question is whether Iran would reopen the strait. Another is whether the United States would end its blockade.

Iran’s effort to formalize, and monetize, its control over the waterway violates international law and shipping rules, which prohibit charging for safe passage through international waterways, experts say.

• 3. Frozen Iranian Assets

Iran wants to recover assets frozen in overseas accounts by longstanding international sanctions.

The Iranians say the proposed deal would release $25 billion in such assets.

At this stage, the U.S. is not offering to unfreeze any of Iran’s assets, the U.S. official told reporters on Sunday, but the official said that the United States has made clear it is willing to begin that process if Iran follows through on its nuclear commitments. The official declined to specify which or what amount of assets would be unfrozen.

• 4. Iran-Backed Proxies

The big question here is whether the proposed deal would halt the ongoing clashes. Another question is whether Iran would rein in its other regional proxies.

The Iranians say that under the proposed agreement, the fighting would stop on all fronts, including Lebanon. [The U.S. hasn’t mentioned this issue.]

• 5. Iran’s Missiles

Early in the conflict, the Trump administration said Iran would have to give up its missiles or limit their range. But the deal under discussion now does not address Iran’s missile stockpile, the U.S. official told reporters on Sunday.

Note that there’s nothing about regime change. That seems to have dropped out of the picture.

And the Wall Street Journal, more pessimistic, has an article called “Iran talks bog down over nuclear program and sanctions relief.” An excerpt:

Progress toward a deal to end the war with Iran slowed Monday as the two sides dug in over references to the country’s nuclear program and financial relief for Tehran, mediators said.

The slowdown followed a weekend that began with President Trump and other administration officials saying a deal was close and ended with Trump saying he wouldn’t rush to conclude an agreement that wasn’t right.

After the initial reports of the deal surfaced, Trump came under criticism from more hawkish members of his party who worried an agreement could open the Strait of Hormuz and ease the financial pressure on Iran’s regime but leave its nuclear program intact.

“The deal with Iran will either be a great and meaningful one, or there will be no deal,” Trump said early Monday on social media, blasting his Republican and Democratic critics as knowing nothing about the deal under negotiation.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal argues that Trump is trying to tie Israel’s hands to prevent it from pursuing war by itself by forcing the Arab states to normalize relations with the Jewish state. This sounds counterintuitive but may be correct.

For months, we have watched a narrative form: Israel deceived the United States into a disastrous war that only empowered Iran. This narrative ignores multiple factors, including but not limited to the fact that it was Trump’s choice, Trump did not follow the Israeli plan, and—perhaps most of all—the presence of another major player calling for war: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In late February, The Washington Post reported that the decision to go to war had been reached after encouragement from two key allies: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Throughout the war, they reinforced this support. A few weeks later, when Trump was claiming that the war would be over in a few days, The New York Times reported that both nations heavily encouraged a continuation of the conflict. Prince Mohammed reportedly argued that the United States should consider putting troops in Iran to seize energy infrastructure and force the government out of power.

But things have changed.

The Saudis never expected to put their core energy infrastructure on the line for this conflict, assuming a covert nod to Washington would yield a painless destruction of the Iranian threat. Instead, the smoking ruins of the Ras Tanura refinery, a staggering $33.5 billion first-quarter deficit, and a hull-to-hull backup in the Strait of Hormuz served as a brutal awakening. With the United Arab Emirates stepping aggressively into the vacuum—gladly absorbing the role of America’s primary, hardline Gulf ally—Riyadh is executing a frantic tactical retreat. For the past month and a half, MBS has been beating a different drum: diplomacy. “Okay,” said Trump last night, but constantly shifting positions comes with a cost: normalization.

This is about far more than Trump extracting a quick return on investment. By demanding normalization as the price for a ceasefire, he is forcing the Saudis to grab Israel’s other arm to physically restrain Jerusalem from striking Iran alone.

It underscores a truth that Trump understood and Obama never did: the most effective way to control Israel isn’t to push them away, but to wrap them in a bear hug. By locking Jerusalem into a close alliance, Washington doesn’t just protect them—it places its hand directly over the Israeli trigger finger. Washington needs its hand over that trigger because Israel has little incentive to hold back when the current deal appears to leave Iran in a stronger position than before.

That is the Iranian impression as well. In The Art of the Deal, Trump writes: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Sensing American eagerness for a diplomatic off-ramp, Tehran has smelled exactly that, aggressively upping its demands before any Memorandum of Understanding can be printed.

. . . an emboldened Tehran is demanding immediate economic rewards, including the unfreezing of blocked assets, while conditioning the entire agreement on an “all fronts” ceasefire that would effectively force Washington to strip Israel of its freedom of action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

At the end of the devastating Iran-Iraq War, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously declared that accepting peace was like “drinking a poison chalice.” Today, his successor’s successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, is facing no such bitter brew. Instead, Benjamin Netanyahu is being asked to swallow the fatal mixture this time around. Much to his relief, Donald Trump is trying to mix in a Saudi sweetener to help the medicine go down.

Well, I suppose all this is as plausible as anything else. But Trump seems to be playing things by ear, and I’m not sure if he even remembers what’s in his book.  (One wonders why Trump is having his third medical check-up in just a bit over a year.)

*I’m late to the party on this one, but feel compelled to report that a New York Times contributing photographer won a 2026 Pulitzer Prize: as the paper says,

Saher Alghorra won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography, for documenting the toll of Israel’s attacks in Gaza. With international journalists barred from the territory without Israeli escorts, Mr. Alghorra, a Palestinian photographer, played a crucial role.

The site gives a selection of Alghorra’s work, but for some reason has omitted his most famous picture. You may remember this one that appeared on the front page of the paper:

You may also recall that the photo was used to demonize Israel for starving children to death.  Left out of the photo, however, was crucial information as well as photos of the child’s apparently healthy sibling.  The website Behind the Narrative reports, on a thorough and scathing article, about the NYT’s historical bias against Israel and Jews, “I accuse the New York Times” (h/t Keith). That article, which is free, is well worth reading. Here’s an excerpt about the photography prize.

On July 25, 2025, the New York Times ran a front-page photograph that stopped the world. A toddler, 18 months old, cradled by his mother. The caption said: “Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who said he was born healthy but was recently diagnosed with severe malnutrition.”

That was the lie. Mohammed was born with cerebral palsy, hypoxemia, and a serious genetic disorder — conditions documented in his medical records, conditions his doctors knew about, conditions that explained every visible symptom in that photograph. His brother, standing next to him in photos the New York Times chose not to publish, appeared completely healthy. Because there was no starvation. There was a sick child whose illness the New York Times erased from its story in order to blame Israel. It took five days of pressure from the Israeli Consulate in New York to force a correction.

The correction did not say, “We lied.” It said: “We have since learned new information.” As if Mohammed’s cerebral palsy was a surprise. As if medical records don’t exist. As if a newspaper with the resources of the New York Times could not pick up a phone and call a doctor before plastering a disabled child’s body across its front page and telling the world Israel starved him.

But Mohammed was not enough. At the same time, another child’s image was circulating — five-year-old Osama Al-Rakab, featured in the Guardian and Al Jazeera as another face of Israeli-induced starvation. Osama has cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness since birth. And here is what the New York Times and its media partners did not tell you: Israel had arranged Osama’s medical transfer to Italy. He had been there since June 12 — receiving treatment, recovering, while his photograph was being weaponized to accuse Israel of starving him to death.

This is part of a long-standing pattern documented in extenso at the link. And yes, there was sadness and unplanned death in Gaza (blame Hamas for almost all of it), but Alghorra shows only what was done by Israel; there are no photos of Israelis killed by Hamas, of Hamas taking Israelis hostage, or anything Hamas did to Israel or its own people. It is a one-sided article, like the award, concocted and used to demonize Israel. The website adds this:

What the New York Times did was construct a narrative of Jewish monstrosity out of the bodies of sick children, whose medical records were accessible, whose doctors could have set the record straight in a single phone call. They did not make that call. They published the lie and watched it detonate.

What the New York Times will never tell you is that the Israelis murdered on October 7 had spent years driving Gaza’s sick children to hospitals. Jewish doctors, Jewish volunteers, Jewish families — opening their cars, their clinics, their homes. And then came the massacre. Not just Hamas fighters — but Gazan civilians. People, the kibbutz members had fed, driven to chemotherapy, welcomed into their homes. They came back on October 7 with knives. The New York Times buried that story and handed the murderers a megaphone instead.

Sound familiar? It took me several years to realize that my once-favorite newspaper was actually dedicated to demonizing Jews and Israel, but of that I no longer have doubts.

*The Associated Press has a story about a dying star called the Crystal Ball Nebula, which led me to its source, the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, a lab that funded the telescopic endeavor and has a wonderful photo of the star (there may be two), which I reproduce below. Do click to enlarge it, and it would make a great screen background.

From NOIRLab:

The 8.1-meter Gemini North telescope, located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawai‘i, has captured NGC 1514, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula, in awe-inspiring detail. This nebula, with its mesmerizing glow of gas, harbors hints of a past stellar death, and its asymmetrical shell is now being shaped by the pair of binary stars that lie at its center.

NGC 1514, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula, is showcased in this enchanting image captured by Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope, located on Maunakea in Hawai‘i. Gemini North is one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

German–British astronomer William Herschel discovered the Crystal Ball Nebula in 1790. It’s located in the constellation Taurus, near the border of Perseus. While, culturally, crystal balls are known for divining the future, the Crystal Ball Nebula provides us with a snapshot of the final stages of a star’s life from long ago. It sits around 1500 light-years from Earth. This means the light captured in this image left its source around 1500 years ago, traveling across the Universe before finally reaching Gemini North.

The Crystal Ball Nebula is categorized as a planetary nebula, a nomenclature first presented by the nebula’s discoverer, William Herschel. He coined the term in the 1700s after spotting the spherical shape of these objects, which reminded him of planets. In reality, planets and planetary nebulae are unrelated.

Planetary nebulae form when a low- or intermediate-mass star ejects its outer layers near the end of its life, forming a somewhat spherical cloud of gas. They typically have smoother, spherical shapes, making the Crystal Ball Nebula unique for its bumpy shells of gas. As the central star casts away this gas, its inner core is exposed. Radiation from the core energizes the gas, giving it a scorching temperature and chromatic glow. The Crystal Ball Nebula, for example, has an estimated temperature of 15,000 K.

And from the AP:

It’s actually a binary star system 1,500 light-years away, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula because of the milky white, spherical cloud around it. A light-year is almost 6 trillion miles.

This cloud of gas forms when a star sheds its outer layers near the end of its life. The exposed stellar core heats the cloud to tens of thousands of degrees, giving it an ethereal glow.

Scientists believe one of the planetary nebula’s two orbiting stars — once bigger than our sun — gave up the ghost.

The photo:

*This is a tragedy for foodies like me who think that Texas-style BBQ, starring beef brisket, is the finest indigenous food item you can get in America. But now the pits are endangered, says the Washington Post, by a shortage of cattle, which has led to a spike in beef prices (article archived here).

If the Texas barbecue industry had an alarm, it would be the spreadsheet that Russell Roegels uses to track the price of brisket. On a recent morning, sitting at a quiet table in his suburban restaurant, he pointed to the number at the top of the column: $5.56. That’s the price he pays for a pound of the most important item on any barbecue menu in Texas.

Over the past year, that number has risen 28 percent, a reflection of the spiking meat prices that have dented the pocketbooks of average grocery store customers nationwide. Inside the kitchens of Texas’s more than 3,000 barbecue purveyors, whose very existence depends on a plentiful and affordable supply of quality beef, the effect has been close to cataclysmal.

Roegels, 53, grew up working at a barbecue joint and has run his own since 2001, serving some of Houston’s elite and their friends, including former president George H.W. Bush, NFL veteran Gary Kubiak and former Astros pitcher Andy Pettitte. He used to be able to offset the high wholesale cost by selling other meats and side dishes. But this year he realized that wasn’t enough. So Roegels made the risky decision to raise the price he charges customers for brisket by $2, to $35 a pound — a 6 percent increase — and hoped his clientele wouldn’t defect.

“This is as bad as it gets,” he said of escalating beef prices. “Everybody’s at risk these days: You’re one bad week from closing.”

. . .Roegels isn’t exaggerating. The culinary crisis driven by skyrocketing meat prices has contributed to the closures of some of Texas’s beloved barbecue joints: Brett’s BBQ Shop to the west of Houston, known for its barbacoa tacos; Kirby’s BBQ to the north with its signature increasingly expensive oak-smoked brisket; Sabar BBQ, with its Pakistani fusion sausage, in Fort Worth; Wright On Taco & BBQ in East Texas.

Owners and experts predict the closures will worsen this summer and continue for years, potentially reshaping the nature of Texas barbecue, which has drawn acclaim for its distinct regional varieties and craft-style preparation, winning Michelin stars for what was once considered gas-station fare.

The reasons for the spiking prices are various, says Emily Williams Knight, president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association. Inflation, tariffs, meatpackers’ pricing, and a national cattle herd at its smallest in 75 years because of drought, labor shortages, high operational costs and dwindling ranch land have all played a part. And with the threat of screwworm looming just across the border, experts warn that the herd could be even further depleted in years to come.

I looked desperately to see if any of my favorite joints were named, but fortunately none were. I’d gladly pay 50% more to get some good brisket, but the places have to stay open, and I can’t bear to see the nature of Texas BBQ “reshaped.”  Small, dive joints with a lot of wood-fired smokers, slow-cooked brisket, and a few sides are all that’s needed (plus great cooks). Here’s my favorite place in Texas, ergo in the world, Black’s BBQ in Lockhart, Texas, the BBQ Capital of the Milky Way (we can presume that even if extraterrestrial beings exist, they won’t have cows).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s worried  about The Great Awokening:

Hili: I wonder if America will make it through this woke culture.
Andrzej: Many are wondering that as well.

In Polish:

Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy Ameryka przetrwa to przebudzenie.
Ja: Wielu się nad tym  zastanawia.

*******************

From Give Me a Sign:

From Meow Incorporated:

From CinEmma:

Retweeted by Masih, and unbelievable:

🚨😡Shocking from Afghanistan:
The Taliban just legalized child marriage with a new decree!
A 9-year-old girl can now be married off by her father or grandfather.
Girls are being treated like property.
Where is the world? Where is the UN?#OpenShoolDoor pic.twitter.com/eEKszIMPFd

— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan1) May 21, 2026

From Luana, who is big on Ozympic (and thinks that it should be put in pet food to prevent obesity in animals):

Stop a statin and your LDL cholesterol rises 30% in four days. Nobody writes a WSJ feature about it. Stop certain blood pressure medications and your BP can spike within hours. Nobody calls it a design flaw.

Levothyroxine, antidepressants, insulin, metformin, antihistamines.… https://t.co/7Adq5p20RQ

— Avi Roy (@agingroy) May 24, 2026

Larry wants a shave!

Imagine having to wear a fur coat in this weather. Somebody shave me!

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) May 24, 2026

Two from my feed.  First, doesn’t the moggy worry about getting out?

Cats are literally always like this lol, are we even surprised anymore 😂🐱pic.twitter.com/9WpuS01VZ4

— Enezator (@Enezator) May 25, 2026

English translation:

A clever crow that receives many biscuits but can’t carry them all at once, so it sets them down temporarily, stacks them neatly, and then gathers them up to carry them off in its beak.

ビスケットを何枚ももらっても、一度には持っていけないから、一旦置いてきれいに重ね、まとめてくわえて持っていく賢いカラス pic.twitter.com/yrGqhsdlen

— 不変哲 🦥 (@fuhentetsu) May 25, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was four years old and would be 87 today had he lived. https://t.co/Sgkf2ner3S

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 26, 2026

And two from Doc Cobb: The first one he calls “Nom Nom”:

the hungry observatory

— House & Field Negro Quarterly (@morethanmud.bsky.social) 2026-05-23T20:56:01.045Z

Can you see the principal eyes?

Wayne Maddison (waynemaddison.bsky.social), professor emeritus at UBC, captured this video of a nearly transparent jumping spider (tribe Amycini) from Canandé Reserve, Ecuador.Look closely & you'll see the principal eyes moving as it scans the area visually.Let's talk about spider-vision! 🕷️🧪

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T12:54:55.008Z

Welcome to Monday, May 25, 2026: it’s Memorial Day, a holiday in America. From Wikipedia:

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It is also considered to be the unofficial beginning of summer.

Memorial Day is a time for visiting cemeteries and memorials to mourn the military personnel who died in the line of duty. Volunteers will place American flags on the graves of those military personnel in national cemeteries

One of those graves is at Arlington National Cemetery, where my father is buried (he was a retired Lt. Col. when he died, and had served twenty years.) Here’s a photo of the graves at Arlington, and a photo of my dad, inscribed to my mother (I think this was before they were married).

There’s a Google Doodle honoring the day (click icon below to see where it goes); the folded flag, which covered a coffin, is given to a deceased soldier’s wife or relatives after the funeral.

It’s also National Wine Day and National Tap Dance Day. Here’s one of my favorite tap performances: Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth dancing to the “Shorty George”. Watch the whole thing. The dance if from the 1942 film “You Were Never Lovelier“.  Info from YouTube:

You Were Never Lovelier was Rita’s third and last film released in 1942 and her second time as Fred Astaire’s dancing partner. Except for “The Shorty George” number, all their dances were rehearsed in the attic of a funeral parlor! They had to stop every time a funeral procession came through and couldn’t start up again until all the mourners had left. But if those conditions disrupted rehearsals, it didn’t show on-screen. The results were fabulous. Rita later called this movie one of her favorites, but it was also memorable to her for another reason. During rehearsals of “The Shorty George”, Rita experienced one of her “most embarrassing” moments when she fell down during the dance and knocked herself out cold! The film is set in what was one of Hollywood’s favorite locales at the time, Buenos Aires, and also features Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra to add to the Latin flavor of this memorable musical.

and from the Wikipedia entry on the movie:

A synthesis of American Swing or Jive with virtuoso tap dancing is performed by Astaire and Hayworth, both in top form and exuding a sense of fun in an arrangement by Lyle “Spud” Murphy. The title refers to a popular dance step of the time, attributed to George “Shorty” Snowden, a champion African-American dancer at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and reputed inventor of the Lindy Hop or Jitterbug dance styles. Here, as in the “Pick Yourself Up” and “Bojangles of Harlem” numbers from Swing Time, Kern belied his claim that he couldn’t write in the Swing style.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT reports that the U.S. and Iran have agreed in principle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran has said it will get rid of “highly enriched uranium.” But the details have yet to be nailed down.

The United States and Iran have agreed in principle to a deal that could wind down the war in the Middle East, but the final approval by leaders of both sides could take days, a senior U.S. official told reporters on Sunday.

The deal would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and commit Iran to disposing of its highly enriched uranium, but how Tehran would do so was still being negotiated, said the U.S. official, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly. President Trump has insisted that the United States seize the material as part of his vow to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s leaders and official state media have not publicly commented on what is in any potential agreement or what is being discussed. Officials from both countries have said any agreement would be an initial framework that would lead to further negotiations, rather than the last word.

News of a possible deal came after a roller-coaster few weeks, with Mr. Trump at times threatening to restart attacks on Iran, and at others saying there was progress in last-ditch negotiations to stave off a return to full-scale war — all while offering few details. Then, on Saturday, the president announced on social media that the two countries had “largely negotiated” a memorandum of understanding “pertaining to PEACE.”

On Sunday, however, he said he had ordered his negotiators “not to rush into a deal.”

If a deal were certified, Mr. Trump said in his social media post on Sunday, the United States could end its blockade of Iranian ports, which it had used to pressure Tehran to reopen the strait.

Over the last 24 hours, both American and Iranian officials have emphasized the concessions they hoped to secure.

Three Iranian officials said on Saturday that a potential deal would stipulate only that nuclear matters would be negotiated within 30 to 60 days. Like the U.S. official, they spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The possible deal does not address Iran’s supply of missiles, nor does it stipulate a moratorium on enrichment, the U.S. official said on Sunday. Those issues would be addressed in future negotiations, the official said. In previous rounds of negotiations, the United States has sought at least a 20-year commitment.

Everything is being put off, as usual.  What will happen, I think, is that Iran will retain its abilities to make a nuclear bomb, the people will remain oppressed, and Iran will keep accumulating missiles to fire at Israel and the Gulf States.  Even in nascent form it’s a bad deal.

*Readers seem to agree that whatever deal is hammered out won’t work.  As of this morning, here are the totals for the poll about Iran I posted yesterday. As you see, 90% of those responding don’t think the war will wind down completely within two months. I voted “no” as well.

*As the peace process in Gaza has stalled, and the country refuses to disarm, Israel has expanded the proportion of the territory that it controls, from 53% to 59%.

Israel’s military has deepened its hold on the Gaza Strip, significantly expanding the territory it controls under the seven-month cease-fire and fortifying the line that separates it from areas controlled by Hamas.

Israel now holds around 59% of the enclave, up from 53% at the start of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire in October, people familiar with the matter said. The increase came as Israeli troops moved the so-called yellow line, which marks the division of territory, deeper into Hamas’s zone of control, the people said. In at least one spot, Israel moved the line forward a few hundred yards to intersect with Salah al-Din Road, Gaza’s main north-south artery.

In addition, in central Gaza, the Israeli military has been fortifying the line with a deep trench and high sand berms along its length, satellite images show. Similar earthworks can be seen in areas of northern and southern Gaza, but the fortifications through the center, where much of the population lives, are longer, more continuous and designed to be harder to breach since the area is more vulnerable to attack, Israel’s military says.

Satellite images show the line is now dotted with at least seven new outposts, each protected by sand berms. Some are paved with asphalt and host more than a dozen buildings. They beef up Israel’s position on the line and add to dozens of outposts scattered throughout its side of the enclave.

The fortifications show how the division of Gaza is hardening amid a logjam in President Trump’s peace process, as Hamas resists pressure to disarm its fighters and Israel continues to attack them. The situation means extended limbo for Palestinians who are still living among the ruins, and has created a no-man’s-land inside the enclave, a territory that Israel has long denied it wants to occupy permanently.

. . .As long as Hamas remains in control of part of Gaza, Israel insists it won’t withdraw its troops, and many Arab governments say they won’t fund reconstruction of the enclave. The U.S.-led Board of Peace is pushing to get on with the task of reconstruction, including erecting new housing developments on the Israeli side of the line for Palestinians—a step some Arab governments as well as Hamas are resisting, according to Nickolay Mladenov, the diplomat leading the Trump-brokered effort to end the conflict.

“The more we stabilize the status quo, the more that status quo becomes difficult to remove,” Mladenov said in mid-May, warning of a situation in which Gaza becomes permanently split in two.

Asked about the movement of the yellow line, Israel’s military said it was operating on orders from the country’s political leadership. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Gaza Peace Plan of Trump et al, which is an unholy mess, decreed that the strip should be disarmed in Phase 2 (beginning last January) and Hamas should give up power as well as its weapons. But you know it won’t do that: its latest excuses are that it won’t do that until a) there are two states in place and b) Israel withdraws from Gaza.  The a) bit simply ain’t gonna happen, and the b) bit won’t happen until Hamas disarms.  I’m pretty sure that if it did disarm, Israel would withdraw—after all, Hamas is tying up IDF troops needed elsewhere.  So, the conclusion is that the line will stay, though I don’t see why Israel shouldn’t say why they moved it further south.  But the Trump Peace Plan is prety much DOA.

*Jonathan Kay has been reporting on the apparently fictitious burials of indigenous children at the First Nations Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. As you may know, it was pretty much the Scandal of the Year in Canada (over several years), carrying the implication that indigenous children had either died or been killed secretly, and were buried on the grounds of the school. But so far they haven’t found any graves, nor are they looking for them. Kay reports in Quillette that “Canada’s newspaper of record asks: ‘What if they ultimately find nothing?’”  The answer is pretty much, it wouldn’t matter. 

A month ago, I offered some predictions about how Canadian journalists would cover the five-year anniversary of the country’s infamous “unmarked graves” social panic, which began on May 27, 2021. On one hand, this kind of important landmark would be difficult for news outlets to ignore. (After all, this was considered the Canadian “Story of the Year” at the time.) On the other hand, any intellectually honest retrospective that these outlets produced would require at least some passing explanation as to why the entire Canadian media establishment had fallen hook, line, and sinker for a story that turned out to be fake—something that most journalists have so far proven unwilling to do.

On Wednesday, it will have been exactly five years since the Kamloops First Nation in British Columbia claimed it has found 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of the community’s former residential school. In the weeks that followed, gullible reporters transformed the narrative into a kind of horror-movie script, complete with mass murdering priests and midnight burials.

It all turned out to be complete nonsense. In five years, not a single actual grave has been found.

The only evidence that had been offered in support of the original claims consisted of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of the former residential school grounds. As reporters (belatedly) learned, GPR technology merely detects sub-surface soil dislocations—not actual graves. These dislocations canbe associated with graves, but also with pipes, rocks, tree roots, and a dozen other common subsurface artifacts. To truly identify actual graves, one must dig—something that the Kamloops First Nation leaders who originally advanced these false claims have conspicuously failed to do; despite having received more than $12-million from Canada’s (equally gullible) government for search activities.

In polite Canadian society, it is still considered ideologically outré to admit frankly that none of these supposed “unmarked graves” have been found, or even to suggest that evidence was ever necessary to prove their existence in the first place. From the start of the social panic, these (unidentified) children were cast as sacred martyrs, and their grim fate was attested to by (equally sacred) Indigenous elders who’d claimed to have experienced some kind of mystical “knowing.” The whole movement quickly became an ersatz religious movement for Canada’s upper middle-class lawn-sign set.

. . . In that aforementioned April 21 column, I tried to imagine how Canadian media outlets would square this circle. And this is what I came up with:

We’ll get a lot of studiously vague interview pieces, illustrated with photographic portraits of [Kamloops First Nation chief Rosanne Casimir] or other Indigenous figures staring morosely into the middle distance. These pieces will feature an early passing reference to the original unmarked-graves announcement from Kamloops—that moment of moral ‘reckoning,’ according to the usual stock phrase—but then segue hurriedly to emotional laments about the ‘unfinished work’ of reconciliation. This will be followed by carefully worded references to the ‘doubts’ that some Canadians have about the existence of unmarked graves, and then a substantial section about the scourge of ‘denialism.’

Yesterday, the Globe & Mail—sometimes referred to as Canada’s “newspaper of record”—published its big fifth-anniversary spread, giving me an opportunity to put my predictions to the test. And it turned out that I got things mostly right. Indeed, the words “doubt” and “denialism” are right there in the Globe & Mail’s sub-headline (“Five years after a grim announcement in B.C., uncertainty gives rise to doubt and denialism.”) National “reckoning” gets a shoutout, too. And the Globe & Mail photo pool supplied readers with the obligatory image of a Kamloops First Nations “knowledge keeper” staring resolutely out into space.

. . . But the article also served up a few surprises, which are worth exploring in some detail. The “unmarked graves” farce is arguably the greatest journalistic scandal in Canada’s history. Over the last half-decade, several outlets have (grudgingly, in most cases) admitted that they got the original story wrong—including the National Post, New York Times,and, more surprisingly, the CBC. But many others, including the Globe, had never (to my knowledge) explicitly done so—whether out of embarrassment, fear of being labelled an enemy of Indigenous “reconciliation,” or, more likely, some combination of both. The new Globe article offers clues as to whether the newspaper(and similarly herd-minded legacy media outlets) will ever fully pivot to a genuinely truth-based approach to the subject.

And here’s the “it doesn’t matter” bit:

In paragraph eight, the writers try a second motte-and-bailey gambit. We are informed that “regardless of what they find [in Kamloops], the fact remains that more than 3,500 children are named on the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation‘s registry of students who died as a result of the residential school system, which operated in Canada for more than 160 years.” This is absolutely true. But it’s also completely irrelevant. No one disputes the information published by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which, unlike the Kamloops hysteria, was based on careful research. In that case, researchers had names, dates of birth, and other identifying details for the victims. None of that exists in the case of the Kamloops story.

The Globe’s implicit argument here is that it doesn’t really matter all that much if those 215 children actually existed or not, since we have the names of 3,500 other children that can be trotted out for the same purpose—so, at worse, we’re still batting 94% on dead-child statistics.

And so they probably won’t dig up the “graves”, which probably are artifacts and not dead bodies. It is to Canada’s (and its media’s) eternal shame that this has become a sacred story that cannot be contradicted, especially by evidence. The default answer is, as Kay notes, that it doesn’t matter because the story still instantiates the fact that First Nations people were discriminated against, though they are not sacred.  And the discrimination was true, but you can’t simply accept stories that are right there waiting to be either falsified or verified.

This reminds me of Wilfred Reilly’s book Hate Crime Hoaxes, in which he shows that a number of, say, black “hate crimes” on campuses and elsewhere (e.g., the placing of nooses, graffiti using the “n-word”) were actually perpetrated by members of the group supposedly attacked. Why would a black person write anti-black graffiti? Well, to get personal attention (while remaining anonymous, of course), but also to keep alive the idea of their group being persecuted.  And most places, especially campuses, buy into this, for when a hate crime is revealed aas a hoax, the college rarely reveals that, or says, like Canada, that it doesn’t really matter because bigotry remains a problem.  This is no way to seek the truth.

*Some people grouse when a black actor takes on a “white” role, as is going to happen in a new movie of “The Odyssey”, but it seems verboten to have a white actor play a “black” role, like Barack Obama or Martin Luther King.  Well, I can see why the latter holds, since the significance of both Obama and King rested on their connection with being black, but in his latest column, John McWhorter gives three good reasons supporting this asymmetry—at least for the time being.

The director Christopher Nolan has confirmed that in his film of “The Odyssey,” Helen of Troy — the mythical figure who launched a thousand ships — will be played by the dark-skinned actress of African parentage Lupita Nyong’o.

Some people have implied this is a denial of history, a performative woke gesture. Would we tolerate white actors playing Black historical figures, they ask? “Casting a Black woman to play a White woman in a foundational work of European literature is no more right than casting a White man to play Shaka Zulu!” Elon Musk objected. The “End Wokeness” X account has pitched in to the outrage with a tableau of hypothetical movie posters of films with white actors playing various Blacks in Wax, such as Anthony Hopkins cast as Nelson Mandela.

. . .The people who think it’s wrong to cast Nyong’o because Brad Pitt shouldn’t be Shaka Zulu pretend there is no diachrony involved in how we judge such things. Never mind that Helen of Troy was a mythical character. There are perfectly good reasons white actors should not be playing Black characters in our moment.

For one, Black actors don’t have as many opportunities as white actors. They should at least be the default choice for playing characters of their own race. It is true that opportunities for Black actors are opening up: a Black military commander in “Game of Thrones,” a Black Little Mermaid, and Black characters in the Regency romance series “Bridgerton.” However, it has only been this way for about 10 minutes, and Black actors still work under limitations. No one would say that a Black young actor, regardless of hotness or talent, could most likely have the opportunities that Timothée Chalamet or Sydney Sweeney has.

The critics also ignore power relations. If Mark Wahlberg played Muhammad Ali, as End Wokeness’s mock-up has it, Wahlberg would be taking a role from actors in a not so powerful group. If Michael B. Jordan played John F. Kennedy, it would be punching up.

Plus, white actors playing Black figures in “blaccents” of various degrees would verge on minstrelsy. It’s one thing that Black British or African actors such as Idris Elba and Thandiwe Newton do American blaccents in roles (and uncannily well). But Reese Witherspoon or Steve Carell? Um — no.

. .  In some future time we should have no problem with a talented white man playing the lead in “A Raisin in the Sun,” a white woman cast as Representative Barbara Jordan, or white people singing in “Porgy and Bess.” I didn’t say tomorrow — but sometime.

These three answers convince me that McWhorter is right, but I can see that all the points are arguable. Yes, there are fewer black actors, but should you go for race over talent in an affirmative-action move to create equity? The “power” reason is to me the least convincing. It’s a postmodern variant of a), and “punching up/down” arguments never convince me (they’re used in sciencc, for example, to try to get powerful professors to avoid criticizing assistant professors, but nobody’s beyond criticism). I’m not sure that white actors playing blacks have to assume a black accent or argot, so the minstrel argument isn’t too strong, either. But taken together, all three seem okay to me, though there are probably some black people who could be played by whites right now, like Matthew Henson, a black man who explored the Arctic with Robert Peary.  Insofar as his blackness wasn’t instrumental in his accomplishments, would it be so bad if he were played by a white, Hispanic, or Asian?  But yes, there are some black people now who could be played credibly only by black actors.

For a much longer discussion of this issue, which in the end agrees with McWhorter (but at daunting length), read Cathy Young’s “Homeric Heresies” at Quillette.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is overworked, as usual (he’s just written a book):

Hili: You said you were taking a break.
Andrzej: Yeah, except I forgot how to actually do that.

In Polish:

Hili: Powiedziałeś, że robisz sobie urlop.
Ja: Tak, ale zapomniałem  jak się to robi.

*******************

From Meow Incorporated:

From Things With Faces; a happy cup:

From Give Me a Sign:

From Masih, who’s obviously angered at Trump trying to forge a peace with Iran and not giving a fig about the freedom of the Iranian people:

While Trump negotiates a deal with the Islamic Republic, a deal with zero human rights clauses, regime is hanging people in silence. Today they hanged another innocent Iranian.

Mojtaba Kian was arrested, tried, and executed in less than 50 days.

All of it happened under a… pic.twitter.com/hjsNS2ZdsG

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) May 24, 2026

From Luana. Here’s Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico saying about anything he can that will hurt his candidacy. God is nonbinary, there are six sexes, etc. Is this “progressive”? (Talarico won the Democratic primary and will face the former governor of Texas for an open Senate seat). It reminds me of the ad that took the wind out of Kamala Harris’s sails:

This ad alone is gonna make Paxton win by 5 lololol pic.twitter.com/DVWYrdWC7p

— Dr. Toledo Dem (@styt101) May 23, 2026

The Number Ten cat in a Trumpophobic mode (which is always):

What are the odds Trump is seen on a golf course this weekend? pic.twitter.com/kfMPGEZdm3

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) May 22, 2026

Reposted by Emma Hilton. She does look undernourished; I see no muscles:

Sadly this is not toned? This is malnutrition https://t.co/6dA3ifEoxs

— Sharron Davies HoL MBE (@sharrond62) May 13, 2026

One from my feed. Remember this one? The best video ever. But I don’t know what happened to the cat.

A cat fell from a stadium roof and was caught by a fan flag.

Best use of team merchandise ever 👏pic.twitter.com/sfbIqivPFO

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 24, 2026

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she got to Auschwitz. She was fifteen years old. https://t.co/bPxZEGPdLi

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 25, 2026

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, Bob Dylan at 20:

Bob Dylan — Ted Russell, 1961.

— Nothings Monstered (@nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T19:42:30.126Z

Can you spot the ski jump? This is clearly from Norway, and Matthew can tell us:

Spot the ski jump!

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-05-24T13:53:59.449Z