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:
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.
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.
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.
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.]
Israel and Gulf Arab states allied with Washington are in range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, so Iran’s missile stockpiles are a major issue, especially for Israel.
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).
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
I second your nomination for World Redhead Day (and it’s always nice to see clips from Doctor Who).
Glad PCC(E) has come around to understanding the horror of the wildly dishonest NY Times. It took me MANY years but I happily stopped paying them a few years ago. This, as you can imagine, is a big deal socially in Manhattan…
MBS probably won’t join the Abraham Accords and (this is just my wild theory, my vibes if you will)
because:
He is afraid of the “Anwar Sadat veto”. Not only was his uncle, King Faisal, assassinated at close range by a relative in the 1970s, the assassin’s veto is pretty big in the Islamosphere: President Sadat, murdered 2 years after Camp David.
That’s how assassin’s vetos work. MBS already has done lots to annoy the big beard Islamists so has reason to be hesitant. Making peace with the Zionists might be a step too far. (Which doesn’t mean they can’t be friends “on the down low”, the QT, without official recognition.)
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Years ago coming out of a country store in Vermont, carrying the Sunday New York Times, I saw an old guy sitting on a bicycle looking at me. I waved the paper at him and said “Best newspaper anywhere”. And he said “They are racist.” And I said”They are racist?” in an unbelieving tone. He rode off. I realized later that was Michael Bloomberg, mayor of NYC. He was right.