Spiraling Out of Control

Ceasefire no more: Over the weekend, the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes, making odds look even worse that a lasting ceasefire deal will be be here anytime in the near future.

The U.S. Central Command said, basically, that Iran started it, having shot down an American drone. Our military, it announced, “conducted self-defense strikes on Iranian radar and command and control sites for drones in Goruk, Iran and Qeshm Island this weekend.”

These “measured and deliberate strikes occurred on Saturday and Sunday in response to aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a U.S. MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” added Central Command.

Meanwhile, Kuwait—home to some of our military bases—said earlier today that Iran had attacked its territory, but it gave few specifics. Iran, for its part, “said it targeted American soldiers in Kuwait with missiles, which the U.S. says it shot down,” per the Associated Press.

At the same time, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has gotten more intense. The chances of a ceasefire—especially one that covers the whole region—look worse and worse.

“Talks to end the war have advanced in fits and bursts. Last week, officials familiar with the negotiations said that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had agreed on a document that had been sent to the two countries’ leaders for approval,” reports The New York Times. “President [Donald] Trump has pushed to toughen the terms of the deal, sending a revised document to Iran, according to three officials who spoke anonymously because they could not discuss the matter publicly.”

“Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — It always does!” Trump counseled via Truth Social this morning.

Scenes from New York: A personal update, for the many readers who are fans of my son’s skateboarding:

After a 6-month break from skating following the birth & hospitalization & death of baby brother, this guy is BACK in BUSINESS doing what he loves most

(and I am approximately 300x more risk averse and terrified than before) pic.twitter.com/qYqLTn125R

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) June 1, 2026

When one of your kids is as sturdy as humanly possible and the other one is born very sick and dies, it is very hard to know how to be properly calibrated in terms of what to allow and what to fear and how to stay rational. A new project along these lines incoming soon…

QUICK HITS

• “If any administration finds a way to remove Fed officials over policy differences, then future administrations will do so as well,” said former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in remarks at Boston’s JFK Presidential Library on Sunday. “The Fed’s credibility would be lost….Our credibility has been built and sustained over many decades, and we have a duty to safeguard that priceless asset for our fellow citizens and for generations to come.” (Some libertarians surely disagree with his assessment of the Fed’s credibility.)
• “Democrats are likely to retake the House and maybe the Senate in November, which is reason to ask: What would they do with that power?” asks the Wall Street Journal editorial board. “One emerging answer is that they seem determined to blow up the Supreme Court.”
• “This has quietly been a miracle month in medicine,” writes Derek Thompson on X. “In the last 5 weeks we’ve got news on: retatrutide, the triple agonist GLP-1 from Lilly, basically melting fat and body-wide inflammation at record levels; RevMed’s new pancreatic cancer drug showing unprecedented abilities to extend life; small trial of a one-and-done PCSK9 gene editing therapy for slashing LDL cholesterol; Mayo’s AI-assisted radiology showing vastly improved cancer detection; this new therapy for metastatic solid tumors.” He caveats: “This stuff is at varying levels of evidence. Retatrutide is ~100% on its way, other stuff needs more clinical trial data. But put it together and we’re maybe on the verge of majorly reducing the mortality of heart disease and cancer, the two leading causes of death in America.”
• Not wrong!

The government should have done this years ago, but in the US we have rely on big tech to create public goods 🙃 https://t.co/YMXy01OX2V

— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) May 31, 2026