The Truce That Wasn't
Plus: Homeschooling discourse, AI regulation, Christian cell network blocking porn, and more...
Iran claims truce has been violated: The U.S. military reported yesterday that it had destroyed six Iranian small boats (in addition to a handful of drones) as part of "Project Freedom," President Donald Trump's new attempt to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
This effort was at least partially effective: The U.S. Navy began escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, reports The New York Times. "The American military's Central Command said that two U.S.-flagged commercial ships had passed through the waterway. Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, said Monday that one of its vessels, a carrier transporting vehicles that was flying the U.S. maritime flag, had transited through the strait."
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But Iran is pissed. "Several merchant ships in the Gulf reported explosions or fires on Monday," reports Reuters, "and an oil port in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts a large U.S. military base, was set ablaze by Iranian missiles." Iranian media tried to both deny that the U.S. got any ships out of the strait and claim that the U.S. fired on commercial vessels, killing civilians. (None of these claims appear to be true.) Now Iran is firing on the United Arab Emirates; a fire even broke out, related to the attacks, at the oil port Fujairah. The UAE now claims it has the right to respond.
"Iranian authorities released a map of what they said was an expanded maritime area now under Iranian control, stretching beyond the strait to include lengthy sections of the UAE coastline," notes Reuters. The map "included Fujairah and another Emirati port, Khorfakkan, both of which lie on the Gulf of Oman and which the UAE has relied on since the start of the conflict to bypass the blocked strait."
Oil prices have predictably risen in response. It looks like the U.S.-Iran truce isn't going to hold; like Iran is going in for more; and like this will be a pivotal moment for the UAE, which has a more complicated relationship with Gulf allies these days.
Scenes from New Jersey: Yesterday, I got the honor of going down to Princeton to watch one of my dear friends, Meredith Thornburgh, defend her dissertation ("Making Mrs. Modern: The Technological and Social Transformation of Household Production, 1930–1975"). A sampling, in tweet form, of some of the themes discussed:
Being a homemaker is a fascinating combination of labor and leisure (leisure as defined below). But because the modern mind struggles to conceive of leisure as something other than "doing nothing" or "relaxing" or frivolity, I feel there is some recoiling from associating the… https://t.co/Kxv30wsQC4
— Meredith Thornburgh (@MCMCD_) February 15, 2026
QUICK HITS:
- The Secret Service shot an armed man around 3:30 p.m. on Monday near the intersection of 15th Street Southwest and Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C. This was not long after the vice president's motorcade had passed through this intersection, though it's not clear what the gunman's plans were.
- The Washington Post "reviewed hundreds of internal ICE emails, called the 'Daily Detainee Assault Report,' which summarize every incident in which staff members reported using physical force against detainees at 98 ICE detention facilities. The reports reviewed by The Post, dating from January 2024 to February 2026, covered the last year of the Biden administration and the first year of President Donald Trump's second term in office." (Link here.) It is obviously egregious for agents of the state to abuse people they've detained; it is also politically foolish for supporters of mass deportations to accept this sort of conduct. Public sentiment will sour if deportations aren't done in an orderly, law-abiding way.
- "The administration is discussing an executive order to create an A.I. working group that would bring together tech executives and government officials to examine potential oversight procedures, according to U.S. officials, who declined to be identified in order to discuss deliberations over sensitive policies," reports The New York Times. "Among the potential plans is a formal government review process for new A.I. models."
- I am not persuaded by this argument—that short-form TikTok videos are art and have much more merit than detractors claim—at all, but I'm glad someone attempted it.
- A new cell network run by Radiant Mobile (which buys bandwidth from large providers—in this case: T-Mobile) is set to launch tomorrow. It will block porn and gender-related content.
- This is so funny to me. If we're going to do this for homeschooling families, maybe we should also apply this standard to public school teachers—and impose severe consequences if, say, the kids they're entrusted with aren't learning how to read:
Right, if homeschooling is actually super high quality, then homeschooling families should not object to being evaluated, tested, and checked-in-on to make sure their kids are actually learning. https://t.co/T9T6yYrKvU
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) May 2, 2026
- "One of the reasons homeschooled kids have superior educational outcomes is avoiding the slow-progress-across-all-subjects method public schools impose on every student, no matter how they learn," writes Palmer Luckey (homeschooled, profoundly successful, canceled for wrongthink in the early days of the witch hunts) in response. "The evaluation/testing you are talking about would almost certainly prohibit that sort of tailored education, especially since they would be designed and administered by a system that wants to eliminate homeschooling in almost all cases."
