A 'More Decisive' Response

Plus: when the city government starts covering Ozempic, Jill Biden's lies, and more...

More targets struck: The U.S. shot down four Iranian drones yesterday, as well as a launch unit, while Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted the enemy base from which the strikes were fired from. Further strikes, warned the IRGC, would be greeted with a "more decisive" response.

IRGC:

🔺 Following the US military's predawn attack today using aerial projectiles on a site near Bandar Abbas Airport, the American airbase from which the attack originated was targeted at 4:50 a.m. pic.twitter.com/KCFnse3Kp4

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) May 28, 2026

Iran's military "thought they were going to outwait me," President Donald Trump said in a Cabinet meeting yesterday, adding, "I don't care about the midterms." He seemed to signal he wasn't worried about how unpopular the war has been with American voters, and that he's becoming a bit obsessive about bending the Iranians to his will and/or gaining U.S. control of the Strait of Hormuz, by any means necessary.

Then again, Trump tends to be rather distractible.

Trump also warned Oman—which tends to be a friend to the U.S.—that it should not agree to share control of the Strait of Hormuz with any Persian authorities (an idea that had been on the table) and that he would bomb them if they did. "Oman will behave just like everyone else, or we'll have to blow them up," said Trump, adding, "Nobody's going to control it."

For a few days, it had looked like Trump and his counterparts in Iran were going to agree to a legitimate ceasefire, as well as a plan for control of the strait. Now, hostilities have resumed, and Trump seems rather hardheaded about his expectations for control of the shipping corridor.

Meanwhile, "the Israeli military said on Thursday that it had launched new strikes against Hezbollah targets in Tyre, a city in southern Lebanon," reports The New York Times. "The resurgence in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon has complicated the broader peace efforts because Iran wants any deal to cover Lebanon." TL;DR: everything's falling apart again.

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Scenes from New York: 

zohran has helped me see the trump phenomenon more objectively, in that it's clear there are people who hate him no matter what and get mad when he does stuff they agree with and there are those for whom his winning is personal validation and can take or leave any policy change

— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) May 27, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• "The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault," reports CNN. Oh boy. I want everyone to lose.
• "Many public employers started covering weight-loss medications for teachers, firefighters and police officers a few years ago when the blockbuster drugs hit the market, following the lead of big companies," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Far more employees were prescribed the drugs than expected." Now, some of these towns are being hit with massive bills for the pharmaceuticals—including Buffalo, New York, and North Attleborough, Massachusetts—and struggling to figure out how they're going to pay for it, or whether they ought to reduce the benefit.
• Not sure I feel so great about this form of "markets in everything." Seems ripe for abuse if custody isn't hammered out clearly in advance:

there's a lot of ladies i know without guys, but who want kids. and i go 'would you accept some rich guy paying u a ton of money to just have his kid as a single parent' and they're like 'idk man prob not' and im like 'waht if it was 5m' and they're all magically like 'oh yeah i…

— Aella (@Aella_Girl) May 27, 2026

• It's pretty obvious that she's lying:

Jill Biden on watching the 2024 debate.

"As I watched it, I thought, 'Oh, my God, he's having a stroke.' And it scared me to death," pic.twitter.com/jQfjMxd15C

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 27, 2026

• This article, "What I Learned About Loss While Skateboarding at Costco," from The New York Times was really good, if you're like me and enjoy street design and skating and stories about mortality. I highly recommend it.