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🎙️ Watch: Spain Is Welcoming Migrants While the Rest of the West Builds Walls. Here Is What That Looks Like.

Alexander Verbeek — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:32:59 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing, which provides an overview of the news. Here, I share a few thoughts on Pope Leo’s visit to Spain and how the country addresses questions around migration policy. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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Transcript

I want to talk about something different today. Not the bombings in Iran. Not the inflation. But something that is happening in Europe that I think tells a different story about how governments can choose to respond to migration.

This week, Pope Leo traveled to the Canary Islands. These are Spanish islands, closer to Africa than to mainland Europe, and they are one of the main entry points for migrants crossing from West Africa by boat.

He went there to meet migrants, listen to their stories, and lay flowers in memory of those migrants who never arrived.

Thousands of people have drowned trying to reach those islands. In 2024 alone, almost 47,000 people arrived on the Canary Islands by sea, a record figure. Many others disappeared in the Atlantic. Entire boatloads have vanished without a trace.

Earlier in his trip, on Monday, the Pope addressed the Spanish parliament in Madrid. He stood before lawmakers and said that the moral greatness of a nation is shown by how it treats the most fragile people within its borders. He received a prolonged standing ovation.

Now he has traveled to the Canary Islands, to a port that became known as the “dock of shame” in 2020. Migrants who arrived there were forced to sleep in the open air with nothing but a blanket. There were no showers. No legal advice. Some were held for weeks, far longer than the 72 hours the law allowed. Spain’s ombudsman eventually forced the camp to close.

Leo did not look away from that history. He named it. And he made that argument I just mentioned, and it’s one you don’t hear much from political leaders right now: that a society’s moral character is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable.

Now here is the part I find most interesting.

Spain is doing something almost no other Western government is doing right now. It has approved a plan that could grant legal status to around half a million undocumented immigrants. People who can show they have been living in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025, and have no serious criminal record, can apply for residence and work permits.

The government’s argument is practical as much as moral. Spain has an aging population and serious labor shortages in key sectors. Hotels, construction companies, car workshops cannot find enough local workers. These migrants are already doing those jobs, already living in those communities. Legal status recognizes a reality that already exists.

One car workshop manager told the BBC that when they started hiring young migrants, they faced fierce criticism on social media. People saying migrants were stealing Spanish jobs. She said: “Nobody was looking at migrants as persons.” Today the business employs around 30 migrant workers, including a 19-year-old from Ivory Coast who sends several hundred euros home to his family each month.

Then there is Bakary Jaiju, from The Gambia. He was 19 when he climbed into a wooden boat and spent seven days at sea, running out of food and water, too afraid to sleep in case he fell overboard. He survived. He is now in Tenerife, learning Spanish, trying to build a legal future. But many people who left on similar boats never arrived.

I want to be honest about the full picture. The Canary Islands have been overwhelmed at times. There are relevant debates about pace and capacity. And the European Union has just agreed a new migration pact that expands fast-track border procedures and makes it easier for member states to detain and return people who arrive without permission. Europe as a whole is not moving in Spain’s direction.

But Spain is trying something different. Its government is not treating migration as an invasion to be repelled. It is asking what the economy actually needs, what the law requires, and what basic human dignity demands. And it is trying to build something that answers all three questions at once.

Given what we are watching happen in the United States right now, I think that is worth paying attention to.

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Trump Promised a Peace Deal in "Two or Three Days." He Got Bombing on Day Two and More Bombing on Day Three.

Alexander Verbeek — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:40:12 GMT

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What’s the news

On June 8, Trump told reporters he expected to sign a peace deal with Iran in “two or three days.” He said there were no significant sticking points left. He said the deal would be “very, very good, strong, powerful.”

Day two was yesterday. The US bombed Iran.

Day three is today. The US bombed Iran again.

This is not a minor inconsistency. It is a pattern. Since late March, Trump has predicted the war would be winding down “very soon,” that operations would be over “in two or three weeks,” that a deal was close. Each time, the bombing continues. Each time, markets still react to the optimistic statement. Each time, nothing changes on the ground.

There is a word for this. The Guardian used it this week in a sharp piece worth citing: both Trump and Putin are trapped in wars they cannot win and cannot admit they are losing. A cult of infallibility prevents either leader from acknowledging a strategic blunder, even to themselves. They sit atop structures that promote loyalty at the expense of truth, until reality itself is banished from the court.

Wednesday’s reality: the US and Iran exchanged strikes for a second consecutive day. The attacks were wider than the day before. Iranian forces hit Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. An 11-year-old girl in Bahrain was hurt by debris. Tehran’s Foreign Ministry said the US strikes had “effectively rendered the ceasefire meaningless.” Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, though the US military disputed this, saying it has been shepherding commercial vessels through.

Then Trump stepped in front of reporters and announced a dramatic secret mission. “I can say it now. Something you didn’t know. Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now.”

The New York Times reported within hours that this was not news. A senior US military official said the president was describing an operation the Times had already published about on May 31. Before the war, around 3,000 ships transited the strait each month. The US has guided around 200 vessels through in a little over a month. That is roughly two days’ worth of pre-war traffic.

Oil prices responded to the announcement by rising roughly 4 percent, to nearly $92 a barrel. The “secret mission” that was supposed to show oil flowing freely sent oil prices up.

Fitch downgraded its global sovereign sector outlook to “deteriorating” from “neutral” this week, citing the conflict. Investors are no longer pricing a ceasefire. They are pricing, in the words of one investment strategist, “a long grind.” The era of buying everything and being rewarded may be over.

Markets are slowly learning what Trump’s words are worth. The rest of the world learned faster.

The sailors American media barely mentioned

There is a story running prominently in Indian, British, Gulf, and international media this week that has received almost no attention in the American press, including in the outlets that oppose Trump.

Three Indian sailors are dead.

This week, US forces struck two Palau-flagged tankers crewed by Indians off the coast of Oman. On Monday, a US missile disabled the MT Marivex, carrying 24 Indian seafarers. All 24 were airlifted to safety by Omani military helicopters. On Wednesday, US forces struck the MT Settebello, also crewed by 24 Indians and accused by Washington of carrying Iranian oil in defiance of sanctions. Twenty-one crew members were rescued in an operation coordinated with Omani authorities. Three were initially reported missing. They have since been confirmed dead.

India summoned a senior US diplomat. Indian officials and international maritime bodies condemned the strikes. A union leader representing Indian seafarers told the BBC he refused to believe the US lacked information about who was on board. “If the ships failed to heed their instructions, detaining them was a viable alternative,” he said.

From Europe, this is the story. Civilian mariners doing their jobs on commercial vessels, killed by American military action in a war that was supposed to end in two or three weeks, then two or three days. Three men with families, dead off the coast of Oman.

It barely registered in America. That gap, between what the rest of the world sees and what reaches American readers, is part of what Morning Compass exists to close.

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“I love the inflation”

Wednesday also produced one of the more extraordinary presidential statements in recent memory.

Asked whether he was concerned about new data showing inflation had jumped to 4.2 percent annually in May, the highest since April 2023, Trump replied: “No. I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”

Inflation was 2.4 percent in February, before the war began. It has risen every month since. Gasoline is up around 41 percent over the past year. Fuel oil, used to heat homes, is up 59 percent. The Federal Reserve’s target is 2 percent. Inflation is now more than double that, making near-term interest rate cuts increasingly unlikely.

Trump’s approval rating on inflation has reached a record low. In a recent FocalData poll, 69 percent of Americans said they disapprove of his handling of inflation, with 18 percent approving. A Marquette University poll found 78 percent disapproval.

Senate Minority Leader Schumer posted within minutes: “Trump really said, ‘I love the inflation.’ On camera. For all of America to hear. His contempt for you knows no bounds.” Fox News host Jessica Tarlov wrote: “And Democrats just won the midterms.”

Trump’s argument is that relief is coming once the war ends. The war that was supposed to end in two or three weeks, then two or three days.

What to watch today

The World Cup kicks off today. FIFA’s Men’s World Cup runs through July 19 across the US, Mexico and Canada. Host nation Mexico opens against South Africa’s Bafana Bafana at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City at 3 pm ET. It is the largest World Cup in history, with 48 nations competing. For the next five weeks, some part of the world’s attention will be somewhere other than the Gulf.

Albania is on its tenth consecutive day of protests. Thousands marched in Tirana on Wednesday night, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama. The movement began as opposition to a Kushner-linked development project on protected coastal land but has grown into a broader challenge to government policies. The European Commission this week urged Albanian authorities to “act without delay” to avoid jeopardizing the country’s EU accession bid.

Antarctic temperatures hit 15.4C (59.7F) on June 6 at the Argentinian Esperanza base, shattering the previous winter record by 2C and sitting roughly 20C (36F) above normal for that time of year. A Chilean glaciologist reported that the Collins glacier, which should be accumulating snow in June, was instead experiencing melt. Understatement of the week: “This is obviously not good for the glacier.” Climate breakdown does not pause for wars.

Southern Baptists voted Wednesday 3 to 1 to advance a formal constitutional ban on churches with women pastors. The vote was 6,028 to 2,026. The same Bible, read two ways. The sponsor of the amendment said: “There’s a great line that divides liberal and biblical evangelicalism, and you can see it on this very issue.” Baptist Women in Ministry responded that women in ministry “deserve affirmation, respect, and the opportunity to follow God’s call” and called the theology behind the vote damaging. It requires a second two-thirds vote next year to take effect. Another step in the same direction: fewer women, more restrictions, in the largest Protestant denomination in America.

The EU is in talks with Brazil and South Korea about reducing dependence on US technology, according to Politico. The European Parliament has already switched from Google to a French search engine over privacy concerns. The decoupling from American tech, once unthinkable, is now policy.

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On this day

Attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama, Governor George Wallace stands defiantly at the door while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. (Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report Magazine, Public domain)

On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace of Alabama stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama auditorium to block two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. He delivered a speech. Then he stepped aside under orders from the National Guard. Malone and Hood enrolled. Wallace later sought the presidency four times. Malone went on to work for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for over 25 years.

Committee of Five, Declaration of Independence, July 1776, detail of John Trumbull's painting (1819) (Public domain)

Also on this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence. They had 17 days.

Today is

Today is the UN’s International Day of Play, a newly established observance highlighting the role of play in healthy child development. It is also Cousteau Day, marking the memory of Jacques Cousteau. Given the state of the oceans, both feel timely.

RV Calypso is a former British Royal Navy Minesweeper converted into a research vessel for the oceanographic researcher Jacques-Yves Cousteau (Steve Moses, CC BY 2.0)

In Oslo, “Piknik i Parken” (I’m sure you can translate that) begins today at Frognerparken and runs through Sunday.

What I wrote

Subscribe to Daybreak Notes & Beans ☕️

What I captured

An early morning walk today, before the news arrived. Dew drops on vibrant green foliage. Zoom in on the small things, and there is still beauty everywhere. The world outside the headlines is often still doing fine.

What I’m working on

Screen Skills, and if time allows, a video and maybe even a Daybreak Notes & Beans. Let’s see how far I can get today.

And I would like to know

The international press covered the deaths of three Indian sailors extensively this week. Most American readers will not have seen it. When you read that the US military killed civilian merchant sailors, does it change how you see this war?

On More and the Morning Compass

You just read the Morning Compass — a daily briefing that arrives while you are still on your first coffee. It tells you what happened overnight, the European perspective on what Americans are living through right now, what to watch today, and gives you something worth talking about. Morning Compass is published inside the More newsletter.

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Stumbled upon

Yesterday, the new tower of the Sagrada Família was illuminated for the first time. The light show, starting from the base and culminating in the illumination of the cross, culminated in a composition of lights guided by drones that traced the figure of Gaudí. I wrote yesterday about the Sagrada Família here.

Animaris Rex is an 18-meter-long walking 'beach animal' propelled by the wind, created by Theo Jansen as a fusion of art and engineering.

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Notes and sources

Iran strikes: AP News, ‘US and Iran exchange strikes for a second day’ — https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-ceasefire-hezbollah-israel-11-june-2026-3c2c6d356a1e25b4d7edf66b2edba57d

Trump inflation: AP News, ‘Trump embraces inflation after a new report shows it’s spiking’ — https://apnews.com/article/trump-love-inflation-democrats-affordability-midterms-603791c93c785221dae8be6df14d807d

Trump inflation: Newsweek, ‘Trump Says “I Love the Inflation” as Approval Rating Sinks to Record Low’ — https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-i-love-the-inflation-approval-rating-sinks-record-low-12056206

Trump inflation: Euronews, ‘”I love the inflation,” Trump says as prices jump again’ — https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/11/i-love-the-inflation-trump-says-as-prices-jump-again

Trump secret oil mission: New York Times, ‘Trump’s “Secret Mission” to Ferry Oil Past Iran Was Widely Disclosed’ — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/middleeast/trump-oil-iran-strait-hormuz.html

Markets and the Iran war: CNBC, ‘Investors brace for a “long grind” as Iran war escalation dims hopes of an early end to hostilities’ — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/11/iran-war-us-trump-strikes-centcom-oil-investors.html

Indian sailors killed: BBC News, ‘Settebello: Three Indian sailors killed in US strike on tanker in Gulf of Oman’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy73dr081p8o

Trump and Putin trapped: The Guardian / Inkl, ‘Putin and Trump are both trapped in losing battles against reality’ — https://www.inkl.com/newsletters/morning-edition/news/putin-and-trump-are-both-trapped-in-losing-battles-against-reality

Trump ‘two or three days’ quote: The Independent, June 8, 2026 — https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-new-york-knicks-white-house-pentagon-nypd-b2992037.html

Jeremy Bowen analysis: BBC News, ‘Trump and Netanyahu wanted to reshape the Middle East — now they risk a permacrisis’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjdgl548x3eo

Trump arch: AP News, ‘Construction on Trump’s triumphal arch will take place year-round’ — https://apnews.com/article/trump-triumphal-arch-dc-national-park-service-7217464481aac6676b01ebfb7aa02927

Southern Baptists: AP News, ‘Southern Baptists advance formal ban on churches with women pastors’ — https://apnews.com/article/southern-baptist-convention-evangelicals-women-pastors-7d85ddc4cc13f3c90a05c1ce3de196b3

Chicago cross burning: AP News, ‘Chicago park cross burning shocks residents as police seek tips’ — https://apnews.com/article/cross-burning-chicago-fire-department-e61c932c3633516f55e32da3fd294dec

Displacement: Al Jazeera, ‘One in 70 people worldwide is forcibly displaced: UNHCR’ — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/11/one-in-70-people-worldwide-is-forcibly-displaced-unhcr

Pope in Canary Islands: AP News, ‘Pope calling attention to migrants’ plight on visit to Canary Islands’ — https://apnews.com/article/spain-pope-migration-canaries-b2ff5e135b612285ad1e5d7b5c98fc1c

Pope in Canary Islands: BBC News — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn59w6p3vd0o

Spain immigration: AP News, ‘Spain is granting legal status to most immigrants’ — https://apnews.com/article/spain-immigration-legal-status-permits-ec1b8c64fb89b348ee4b394b55a94cbe

Pope parliament speech: AP News, ‘Pope demands respect for migrants in historic speech to Spain’s parliament’ — https://apnews.com/article/spain-pope-parliament-migration-iran-8067640c81f133386e748985653f6d8a

Pope Sagrada Familia: AP News — https://apnews.com/article/spain-pope-leo-sagrada-familia-barcelona-gaudi-a1b69601917ab4709959c4628a4995b6

Albania protests: Euronews, ‘Thousands protest demanding Albania’s PM Rama resigns’ — https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/06/11/thousands-protest-demanding-albanias-pm-rama-resigns

EU tech: Politico, ‘EU turns to Brazil, South Korea to counter US tech dominance’ — https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-counter-us-tech-reliance-henna-virkkunen/

Antarctic temperatures: The Guardian / Inkl, ‘Record winter temperatures in Antarctic raise fears over speed of climate breakdown’ — https://www.inkl.com/newsletters/morning-edition/news/record-winter-temperatures-in-antarctic-raise-fears-over-speed-of-climate-breakdown

videos: church: sagradafamia on x and the ‘strandbeest’ via Massimo on x

One hundred years of Gaudí, Who Died on This Day in 1926.

Alexander Verbeek — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:53:46 GMT

Dear friends,

Antoni Gaudí died on this day, June 10, exactly 100 years ago. He was 73 years old and had been hit by a tram on a Barcelona street three days earlier. He was so poorly dressed that passersby assumed he was a beggar. Nobody recognized him. By the time someone did, it was too late.

That gap between the man and his work is one of the most striking things about Gaudí. He spent the last years of his life sleeping in his workshop inside the Sagrada Família, eating almost nothing, dedicating every hour to a building he knew he would not live to finish. He died poor and anonymous on a street in the city that now draws millions of visitors every year, largely because of what he built.

I took this photo during my last visit to the Sagrada Família in 2016

Today, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass inside that basilica and blessed its newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ. It is a moment worth pausing on. The cornerstone was laid in 1882, during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII — the namesake of the current pope. Leo XIV is the eleventh pontiff to serve during the construction. One hundred and forty-four years. Eleven popes. Still not entirely finished, though closer than it has ever been.

I have been to Barcelona many times. The Sagrada Família is unlike anything else ever built. The towers, the facades, the way light moves through the interior — stained glass casting color across stone in patterns that feel intimate and overwhelming at the same time. Gaudí believed that curved lines belong to God and straight lines to men. Walk through the nave, and you understand what he meant.

While Barcelona attracts most Gaudí tourists, many don’t realize that he built beautiful buildings elsewhere in Spain, too. When I walked part of the Camino de Santiago some years ago, I passed through Astorga. Gaudí designed the Episcopal Palace there — a neo-Gothic castle that looks like it arrived from a different century entirely, or possibly a different planet. It is now a museum. It was closed when I passed, so I never made it inside, but I stood outside long enough to understand that it is the work of someone who thought about buildings the way other people think about cathedrals: as acts of devotion rather than construction. Here is a photo I took in the summer of 2023:

And then there is Casa Botines in León. I wrote about it several years ago after visiting. It is more sober than his Barcelona work, more restrained, but quietly confident — a building that does not shout. It is worth going out of your way for.

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The Vatican declared him “Venerable” last year, the formal step before beatification. His cause for sainthood has been running for decades. Two verified miracles are required before he can be beatified. Given that the Sagrada Família survived 144 years of construction and the Spanish Civil War, you could argue miracles are not in short supply.

Another photo from 2016; it’s remarkable how much has been added in the past ten years.

This week, LEGO released a 12,060-piece Sagrada Família set — the largest LEGO set ever made by piece count. It mirrors the actual construction sequence, starting with the crypt and working upward through the facades and towers. It costs $800. A budget flight to Barcelona might be cheaper, but I understand the appeal. Some buildings deserve to be built twice.

One hundred years since his death. The basilica he gave his life to is finally, almost, complete. The pope came to bless it. The city declared 2026 Gaudí Year. And somewhere, someone is assembling 12,060 plastic bricks on a kitchen table, trying to understand what took the rest of us 144 years.

Cheers,

Alexander

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Notes

Sagrada Família centenary and papal visit: CNN, ‘Pope Leo XIV blesses newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ at Sagrada Família’ — https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/08/style/sagrada-familia-barcelona-tower-jesus-christ-intl
Gaudí history and construction timeline: Sagrada Família official site — https://sagradafamilia.org/en/history-of-the-temple
Gaudí sainthood cause: CNN Style, ‘Vatican puts Sagrada Família architect on the path to sainthood’ — https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/style/vatican-gaudi-saint-sagrada-familia-intl-scli
LEGO Sagrada Família: New Atlas, ‘Lego recreates world’s tallest church with largest-ever set’ — https://newatlas.com/architecture/lego-sagrada-familia/
video: arch_ai_studio on IG

🧭 Booed in His Hometown, Asleep in His Suite, 35 Percent Approval. Trump's War Is Not Going as Planned.

Alexander Verbeek — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:39:10 GMT

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What’s the news

The Iran war is entering what Donald Trump calls its “final throes.” He told reporters outside Madison Square Garden last night that a peace deal could come within “two or three days.” Sounds familiar? He has said something similar for several weeks now.

The ceasefire that has nominally held since April cracked again over the weekend. Israel struck Beirut on Sunday without warning Trump. Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since April. Israel then struck Iran. Trump called Netanyahu “fucking crazy.” Netanyahu said Israel will strike Iran “whenever necessary.” Then both sides stepped back, and Trump declared progress.

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Gas costs $4.24 a gallon nationally, down 18 cents from last week but up from under $3 when the war started on February 28. Nearly 60 percent of Americans expect prices to get worse over the next year. Trump’s approval rating stands at 35 percent, just above his all-time low.

Two stories from the Gulf illustrate what this war actually looks like from outside the United States.

On Monday, a US Navy F-18 fired a missile into an oil tanker called the Marivex off the coast of Oman. The ship’s 24 Indian crew members sent a distress call. “Please send help,” they said. The ship was on fire and sinking. They were not rescued by the United States. They were rescued by the Omani military. All 24 survived. The US said the tanker had violated its blockade of Iranian ports and the crew had failed to comply with instructions.

This story was covered prominently by the BBC, by Indian media, by outlets across Europe and Asia. It was largely absent from the main American newspapers, which were focused on a different Gulf incident: a US Army Apache helicopter that went down near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Both crew members were rescued safely within two hours.

The difference in coverage reveals something. When American military equipment is lost, it is news in America. When a civilian crew of 24 people from another country sends a distress call from a burning ship that the American military just struck, it is news everywhere else. The Marivex is the seventh vessel the US has disabled for violating the blockade. The crew members were doing their jobs. They were not saved by the country that shot them.

This is what an aggressive military blockade in contested waters produces. Aircraft go down. Civilian ships burn. The people paying the highest price are rarely American.

Meanwhile, Trump and Netanyahu are openly at odds in ways that would have been unthinkable a year ago. Trump wanted a quick win. Netanyahu wants to vanquish Iran and its allies, which requires an extended conflict. Trump told the Financial Times, “I call all the shots,” not Netanyahu. Hours later, Israel bombed Iran. Netanyahu told reporters Israel has “a full right to self-defense” and will exercise it “with appreciation and respect” for his good friend President Trump. Then he did what he wanted anyway.

Vice President Vance said Monday night that Iranian negotiators are “putting real things on the table.” He also said he does not assume anyone is acting in good faith. The deal may come. It may not. What is certain is that every week it does not, gas prices stay high, the blockade continues, and more ships burn.

What to watch today

In South Carolina, Trump’s endorsed candidate, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, faces a five-way Republican gubernatorial primary. A week ago, Trump’s pick lost in Iowa. He will be watching South Carolina closely.

The screwworm, a flesh-eating fly larva, has now been confirmed in five cases across Texas and New Mexico. The USDA is racing to contain it using sterile male flies dropped from aircraft. Canada has temporarily stopped importing livestock from Texas. Scientists say more cases are coming. Texas ranchers have a 24-hour hotline.

On this day

Welch (left) being questioned by Senator Joe McCarthy (right) at the Army–McCarthy hearings, June 9, 1954 (By United States Senate - http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/Welch_McCarthy.jpg, Public Domain)

On June 9, 1954, Army special counsel Joseph Welch looked at Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings and said: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

McCarthy never recovered politically. The hearings ended his influence. The sentence became one of the most quoted in American political history.

Seventy-two years later, to the day, a sitting president was booed at a basketball game in his own hometown, fell asleep in a luxury suite, and told reporters the crowd was “mostly cheers.”

On June 9, 2022, the House panel investigating January 6 held its first public hearing and placed blame squarely on Donald Trump, calling the assault on the Capitol not spontaneous but an “attempted coup.”

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Today is

We’re getting very close to the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, which opens on Thursday. The tournament is already generating controversy before a single match is played. A Somali referee named Omar Artan, who would have been the first from his country to officiate at a World Cup, was detained at Miami airport for 11 hours, questioned about Somali politics and the al-Shabaab militant group, and then put on a plane back to Istanbul. He had a valid visa. FIFA confirmed he will not be officiating at the tournament. Somalia is one of nearly 40 countries subject to Trump administration travel restrictions.

I read this morning about a Dutch financial manager who told the Associated Press he would not travel to the US for the World Cup regardless of how far the Netherlands advances. He said Trump’s hostility to European allies had changed his view of the country. He may speak for many.

What I wrote

This morning I published two pieces in More. The first is a longer analysis of the PRIO conflict report released today in Oslo, based on a background briefing I attended yesterday. The headline finding: 2025 was the most conflict-ridden year since World War II, with 65 state-based conflicts, 245,000 battle deaths, and a massacre in Sudan that killed approximately 60,000 people in one week and barely made the international news. The second piece is a Morning Comments video on the same report.

What I captured

Luna, ten years ago today. June 9, 2016, in Stockholm, Sweden. She was five; she is fifteen now. In every house she has lived in, her favorite spot has always been the stairs. In Stockholm, it was a spiral staircase, and she would sleep on the steps as if she owned them, which she did. Looking at the photo, and Luna right now next to me in a chair, I cannot find a single sign of aging. No grey, no stiffness in the pose, nothing. Our family dog went visibly grey and slow. Luna simply refuses to age. She looks exactly the same. I think she knows a secret we don't.

What I’m working on

Daybreak Notes and Beans is next, followed by Screen Skills. That may be tomorrow. The portfolio is rather full today.

And I would like to know

The McCarthy question has lasted 72 years: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” If you could ask that question to one person in public life today, who would it be?

On More and the Morning Compass

Morning Comments, the daily video companion to Morning Compass, is also published in More.

And sometimes I publish other articles in More, like today’s article on the Prio briefing.

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Stumbled upon

A brave mother saves her goat with a single kick to a mountain lion that entered her farm.

No matter how many times you've watched it, Max the dog playing with his duck friend Fred never fails to make your day. 😊

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Notes and sources

Iran ceasefire tensions: AP News, ‘Netanyahu and Trump are at odds over the war they started together’ — https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-us-trump-iran-war-2230178d2cd4aa6b96e3e022b734d498

Indian crew tanker strike: BBC News, ‘Please send help: Indian crew’s distress call after ship hit by US missile’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq51ep28165o

Apache helicopter: New York Times, ‘Crew Is Rescued After U.S. Helicopter Goes Down Near Strait of Hormuz’ — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/us/politics/us-helicopter-strait-of-hormuz.html

Trump approval and gas prices: The Hill, ‘Trump approval mired near record low: Survey’ — https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5916201-trump-approval-rating-gas-prices/

Iran peace deal: The Hill, ‘Trump: Iran peace deal possible in 2 or 3 days’ — https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5916000-trump-iran-peace-deal-update/

Trump booed at NBA Finals: Washington Post, ‘Trump is greeted by boos at Madison Square Garden during the NBA Finals’ — https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2026/06/09/president-trump-greeted-by-boos-arrives-madison-square-garden-nba-finals/

Trump falls asleep at Knicks game: The Daily Beast, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Predicted Donald Trump’s MSG Nap During Knicks Game’ — https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/jimmy-kimmel-predicted-donald-trumps-msg-nap-during-knicks-game/

Trump at NBA Finals security: US News, ‘NYC Imposes Stringent Security as Trump Becomes 1st Sitting US President to Attend NBA Finals Game’ — https://www.usnews.com/news/sports/articles/2026-06-08/nyc-imposes-stringent-security-as-trump-becomes-1st-sitting-us-president-to-attend-nba-finals-game

Trump election fraud claims California: New York Times, ‘Trump Previews Fall Strategy With Baseless Claims of California Vote Fraud’ — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/us/politics/trump-election-fraud-strategy-california.html

Maine Senate primary: AP News, ‘What to watch in Tuesday’s primaries as Platner makes Senate bid in Maine’ — https://apnews.com/article/graham-platner-maine-senate-primary-6e9b766d0940ce525cfd1845610b1d30

Screwworm: AP News, ‘USDA finds new cases of a flesh-eating cattle parasite called screwworm’ — https://apnews.com/article/screwworm-flesh-eating-parasite-cattle-texas-a7459200cef00d658d877755ad761f41

Somalia World Cup referee: AP News, ‘World Cup ref denied entry to the US was about to make history for Somalia’ — https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-referee-somalia-fifa-trump-04dc046d9807582d5b69e0149181e5f1

World Cup fans staying home: AP News, ‘Cost and politics have some of the biggest World Cup fans skipping this year’s tournament’ — https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-2026-soccer-fans-staying-home-4849eee759674ef67f789cbf1d82fb94

EU ports China influence: Euronews via Inkl, ‘Plan to curb China’s growing influence in EU ports takes shape’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/yGGkQXUwXLW

AI water crisis: Tom’s Hardware via Inkl, ‘Most new US AI data centers are being built in drought zones’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/jyypggtzBoM

Sweden phone ban schools: The Independent via Inkl, ‘Another country to ban mobile phones in schools as reading levels fall’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/kddBQxCLkMy

American children falling behind: Fortune via Inkl, ‘70% of fourth-graders can’t read proficiently’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/QkkLwofrVoa

People leaving MAGA: Salon via Inkl, ‘People really are leaving MAGA’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/MkkMmmSRPLW

videos. Mountain lion/goat: srkntnyldz on x. dog/duck: antidepressive content on x

🎙️ Watch: The World's Conflict Researchers Just Published Their Worst Numbers Since 1945

Alexander Verbeek — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:01:02 GMT

Earlier today, I published in More about the Annual Conflict Report by Prio, the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full article in More here:

Transcript

This morning, the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, published its annual conflict report. It covers every war and armed conflict on the planet going back to 1946. I was at the background briefing yesterday, here in Oslo.

The numbers are some of the worst since World War II.

In 2025, researchers recorded 65 state-based conflicts. That means 65 separate wars where at least one government was involved. It is the highest number ever recorded.

Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed in direct battle violence last year. That makes 2025 the third deadliest year since the end of the Cold War.

More than 76,000 people were killed in deliberate, one-sided violence against civilians. One year earlier, that number was 14,000. It’s now more than five times as much as twelve months ago.

Almost all of that increase is Sudan.

Specifically, a city called El Fasher in North Darfur. In the last week of October 2025, approximately 60,000 people were killed there following a paramilitary takeover. UN investigators have described it as bearing the hallmarks of genocide.

Most people reading or watching this have never heard of El Fasher. It barely made the international news. 60,000 people. One week. And the world moved on.

I think that silence is worth naming.

The report also documents the return of wars between states. For decades, direct conflicts between two governments were rare. In 2025, there were eight of them. That is double the number from 2024, and the highest since 1946.

India and Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cambodia and Thailand. Russia and Ukraine. Israel and Syria. And the expanding confrontations across the Middle East.

The researcher presenting the data, Siri Aas Rustad, explained why she thinks border conflicts are rising again. The world feels less supervised. The UN Security Council is not functioning.

American willingness to enforce international norms has weakened.

And when there is no credible pressure from outside, countries with unresolved grievances are more likely to act on them.

And then one of us asked her directly whether the current US administration bears some responsibility for these trends.

She was careful. But her answer was clear. Less international collaboration, fewer functioning institutions, more protectionism. The data is beginning to show the consequences.

When asked whether she could find anything positive in this year’s numbers, she said she could not. That was the first time she had said that.

I have spent much of my professional life around these questions. As a journalist and diplomat, I followed conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East for 25 years. And I’ve seen what happens when outside attention and institutional pressure are removed from fragile situations.

Things get worse.

Rustad said wars do end. She did not say when. She expects this elevated level of violence to continue for another five to ten years.

The full PRIO report is available at prio.org. It is worth reading.

I have written a longer piece on this in More today, with more detail on the definitions, the data, and what it means. I’ll add the link to this video post.

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The World Just Had Its Most Conflict-Ridden Year Since World War II. Here Is What the Data Shows.

Alexander Verbeek — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:38:32 GMT

The world is more at war than at any time since 1945. More wars between states. More countries are hosting multiple simultaneous conflicts. More civilians were killed deliberately.

This morning, PRIO, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, published its annual Conflict Trends report, based on data from Uppsala University’s conflict tracking program. It is the most rigorous dataset of its kind, going back to 1946. Yesterday, I sat in a room here in Oslo with Siri Aas Rustad, the lead researcher, along with a small group of journalists. We received a preview under embargo. The numbers she presented were not easy to hear.

Let me share what stood out.

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65 wars in one year

In 2025, researchers recorded 65 state-based conflicts. That means 65 separate wars or armed confrontations where at least one government was involved. It is the highest number ever recorded since the data collection began after World War II.

Those 65 conflicts happened across 35 countries. But here is what matters: fewer than half of those countries had just one conflict. Myanmar had five. Israel had five. Afghanistan, Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, and Pakistan each had three or four running simultaneously.

The world is not just producing more conflicts. It is layering them on top of each other in the same places.

Approximately 245,000 people were killed in direct battle-related violence in 2025. That makes it the third deadliest year since the end of the Cold War. Only 2021, at the peak of the Ethiopian civil war, and 1994, the year of the Rwandan genocide, were worse.

The past five years combined have killed roughly as many people as the entire twenty-year period before 2021. That is the number that stayed with me after the briefing.

The return of wars between states

For decades, civil wars dominated the picture. Countries fighting internal rebel groups, ethnic militias, or jihadist insurgencies. Direct wars between two governments became rare. In 2000, there were effectively none.

That changed sharply in 2024. It accelerated in 2025. Eight interstate conflicts were recorded last year. That is double the number from 2024, and the highest since 1946.

Rustad broke them into three categories.

Border conflicts: India and Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand. Old tensions. New violence. Countries that have lived with unresolved disputes for decades and are now less willing to hold back.

Regional escalation: the expanding confrontations in the Middle East. Iran, Israel, the US, the UK, Yemen. A region that has been heating up for years and is now producing direct state-on-state fighting across multiple fronts.

Invasions: Russia in Ukraine, Israel in Syria following the fall of the Assad government.

Rustad’s interpretation of why border conflicts are rising again was direct. The world feels less supervised. There is no credible global sheriff. The UN Security Council is not functioning. American attention is elsewhere, and American willingness to enforce international norms has collapsed. When there is no one to call, countries that have grievances decide to act on them.

Sudan and the number nobody heard

The single most shocking figure in the report is not the total number of conflicts.

It is 76,500. That is the number of people killed in deliberate, one-sided violence against civilians in 2025. One year ago, it was 14,200. It more than quintupled in twelve months.

Almost all of that increase is in Sudan. Specifically, El Fasher in North Darfur, where the paramilitary Sudan Founding Alliance took control in October 2025. The UCDP data records approximately 60,000 people killed in El Fasher in the last week of that month alone. UN investigators have described what happened as bearing the hallmarks of genocide.

Most of you reading this have probably never heard of El Fasher. I had hardly heard it discussed on any major news program in the weeks it was happening; it’s where independent media like Substack fill a niche. Sixty thousand people. One week. A likely genocide. And the news cycle moved on to other things, or never arrived at all. If you believe in the principle of never again, and most people who read this newsletter do, then the silence around El Fasher is something to reckon with.

A note on the 76,500 figure: some of you will notice that Gaza is not prominently included in it. When I heard that number, my first thought was also Gaza, but under the definitions this dataset uses, deaths in Gaza fall under the state-based conflict between Israel and Hamas, not under one-sided violence against civilians. Those definitions were set decades ago and were built for a different era of warfare. The researchers know they are imperfect. They have little choice but to maintain them to keep eighty years of data comparable. The point is not that Gaza is absent from the report. It is very much present in the overall death count. The point is that El Fasher represents additional deaths, on a scale almost nobody reported. Here is a link to the full report.

The American factor

One of the journalists asked the direct question. Does the current US administration bear some responsibility for these trends?

Rustad was careful. She did not assign blame. But her analysis was clear. The world is more violent partly because the constraints on violence have weakened. Peacekeeping operations work when they are funded and mandated. International collaboration prevents some conflicts from escalating. Trade relationships give countries reasons to avoid war. The UN Security Council, when it functions, can apply pressure.

All of those mechanisms are under strain right now. The US has withdrawn from several of them. Aid cuts are already affecting the conditions that generate conflict. The tone from Washington signals that aggression has fewer consequences.

She put it plainly: a world with less collaboration, fewer functioning institutions, and more protectionism is a world with more conflict. The data is beginning to show it.

What this means

I have spent much of my professional life around these questions. As a journalist and international public speaker, but also for some 25 years as a diplomat, I followed developments in Central and Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East closely. I watched what happened when outside attention and institutional pressure were removed from fragile situations. Things got worse.

The numbers from the PRIO report are not abstract. They describe choices made and not made. They describe the consequences of pulling back from institutions that, however imperfect, created some friction against violence.

Rustad said wars do end. She did not say when. She thought we would see this elevated level of violence for another five to ten years.

That is an honest answer. It is not a comfortable one.

The full PRIO report is available at prio.org. The Uppsala data that underpins it is publicly accessible. If you want to understand the actual shape of the world right now, both are worth reading.

Stay inspired,

Alexander

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🎙️ Watch: Trump Is Removing 900 Ocean Sensors on World Oceans Day. The Consequences Will Last Decades.

Alexander Verbeek — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:28:01 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

Today is World Oceans Day.

The United Nations established it to draw attention to the health of our oceans. The theme this year is reimagining our relationship with the sea.

The Trump administration chose to begin removing 900 deep-sea sensors from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Let me tell you what those sensors do.

For the past decade, they have been measuring ocean temperatures at every depth. Ocean currents. Oxygen levels. The chemistry of seawater. Marine heatwaves. The movement of heat through the oceans. That is measuring the heat that drives the weather systems that affect every person on Earth.

This network is called the Ocean Observatories Initiative. It cost $368 million to build. It was designed to run for 25 years. Now, after only ten years, the Trump administration is dismantling it.

The National Science Foundation, which runs the program, says this is about becoming more nimble and prioritizing emerging technologies. Scientists say it is about killing climate research.

Here is what the loss means in concrete terms.

Removing the US sensors alone would produce a 163 percent increase in error in annual estimates of ocean heating rates. That is not a rounding error. That is losing the ability to see clearly.

El Niño forecasting degrades. Hurricane prediction degrades. Fisheries management degrades. The early warning systems that tell farmers in the US, in South America, or in Africa what to plant and when — those degrade too.

One researcher described the ocean monitoring network as a Jenga tower of scientific understanding. Each piece removed makes the whole structure less stable. You do not always know which piece matters most until it is gone.

A French ocean scientist put it simply: without ocean observations, we are flying blind.

The US suffered more than 400 climate and weather disasters costing over a billion dollars each between 1980 and 2024. In 2024 alone, those disasters cost 177 billion dollars. The entire Ocean Observatories Initiative cost $368 million to build over a decade. The math is not complicated.

While the US dismantles its network, Europe is expanding its own. The European Union announced a €92 million investment in ocean observation this week. The timing was not planned as a response to the US move — but the contrast is impossible to miss.

The oceans cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface. They absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. They produce oxygen. They feed billions of people. They regulate the weather that determines whether harvests will succeed or fail.

We cannot see the deep ocean from space. So, the sensors are the only way to know what is happening down there. When they are gone, that knowledge is gone too. Not temporarily. We should realize that long-term ocean records become most valuable over time. A continuous record broken after ten years cannot simply be resumed. The baseline is lost.

Today is World Oceans Day. The theme is reimagining our relationship with the sea.

Removing the instruments that tell us what the sea is doing is one way to reimagine that relationship.

But that is not the one the United Nations had in mind.

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🧭 An American Fascist on the Beaches Where Americans Once Fought Fascism. Europe Noticed.

Alexander Verbeek — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:26:06 GMT

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What’s the news

On Saturday, June 6, the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, Pete Hegseth stood on the beaches of Normandy and lectured Europe about migration.

Let that land for a moment.

On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied troops stormed those beaches. More than 4,400 died that day. They came from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Norway, and Poland. They came to liberate a continent from fascism — from an ideology built on racial hierarchy, the demonization of outsiders, and the violent purification of the nation. The defenders of that ideology lost.

Eighty-two years later, the US Secretary of Defense stood at the American cemetery in Normandy and said this: “Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?”

The original D-Day was a multiracial force fighting fascism. The defenders were Hitler’s National Socialists. The “dangerous ideology” on those beaches in 1944 was Nazism. Hegseth stood at the graves of the men who defeated it and used their memory to invoke the language of the movement they died fighting.

He did not use the word race. He did not need to. The framing — invaders, boats, men, dangerous ideologies, European beaches — is the vocabulary of the European far right. It is the language used by parties that are explicitly racist. It is the language used at white nationalist conferences. It is, in the bluntest reading, the language of the people those soldiers came to stop.

Hegseth’s tattoos are worth noting here. His chest carries the Jerusalem Cross and the Latin phrase “Deus Vult” — God wills it — crusader iconography that has been adopted by far-right and white supremacist movements across Europe and North America. He is not a man for whom these symbols are accidental.

From where I stand in Oslo, the reaction in Europe was one of cold recognition. We have seen this before. We know what it looks like when the language of racial threat is dressed in the clothes of civilization. We know what it sounds like when the outsider is cast as an invader. What is new is that it is now coming from Washington, from a man standing at the graves of those who crossed an ocean to prove that exact ideology wrong.

The UK’s deputy prime minister, David Lammy, told JD Vance directly that he was wrong to blame the murder of British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration. Prime Minister Starmer suggested the US was trying to interfere in British politics. These are not the words of allies engaging in friendly disagreement. They are the words of governments that have had enough.

This is what America looks like from Europe in June 2026.

Trump walked out of an NBC interview on Sunday after making false claims about the 2020 election and demanding compensation for January 6 rioters. When pressed, he called the interviewer stupid and left. In Wisconsin, on camera. The president of the United States.

Trump’s 80th birthday celebration, billed as a 250th anniversary of American democracy, is a cage fight on the White House lawn. Nearly every celebrity invited has declined. Adam Sandler, Dwayne Johnson, Jared Leto — all said no. Fifty-one percent of Americans disapprove of the event. The donors who funded it were offered access to the president for $1 million. The musicians booked for the parallel Freedom 250 concerts have been pulling out for weeks.

America at 250, marked by a cage fight that nobody wants to attend and a birthday celebration that has become a punchline.

And the press is under pressure too. Scott Pelley, fired from 60 Minutes last week, has said publicly that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss sent instructions to his supervisor before a segment on the killing of Minneapolis protester Renee Good — asking, in his paraphrase, to make protesters look more violent and to describe Good as driving toward the officer who shot her. The video showed no such thing. Trump had made that claim. Weiss, according to Pelley, wanted the broadcast to echo it.

This connects directly to what I am writing in The Planet right now. The series on the Strongman’s Playbook. Next week’s installment covers the media — how authoritarian movements capture it, how they pressure it, how they use it. The 60 Minutes story is not an isolated incident. It is the pattern.

What to watch today

The Iran ceasefire has broken down.

Israel struck southern Beirut on Sunday, hitting a Hezbollah position. Iran retaliated with ballistic missiles at Israel — the first direct exchange since the April truce. Israel then struck targets across western and central Iran overnight, including Iran’s largest petrochemical complex at Mahshahr. The Houthis in Yemen have declared a naval blockade against Israel in the Red Sea. Iraq has closed its airspace for 72 hours.

Trump called Netanyahu on Sunday and told him not to retaliate. He said he had “convinced” Netanyahu to wait. Israel struck Iran anyway.

Trump then posted on Truth Social demanding that both sides “immediately stop shooting.” He also said a peace deal was “very close” and might be signed “Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.”

He has been saying versions of this for weeks.

By Monday afternoon, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards signaled they were pausing their operation — but warned that if Israeli aggression continued, including in Lebanon, “much harsher and more forceful actions will follow.” Netanyahu instructed the military to halt preparations for another round, reportedly after pressure from Trump.

This is a ceasefire that has never stopped producing casualties. Trump called the conflict a “military exercise” on Sunday. He told NBC: “I don’t think about it. I just do what I have to do.”

Three things to watch from here. First: whether the pause holds, or whether this becomes another cycle of escalation followed by a slightly angrier pause. Second: whether the Houthi Red Sea blockade declaration translates into actual attacks, which would further strangle global shipping already squeezed by the Strait of Hormuz closure. Third: whether Iran’s hardliners use this moment to kill the peace talks entirely. Iranian negotiators were already under pressure internally. Being struck by Israel — with many in Tehran believing the US approved the attack — gives those hardliners exactly the argument they need.

Also watch: Xi Jinping travels to Pyongyang today for a two-day state visit, his first in North Korea in seven years. Kim has spent recent years building his relationship with Russia, sending troops to Ukraine, and reducing his dependence on China. Days before Xi’s arrival, North Korea unveiled a new uranium enrichment facility and Kim announced plans to expand the nuclear arsenal “at an exponential rate.” Xi is visiting a country that is less controllable than it was the last time he came.

And Ukraine: Russia struck the Chernobyl spent nuclear fuel storage building over the weekend, partially destroying it. No radiation release was reported, but Zelensky called it deliberate. Russia striking nuclear infrastructure at Chernobyl, of all places, is not an accident. It is a message.

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On this day

On June 8, 1949, George Orwell’s novel 1984 was published for the first time. It described a state built on the manipulation of language, the rewriting of history, the surveillance of citizens, and the permanent war that justified all of it. The Ministry of Truth. The memory hole. Doublethink.

Nevil Clavain, CC BY-SA 4.0

On June 8, 2023, Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami on 37 felony counts related to his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The case was abandoned after his November 2024 election victory.

Both entries are relevant today. I will leave it at that.

Today is

Today is World Oceans Day, established by the United Nations and observed every June 8. The theme this year is “Reimagine: Beyond the world we know, a new relationship with our ocean.”

The United States is currently removing 900 deep-sea sensors from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. More on this in today’s Morning Comments.

If you enjoy reading Morning Compass 🧭, please share this article; it helps to reach a wider audience. It’s just one click:

What I wrote

The US Department of Agriculture has confirmed the first case of the New World screwworm in the United States since 1966. It was found in a three-week-old calf in South Texas. I spoke about it in the Morning Comments; you can watch it here.
And I published this weekend:

What I captured

On my way to a briefing this morning, I walked past a market stall in Oslo. Citrus fruits piled high, green apples, tomatoes, mangoes. Shoppers from various backgrounds stood side by side, quietly choosing what they needed for the week. I barely stopped. I took the photo almost without thinking.

I was on my way to hear experts who have spent years tracking conflicts and their human cost. The contrast between that fruit stall — ordinary, colorful, peaceful — and what I was about to sit and listen to stayed with me all morning. Oslo on a Monday. The rest of the world on a Monday. The gap between them is not something to take for granted.

What I’m working on

Well, there are all those numbers on the human cost of war, more on that tomorrow. I will first work on the Morning Comments video. Depending on how much time I have, there is a Daybreak Notes & Beans in the works, and I have a request for a Screen Skills topic.

And I would like to know

Pete Hegseth used the D-Day commemoration to lecture Europe about migration, standing at the graves of the Americans who died fighting fascism. How did that land for you?

On More and the Morning Compass

Morning Comments, the daily video companion to Morning Compass, is also published in More.

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Stumbled upon

🐶 Every time his toys go in the washing machine:

Friends: 💕

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Notes and sources

Hegseth D-Day speech: BBC, ‘Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach invasion D-Day speech’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802e7jk458o

Hegseth D-Day speech Euronews: Euronews, ‘US defence chief uses D-Day speech to warn Europe on migration invasion’ — https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/06/07/us-defence-chief-uses-d-day-speech-to-warn-on-migration-invasion

Hegseth D-Day analysis: Mother Jones, ‘Hegseth warns Europe to defend itself against a second D-Day’ — https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/hegseth-europe-ww2-d-day-normandy-nazi-german-invasion-migrant-speech/

D-Day commemoration: Euronews, ‘D-Day 82nd anniversary honoured in France’ — https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/06/06/d-day-82nd-anniversary-honoured-in-france

UK response to US interference: BBC, ‘Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach invasion D-Day speech’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802e7jk458o

Trump NBC walkout: inkl, ‘Thank you, darling: Trump storms out of NBC interview after calling interviewer stupid’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/QkkqqotrVoa

Trump birthday cage fight: Euronews, ‘Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 birthday cage fight event snubbed by celebrities’ — https://www.euronews.com/culture/2026/06/08/donald-trumps-freedom-250-birthday-cage-fight-event-snubbed-by-celebrities

60 Minutes interference: The Guardian, ‘Scott Pelley says Bari Weiss wanted 60 Minutes to say Renee Good was driving toward officer’ — https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/07/scott-pelley-bari-weiss-renee-good-report

Iran Israel escalation: inkl / The Guardian, ‘Israel strikes Iran despite Trump plea as Middle East crisis threatens to escalate’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/NRRdPVimVRw

Iran Israel ceasefire breakdown: inkl, ‘Iran and Israel trade fresh blows despite Trump warning’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/vnnlwlhyYqL

Iran war military exercise: Fortune via inkl, ‘Trump calls Iran war a military exercise even as Hormuz fighting heats up’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/ZQQwlWhaMpl

NYT live updates Iran Israel: The New York Times, ‘Live Updates: Iran and Israel Move to Wind Down Strikes After Cease-Fire Breaks Down’ — https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/08/world/iran-israel-lebanon-attacks

Xi Jinping North Korea: Euronews, ‘Xi Jinping set for North Korea trip on Monday in first visit to Pyongyang in seven years’ — https://www.euronews.com/2026/06/05/xi-jinping-set-for-north-korea-trip-on-monday-in-first-visit-to-pyongyang-in-seven-years

Zelensky European allies peace conditions: BBC, ‘Zelensky’s close European allies set out five conditions for peace talks’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7xr1g3nvvo

Chernobyl strike: BBC, ‘Zelensky’s close European allies set out five conditions for peace talks’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7xr1g3nvvo

Iran World Cup visa dispute: The Guardian, ‘We are upset: Iran players hit out at US visa delay after World Cup arrival in Mexico’ — https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/07/iran-players-us-visa-delays-world-cup-2026-mexico

Ocean sensors dismantled: Scientific American, ‘Trump administration takes aim at crucial ocean monitoring network’ — https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-administration-takes-aim-at-crucial-ocean-monitoring-network/

Ocean sensors consequences: The Guardian via inkl, ‘Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world flying blind’ — https://www.inkl.com/a/VJJJEbToYWy

World Oceans Day: UNEP, ‘Ocean, seas and coasts’ — https://www.unep.org/topics/ocean-seas-and-coasts

Great white shark Mediterranean: BBC, ‘Pretty special: Diver on filming rare footage of Great White shark in the Mediterranean’ — https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cd6p6zqzj6do

videos: buitengebieden en theadorablepups on x

🎙️ Watch: A Flesh-Eating Parasite Is Back in Texas. Trump Had Cut the Program Designed to Stop It.

Alexander Verbeek — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:18:19 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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Transcript

Today is World Environment Day. I want to talk about a flesh-eating parasite.

This week, the US Department of Agriculture has confirmed the first case of the New World screwworm in the United States since 1966. It was found in a three-week-old calf in South Texas.

The screwworm is a fly. The female lays her eggs in open wounds on living animals. The larvae burrow into living flesh. Not dead tissue. Living flesh. A full-grown steer can die within ten days if the infestation goes untreated. Any warm-blooded animal is at risk — cattle, wildlife, pets, and occasionally humans.

The US eradicated the screwworm in 1966. It was one of the great achievements of American agricultural science. Scientists developed a technique: breed male flies in a laboratory, sterilize them with radiation, and release them by the millions from aircraft. Wild females mate only once. If they mate with a sterile male, no eggs hatch. The population collapses. The US declared itself screwworm-free, then pushed the fly south through Central America over decades, until it was contained behind the Darién Gap in Panama.

It held for decades. Then it didn’t.

The fly breached the gap around 2022 and marched north through Central America and Mexico. Scientists tracked it. They modeled its movement. They predicted it would reach Texas in 2025 or 2026.

But here is the part that matters for World Environment Day.

In early 2025, the Trump administration — through DOGE — terminated a USAID-funded monitoring project that was tracking and containing the screwworm in Central America. It was part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Health Security Program. The cuts went out in late January 2025. Days later, the US lifted a temporary ban on cattle imports from Mexico. Monitoring eliminated. Cross-border movement resumed. At the same time.

The USDA’s own budget for animal disease monitoring was cut by roughly 15 percent. The workforce lost thousands of employees. The program covering screwworm surveillance across 22 countries and 160 laboratories was defunded.

The fly is now in Texas.

The economic stakes are not small. A full-blown outbreak could cost Texas cattle producers 732 million dollars directly. But industry groups put the national cost at over 10 billion dollars. The US cattle herd is already at its lowest level in 75 years. Beef prices are at record highs. A screwworm outbreak pushes both higher.

The USDA is currently releasing 4 million sterile flies per week near the Texas border. That may sound like a lot, but experts say you need at least 500 million per week to push the fly back. 500, not 4. A new facility in Texas will eventually produce 300 million per week — but it will not be operational until late 2027 at the earliest.

This is what happens when you cut environmental and agricultural monitoring programs. The problems do not disappear. They migrate north and show up in a calf in South Texas.

On the same day the screwworm was confirmed in Texas, Trump announced 700 million dollars in new funding for coal. Today, on World Environment Day, he is using wartime emergency powers to build the first new coal plants in the United States in thirteen years.

Coal produces more carbon dioxide than any other fuel. It is more expensive than solar and wind. Its workforce has declined from 173,000 to 40,000 in four decades. The market has already decided coal is finished.

But the monitoring programs that track what happens when you stop paying attention to nature — those were cut.

That is the connection worth making on World Environment Day. Not between coal and climate in the abstract. Between specific cuts, specific decisions, and a specific parasite now burrowing into cattle in South Texas.

Environmental monitoring is not bureaucracy. It is the early warning system. When you cut it, the warnings still come. They just arrive as a crisis instead.

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🧭 Trump Just Spent $700 Million on Coal, While Europe Saves €136 Million a Day With Solar. Happy World Environment Day.

Alexander Verbeek — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:27:47 GMT

More ✍️: 20% off the first year

What’s the news

Let’s start in Kyiv. On Thursday, Volodymyr Zelensky published an open letter to Vladimir Putin. It was a peace offer and…

🎙️ Watch: Kushner Wants to Build a Resort on One of Europe's Last Pristine Coastlines. Albania Is Fighting Back.

Alexander Verbeek — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:34:40 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

Albanians are in the streets. Yesterday, for the third day in a row, thousands of people gathered in the capital, Tirana. Police used water cannons against them. The protesters carried cardboard pink flamingos.

This is what they were protesting: Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, wants to build a luxury resort on one of Europe’s most pristine coastlines. The project would cover the uninhabited island of Sazan and a stretch of protected wetland on Albania’s southern coast.

The area is a nature reserve. It is home to the Mediterranean monk seal. More than 200 bird species shelter there, including flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans.

In late May, bulldozers moved in. They began clearing ancient dunes and pine forests. They installed barbed wire fencing. A private security firm took over the site. Local people who work on that land could no longer get to it.

That was the moment when people got angry.

The Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, is defending the project. He wants Albania to join the European Union. He wants foreign investment. He says this resort is a milestone. He also says there that the project will not stop while he is in government.

There is a familiar pattern here. Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, tried the same approach in Serbia. Serbian authorities passed special laws to make way for a Kushner-linked luxury complex in Belgrade. Then prosecutors charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office. Kushner withdrew.

The Albanian government’s own anti-corruption agency has now opened an investigation. It has not said what it found.

Ivanka Trump said she and Kushner discovered the Albanian site by accident. They were on a friend’s boat. They stopped for a swim. They hiked barefoot to the top of the island. She said they were captivated.

I know Albania from the days when nobody even thought about developing mass tourism in Enver Hoxha’s former illusion of a workers’ paradise. It is extraordinary, it has a beautiful nature. The water is clear. The landscape is intact. It survived fifty years of communist isolation, which means it was accidentally preserved while the rest of the Mediterranean was being built over.

What strikes me is the logic at work here. The Trump family does not just seek political power. It seeks to convert political power directly into money. And it does so in countries where institutions are weak enough to allow it. Albania is trying to join the European Union. That makes it vulnerable to pressure. It also makes it a test case.

The EU requires the rule of law. It requires environmental standards. It requires transparency in public contracts. A luxury resort that is bulldozed into a protected nature reserve without public consultation is not consistent with any of those requirements. That’s not the way we work in Europe.

The Albanians in the streets with their cardboard flamingos understand this. They are not just fighting for a coastline. They are fighting over what kind of country Albania wants to be.

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🧭 Republicans Are Breaking With Trump on Four Fronts Simultaneously. Something Has Shifted.

Alexander Verbeek — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:38:09 GMT

What’s the news

Something has shifted in Washington. It has been building for weeks, but this week it became undeniable.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a war powers resolution 215 to 208, requiring Trump to seek congressional approval or withdraw US forces from Iran. Four Republicans broke ranks. It was the fourth such attempt, and each…

🎙️ Watch: Only 9 Percent of Americans Support Trump Naming Buildings After Himself. That Is Lower Than Flat Earth Believers.

Alexander Verbeek — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:35:58 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

Let me start with a number.

Nine percent. That is the share of Americans who support Trump naming government buildings after himself while serving as president. CNN’s chief data analyst pointed this out this week. Twelve percent of Americans believe the moon landing was faked. Ten percent believe that the Earth is flat. The share of Americans who support the renaming program has fallen below both of these numbers.

This is not primarily a story about conspiracy theories. It is a story about a project the White House apparently believed would be popular. The Kennedy Center, the Gulf of America, the Victory Arch near the Lincoln Memorial, the $250 bill with Trump’s face on it: Nine percent.

I have another number: 35

That’s the number of doctors and health professionals who have signed a formal letter calling for Trump’s removal. Among them is Dr Henry David Abraham, a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Tufts University and a former member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. That is the organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. The letter describes what it calls a “rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline.” It notes that 5,000 nuclear warheads are ready to launch solely upon his order.

Politico published an assessment this morning from people close to the White House. One person put it directly: “You passed a Big Beautiful Bill. Crime is down. The border is secure. They’re not out there selling what they’ve done.” Instead, Iran is consuming every meeting and every news cycle. The Freedom 250 celebration for America’s 250th birthday is falling apart as artists back out. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh — not a Democrat, his own base — posted over the weekend that the event has become “a Trump rally where Trump will talk about himself for 90 minutes.” He said he was “pretty pissed” about how it had been handled.

Trump is backing off the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. Two people close to him say he has been leaning toward scrapping it for days. A federal judge has also reopened the underlying lawsuit to investigate whether the settlement involved fraud on the court. That means investigating whether Trump essentially colluded with his own government to settle a case he controlled on both sides.

The Pentagon has banned journalists from its press office. The reason given: speechwriters from what the administration now calls the War Department share the space and work with classified material. The acting press secretary called this “the most transparent war department in history.” Major news organizations had already lost access last October. A federal judge had ruled some restrictions unlawful. An appeals court paused that ruling. The New York Times is now in its second lawsuit.

Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight. The New York Times analysis is clear: this is a sign of weakness. Russia lost more territory in May than it gained, and that is the first such month since Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Russia is losing roughly 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers every month. The intensified bombardment is an attempt to gain leverage before peace talks restart. There are several connections with the war in Iran, and one is that the closed Strait of Hormuz has actually been an economic lifeline for Russia, giving it oil revenue to keep fighting. That connection — the Iran war helping fund the Ukraine war — is not being discussed enough.

Today is “primary day” in California, New Jersey, and four other states.

The California governor’s race will tell us something about the direction of the Democratic Party. The results will come in late tonight.

And today is the 73rd anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. She was 27 years old. She reigned for 70 years. She never gave a press conference. She never stated a political opinion. She outlasted 15 prime ministers. Whatever you think of the monarchy, maintaining that silence across seven decades required something close to superhuman self-discipline.

I will be back soon.

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🧭 More Americans Think the Moon Landing Was Fake Than Support Trump Naming Buildings After Himself.

Alexander Verbeek — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:50:51 GMT

What’s the news

A Pew Research Center poll found that only 9 percent of Americans support Trump naming government buildings after himself while serving as president. CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten pointed out this week that about 12 percent of Americans believe the moon landing was faked — a baseless conspiracy theory — and about 10 percent believe…

🎙️ Watch: Kuwait Is Under Attack and Trump Says It Will "All Work Out Well"

Alexander Verbeek — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:05:07 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

It is Monday, June 1, and I want to start with a single sentence from Donald Trump, posted on Truth Social this weekend.

Kuwait reported missile and drone strikes on its territory overnight. The war that Trump started in February is spreading. His response: it will “all work out well.”

That phrase is worth holding onto this week. It will all work out well while oil is at $91 a barrel, up from $70 before the war. It will all work out well while Kuwait, a US ally, absorbs strikes from a conflict it had nothing to do with starting. It will all work out well while inflation is no longer just gas prices — it is now spreading through the entire supply chain. Manufacturing, transport, food processing, logistics. Everything costs more because energy costs more, and there is no quick fix for that.

Trump claimed this week that food prices are falling. The Associated Press fact-checked that claim. It is false. Grocery prices overall are still rising. The AP checked Trump’s claim that food costs are coming down. The overall picture does not support it.

Trump spent months trying to fire Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. The markets made clear what they thought of that idea, and Trump backed down. Last week, Powell accepted an award. In his speech, he described what happens when central bank independence comes under political pressure. He did not name Trump. He did not need to. Everyone in the room understood who he was talking about.

Trump is also claiming that he is bigger than Elvis. The context: even more artists have pulled out of his Freedom 250 Great American State Fair. That is the MAGA-branded competition to the official America250 anniversary celebration. Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, the Commodores, and others all say they were misled about what they had agreed to. Trump’s response was to post that he has a much bigger audience than any of the performers. He included Elvis in the comparison. Elvis sold over a billion records. He performed for fifty thousand people at a time. He is also dead, which makes the comparison difficult to contest and also slightly revealing about the level of anxiety behind the claim.

In Hungary, Peter Magyar — who defeated Viktor Orbán’s party in last month’s election — is threatening legal action after Orbán’s outgoing administration tried to push through legislation that would limit what the new government can do before the transition is complete. The playbook is familiar. When you lose an election, try to make the election irrelevant.

Today is June 1, which carries a particular weight in American history. In 1921, a white mob attacked Greenwood, known as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and burned it to the ground over 18 hours. It was one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history and was suppressed in official records for decades.

In 2020, on this day, police used chemical agents and clubs to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park in Washington so that Donald Trump could walk through and be photographed holding a Bible in front of a church he had never attended. He had just declared himself the president of law and order.

It will all work out well.

I will be back soon.

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🧭 Kuwait Is Under Attack. Inflation Is Spreading. Food Prices Are Still Rising. Trump Says It Will "All Work Out Well."

Alexander Verbeek — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:34:21 GMT

🎙️ Watch: The Fall Is Complete — and a Story About My Father, a Dutch City, and the Army That Saved Him in 1945

Alexander Verbeek — Sun, 31 May 2026 19:08:59 GMT

Earlier today I published two newsletters. No Morning Compass on Sundays — I use the day differently. But today was a big publishing day, and I wanted to talk you through both pieces.

The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read this weekend’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

There’s no Morning Compass today. It’s Sunday. I took a day off from the daily briefing. But today I published two pieces that I want to tell you about, because they deserve more than just another link in Notes.

Let me start with the heavier one: that’s part ten of The Fall in The Planet. It’s the final article in this series.

If you have been following this series, you know what it is about. How authoritarian regimes end. Nine case studies —

Portugal, the Philippines, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania,

Chile, South Korea, Ukraine. Each one a different combination of triggers, a different turning point, and a different morning after.

Part 10 pulls it all together. Where does America stand against each of the five triggers the political science literature identifies? What do the historical cases actually teach? And what can Americans do?

This series began because of a conversation on a coastal trail in Portugal in March 2026. Three Americans I was walking with asked me a question. Not about the trail, but about Trump’s America:

“How does this end?”

Ten parts later, I have given them the best answer that the historical record can provide. It is not a prediction. It is a pattern.

And the pattern is this. Regimes that have faced the simultaneous activation of economic anxiety, elite fracture, sustained mass mobilization, contested military loyalty, and international isolation have not remained unchanged.

The Czechs who filled the streets in November 19-eighty nine did not know that Havel would be president in six weeks. The Chileans who voted “No” in 1988 did not know that the generals would refuse to sign that night.

But they showed up anyway.

That is the piece. I published it in The Planet today. And if you know an American who is asking the same question that those hikers asked on that Portuguese trail, send it to them.

Now the lighter piece that I published today in The Curious Wanderer.

Some of you have been with me since Patreon. For years, my travel writing lived there — it was mostly behind a paywall, for a small community of people who wanted to follow me on the road. I loved that community. I still do.

But when I walked Portugal’s Fisherman’s Trail in March 2026, I ran into a problem. Patreon’s technical limitations made it nearly impossible to publish properly from the trail. I was walking every day, I had stories I wanted to tell, and the platform kept getting in the way.

So I created The Curious Wanderer on Substack. And I moved the travel writing there.

The Portugal series ran for many weeks. I described the Atlantic cliffs. The fishing villages. The cork forests. The history of a coastline that sent ships to every corner of the world. And I loved writing those pieces.

And now I have moved to a new series where I take you to The Netherlands. A walking route through old Hanseatic cities along the river.

Today’s piece is about Doesburg. A small city in the eastern Netherlands that most people have never heard of. It has a café that holds a Guinness record as the oldest continuously operating café in the country — serving beer since 1478. It has fortifications designed by the great Dutch military engineer Coehoorn, built around 1700. The are so perfectly preserved that they are now a nature reserve, with otters in the old moats. And cuckoos on the ramparts.

And it has a 1904 shopfront, tiled in Art Nouveau style, and built for a bicycle manufacturer. It is decorated with wheels and stylized flowers. The bicycle was revolutionary in 1904. This shopfront treated it like a cathedral window.

Standing in front of that shopfront, I thought about my grandfather. He was born in 1900 in a small village not far from Doesburg. He told me once that he remembered the first bicycle arriving in his village. The whole community came out after Sunday church to watch the village doctor circle the square on this strange machine. My grandfather remembered the doctor’s expression clearly. A man who knew he was the center of attention. And was enjoying every second of it.

I love it when a walk connects like that.

There is also a more personal thread in today’s piece. The fortifications in Doesburg were used during the Second World War — not to keep enemies out, but as cover by an occupying German force trying to slow the Canadian advance. The Canadians pushed through and continued west. Other units from the same army liberated Amersfoort a couple of weeks later.

My father was hiding in Amersfoort at that time. A young man. In hiding for the occupying Nazi-German army.

The Netherlands walk is not finished. I walked the Doesburg stretch last summer and there is more trail ahead — north along the river toward Kampen. I have walked only a part of this trail, and I hope to continue later this year. When I do, I will write about it in The Curious Wanderer.

For now, today’s piece is there. Doesburg. A city that carries more history than its eleven thousand people might suggest.

So there you have the two pieces of today. One about how democracies survive. One about how a walk connects you to people who came before you.

Thank you for reading. And for watching. I’ll see you tomorrow on Substack.

You can read the two articles of today here:

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🎙️Watch: Trump Is Losing on Every Front Right Now. Here Is the Full Accounting.

Alexander Verbeek — Sat, 30 May 2026 19:55:45 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

It is Saturday, and a good moment to look back at a week in which almost nothing went right for Donald Trump.

Let’s start with Iran. Trump spent the week saying a deal was nearly done. But on Friday, he sat in the Situation Room for two hours, and then he came out without a decision. Iran’s lead negotiator posted on social media that concessions come through missiles, not dialogue. The Guardian published an analysis this week that made a point I have been making since Saturday: if a deal is reached, its main achievement will be to reopen a strait that was open before the war began. That is not a victory. That is a return to the starting line. The war has cost an estimated $2 billion a day. Gas prices in America are up 50 percent. Iran still has roughly 70 percent of its prewar missiles. The regime is intact. The nuclear question is unresolved.

Then there is the Senate. After ousting Cornyn in Texas on Tuesday, Trump now has at least six Republican senators who have little left to lose: Cornyn, Cassidy, Tillis, Murkowski, Collins, and McConnell. Republicans hold 53 seats. They can only lose four before losing a vote. The arithmetic is tightening.

The courts were not kind either. A federal judge ordered Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center within 14 days and blocked the planned two-year closure. The ruling cited a simple principle: Congress named the Kennedy Center, and only Congress can rename it. Trump responded by threatening to transfer the institution back to Congress, which he has no legal authority to do.

The anti-weaponization fund — $1.776 billion in taxpayer money created through a settlement of Trump’s own lawsuit against the IRS — has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. Thirty-five former federal judges called it a fraud on the court. Republican senators are calling it a liability heading into November. It gets interesting now that Trump’s own party is refusing to defend the Trump slush fund.

And now the Department of Justice is investigating E. Jean Carroll and the nonprofit that helped fund her legal cases against Trump. Carroll won two jury verdicts — $5 million, then $83 million. Now the government is investigating whether she committed perjury by saying she had no outside funding, funding that was later disclosed before trial and addressed by the appellate court. A former federal prosecutor told MS Now this week that this looks less like a money laundering investigation and more like an attempt to relitigate a credibility fight that Trump has already lost.

Meanwhile, the Epstein files remain largely unreleased. Pam Bondi appeared before Congress on Friday and declined to answer questions about Trump’s role. Epstein’s survivors were shoved aside by police as they tried to make themselves known at the hearing room door.

I want to end with something Cornyn did after losing his primary. He posted the old fable of the scorpion and the frog on social media. A scorpion convinces a frog to carry it across a river, promising not to sting it. Midway across, it stings anyway, dooming them both. Asked why, the scorpion says: it is my character. I cannot help it.

Cornyn did not name the scorpion. His Republican colleagues in the Senate understood the reference immediately.

Today is also, unofficially, Hug Your Cat Day. Luna is asleep on the chair next to me. She has been here all morning. She is not worried about any of this. There may be something to learn from that.

Enjoy your weekend.

I will be back soon

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🧭 No Iran Deal, No Kennedy Center Name, No Slush Fund, No Votes From Young Men. Other Than That, a Great Week For Trump.

Alexander Verbeek — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:21:33 GMT

🎙️ Watch: The Norwegian Prime Minister This Morning on Trump's World — Without Mentioning His Name Once

Alexander Verbeek — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:42:05 GMT

Earlier today, I published the Morning Compass briefing. Here I share a few thoughts on what stood out most. The transcript is below for those who prefer to read.

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You can read today’s full Morning Compass briefing here:

Transcript

This morning I walked across Oslo to the new Norwegian government quarter, which was rebuilt after the Breivik terrorist attack fifteen years ago. I sat in a briefing room with foreign correspondents from the Financial Times, Reuters, and a dozen others from around the world because the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was giving his annual briefing to the Foreign Press Association.

So I want to share with you what a careful, experienced European statesman said in that room this morning, and why I think it matters for those readers who are watching the world from a distance.

For my American readers who are used to their president making headlines every day, the contrast with Støre could not be greater. He is a well-educated, soft-spoken, former foreign minister, with some seven years in that role. He chooses his words carefully after spending decades in rooms where words have consequences. And this morning, he never once mentioned Trump’s name. He did not need to. Everything he said was shaped by the new reality without ever stating it directly.

The first thing that he was very clear about: America remains Norway’s most important ally, especially in the Arctic. He said that plainly. What he described next is not a turn away from America, but it is what serious countries do when uncertainty rises. They build redundancy.

Norway has just signed a comprehensive defense agreement with France — the Narvik Agreement — and has joined similar agreements already with Britain and Germany. These are three of Europe’s largest military powers. Støre said that Europe has to take more of the bill and more of the responsibility for its own security. Those are his words. He said them calmly and without drama. That is how Europeans talk now when they are describing a fundamental shift.

He talked about a nuclear conversation that eight European countries, including Norway, are having with France about French nuclear deterrence. He was very careful: this is not some kind of nuclear umbrella. Norway will have no nuclear weapons on its soil. Norway’s commitment to arms control is unchanged. What is happening is a conversation. The fact that this conversation is happening at all tells you something about where Europe is.

On Russia, he said Europe cannot live with a war on its own territory and no political contact with Moscow. Someone in Europe needs to be talking to Russia. Not leaving it to other continents to manage European problems. Norway has a land border with Russia and knows that geography is permanent.

On Greenland, he was asked about Trump’s threats to the island. Støre’s reply stayed within the NATO framework. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is part of NATO. NATO is relevant to all NATO territory. And then he reminded us that the law of the sea applies in the Arctic. Some countries deal with the Arctic as though normal rules do not apply there. They do apply. Coastal states have rights and obligations. He did not name anyone. He did not need to.

And then there was one moment when he spoke about Utøya. Norway marks fifteen years since the Breivik attacks this summer, where he killed sixty-nine young people at the Utøya youth camp. Støre mentioned that five of his current cabinet ministers are survivors of that massacre. They survived an attack by a far-right extremist who wanted to destroy the Norwegian left. And they went on to become government ministers. “They won,” Støre said. “They have the upper hand. Democracy will be strong.”

In The Planet newsletter, I have written about how democracies often prove their resilience at the moments they face the most pressure. This is one of those stories. With all the grief of that day, the five ministers around Støre’s cabinet table are also a story about what democratic strength actually looks like.

I thought about that on the walk home. This week, I wrote about ten ICE detainees who died by suicide in US custody. I wrote about asylum seekers imprisoned in a hotel in Equatorial Guinea. Democracy does not always win. But sometimes it does. And sometimes the people who were supposed to be silenced end up running the country.

One more thing before I go. As I was finishing this newsletter, breaking news arrived. A federal judge in Washington ruled that President Trump’s name was illegally added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He wrote that the law establishing the center made “crystal clear” that only Congress could change it. The judge also temporarily blocked the Kennedy Center from closing this summer, as Mr. Trump had demanded. Democracy does not always win. But sometimes it does.

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