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3 Things That the Ultra-Rich Do to Protect Their Wealth That You Can Do, Too

May 14, 2026

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You’ve worked hard and spent decades building something significant, and, naturally, you want it to have a lasting impact for your family.

Earning, saving, and investing have been your focus over the years, and you’ve probably also taken most or all of the typical estate planning steps.

Last year at Catalyst Advisory, we surveyed 1,000 American adults and found that 90% hope to have something to leave behind for future generations. It’s clear that legacy matters to most of us.

Unfortunately, 70% of wealthy families lose that wealth by the second generation, and 90% of it by the third. Those who successfully maintain family wealth are in the minority.

The myth: ‘A good estate plan is enough.’

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As a wealth transfer adviser, my work is all about helping families protect and preserve their wealth. And before I started my firm, I spent seven years in a family office role, working with ultra-wealthy families.

If you have a will, life insurance, beneficiary designations, and an asset inventory, and followed other typical estate planning advice, you might feel like you’re all set. But families who successfully preserve their wealth do a few specific things most people never consider.

Three things families that preserve their wealth do differently

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While these lessons were learned by observing ultra-wealthy families, you don’t need a massive fortune to apply these principles. Families with much more modest wealth will also benefit by taking these proactive steps.

1. They write a family constitution

A family constitution is a living document that defines the family’s shared values, the purpose of the wealth, and guidelines for how future generations should steward that wealth. It is not a legal document and doesn’t replace a will or trust.

There’s nothing legally binding about a family constitution, and yet it’s incredibly effective for alignment. Without a shared understanding of why the wealth exists, heirs often default to spending it or using it in ways the previous generation wouldn’t have wanted.

Family constitutions usually include a family mission statement, clear expectations about work ethic, guidelines for decision-making and an overview of succession principles.

Since it’s an unofficial document, the family constitution can include whatever is important to you, such as philanthropy and guiding principles for giving.

Creating the family constitution is the first step, but it’s not a document that you create once and file away for your heirs to read after you’re gone. For it to be effective, the family constitution should be a living document that’s reviewed, discussed, and updated if necessary.

Get your kids or heirs involved as early as possible to increase buy-in. Many families have occasional meetings to discuss their values and go over the details covered in the family constitution. The more the next generation is involved in the process, the more effective it will be

2. They play defense before offense

When it comes to retirement planning and building a portfolio, investing and growth are usually the focus. High returns are the goal.

But families who successfully preserve their wealth typically spend more time and energy on tax strategy and protecting their wealth than selecting the right investments. It’s a completely different mindset.

In estate planning, what you pass on is far more important than what you accumulate. Taxes at death, capital gains on inherited assets, and estate settlement costs can quickly gut a family’s wealth before the heirs ever see it.

Here are a few strategies that benefit many families.

Irrevocable trusts. When structured properly, irrevocable trusts remove assets from your taxable estate, meaning your heirs will receive more. The trade-off is that you give up some control.

They’re not right for everyone, but irrevocable trusts can be effective if you hold illiquid assets or if your portfolio will grow quickly (so the future growth occurs outside of the estate).

Life insurance as a wealth transfer tool. Life insurance can offer much more than just a death benefit. A permanent life policy held in an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) can give your heirs a tax-free lump sum outside of your estate. It provides excellent liquidity so your heirs can pay taxes without selling assets (very important if you own a business or a real estate portfolio).

Harvest tax advantages while you’re alive. Annual gifting within exclusion limits, Roth conversions during lower-income years and charitable remainder trusts can significantly reduce your taxable estate over time.

These efforts typically compound, so the more attention you give them now, the more money your heirs will have later.

3. They consolidate rather than divide

Estate planning typically involves splitting everything evenly among the heirs, so they can do with their inheritance as they please. While that seems fair, it actually may not be in their best interest.

Dividing assets, especially illiquid ones like real estate and businesses, often forces a sale. Fire sales usually result in family conflict and erosion of the estate.

Families who successfully preserve generational wealth often use structures designed to keep the capital in one place. This may involve a family LLC, a trust, or shared governance of family assets. Heirs can benefit equally from a pool of assets without dividing and splitting everything apart, which often results in lost value.

The legacy isn’t the money

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Families who preserve generational wealth aren’t successful because they have more to begin with. They maintain their wealth because of their intentional approach. You don’t need tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit from the same mindset and actions.

Family constitutions, a defensive-oriented mindset, and consolidated structures aren’t just for the ultra-wealthy. You may have never considered these strategies, but they could make a difference that lasts for generations.

Family Of Three Sailing On Yacht Sitting On Sailboat Deck Looking At Sunset (Image credit: Getty Images)

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/estate-planning/how-the-ultra-rich-protect-wealth

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Live Updates: Trump and Xi Play Up Stability Without Resolving Major Tensions

May 14, 2026

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Here’s the latest.

President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, emphasized stability on Friday as they concluded a high-stakes summit in Beijing, albeit without announcing any clear resolutions on trade, Taiwan, the war in Iran or other major points of contention.

Sitting beside Mr. Xi during a meeting at Zhongnanhai, the walled headquarters for China’s ruling Communist Party, Mr. Trump said that the Chinese leader had “become really a friend” and that they felt similarly about the war.

When asked whether China had agreed to buy Boeing jets, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said at the ministry’s daily briefing on Friday only that China-U.S. economic ties were mutually beneficial.

On agriculture, however, he said that China is ready to work on important economic understandings reached by Xi and Trump.

Trump, greeted by flag-waving students at the airport, wasted no time as he climbed the stairs of Air Force One, turned for a quick wave, and hopped aboard. Staff scrambled aboard, doors closed, and at 2:41 pm Beijing time, we rolled down the runway. Next stop: Alaska, for refueling.

When Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, joined the group of American business leaders traveling with President Trump to Beijing at the last minute this week, many took it as a sign that progress was in store for the company’s long-stalled sales in China.

But as the summit between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, wrapped up on Friday, the fate of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips in China was no clearer than it had been before.

Xi again linked Trump’s Make America Great Again movement to his signature domestic vision, which he calls the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” during talks between the two leaders at Zhongnanhai. “Through strengthened cooperation, both China and the United States can promote their respective development and revitalization,” Xi said.

President Trump said on Thursday that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, potentially lifting the fortunes of the American jet manufacturer in one of the world’s largest aviation markets.

In an interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump hailed what he termed as successes from the first day of meetings with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. He said Mr. Xi told him that an order would be placed for the American planes.

Xi and Trump on Friday

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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/14/world/trump-xi-summit-beijing

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Almost half of the objects in Earth’s orbit are junk—and that’s only the stuff we know about

May 13, 2026

Hmmmm … It is time to launch Space Jnk LLC. Watch Space Junk (2023)

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Almost half the stuff in orbit around Earth can be classified as space junk, and the problem is only going to get worse as launches and orbital infrastructure increase.

Using data from the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Track.org, engineering component supply company Accu determined there are currently 33,269 trackable objects in orbit. Of those, 17,682 are satellites. The rest are some form of junk, ranging from expended rocket bodies to debris to objects that could not be identified.

“This means that nearly 47 percent of tracked objects are space junk,” the company wrote in a new report. “However, with many satellites no longer operational, it means the true proportion of inactive or uncontrollable objects is even higher.”

Amanda Montañez; Source: The Space Debris Report, Accu

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Space junk has been accumulating since the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched in 1957. Yet the problem has grown sharply over the past decade as the cost of launches has dropped and the cadence of space flights has increased. The amount of trackable objects in orbit rose by around 10,000 between 2020 and 2025 alone.

The scale of the issue may be grossly underestimated. Accu notes that there may be millions of objects that are too tiny to track, such as paint flecks and other debris that came loose from rockets and other spacecraft. That poses a major risk: Most objects in orbit are traveling at upward of 17,000 miles per hour—at that speed, even the tiniest mote could inflict significant damage on orbiting infrastructure. In 2024, astronauts onboard the International Space Station had to take shelter after a decommissioned Russian satellite broke into numerous fragments. That incident prompted the launch of a U.S. governmental program aimed at finding and monitoring low-Earth orbit’s tiniest pieces of garbage. And in 2025, several Chinese taikonauts became stranded on the Tiangong space station after a suspected piece of space junk cracked the window of their return capsule.

While there’s a chance an orbiting piece of junk could hurt or kill an astronaut, Accu’s analysis suggests that the greatest danger is to satellites, with seven tracked pieces of junk for every 10 satellites.

Despite being a problem that’s literally around the globe, the causes are not global. The report estimates that China is responsible for 65 percent of the debris in orbit, while the U.S. and the Commonwealth of Independent States—comprised of Russia and eight smaller countries—account for an estimated 40 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Space agencies, such as NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the U.K. Space Agency, and the European Space Agency, are working on ways to clean up lower-Earth orbit. Several private companies have also begun marketing their services as space garbage collectors. But until large amounts of junk are removed, Accu has called on spacecraft designers to take the threat more seriously.

“For the engineers shaping the spacecraft of tomorrow, they must keep space debris in mind from the start,” the report’s authors write. “Every component, from its precision, durability, and material, has to be chosen carefully to survive potential impacts. Space debris is a key challenge of the modern space age, but how it is tackled will drive innovation and define the future of space exploration.”

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World Map Courtesy of NASA/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/almost-half-of-the-objects-in-earths-orbit-is-junk-and-thats-only-the-stuff-we-know-about/

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Exclusive: CIA escalates secret war on cartels with deadly operations inside Mexico

May 13, 2026

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Earlier this spring, a mysterious explosion blew up a car carrying an alleged cartel operative in broad daylight on one of Mexico’s busiest highways just outside of its capital city.

Francisco Beltran was killed instantly along with his driver, their bodies found slumped over in their seats after the concentrated blast. Video and pictures of the attack on March 28 show a quick burst of flames with the car continuing to roll forward, drifting off the highway.

Known as “El Payin,” Beltran was accused of being a mid-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficking syndicates, Mexican security analysts and sources familiar with his activities said.

Mexican authorities have maintained extreme secrecy around the explosion, but multiple sources tell CNN that the attack was a targeted assassination, facilitated by CIA operations officers. An explosive device had been hidden inside the vehicle, the State of Mexico’s Attorney General told CNN.

The Beltran operation was part of an expanded, and previously unreported, CIA campaign inside Mexico — spearheaded by the agency’s elite and secretive Ground Branch — to dismantle the entrenched cartel networks, those sources, as well as two additional people familiar with the campaign, told CNN. President Donald Trump has designated several of those groups foreign terrorist organizations and deemed them to be at war with the United States.

Since last year, CIA operatives inside Mexico have directly participated in deadly attacks on several, mostly mid-level cartel members, the sources said. “The lethality of their operations has been seriously ramped up,” said one of the people briefed on the operations. “It’s a significant expansion of the kind of thing the CIA has been willing to do inside Mexico.”

The level of CIA involvement with operations has varied, according to the sources, from more passive intelligence sharing and providing general support to direct participation in assassination operations.

Prior to publication of this story, CNN presented the CIA with details of its reporting. The CIA declined to comment. After publication, CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons released a statement to CNN saying, “This is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk,” without specifying what aspect of the reporting is false.

The attack on Beltran was brazen even by the standards of typical Mexican cartel violence, and Mexican analysts debated in the days afterward whether it could signal a worrying, sophisticated new dimension of cartel-on-cartel warfare.

“We have been living in anarchic war for many months in Sinaloa,” Mexican journalist Jose Cardenas said on his television show broadcast by Grupo Fórmula in the days after the attack. “But attacks like this, if confirmed, in an area near the country’s capital, well, I have never heard of anything similar.”

A former CIA paramilitary officer told CNN that knowing how the agency operates, ‘They definitely wanted this incident to create the question in everyone’s mind of, ‘Who did this?’”

The CIA’s involvement in recent operations targeting high-profile cartel figures, like Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, has been well-documented, though much of that activity has publicly been described as intelligence sharing.

Newspapers hang on display for sale in Mexico City on February 23, a day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”

Jon Orbach/AP

But the agency’s covert activity inside Mexico goes far beyond those few cases that attracted international attention and involves much more direct participation, sources told CNN.

The strategy, the sources said, is to dismantle entire cartel networks, which involves not only removing those at the very top but also identifying vulnerabilities throughout the organization and systematically targeting lower-tier players who serve as key cogs in the trafficking enterprise.

Those operations often attract little attention outside of Mexico, or in some cases, beyond even the specific region where they take place because the targets are not as well known. That has typically allowed the CIA’s involvement to remain a secret. The playbook is not much different than counterterrorism missions designed to destroy groups in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world, current and former US national security officials told CNN.

The operations may also be illegal under Mexican law — without the express permission of the federal government, foreign agents are barred from participating in law enforcement operations under the Mexican Constitution.

“It’s not at all clear that all of their missions are coordinated with the [Mexican] government,” said one of the sources.

CNN contacted the office of the Presidency of Mexico and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs but did not receive comment before publication.

This still taken from video shows a car exploding on a highway in Tecámac, Mexico, killing Francisco “El Payin” Beltran, a mid-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel, and his driver. From X

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/12/politics/cia-drug-cartels-deadly-operations-mexico

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Live Updates: Trump and Xi Meet, With a World in Turmoil

May 13, 2026

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President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, are expected to discuss trade, Taiwan, and the war in Iran at a summit in Beijing. The meeting could determine whether the U.S.-China détente will continue.

Here’s the latest.

President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, were meeting in Beijing on Thursday, beginning a high-stakes summit that will focus on trade, Iran, Taiwan and other points of contention.

The meeting, the first U.S. presidential visit to China in nearly a decade, could determine whether a détente that has prevailed between the superpowers will continue — and what concessions, if any, either side is willing to make.

Trump has left the Great Hall and arrived at the Temple of Heaven.

Beijing has approved export licenses for several hundred American slaughterhouses to ship beef to China, according to data on the website of China’s General Administration of Customs. China had allowed the licenses to expire in March 2025 after President Trump imposed his initial tariffs.

Xi warned Trump during their meeting that the issue of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory, could bring the two countries into conflict, according to a readout from Xinhua, China’s official news agency. “Handled well, the two countries can maintain stability. If handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash, putting the entire U.S.-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation,” he said.

Xi is seeking a delay or reduction in U.S. arms sales to the self-governed island. The Trump administration delayed announcing a $13 billion package of arms sales to Taiwan to avoid angering Xi before the summit. In February, Xi urged Trump in a phone call to handle arms sales to Taiwan with “extreme caution.”

Chinese state media on Thursday emphasized how world leaders have come to Beijing in recent months to meet with Xi and other senior officials. “When our guests come, the door is open,” said one reporter for state broadcaster CGTN. China experts noted that Trump’s visit this week, the first from an American president in nearly nine years, may already be a “win” for China as it seeks to bolster its image on the world stage.

A broader trade bargain between the U.S. and China may remain uncertain, but members of the American business delegation emerged upbeat after the first Trump-Xi meeting.

“Wonderful!” Elon Musk shouted to reporters as he left the Great Hall of the People. Asked what was accomplished, he said, “Many good things.” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, flashed a peace sign. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, gave a thumbs up and said that Xi and Trump “were incredible.”

Xi and Trump

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/13/world/trump-xi-summit-china

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Does a psychedelic trip change your brain? A new study offers a tantalizing clue

May 12, 2026

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A psychedelic trip—on “magic mushrooms,” to be precise—may cause physical changes to the brain, a new imaging study finds. The results could one day help explain why people who take psilocybin—a psychoactive ingredient in such mushrooms—can feel a multitude of effects, from bliss and euphoria to anxiety, discomfort, and hallucinations, as well as long-term effects of the drug.

“No one has ever properly tested whether and how the brain changes when someone takes psychedelics for the first time,” says Robin Carhart-Harris, a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Users often describe the first time taking magic mushrooms as a significant experience, he says. But understanding what’s going on at the biological level has so far eluded scientists.

Now, in the new study, Carhart-Harris and his colleagues may have taken a step closer to answering that question. The team gave 28 healthy people who’d never tried a psychedelic 25 milligrams of psilocybin—the equivalent of a “heroic” dose of magic mushrooms, Carhart-Harris says—and looked at their brain using a variety of scanning techniques, including electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

The researchers scanned the brains of the participants brains before and after the dose using both MRI and DTI to track any possible changes to the organs’ activity and wiring, Carhart-Harris says. The team also monitored the participants’ brain using EEG during the trip and asked them about their well-being before and after they took the psilocybin.

After a single dose, the team detected changes in brain activity that correlated with well-being as much as a month after the participants took the drug. When participants’ brain activity was “richer” and less predictable (a measurement that Carhart-Harris and his team refer to as greater “entropy”), they tended to report having increased “psychological insight”—new ways of thinking about themselves, their problems, their past, and more—shortly after the trip.

“We know what’s going on in your brain when you’re under the influence—when you’re experiencing the ‘magic’—and we know what it will translate to soon after in terms of psychological insight,” Carhart-Harris says. Greater psychological insight also tracked with reports of higher mental well-being a month after the dose.

The team also found changes to the brain’s wiring. After taking psilocybin, “tracts” in the brain that run from the prefrontal cortex to the middle of the organ appeared to be “less diffuse” along their length, meaning they could have become more compact or thinner, Carhart-Harris says. Whether that alteration is beneficial or not is unclear.

The study is “exciting,” says Alan Davis, director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at the Ohio State University, who was not involved in the new research. “Importantly, it demonstrates the importance of acute and enduring psychological insights or realizations in predicting outcomes of psilocybin experiences.” And the research provides some “clarity” on the mechanisms of how psychedelics may eventually help patients with mental health challenges, he says.

The findings are preliminary and perhaps raise more questions than they answer. For instance, how long do these brain changes last? The study only followed people for a month. And while the participants’ well-being outcomes may have been positive, it’s not clear whether any noted changes to the brain may have unexpected or even negative effects down the line. A recent policy shift at the federal level could help expedite this work. In April President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at expanding research on psychedelics. That effort could help answer some of the big questions in the field, Carhart-Harris says, including the enduring or long-term effects of psychedelics on neurobiology. His research team plans to explore using psilocybin to treat conditions such as chronic pain disorders, anorexia nervosa, and more to try to tease out more answers about how the drug changes the brain.

“The honest answer is: we don’t know [how psilocybin changes the brain]. We don’t have enough information,” Carhart-Harris says. There’s “a lot to do” to understand “some major questions in this space.”

The findings were published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-a-psychedelic-trip-change-your-brain-a-new-study-offers-a-tantalizing-clue/

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Israel is worried that Trump will strike a ‘bad deal’ with Iran, leaving war objectives unmet

May 12, 2026

Hmmmm … Trump the puppet!

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Israel is concerned that US President Donald Trump may strike an agreement with Iran before addressing some of the key issues that drove the two countries to launch the war in the first place, multiple Israeli sources have told CNN.

A deal that leaves Tehran’s nuclear program partially intact while bypassing issues such as ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies would lead to Israel viewing the war as incomplete, the sources said.

“The primary concern is that Trump will grow tired of talks and cut a deal – any deal – with last-minute concessions,” one Israeli source said. While US officials have reassured Israel that the issue of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium will be addressed, the source said the apparent exclusion of ballistic missiles and Tehran’s proxy network from the talks “is a big deal.”

Iran fired over 1,000 ballistic missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states during the war, as well as barrages of drones.

A partial deal that fails to address some of Iran’s key capabilities while easing economic pressure on the country could also stabilize the regime and provide it with an influx of cash, the officials said. The concerns highlight a gap between Trump, who appears reluctant to resume the war, and Netanyahu, who fears it will end without achieving all of its initial aims.

A White House spokeswoman said that Iran “knows full well their current reality is not sustainable,” insisting that Trump “holds all the cards” in negotiations.

“Their ballistic missiles are destroyed, their production facilities are dismantled, their navy is sunk, and their proxies are weakened,” Olivia Wales said in a statement to CNN. “Now, they are being strangled economically by Operation Economic Fury and losing $500 million per day thanks to the United States Military’s successful blockade of Iranian ports.”

An agreement between the US and Iran to end the war is far from certain, with significant gaps remaining in the two sides’ positions on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and the future of Tehran’s nuclear program, and Israel is preparing for the possibility that the fighting resumes. But the Trump administration has still pushed for a diplomatic path forward, seemingly unwilling to restart a conflict that has sent gas prices in the US soaring.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on March 19.

Ronen Zvulun/AFP/Getty Images/File

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Narrowing goals

Early in the war, Trump suggested the US wanted to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile program, end its support for regional proxies, and shut down its nuclear facilities so that it can never develop a bomb. But 10 weeks in, negotiations have focused on uranium – specifically its enrichment to weapons-grade levels – and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrowing of goals has been visible in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own public statements. In a February speech in Jerusalem, ahead of the Iran war, he laid out five conditions for an acceptable deal: removal of all enriched uranium, dismantling of enrichment capabilities, addressing ballistic missiles, dismantling Iran’s regional proxy network, and robust nuclear inspections.

By last week, in a video address before a meeting of the Israeli Security Cabinet, he narrowed that list to one. “The most important objective is the removal of enriched material from Iran – all of the enriched material – and the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment capabilities,” he said, with no mention of ballistic missiles or support for proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza.

One source familiar with the discussions said that Israel understands the missiles and the proxies “are probably off the table,” as they do not appear to be included in early diplomatic drafts, and that is why Netanyahu is prioritizing uranium as the most immediate threat.

The prime minister relies on his direct communications with Trump, one of the Israeli sources said, as he does not fully trust Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been leading negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu has been piecing together backchannel diplomacy with Iran through intelligence gathered from Pakistan, Qatar and Iran.

“There is real concern that Trump will reach a bad deal. Israel is trying to influence it as much as it can,” another Israeli official told CNN. But Netanyahu is cautious of how much pressure to exert, wary of being perceived as leading Trump back to war.

The White House told CNN that Witkoff and Kushner have “the total confidence” of Trump, pointing to what it described as a “record of successes,” including ending the war in Gaza.

Israeli officials fear that lifting economic pressure – even partially – could stabilize the Iranian regime at a moment of weakness. Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, Meir Ben Shabbat, wrote over the weekend in Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon that any agreement must avoid allowing the regime to recover, pointing instead to Trump’s recent remark that “perhaps we are better off with no deal at all” as a preferable outcome to an agreement that doesn’t meet Israel’s objectives.

The Israeli security establishment is specifically concerned about an interim deal that would extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and ease economic pressure on Iran without touching the nuclear file altogether.

Iran has insisted that a preliminary agreement cover only sanctions relief and the strait, with the nuclear matter being relegated to later stages.

President Donald Trump arrives for a “Rose Garden Club” dinner at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday. Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/12/middleeast/israel-iran-us-nuclear-deal-trump-intl

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U.S. Intelligence Shows Iran Retains Substantial Missile Capabilities

May 12, 2026

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Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted.

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities.

Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.

People with knowledge of the assessments said they show — to varying degrees, depending on the level of damage incurred at the different sites — that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases, they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.

Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.

Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said.

The findings undercut months of public assurances from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have told Americans that the Iranian military was “decimated” and “no longer” a threat.

On March 9, 10 days into the war, Mr. Trump told CBS News that Iran’s “missiles are down to a scatter” and the country had “nothing left in a military sense.” Mr. Hegseth declared at a Pentagon news conference on April 8 that Operation Epic Fury — the joint U.S.-Israel campaign launched on Feb. 28 — had “decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.”

The intelligence describing Iran’s remaining military capacity is dated less than a month after that news conference.

Asked about the intelligence assessments, a White House spokeswoman, Olivia Wales, repeated Mr. Trump’s previous assertions that Iran’s military had been “crushed.” She said that Iran’s government knows that its “current reality is not sustainable” and that anyone who “thinks Iran has reconstituted its military is either delusional or a mouthpiece” for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Ms. Wales pointed to a social media post from Mr. Trump on Tuesday declaring that it was “virtual treason” to suggest that Iran’s military was doing well.

Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, responded to questions about the intelligence by criticizing news coverage of the war. “It is so disgraceful that The New York Times and others are acting as public relations agents for the Iranian regime in order to paint Operation Epic Fury as anything other than a historic accomplishment,” he said in a statement.

The new intelligence assessments suggest that Mr. Trump and his military advisers overestimated the damage that the U.S. military could inflict on Iranian missile sites, and underestimated Iran’s resilience and ability to bounce back. The New York Times reported last month that U.S. officials believed that Iran could regain as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile arsenal. The Washington Post reported last week on U.S. intelligence showing that Iran retained about 75 percent of its mobile missile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.

The findings underscore the dilemma Mr. Trump would face if the fragile month-old cease-fire in the conflict collapses and full-scale fighting resumes. The U.S. military has already depleted its stocks of many critical munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptor missiles, and Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, and yet the intelligence suggests that Iran retains considerable military capability, including around the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The passageway carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption, and the U.S. Navy now maintains a near-continuous presence transiting and patrolling it. The U.S. military’s Central Command said in a social media post on Sunday that more than 20 American warships were enforcing the blockade against Iran.

If Mr. Trump ordered commanders to launch more strikes to take out or diminish those Iranian capabilities, then the U.S. military would have to dig even deeper into stocks of critical munitions. Doing so would further undercut U.S. stockpiles at a time when the Pentagon and the major arms makers are already struggling to find the industrial capacity to replenish American reserves.

Mr. Trump and his advisers have repeatedly denied that U.S. munitions stocks have been drained to dangerously low levels. In private, Pentagon officials have offered similar assurances to anxious European allies. Those allies have purchased billions of dollars of munitions from the United States on behalf of Ukraine, and they are concerned that those munitions will not be delivered because the U.S. military will need them to replenish its own stocks — a worry that would only intensify if the president orders a return to hostilities with Iran.

Missile displays in Tehran in 2024. According to classified U.S. intelligence assessments, Iran retains roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile. Credit…Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

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How scientists made the discoveries behind a game-changing gene therapy for sickle cell disease

May 11, 2026

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Sickle cell disease is the scourge of a person’s red blood cells. The inherited blood disorder, which disproportionately affects people in sub-Saharan Africa and India, can cause unbearable pain, “crises,” and extreme exhaustion. And until recently, there was no curative treatment. Now approved gene therapies for sickle cell disease (including sickle cell anemia, the most extreme form) and its milder cousin, beta-thalassemia, show enormous promise.

The therapies work by deactivating or replacing a hemoglobin gene so that a person’s body makes a healthy form instead of the telltale sickle-shaped red blood cells that define sickle cell disease or averting the red blood cell deficiency that causes beta-thalassemia.

At some point, all humans produce two forms of hemoglobin, the red blood cell protein that binds oxygen so it can be transported throughout the body: a fetal form, which is more efficient at extracting oxygen in the womb, and an adult form. After we’re born, our body switches from producing the fetal form to making the adult form.

After years of research, scientists figured out that by turning off BCL11A—a gene known to suppress fetal hemoglobin production—they could coax the body of a person with sickle cell disease to continue making healthy hemoglobin. Companies have now developed gene therapies that target this gene. In clinical trials, people who received the treatment were functionally cured of their condition—those with sickle cell disease saw a complete resolution of their pain during the study period, and those with beta-thalassemia didn’t need blood transfusions or bone marrow transplants.

On April 18 a Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences—one of the $3-million Breakthrough Prizes, sometimes referred to as the “Oscars of science”—was awarded to Swee Lay Thein and Stuart Orkin, who led efforts to identify the BCL11A gene and to show that shutting it off could restore healthy hemoglobin production, setting the stage for treating these devastating blood diseases.

Scientific American spoke separately with Orkin, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, and Thein, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health, about what happened in the work that led to their prize and how these treatments can be made more accessible to the people who stand to benefit the most.

How did you come to study sickle cell disease? And did you realize early on that fetal hemoglobin would be a good therapy target?

ORKIN: I started out in the 1980s working on the genetics of [beta-thalassemia]—that is, what mutations lead to the deficiency of hemoglobin in that disorder. The hope was that we would learn how a red [blood] cell is made and how genes are regulated. We didn’t really learn that, but we learned a lot about mutations and disease. Even prior to that, we knew the deficiency of beta-globin [a component of the adult hemoglobin protein] in [beta-thalassemia], and the [effects of a] mutation in sickle cell disease can be alleviated by expressing more fetal hemoglobin.

We knew that, from family studies in some very rare individuals who had a lot of fetal hemoglobin, if you raise the level of fetal hemoglobin high enough, you can basically ameliorate those disorders—plus, fetal hemoglobin is perfectly fine to substitute for adult hemoglobin [for carrying oxygen]. As early as genes were cloned back in the early 1980s, one of the goals was to see if we could reverse the switch and make fetal hemoglobin expressed at a high level in adult cells as a treatment [for beta-thalassemia]. The problem was, we didn’t understand the process at all—that’s what’s consumed the past 15 to 20 years or research—or how to reverse it.

Why do our cells switch from making fetal to adult hemoglobin in the first place?

ORKIN: We do that because, in utero, having a fetal hemoglobin is better at extracting oxygen from the mother’s circulation, and it has a higher affinity, so it takes oxygen from the circulation to the developing [fetus]. But it turns out the difference between fetal hemoglobin and adult hemoglobin in that affinity is relatively small, so having fetal hemoglobin as an adult doesn’t matter. If you ran a marathon on the top of Mount Everest, it might make a difference. You might have trouble releasing the oxygen, but under normal circumstances, it’s not a problem.

How did your work lead to the discovery of the BCL11A gene involved in sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia?

THEIN: The discovery of BCL11A was the result of more than two decades of work driven by a deceptively simple clinical observation: Why do some people with beta-thalassemia have remarkably mild disease, while the majority require lifelong blood transfusions?

I began collecting blood samples from people with unusually mild beta-thalassemia (thalassemia intermedia) and their families. And sure enough, it turned out that most of these milder cases possessed an innate ability to produce high levels of [fetal hemoglobin]. Crucially, our family studies showed that the responsible gene or genes were inherited independently of the beta-globin gene itself and that the inheritance pattern was complex. I was convinced that that there was a substantial genetic component underlying this common [fetal hemoglobin] variation, which I confirmed with twin studies.

Then, genome-wide association studies revealed the involvement of BCL11A, a gene with no previously known role in hemoglobin biology. Our findings were independently confirmed by another group the following year, firmly establishing BCL11A as a key regulator of fetal hemoglobin and, ultimately, a therapeutic target in both sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

ORKIN: Back in 2011, we did an experiment in which we took mice that had been engineered to have sickle cell anemia and disabled the BCL11A gene in those mice—but only in the developing red blood cells—through fancy genetics. The result was that we could completely correct those mice—they were completely well after we knocked out [deactivated] the BCL11A gene. That told us that one gene was sufficient to correct the disease and that it would be a therapeutic target if we could manipulate it. That was 15 years ago. It took several years to figure out where we’d want to do the editing, and just about the time we wanted to ask that question, [the gene-editing technique] CRISPR came on the scene, so, you know, all the stars aligned in just the right way.

Dr. Thein, can you describe some of your research with populations in Malawi?

THEIN:At the time, identifying the genes responsible for elevated fetal hemoglobin relied on a technique that requires large, multigenerational family cohorts with well-documented relationships. Finding such families is no small feat, so when I came across a person with exceptionally mild beta-thalassemia who happened to come from a remarkably large extended family, many of [whose members] were living in Malawi, I recognized it as a rare and significant opportunity.

I organized a field trip to Malawi and, through careful tracing and recruitment, was able to expand the study family to 210 individuals spanning seven generations—an extraordinary resource for this technique.

There was some hesitation among family members initially, which is entirely understandable when people are asked to participate in something unfamiliar. We addressed this through clear, patient explanations of the study’s purpose and what participation involved.

What had begun as a scientific endeavor became, in many ways, a communal one—a reminder that behind every dataset are real people whose generosity and trust make the research possible.

These discoveries paved the way for the first approved gene-editing treatments for sickle cell disease in 2023: Casgevy, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, and Lyfgenia, made by bluebird bio (now known as Genetix Biotherapeutics). How many people with sickle cell disease have received these therapies?

ORKIN:The original [Vertex] trial had [about] 75 participants [with either sickle cell disease or beta-thalassemia, and since then, they’ve treated more people. They report that more than 90 percent of the participants who were treated are basically functionally well. In other words, in the case of [beta-thalassemia], they don’t need transfusions anymore, and in terms of sickle cell disease, they don’t get sickle crises, the painful crises.

It really is transformative for these individuals, particularly for the people with sickle cell. Beforehand, it was a miserable disease. They had intermittent pain crises and other complications. And it’s hard to maintain a job if you’re an adult. And what the patients describe is, after they’re treated, they have a new lease on life.

Are the populations most at risk for these diseases likely to receive gene therapy treatment for their conditions? And how can these treatments be made more affordable and accessible?

THEIN:Honestly, in the near term, the answer is probably not.

The gene therapies currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are ex vivo. This means harvesting a patient’s own hematopoietic [red blood] stem cells, editing them in a specialized laboratory, and then reinfusing them—but only after the patient has undergone intensive chemotherapy to destroy the existing bone marrow and create space for the edited cells to engraft [settle and begin producing new cells]. The process is physically grueling for the patient, logistically demanding and extraordinarily expensive, costing about $2 million to $3 million per patient. Even in the wealthiest health care systems, access is far from universal.

The scientific community is acutely aware of this, and research priorities are now pivoting toward next-generation in vivo gene-editing approaches where the editing machinery is delivered directly into the body to target the hematopoietic stem cells in situ.

But the challenge that weighs on me most is access to treatment, whether [it is] gene therapy, [a] bone marrow transplant or drugs. The burden of sickle cell disease is heaviest in sub-Saharan Africa and India, precisely where these therapies are currently least accessible. Even if we develop a cheaper, simpler gene therapy tomorrow, getting it to the patients who need it most will still require political will, sustained global health investment, international partnerships and a serious rethinking of how we price and distribute transformative medicines.

What are you working on next?

ORKIN: My group is focused on trying to understand in very exquisite detail the whole mechanism and the process that is involved in the switch [from fetal to adult hemoglobin]. And we’re focused on trying to see if we can develop a way to find small molecules that will do the reversion, if you will, by taking a pill. That would be something that could be distributed much more easily than the current editing therapy.

THEIN: My current research is centered on small molecules, particularly those that can prevent or abort the severe pain crises that remain one of the most debilitating and undertreated aspects of sickle cell disease. These crises represent a profound unmet clinical need, and finding effective, accessible interventions for them would make an enormous difference to patients’ daily lives.

Artwork showing normal red blood cells (round) and red blood cells affected by sickle cell disease (crescent-shaped). KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images

Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-scientists-made-the-discoveries-behind-a-game-changing-gene-therapy-for-sickle-cell-disease-and-won-a-3-million-breakthrough-prize/

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Trump invites Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Fink and other CEOs to join China trip for Xi summit

May 11, 2026

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President Donald Trump has invited executives from some of the biggest U.S. companies — including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg — to join his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.

Also expected to join Trump’s delegation for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping are Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Coherent’s Jim Anderson, GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp Jr., Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon, Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen, Mastercard’s Michael Miebach, Meta Platforms executive Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology’s Sanjay Mehrotra, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Visa’s Ryan McInerney, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the list has not been announced.

A spokesperson for Cisco said CEO Chuck Robbins had been invited by the White House to join the trip but is unable to attend due to the company’s earnings schedule.

The executives will join Trump on the trip during which he has said he hopes to secure a series of business deals and purchase agreements with Beijing.

The summit agenda is expected to cover trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan, and the Iran war, with both sides entering the talks after weeks of escalating tensions.

Notably absent from the attendees is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who said last week in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer that “We should let the president announce whatever he decides to announce … If invited, it would be a privilege, it would be a great honor to represent the United States.”

General Motors, Disney, and Alphabet are also companies with interests in China that the White House did not list as having executives expected to attend.

On Friday, Citigroup’s Fraser told CNBC’s Leslie Picker that “I think it’s very important to see engagement” between the two economic superpowers.” Adding, “we all need that engagement to be occurring.”

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk as he arrives to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

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https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/11/trump-ceos-elon-musk-tim-cook-larry-fink-xi-china-summit.html

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How scientists made the discoveries behind a game-changing gene therapy for sickle cell disease

Trump invites Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Fink and other CEOs to join China trip for Xi summit

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