Axios PM

May 26, 2026
😎 Welcome back, Tuesday team. Today's newsletter, edited by Alex Fitzpatrick and Natalie Daher, is 762 words, a 3-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.
1 big thing: Hormuz hangover
Even if a U.S.-Iran deal lands, the oil market will look different from its pre-war version, Axios' Ben Geman writes.
- 🚢 Why it matters: The emerging deal — which would reopen the Strait of Hormuz while nuclear talks proceed — could return large numbers of barrels to the market, but it will take time.
Related: U.S. Central Command disputed reports today that the Navy restarted escorting commercial vessels through the strait.
What we're watching:
1. 😨 Confidence: Vessel owners and crews need to feel safe transiting the world's most important energy shipping line. It's unclear they will, said oil analyst Ben Cahill of UT Austin.
2. 🕰️ Timelines: The International Energy Agency estimates at least two to three months are needed to reestablish steady exports after mines are cleared.
- Persian Gulf countries need time to resume production that declined after the main export route was cut off.
3. 📜 Definitions: What "open" means for the strait is unsettled.
- Iran may not call it a toll, but Iranian officials are floating new fees on tankers.
- This could be a boon to Iran even if the fee is relatively small, said Edward Fishman, an ex-State Department aide at the Council on Foreign Relations.
4. ⚠️ Vibes and market risk: Before the crisis throttled supplies, there was debate in oil circles about whether markets were blasé about threats to infrastructure or shipping.
- Even once the crisis passes, watch the level of geopolitical risk premium — the market's willingness to preemptively price in risk — that elevates prices.
5. 🇺🇸 U.S. oil production: Higher prices will likely push producers to increase output, as the broader market went from oversupplied to tight.
Between the lines: Restoring Gulf shipping, rebuilding crude inventories and restarting shuttered production will take months, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said in a note today.
- ⛽ That delay makes the timing of steep pump price cuts more uncertain.
The bottom line: The old normal is gone, and the new one is still being shaped.
- Share this story ... Get Axios Future of Energy.
2. 🏓 Pickleball peters out


The pickleball craze may be cooling off, Alex Fitzpatrick writes from new Trust for Public Land data.
- The number of pickleball courts across the 100 most populous U.S. cities increased just 4% from 2025 to 2026.
That's compared to 13%–14% growth in each of the previous two years.
- 🥏 Garden spending is up 8%, disc golf is up 4% and outdoor fitness zones are up 3%.
Reality check: Parks in the country's biggest cities now have 3,765 pickleball courts, TPL says. That's up nearly 900% from 2017.
🎾 Will Klein, TPL's director of parks research, tells Axios that the slowdown "mirrors what we're seeing more broadly in parks systems nationwide, where local leaders are balancing tighter budgets, aging infrastructure, and growing demand for many different kinds of recreational amenities."
3. ⚡️ Catch me up

- 🔋 Ferrari unveiled the Luce, a five-seat electric sports car with four motors designed by Apple legend Jony Ive and Australian industrial designer Marc Newson. Reception was bumpy: Shares fell nearly 8% after critics compared the Luce's look to mass-market EVs — a tough open for a car that starts at $640,000. More details ... Go deeper (Bloomberg gift link).
- 🩺 President Trump on his health evaluation today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center: "Everything checked out PERFECTLY." The White House hasn't yet released a note from Trump's physician.
- ⚽ FIFA announced World Cup training sites across the U.S. beyond the 16 North American host cities — see if yours is on the list.
- 🛢️BP ousted its chair, Albert Manifold, after less than a year in the role over "serious concerns" related to governance standards, oversight and conduct. Go deeper ... Read the release.
- 📦 Dropbox founder Drew Houston is stepping down as CEO nearly two decades after launching the cloud storage company at age 24. Product chief Ashraf Alkarmi will take the reins as AI-era pressure hits subscription software firms. Go deeper.
4. 🎥 1 for the road: Puppet power

A little green puppet is the breakout star of the summer movie season, The Wall Street Journal reports.
- An animatronic Grogu is making the red carpet rounds to promote Disney's "The Mandalorian and Grogu," the new Star Wars movie out this weekend.
🎮 The IRL appearances are "putting Grogu's high-tech internal machinery — and the puppeteers operating it out of sight with remote controls — to the test," The Journal reports.
- That comes after another puppet, Rocky, helped propel Amazon's "Project Hail Mary" to a worldwide gross of more than $675 million.
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