| George on Tuesday: Trump Pulls Back After Authorizing New Strikes Against Iran, U.S. Positions F-22 Stealth Fighters in Israel, Jury Finds for OpenAI, Sam Altman in Case Brought by Elon Musk, Airlines Put Middle East Flights on HiatusFrequent Business Traveler

Good morning! Today is Tuesday, the 19th of May, 2026 and this is the Tuesday Morning Edition of GEORGE.

The United States is positioning 11 of its F-22 stealth fighters at an Israeli Air Force base in Israel, GEORGE is reporting today. Analysts said that the move puts almost any target in Iran at risk and the move drives home the point that U.S. President Donald Trump may not have been kidding when he talked about obliterating Iran.

The F-22 Raptor is considered the world’s most advanced air superiority fighter, our @The War Room columnist reports. It’s important to note that Iran lacks the capability to engage or shoot down an F-22 due to the Raptor’s unmatched stealth, avionics, and kinematic performance.

Our @The Sketch editorial cartoon columnist has his own take on the arrival of the raptors so make sure to check out his column today!

Our new columnist, @Radetzky on War and Warfare, examines how terrorist organizations are using proxies – essentially “useful idiots” – to remotely perform missions that don’t require the precision of an assassin’s bullet. The column is named after Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz, a legendary Bohemian nobleman and military leader who served the Austrian Empire. He was one of the 19th century’s most successful commanders, most famous for modernizing the Austrian army and crushing Italian rebellions in 1848. Feldmarshall Radetzky also lent his name to Johann Strauß I’s Radetzky March. The piece was first performed on 31 August 1848 in Vienna to celebrate the victory of the Austrian Empire under the Feldmarshall. The pauses in the main theme practically invite the audience to clap or stamp along, giving the piece a unique live energy. It is this combination of military precision and Viennese charm that gives the Radetzky March its timeless popularity, according to our @Bassetto on Classical Music columnist.

Meanwhile, don’t miss any of these stories in our today’s Morning Edition.

— Jury finds for OpenAI and Sam Altman, rejecting Elon Musk’s contentions

—The work stoppage of the largest passenger railroad in North America is over

—The future of airports may be remote terminals

In addition, GEORGE has other exclusive news in today’s edition so don’t touch that dial. Simply scroll down and read more GEORGE, starting with today’s editorial cartoon in The Sketch. GEORGE will be back tomorrow with a brand-new editorial cartoon, even more news, and stories you won’t find elsewhere.

Until then, remain curious!

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A stack of newspapers in Vienna’s Café Prúckel, each in an Original Wiener Zeitungshalter

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VOLUME VI… № 1,717

WELCOME (above)

@THE SKETCH (above)  Eurovision Throughout the Years

IN THIS ISSUE

@INTERMEZZO I  The Riesenrad in Vienna

@THE WAR ROOM

@INTERMEZZO II  Café Prückel in Vienna

@RADETZKY ON WAR AND WARFARE

@INTERMEZZO III  Rooftops of Vienna

@TODAY IN BRIEF

@INTERMEZZO IV An American Airlines 777

@RECENT DISPATCHES OF NOTE

@INTERMEZZO VI Contae an Chláir in Ireland

@ABOUT GEORGE      

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The Riesenrad, the ferris wheel that is one of the symbols of the city of Vienna and a key element in the plot of “The Third Man”

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— U.S. President Donald Trump said that he has authorized new strikes on Iran, but has decided to hold off after three Gulf leaders requested more time to negotiate a nuclear deal. Mr. Trump wrote in a social-media post that he told military officials to prepare for a “full, large scale assault of Iran” if “an acceptable deal is not reached.” The president has repeatedly threatened new military action against Iran, only to pull back without a resumption in fighting.

— “So I was called by these three countries, plus others, and they’re dealing directly with our people, and right now Iran, and there seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out,” Mr. Trump said. “If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy.”

— The United States sent 11 F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to Israel on Tuesday, it is understood. The highly sophisticated fighter jets landed at an Israeli Air Force base on Tuesday evening as uncertainty in the Middle East continue to rise. The twin-engined F-22 stealth jet, which is manufactured jointly by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, operated only by the United States, is considered the world’s most advanced air superiority fighter. It is also capable of incorporating ground attack and electronic warfare. Although no longer in production, the aircraft is so highly classified that the U.S. Department of Defense has not made it available for sale to any foreign government.

— Analysts said that the relocation of the F-22 fighters puts almost any target in Iran at risk and the move drives home the point that Mr. Trump apparently was not kidding when he talked about obliterating Iran.

— A U.S. military official said that, while five weeks of intensive bombing may have killed several Iranian leaders and commanders, the war has left Iran a more hardened, resilient adversary. The official added that the Iranians had repositioned many of their remaining arms and instilled a belief that the country can resist the United States, be it by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, attacking energy infrastructure in neighboring Gulf states, or threatening U.S. aircraft, although the Iranians are not likley to be successful in challenging the F-22 Raptor fighter jets.

— Iran lacks the capability to engage or shoot down an F-22 due to the Raptor’s unmatched stealth, avionics, and kinematic performance. Iran’s primary strategy would be to rely on its current asymmetric tactics: using massed ballistic and cruise missiles to destroy F-22s on the ground, or utilizing large swarms of low-flying, inexpensive drones to complicate and divert U.S. air operations.

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Café Prückel, Vienna

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‘Dial-A-Terrorist’ – Terrorism as a Service Comes of Age

The world is entering an era of “terrorism as a service” with the easy availability of so-called “disposable” operatives for hire, and the new generation of operatives is proving to be an equally new menace for western countries.

Last Friday, a curtain was suddenly lifted on a shadowy world when Mohammed Saad Baqer al-Saadi, a senior commander of the Baghdad-based Kataib Hizbullah, a powerful militia with close links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, appeared before a judge in New York. That world is how Iran uses terrorism to sow discord amongst communities in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Mr. al-Saadi stands accused of being connected to 18 separate attacks which he orchestrated remotely. The list of attacks includes fire bombings of synagogues and Jewish community centers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom as well as the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green last month.

While it was necessary not too long ago for a clandestine organization to dispatch a skilled assassin or arsonist to sow despair and unrest thousands of miles or kilometers away, the attacks Mr. al-Saadi oversaw involved proxies as agents, generally far less capable but easier to locate.

For all intents and purposes, these proxies are cannon fodder or useful idiots, individuals who are manipulated into promoting a cause or agenda without fully or perhaps even partially understanding the true consequences of the deed. The proxies recruited by Mr. al-Saadi are not likely hardline supporters of the regime. A connection to the Katib Hizbullah, or even the middlemen recruiters, could not be traced.

While Russia is considered by experts to be the principal pioneer of terrorism as a service in recent years, such warfare by proxy has been part of Iran’s arsenal since the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Moscow has undertaken campaigns of “hybrid warfare,” experts have said, tactics that include strikes on railways carrying aid to Ukraine, vandalism designed to foment social unrest, and arson attacks on warehouses.

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Vienna as seen from the Risenrad, or Giant Ferris Wheel, in the Prater

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In deliberations that lasted less than two hours, a jury sided with artificial-intelligence company OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, and rejected Elon Musk’s claims against the company. It found that Mr. Musk had brought his lawsuit against the two parties after the statute of limitations had expired. Mr. Musk had alleged in testimony that the startup behind the world’s most popular chatbot “stole a charity” when it converted into a for-profit company in October of last year.

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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the Long Island Rail Road, and unions representing the railroad’s employees, announced that the two sides had agreed to a new contract on Monday. The news ends a strike that shut down the busiest passenger rail service in North America, one that threw wreaked havoc on people’s travel plans and commutes. Details of the new contract were not immediately made known. Some 3,500 members of five unions that represent engineers, signalmen, and machinists, walked off the job at midnight (00:00) local time on 16 May, as three years of failed contract negotiations came to a head. Almost 300,000 of commuters rely on the service each day as do tens of thousands of visitors to New York City and all of its cultural and culinary offerings, while many visitors to the region use the railroad to explore Long Island, a densely populated continental island that extends into the Atlantic Ocean which still maintains the charm of what was once almost entirely backwoods and farms. Long Island offers some of the finest beaches, golf courses, open-air concert venues, and restaurants in the region.

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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for mandating the number of flight attendants on various types of aircraft, issued a report in 2022 that, based on ca. 300 real-world events, concluded that current staffing levels, which are tied to seat count, not the number of aircraft doors, are sufficiently adequate for passenger and crew safety. For aircraft with more than 100 seats, the requirement is one flight attendant for every 50 seats. Meanwhile, the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest flight attendants union in the United States, is calling on the FAA to base minimum staffing levels based on the number of doors that an aircraft has. A case in point is an American Airlines Boeing 787-9 jetliner, which has eight doors but for which minimum staffing would be seven flight attendants. The union contends that, without a flight attendant at each door, a passenger might open a door that is unsafe, evacuate with carry-on bags, or attempt to go down a slide wearing shoes that could puncture it.

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An exam room at a doctor’s office in New York City

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The World Health Organization kicked off the annual meeting of its decision-making assembly in Geneva on Monday amidst great uncertainty in the world. In recent weeks there has been news of Ebola, and the hantavirus, funding cuts, and the U.S. and Argentinian withdrawals from the group. “We are stable now and moving forward,“ WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asserted at the end of April. If anything, the timing of the hantavirus has raised the group’s profile. The hantavirus found on the MV Hondius cruise ship has been identified as the Andes virus, which is primarily found in South America. It is notable because it is the only known hantavirus capable of spreading directly between people. The virus is “a clear illustration of why the world needs an effective, trusted, impartial, reliably-funded WHO,” Surie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute, told AFP.

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A number of airlines are putting flights to the Middle East on hiatus amidst the current war in Iran  American Airlinessaid that it is delaying the restart of its routes linking Philadelphia International and Hamad International in Doha and New York’s John F. Kennedy International and Tel Aviv International airports until at least 2027. The Doha route was suspended in March of this year, while the Tel Aviv flight has not operated since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023. Meanwhile, AA partner British Airways said it will not restart its route linking its hub at London Heathrowwith Abu Dhabi “until later this year.” U.S carrier Delta Air Lines announced the suspension of its route linking Atlantaand Tel Aviv until November 2026, although it said it hopes to restart service between JFK and Tel Aviv in September if the security situation there improves. Finally, German flag carrier Lufthansa and Dutch flag carrier KLM said they have no plans to resume their routes to Amman, Dubai, Oman, and Riyadh until October of this year at the earliest.

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The future of the airport may not be at the airport. Starting in June, passengers flying out of Boston Logan International Airport on morning flights will be able to use a remote outpost of the airport’s security checkpoint, albeit one located in Framingham, Massachusetts. The remote security checkpoint is operated by the Transportation Security Administration and passengers will be transported by shuttle bus the 25 miles (40 km) to Logan, where they will be deposited airside, far from the chaos that exemplifies major airports across the globe. The program is part of a TSA effort to modernize screening while making things more convenient for passengers.

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In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed repeating limits on four types of “forever chemicals,” namely GenX, PFHxS, PFNA and PFBS, which are currently found in drinking water. It would also delay regulation on two other types of such chemicals. The move drew harsh criticism from environmentalists as well as the Make America Healthy Movement. In announcing the move, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said: “We are proposing to rescind and restart the regulation for four other PFAS. It’s not because they don’t matter. They might warrant strict standards, possibly even stricter than what was previously regulated.” The agency also said that, separate from drinking water standards, it will issue limits for discharge of PFAS by the chemical industry and other sources in coming months.

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A current Boeing 777 in American Airlines livery

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The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service announced that it will finally open long-sealed files on the notorious Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, but it did not say precisely when the files will be made available. Often dubbed the Todesengel or Angel of Death,  Dr. Mengele was a German military officer and physician during the Second World War posted at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. It was there where he selected camp prisoners to be sent to the gas chambers. An estimated 1.1 million people, including about a million Jews, died on his watch. He also selected prisoners, primarily children and twins, for sadistic medical experiments, before sending them to their deaths as well. Dr. Mengele fled Europe for South American in 1949 with the help of a network of former SS officers but for years there have been rumors that he spent time in Switzerland, including in the 1950s, despite the existence of an international arrest warrant for him. He drowned while swimming off the coast of Bertioga in 1979 at the age of 67 and was buried under the false name, Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were later disinterred and positively identified by DNA analysis in 1992.

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Swatch stores across the United States were forced to shutter their doors after shops in Britain, France, India, and the United Arab Emirates  had to lock their doors when dangerously large swarms of customers appeared to buy the new Royal Pop watches made by Swatch and Audemars Piguet, two Swiss watchmakers. Two stores in New York City were among those that had to close early or simply not open at all on Saturday. The Royal Pop is a highly anticipated, modular 2-in-1 pocket and wristwatch collaboration between Audemars Piguet and Swatch that blends Audemars Piguet’s iconic 1972 Royal Oak design with the playful, pop-art style of Swatch. The timepiece features a click-in, pop-out case design suspended on a calfskin lanyard. The demand for the timepiece swelled even though the watch maker told customers it was not being sold as a limited edition run.

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Contae an Chláir, or County Clare, Ireland,

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George: How to Consume News in a World of Information Overload

George delivers news for curious thinkers in a world of shortened attention spans.

Decades of research on how readers consume information when faced with Information Overload – led by George co-founder Jonathan Spira, one of the foremost authorities on the subject – ensures that each article gets straight to the point with no fluff and no bias.

George presents important news and events of the day clearly and concisely in a format better suited to the modern reader’s limited time and focus, without forsaking the founders’ traditional commitment to fact-driven news, commentary, and dispatches – all prepared by curious thinkers, for curious thinkers.

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Jonathan Spira, Alexander Khusid, Tim Perry, Christian Stampfer, Kurt Stolz, Anna Breuer, and Paul Riegler contributed to this issue of George.

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