Good morning. It is Thursday, May 28th, 2026, and this is your Morning Brief.

COHOST: Today feels like one of those mornings where the weather is calmer than the headlines.

HOST: The biggest national story is still Iran, but the fresh development is not just another statement about peace talks. The Associated Press reports the Trump administration has imposed new sanctions on a military-run Iranian shipping agency while U.S. military action in southern Iran remains part of the same picture, including this week's self-described self-defense strikes on missile launch sites and boats placing mines.

HOST: That matters because it sharpens the contradiction we were already tracking yesterday. The White House wants markets and voters to hear that diplomacy is still alive. But each new sanction and each new military action makes that case harder to sell as a stable strategy instead of a rolling attempt to contain escalation one day at a time.

COHOST: So this morning the question is not whether officials say they prefer a deal. The question is whether the facts are starting to look more like pressure for leverage or pressure without a clean offramp.

HOST: Exactly. And the practical reason this stays at the top is that the economic spillovers are immediate. If traders think the administration can keep the Strait of Hormuz risk from widening, oil stays more manageable and inflation fears stay contained. If they stop believing that, then gasoline, shipping, and the whole consumer mood story can change quickly.

HOST: Continuity matters here. Yesterday the focus was the Cabinet-level pressure on the White House to turn a messy narrative into a governing position. Today the new piece is that sanctions are making the diplomacy case more complex, not simpler. That does not mean talks are dead. It means the burden of proof just went up again.

COHOST: And that is why this remains a watch story into Friday. Any real signal has to be concrete enough to calm energy markets, not just headline-friendly enough to buy a few more hours.

HOST: The most important Ohio story this morning is still the state's data-center subsidy fight, because the political phase is getting sharper. WOSU reports the sales-tax exemption for data centers cost Ohio about one point six billion dollars in 2025, far above the original estimate, and state lawmakers are now using a legislative committee to force a more public explanation of how the cost grew so dramatically.

HOST: That is what makes this more than a niche tax-policy story. Central Ohio has been living the visible side of the AI buildout for years now through land purchases, transmission concerns, construction, and traffic around large campuses. What changed is that the public-cost number is now large enough to compete with other state-budget priorities in a much more direct way.

COHOST: Which means the debate has moved from growth boosterism to terms and accountability.

HOST: Right. Supporters can still argue that the break helped Ohio win major projects and made the region look serious about digital infrastructure. But once the cost lands in the billion-dollar range, the questions change. Lawmakers are now under pressure to explain what the state actually received, whether reporting was too loose, and whether the incentive still makes sense at the scale the market has reached.

HOST: The why-now angle for today is simple. This is no longer just background context to the AI boom. It is becoming a live test of whether Ohio officials are willing to revisit a subsidy after it succeeded on attraction but became far more expensive than advertised.

COHOST: And for Central Ohio listeners, that is the local version of a broader national question: who captures the upside of AI infrastructure, and who absorbs the cost.

HOST: Staying in Columbus, Sawyer Towers remains an active local story because the demolition is still visible and the accountability promise is still being tested in public. WOSU reports the teardown is expected to last roughly six months, and city officials continue to point to a rental registry, relocation protections, and a housing stability division as evidence that Columbus learned from the crisis.

HOST: The fresh angle today is not the demolition itself. That is ongoing. The fresh angle is credibility. As long as the towers are still coming down, city leaders are effectively making their case in real time that enforcement and renter protection are stronger now than they were when tenants were living through unsafe conditions.

COHOST: So the city's message is no longer just we know what went wrong. It has shifted to trust us, we changed the system.

HOST: Exactly. And that is a harder claim to make, because it can be judged. Residents can ask whether inspections are better staffed, whether violations are acted on faster, whether vulnerable renters have clearer protections, and whether the city will intervene earlier the next time a large property starts failing people in plain view.

HOST: There is also a future-facing piece. WOSU reports nearly three hundred eighty affordable units are planned for the site. That gives the city a redevelopment story. But the immediate public test is still the present tense one: can Columbus show that accountability means earlier action, not better messaging after the damage is already done.

HOST: Another Central Ohio story with a clearer day-to-day development line is road safety. WOSU reports the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission is helping expand wrong-way detection cameras across the region, with more than thirty expected to be installed by the end of the year and new units coming to Franklin, Delaware, and Licking County corridors.

COHOST: That is one of those stories that can sound technical until you remember what problem it is trying to solve.

HOST: Right. Wrong-way crashes are rare compared with ordinary wrecks, but when they happen they are often catastrophic. The reason to include this today is that it is one of the more concrete examples of Central Ohio governments responding to growth pressure with a specific safety intervention instead of a broad promise.

HOST: It also fits the regional pattern. More people, more freight, more development, and more complicated traffic flows mean transportation policy is becoming a bigger quality-of-life issue here. Not every local story needs to be a crisis. Sometimes the why-now story is that a region is trying to prevent the next one.

COHOST: And this one is measurable. Either more corridors get covered and alerts work, or they do not.

HOST: On home lending and mortgages, the basic strain is still familiar, but the fresh read is that relief remains frustratingly partial. Freddie Mac's latest available weekly survey, released on Thursday, May 21, showed the average thirty-year fixed mortgage rate at six point five one percent, while Fannie Mae's May housing outlook still sees only modest improvement this year, with the thirty-year fixed averaging around six point three percent.

HOST: For buyers, that means the hoped-for snapback in affordability still is not here. Rates are lower than the worst peaks, but they are high enough that monthly payments keep reshaping budgets, especially for first-time buyers and households trying to move without giving up an older low-rate loan.

COHOST: And locally, better selection has not fixed the payment math.

HOST: Exactly. Columbus Realtors reports April inventory rose to five thousand twenty-seven homes, up thirteen point four percent from a year earlier, while closed sales fell and the median sales price reached three hundred forty-six thousand five hundred dollars. That is a healthier market in terms of choice and pace. It is not a cheap market.

HOST: So the practical takeaway this morning is that Central Ohio buyers may feel less rushed than they did in the frenzy years, but they are still making difficult payment decisions. The market is normalizing operationally faster than it is normalizing financially.

COHOST: That is the part people feel in the car on the way to work. More listings are nice. Six-and-a-half percent borrowing costs still run the conversation.

HOST: On AI and technology, the important split remains the same one we have been tracking, but the balance is getting harder to ignore. Associated Press reporting on this week's market action showed investors still rewarding AI infrastructure aggressively, with Micron jumping after strong results and joining the trillion-dollar club as demand for chips and memory tied to AI buildout stayed hot.

HOST: At the same time, the local and political side of that buildout is getting more complicated. Ohio's subsidy scrutiny is part of that. So is the broader argument over whether AI should simply be scaled as fast as possible or governed more tightly because of energy use, labor effects, privacy concerns, and public cost.

COHOST: Which means the AI story this morning is not one lane. It is capital markets in one lane, and public accountability in the other.

HOST: Exactly. And that is worth stressing because Wall Street can be right about near-term demand and still underestimate the political friction building around that demand. Central Ohio is a useful place to see that tension clearly. The servers, substations, tax incentives, and land are all real. So are the questions now being asked about who benefits and who pays.

HOST: On markets, the snapshot this morning is cautious rather than carefree. After Tuesday's record-setting run and Wednesday's steadier tone, AP reports U.S. stock futures were edging slightly lower early today while oil prices jumped again, be...