“Doctor Charles Augustus Leale was just 23 years of age when he walked into Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. He had finished medical school only weeks before and was assigned to the theater because the President would be there. By the end of that night, his name was forever linked to one of America’s most tragic events. … Leale had no protocol to follow that evening. No committee advised him. No administrator stood nearby explaining liability concerns. No electronic medical record demanded documentation. There was no legal department, no compliance office, no billing specialist, and no corporate structure surrounding him. There was simply a physician, a dying patient, and a sense of duty. Medicine today feels very different.” (06/03/26)
“The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of Donald Trump’s own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No, we don’t. We already accomplished it. We ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in between. No deal without ‘unconditional surrender.’ Let’s make a deal!” (06/03/26)
“Thailand’s divisive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was freed from parole on Wednesday after receiving a royal pardon from King Maha Vajiralongkorn, as the 76-year-old billionaire businessman’s plans remain unclear. Thaksin, who stood at the heart of a two-decade power struggle with rival sections of the Thai elite, served eight months of a one-year jail term for corruption and abuse of power. He was released from jail early last month due to his advancing age, with his term originally set to end by September. A royal decree pardoning him at the king’s discretion became effective on Wednesday, the birthday of Queen Suthida. Royal birthdays and other symbolic dates are often marked with pardons of jailed prisoners.” (06/03/26)
“A federal court in Nigeria on Wednesday sentenced four gunmen to death in the killing of at least 50 people during a 2022 attack on a church in a southwestern part of the country. Children were among those killed in the assault just as mass was ending at the St. Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo in Ondo State on June 5, 2022. Scores of people also were wounded, overwhelming hospital workers. The four men were convicted of terrorism charges. A fifth defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence. Prosecutors said the defendants were members of the al-Shabab militant group and operated from a cell in Kogi State in north-central Nigeria, about 200 kilometers from the country’s capital.” (06/03/26)
“Jan Marco Müller, the European Commission official who drafted the EU’s new science diplomacy framework, just said the quiet part out loud: ‘Science diplomacy is not about being nice to each other.’ Yes, it is, dumbass. That was the whole point. For centuries, science diplomacy worked precisely because it allowed ordinary human beings to humanize one another on neutral ground while governments were busy failing.” (06/03/26)
