Tag archive: Damocles

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Kate’s Fate: Princess of Wales Cancer Diagnosis

What is going on with Britain’s Royal Family and cancer?  King Charles III was revealed to have an undisclosed type of cancer on February 5th, now his daughter-in-law faces the same situation less than two months later.  Catherine, Princess of Wales, more commonly known as Kate, released a video statement about her condition on Friday, 22 March, 2024:  “In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time, it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous.  The surgery was successful.  However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present.  My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment.”  As with Charles, no specifics were revealed. 

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Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Fallen Fowl

Avid avian admirers worldwide were saddened on February 23, 2024, by the news of the untimely passing of Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl that had become a celebrity bird-about-town after escaping from New York’s Central Park Zoo a year prior.  Concerns that Flaco, who was hatched at a bird park in North Carolina in 2010 and had spent his life in captivity, would not be able to survive in the wild, having never developed hunting skills, prompted various attempts at his recapture, all unsuccessful.

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Happy Birthday, SCOTUS!

The Supreme Court of the United States (AKA SCOTUS) just had a birthday!  Established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court turned 235 on March 4, 2024 (and she doesn’t look a day over 200!).  The Court’s motto is “Equal Justice Under the Law,” but for much of its chequered history it may as well have been, “Often Wrong, But Never in Doubt.”  We don’t have to go as far back as the 1857 “Dred Scott” decision (which found that the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent) to find a real head-scratcher.  More recent examples include “Heller” in 2008, which confirmed the Second Amendment gun rights free-for-all; “Citizens United” in 2010, which granted corporations the same free speech rights as individuals regarding political spending; or the 2022 ruling in “Dobbs” which eliminated nationwide reproductive health rights (though to be fair, it was also SCOTUS that confirmed those rights, in 1973’s “Roe v Wade”).

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Redefining Childhood: Alabama Supreme Court Rules Frozen IVF Embryos Are Children

In a shocking/not shocking ruling on February 16, 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court has stated that frozen embryos intended for possible in vitro fertilization use are, legally, children, and their destruction can be prosecuted under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.  The 8-1 decision by the exclusively Republican nine-member Court allows couples whose frozen embryos were inadvertently removed from storage and allowed to deteriorate to sue a Mobile, Alabama fertility clinic for the wrongful death of their “children.”

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Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Battered Buggy

On 5 February 2024, Samantha Jo Petersen, 34, was indicted on 21 counts relating to an accident that occurred the previous September, when Petersen crashed her car into an Amish buggy in southeast Minnesota, killing two children and seriously wounding two others.  Petersen, high on meth and texting at the time, tried to switch roles with her twin sister Sarah, fearing jail time.  The charges include vehicular homicide and driving under the influence.  Killed in the September 25th crash were Irma Miller, 11, and her sister Wilma, 7.

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Trump Trial #1: Date Set

The Trump legal team’s final gambit to derail the Stormy Daniels hush money case failed on Thursday, 15 February 2024, when Judge Juan Merchan rejected a motion to dismiss, reaffirming the trial date already set for 25 March.  The case involves election interference, in the paying of hush money to Stephanie Clifford, AKA porn star Stormy Daniels, and to Playboy model Karen McDougal, to cover up sexual liaisons with Trump, just before the November 2016 presidential election.  Trump, via his lawyer Michael Cohen, allegedly used campaign funds to buy Daniels’ silence, while American Media fronted the cash for McDougal.  Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was the first to bring criminal charges against the former president, nearly a year ago, and will now be the first (but certainly not the last) to attempt to bring Trump to justice.

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