As ever, stories come whooshing over the transom, and fly right on by, with no time to deal with them properly in these hectic times. We’ll try to play catch-up here, with yet another AAA version of an “omnibus bill,” compiling several small stories (and some big ones) in a comprehensive review of the doings of late. Topics include the Hungarian elections, a shooting at a Mexican archeological site, and a federal investment in a failing airline.
It’s been a head-spinning few weeks, with rising gas and energy prices, increased inflation, and the war with Iran, but somehow, America’s sweethearts, Donald and Melania Trump, have managed to keep us entertained.
After a fashion. From threatening genocide to profane tweets on the holiest day of the Christian calendar, ramshackle ceasefires and blaspheming memes, and vigorous denials of accusations of wrongdoing that haven’t been made, the Trumps have outdone themselves in this first half of April 2026. What follows is a barebones overview of the high jinks and shenanigans.
Well, this is one for the books! On March 22, 2026, Dayton Webber of La Plata, Maryland, a quadriplegic amputee and a professional cornhole player, shot and killed his friend Bradrick Wells with a revolver while driving his Tesla, with Wells in the passenger seat and two other friends in the back. The shooting stemmed from a heated argument between the two men, with Webber accusing Wells of having stolen something from his house. After the shooting, Webber asked his remaining passengers to help him dispose of the body, but they refused and fled the scene on foot, alerting police. Wells’ body was recovered from the yard of a private residence some twenty miles away, in Charlotte Hall, Maryland; Webber himself was arrested in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The name may be unfamiliar to many of you, but for fans of the cult horror classic series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Nicholas Brendon’s passing on March 20th left a gaping hole in our collective unbeating hearts. Brendon played wisecracking sidekick Xander Harris for seven seasons of what I still consider one of the best-written shows TV ever produced, in any genre. Clever, witty, groundbreaking (it featured the first long-term LGBTQ relationship between two main characters in TV history, portrayed in a positive light), the millennium-straddling series (1997-2003) is eternally entertaining, chockfull of Easter eggs and grace notes for diehard fans.
Mars has been working overtime of late! The planet associated with war, weapons and armed conflict sparked two conflagrations in the Mid-East as it moved to conjoin the degree of the February 17th Solar Eclipse, activating its potential for evoking world-shaking events. On February 26th, long-simmering tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, heated by the unchecked use of Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorist groups operating in Pakistan, boiled over into cross-border fighting. On the 28th, the US and Israel began joint military operations against Iran, even as ongoing peace talks showed signs of progress in obtaining Iranian assurances that they would not develop nuclear weapons.
In a shocking development, on 19 February 2026, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Royal formerly known as Prince, was arrested at his home on the Sandringham estate, for suspicion of misconduct in public office. The potential charges stem from Andrew’s time as Britain’s special envoy for international trade, during which he allegedly sent sensitive trade information to noted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. While not a sex crime per se (of which he has also been accused), the investigation was prompted by information revealed at the latest release of a tranche of three million documents from the Epstein Files, weeks before the arrest.
