Hard Pass

I just remembered a cringe memory ._.

Police say Masood Masjoody was most likely murdered; Iranian expats suspect he was killed for his criticism of the theocratic regime

Police in Canada have concluded that a missing Iranian activist was most likely the victim of murder, prompting fears that his disappearance has the hallmarks of a transnational repression campaign targeting critics of Tehran.

Masood Masjoody, a mathematician critical of both Iran’s theocratic regime and the exiled family of the former shah, went missing in early February in the city of Burnaby, British Columbia.

Police are still searching for Masjoody’s body, and a spokesperson for the integrated homicide investigations team, which is part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), said all of the evidence investigators have collected indicates foul play.

(TikTok screencap)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/26709299

Not mine but here you go.

The move comes as President Trump is ratcheting up his rhetorical assault on Cuba’s leadership.

March 6, 2026

https://archive.ph/4CqUN

The U.S. attorney in South Florida has ordered a broad-ranging inquiry into Cuba’s leaders and Communist Party officials for drug, immigration, economic and violent crimes with a goal of bringing fast indictments, according to three people with knowledge of his actions.

The move comes as President Trump is ratcheting up his rhetorical assault on Cuba’s leadership, and has gone so far as to recently suggest that he might attack the island nation 90 miles off the Florida coast after he is finished with the Iran war.

Bringing criminal cases against Cuban leaders could provide a legal and political pretext for such action, just as the Justice Department’s indictment against Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, was used to justify his capture and extradition.

If the administration does in fact seek charges against Cuba’s leaders to facilitate a snatch-and-grab operation inside Cuba like that against Mr. Maduro, it would be an extraordinary use of the criminal justice system to advance the White House’s geopolitical agenda.

Kristi Noem’s top adviser is out just days after she was grilled on their relationship at a House hearing

Corey Lewandowski, a top adviser to Kristi Noem, is out at the Department of Homeland Security, according to MS NOW.

Noem's scandal-ridden leadership of the agency came to an end Thursday, when Donald Trump announced he was tapping Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her, effective March 31.

While Noem has recently faced increased scrutiny about her actions as DHS secretary — which culminated in two chaotic congressional hearings this week — questions about her relationship with Lewandowski have also followed her throughout her brief tenure.

Image description:

An online store's screenshot. Jade pendants are suggested in the "You may also like" section. Gordon has left a review for an article. It reads:

May convert a couple into nipple dangles.
Nice quiet weight.

Zak Stein is a researcher focused on child development, education, and existential risk. He joins the podcast to discuss the psychological harms of anthropomorphic AI. We examine attention and attachment hacking, AI companions for kids, loneliness, and cognitive atrophy. Our conversation also covers how we can preserve human relationships, redesign education, and build cognitive security tools that keep AI from undermining our humanity.

LINKS:

• AI Psychological Harms Research Coalition: https://aiphrc.org/
• Zak Stein official website: https://www.zakstein.org/

The executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, a mainstay at the Kennedy Center, is leaving to head the Los Angeles-based Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

It’s the latest departure from the Kennedy Center since Donald Trump began asserting control over the storied performing arts venue in Washington.

The Wallis announced Friday that Jean Davidson had been appointed executive director and CEO. Before joining the Kennedy Center in 2023, Davidson had served for eight years as executive director and CEO of the Los Angeles Master Chorale at The Music Center.

My wife needed a cycle tracker. Everything out there was either Flo (which got sued twice for sharing health data) or an abandoned GitHub project. So I built Ovumcy. Single Go binary, SQLite, Docker-ready. No analytics, no third-party APIs, no cloud. Your data stays on your server. Features: period tracking, symptom logging, predictions (ovulation, fertile window), statistics, CSV/JSON export, dark mode, Russian and English. Just pushed v0.2.5. Looking for feedback from real users.