Good morning! Today is Wednesday, the sixth of May, 2026 and this is the Wednesday Morning Edition of GEORGE.

Confusion is rampant within the Trump administration with the president and his secretary of state issuing contradictory statements followed by the president contradicting his own words from just a few hours prior.

To further add to the confusion, the United States and Iran have been simultaneously claiming control of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil and fertilizer route at the center of great geopolitical conflict and tension.

GEORGE’s @The War Room columnist has an in-depth look at the situation in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, , don’t miss any of these stories in our Wednesday Morning Edition.

—How Austria kicked out three more Russian spies

—A review of the great film noir “The Third Man,” set in Vienna during the Cold War

—How the military forces of one European regime offered wealthy foreigners war tourism that apparently devolved into human-hunting safaris

—A look at the Tony Award nominations for this year

GEORGE’s @The Sketch editorial columnist looks at the failure of Spirit Airlines as it joins the ranks of shuttered carriers immediately following this section.

In addition, GEORGE has other exclusive news in today’s edition so don’t touch that dial. Simply scroll down and read more GEORGE, starting with today’s editorial cartoon in The Sketch. GEORGE will be back tomorrow with a brand-new editorial cartoon, even more news, and stories you won’t find elsewhere.

Until then, remain curious!

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A stack of newspapers in Vienna’s Café Prúckel, each in an Original Wiener Zeitungshalter

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@THE SKETCH

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IN THIS ISSUE

VOLUME VI… № 1,706

WELCOME (above)

@THE SKETCH (above)  Welcome to the Shuttered Airlines Retirement Home

IN THIS ISSUE

@INTERMEZZO I  Hofburg Imperial Palace 

@THE WAR ROOM

@INTERMEZZO II The Austrian Parlament

@TODAY IN BRIEF   News of the Day  

@INTERMEZZO III Basilica St. Michael, in Mondsee, Austria

@LAMARR-HÖRBIGER ON CINEMA Review: The Third Man

@INTERMEZZO IV I dub thee King Donald

@RECENT DISPATCHES OF NOTE

@INTERMEZZO V Strait of Vermouth?

@NOAH ON WEATHER  Forecast for Early May 

@ABOUT GEORGE      

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@INTERMEZZO  I

Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna

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@THE WAR ROOM

Commercial traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz is at a near-total standstill. Just two commercial vessels crossed the strait under U.S. military protection on Monday and only one on Tuesday. The figures are a trickle compared to what traffic through the strait was like before the war, when around 130 vessels a day made the passage.

—Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday evening that he was pausing the day-old U.S. operation that was escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz “for a short period of time.” In doing so, he announced in a social-media post that there had been what he termed “great progress” towards an agreement with Iran. His announcement came just hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States had concluded combat operations against Iran and was fully focused on the new escort mission.

—In the one day that the U.S. escort mission, known as “Operation Freedom,” was in operation in the strait, only three commercial ships have managed to make it through the strait.

—Danish shipping company A.P. Møller – Mærsk said that one of its ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz under U.S. military protection on Monday, adding that the U.S.-flagged vessel exited the Persian Gulf area after transiting the strait.

—Earlier in the week the United States and Iran were simultaneously claiming control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and fertilizer route at the epicenter of all the conflict and tension in the region.

—Airlines serving the Persian Gulf are increasing the number of flights in the region amidst the ongoing ceasefire between the United States and Iran. Emirates and Etihad Airways are operating at 80% and 75% of pre-war capacity, while Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait have reopened airspace, and the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority announced that the country’s air-traffic can resume at 100% of pre-war levels. Foreign airlines including British Airways are restoring passenger service to the region as well.

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@INTERMEZZO II

The Austrian Parlament building on the Ringstraße in Vienna, photographed at night

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@IN BRIEF ON WEDNESDAY

Austria expelled three Russian embassy staff members after on suspicion of spying after determining that a “forest of antennae” on the diplomatic mission’s roof in Vienna was being be used for illicit data collection. Vienna has been Europe’s espionage capital since the Cold War. The Alpine nation’s laws currently allow spies to operate freely in the country as long as their activities are not directly targeting Austria’s interests. Now the government says it will close that loophole. “It is unacceptable that diplomatic immunity be used to commit espionage,” Austria’s Außenmininsterin, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, said on Monday. Frau Mag. Meinl-Reisinger added that the three embassy staff members – whose expulsions bring the number of Russian diplomats sent home by Vienna to 14 since 2020 – had already left the country. “We have communicated this to the Russian side in no uncertain terms, including as regards the forest of antennae at the Russian mission,” she said. Spying was a problem for Austria, she continued, but the government had embarked on a “change of course” and was “taking consistent action.”

Scroll down to our @Lamarr-Hörbiger on Cinema columnist’s review of the film “The Third Man” in today’s issue for a detailed look at a spy story set in the early days of Cold War-occupied Vienna

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New York City recorded the fewest murders in its history in the first for months of 2026, the New York Police Department said in a statement. Major crime fell by 9.5% as well. The Big Apple is statistically one of the safest large cities in the nation, although its “crime-ridden” reputation persists in the media and public perception.

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T-Mobile USA announced that it is extending its Starlink satellite connectivity to its customers who are traveling in Canada and New Zealand. Canada satellite coverage is enabled through Rogers Satellite, and in New Zealand, satellite coverage is provided by One NZ. Both Rogers and One NZ have agreements with Starlink provider SpaceX.

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The United Arab Emirates is discussing a currency swap line with the United States, ​its trade minister, Thani Al ​Zeyoudi, said on Monday at an event in Abu Dhabi. Currency swap lines between central banks allow each institution to obtain the other’s currency without resorting to foreign exchange markets, reducing transaction costs and exchange-rate risk ​for cross-border trade and investment. The U.S. Federal Reserve has permanent standing ​central bank currency swap lines with the central banks of five other countries, namely the Bank of Canada, ‌the ⁠Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Swiss National Bank. Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States had received numerous requests from other countries for currency swap lines to help absorb and cushion fallout from the war in Iran.

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Two major artificial-intelligence concerns – Anthropic and OpenAI – announced enterprise AI ventures that are backed by major financial firms. Anthropic’s is valued at $1.5 billion, while OpenAI’s is targeting a $10 billion valuable. In addition, Anthropic announced it is working on a new product, Orbit, a proactive assistant. Orbit will be a  briefing and insights system in Claude and Claude Code that can produce personalized briefings with actionable insights drawn from connected work tools.

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Radio City Music Hall, home of the Tony Awardfs

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A new book makes the argument that a form of war tourism emerged involving the organization of human-hunting safaris in Sarajevo in the 1990s. The book, Pay and Shoot, by the Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic, includes supporting evidence that these safaris did in fact take place by incorporating documents that the author claims were given to him by a Bosnian intelligence officer who looked into the safaris before he was shot dead in 1996. Wealthy foreigners took part in these organized human-hunting expeditions by paying what were considered high fees for the privilege of shooting at civilians from sniper positions held by the Army of Republika Srpska.  Sarajevo is the political, financial, social, and cultural centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a prominent centre of culture in the Balkans. The safaris – if indeed they occurred – took place during the Siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1996. Sniper tourists have been characterized as “perhaps the most feared element of life under siege in Sarajevo.” The safaris gained wide public attention in 2022 with the première of the Slovenian documentary film Sarajevo Safari, directed by Miran Zupanič. Younger or pregnant women who were trapped in the city during the siege were reportedly considered highly desirable targets.

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“The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon” came out on top of this year’s Tony Award nominations that were announced Tuesday morning. Both earned 12 nominations, including Best New Musical, followed by the revival of “Ragtime,” which earned 11 including Best Revival of a Musical. Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” earned nine nominations, including for Best Revival of a Play. Three other musicals – “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “The Rocky Horror Show,” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York” – garnered nine nominations each. The 2025-26 season was saw the introduction of far fewer shows, translating to just 30 eligible productions in comparison with last year’s 42. Still, even with 25% fewer new entrants, there was room for surprises because that is the nature of the beast. June Squibb, who made her Broadway debut in 1960, as a replacement Electra in “Gypsy,” is in 2026 a first time nominee at the age of 96for her dual roles – as a woman and an artificial-intelligence-enhanced hologram – in “Marjorie Prime.” Surefire nominations for boldface names were few and far between, to wit: James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris, and Bobby Cannavale of “Art”; Cynthia Nixon (“Marjorie Prime”) and Jean Smart (“Call Me Izzy”).  The omission of actress Lea Michele, who is starring in “Chess,” came as a surprise to some, especially since one of her male co-stars, Nicholas Christopher, was nominated, along with several members of the supporting cast, as did the omission of Kristin Chenoweth, starring in “The Queen of Versailles.” The almost 850 Tony voters have until early June to make their choices. Winners will be announced June 7 at the awards ceremony hosted by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, which takes place at Radio City Music Hall.

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@INTERMEZZO III

Advent at the Marktplatz Mondsee, adjacent to the Basilica St. Michael, in Mondsee, Austria

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@LAMARR-HÖRBIGER ON CINEMA

The Riesenrad, the ferris wheel that is one of the symbols of the city of Vienna and a key element in the plot of “The Third Man”

Film Review: ‘The Third Man’

The 1949 film noir masterpiece “The Third Man” is deeply embedded with espionage themes and widely recognized as a “spy story” due to its setting in Cold War-occupied Vienna and its thematic focus on betrayal, deceit, and black-market conspiracies.

The film is widely considered one of the greatest motion pictures of the 20th century for its atmospheric, Oscar-winning cinematography by Robert Krasker and Carol Reed of post-war Vienna, brilliant zither score by Anton Karas, and iconic performances by Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Paul Hörbiger.

“The Third Man” is heavily informed by author Graham Greene’s background in British intelligence and is frequently associated with real-world espionage intrigue

The film follows Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a naïve American pulp novelist who arrives in post-war Vienna to work for his friend, Harry Lime, (Orson Welles) only to be told by the building’s Portier, portrayed by Paul Hörbiger, that he had been killed in an automobile-pedestrian accident, the automobile driven by his own driver. Suspicious of the circumstances, Mr. Martins investigates and discovers Mr. Lime faked his death to evade police after stealing and diluting penicillin, resulting in numerous needless deaths. The film, directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene, centers on betrayal and moral ambiguity

Mr. Krasker’s iconic, high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, featuring extreme “Dutch angles” and deep shadows to depict a fractured postwar Vienna, won him an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film also claimed the 1950 BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949. It was famously voted the best British film of all time by the British Film Institute in 1999.

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@ INTERMEZZO IV

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@RECENT DISPATCHES OF NOTE

At least two people are dead and several others are seriously injured after a driver  plowed into a crowd at a Fußgängerzone, or pedestrian zone, in Leipzig, police said. Officials in Leipzig, the birthplace of composer Richard Wagner and pianist Clara Schumann, said that the driver was a 33-year-old German citizen. At press time, no motive had yet been determined. The Sächsische Staatsminister des Innern, or state interior minister, Armin Schuster, said that the police had arrested the driver, who lived nearby. Authorities said that they believe he acted alone and view the event as an intentional Amokfahrt, or rampage, Herr Schuster said at a press briefing on Monday evening that he gave with other senior officials. While they declined to comment on the man’s motive or mental state, Herr Schuster said that his “emotional instability” could have played a role. The driver is being investigated for several counts of murder and attempted murder, the Leipzig Oberstaatsanwältin, Dr. Claudia Laube, or public attorney, said at the briefing.

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A United Airlines plane struck a light pole and a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike as it was coming in for a landing at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday afternoon just before 2 p.m. (14:00) ET, officials said. The United Boeing 767, operating as Flight 169, with 221 passengers and 10 crewmembers on board, had departed Marco Polo Airport in Venice at 11:03 a.m. (11:03) local time. New Jersey State Police said that the results of a preliminary investigation indicated that a tire from the plane’s landing gear and “the underside of the plane” hit both the pole and the tractor-trailer truck. The pole then struck a Jeep traveling on the turnpike, state police said. Dashcam video shows that one of the plane’s landing gear tires went through the truck’s window and windshield. The driver of the truck, Warren Boardley, was taken to hospital with minor injuries from broken glass and was later released, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, said. The airline acknowledged the incident in a statement, saying it would investigate: “Upon its final approach into Newark International Airport, United flight 169 came into contact with a light pole. The aircraft landed safely, taxied to the gate normally, and no passengers or crew were injured. Our maintenance team is evaluating damage to the aircraft and we will investigate how this occurred.“

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@ INTERMEZZO V

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@NOAH ON WEATHER

Sunset in San Francisco, viewed from the Mark Hopkins hotel

The Weather Outlook for Early May for Europe and North America 

Central Europe is enjoying a burst of early-summer season heat, with temperatures widely running around 10° C above the average for early May. Vienna saw a high of 27° C (80° F) on Monday and expects the same on Tuesday, while Warsaw is expected to see a high of 31° C (88° F), while the weather in more western parts of the Continent is chilly by comparison, with a high of 14° C (57° F) expected in Paris. The early summer-like weather will dissipate by midweek as a cold front is set to sweep in from the north. Meanwhile, Greece and Turkey have found themselves in the grip of a late-season cold spell over the past several days, along with extremely unsettled weather that included gale force winds with gusts up to 60 mph (96 km/h) in the South Aegean and heavy rain in Turkey.

Across the United States, early May weather shows sharp contrasts, with unseasonable warmth dominating large portions of the Central and Eastern states while pockets of more volatile and extreme conditions persist elsewhere. The Midwest and Great Lakes regions are experiencing above-average temperatures, in some cases 10° to 15° F (5° to 8° C) above average, while the Northeast is seeing a mix of mild spring warmth and occasional coastal storms that will bring gusty winds and rain to the area. In the South, heat and humidity are building unusually early, with parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast already flirting with 90° F (32° C) temperatures alongside an active severe weather pattern producing thunderstorms and isolated tornado risks. The Plains remain a focal point for dramatic weather swings, including strong storm systems and large hail. Meanwhile, the West is more subdued but still varied – California and the Southwest are trending warm and dry with early signs of fire-season concerns, while the Pacific Northwest stays cooler and wetter than average. Alaska continues its seasonal transition with lingering cold in the interior, while Hawaii remains typically warm but has seen periods of heavy rainfall and localized flooding driven by persistent trade winds.

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@ABOUT GEORGE

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George presents important news and events of the day clearly and concisely in a format better suited to the modern reader’s limited time and focus, without forsaking the founders’ traditional commitment to fact-driven news, commentary, and dispatches – all prepared by curious thinkers, for curious thinkers.

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