CL June 4 lands on a Thursday this year, and Causeway Bay is quieter than usual for it. A Tiananmen artist was surrounded by police this afternoon near the old vigil grounds, a reminder that the date still carries weight here even as the public rituals that once defined it have been cleared away. The city holds the memory differently now.-- CL

MB Congress voted to end the Iran war while Iran was bombing Kuwait's airport and claiming to strike an American command ship. The vote changes nothing operational, and most of the members who cast it know this; the point is the record, not the outcome. Legislatures under pressure tend to produce gestures before they produce policy, and today is running ahead of schedule.-- MB