What happened
Thailand's Constitutional Court yesterday suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra as it adjudicates an ethics complaint triggered by a leaked phone conversation between her and influential senior Cambodian lawmaker Hun Sen about a smoldering border dispute that had left a Cambodian soldier dead. In the June 15 call, recorded and shared by Hun Sen, Paetongtarn called him "uncle" and criticized a Thai army commander, a "red line in a country where the military has significant clout," Reuters said.

Who said what
Paetongtarn told reporters she accepted the court's decision and would try to prove that her "true intention" in the conversation "100% was to work for the country to maintain our sovereignty and save the lives of all our soldiers." The leaked recording "triggered domestic fury and has left Paetongtarn's coalition with a razor-thin majority" after its second-largest party quit the alliance, Reuters said. Her "battles after only 10 months in office" are the latest chapter in a "two-decade grudge match" between "the billionaire Shinawatra dynasty and an influential establishment backed by the army."

Paetongtarn, 38, is the third prime minister from her "powerful and polarizing" family, The New York Times said. Her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, was deposed in a 2006 coup and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted by the Constitutional Court in 2014, two weeks before the military toppled her successor's government in another coup. Yesterday's court decision "raised questions" about whether the family's "political comeback last year would end with another downfall," The Associated Press said.

What next?
Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit will serve as caretaker leader while the court decides Paetongtarn's fate. 

What happened
The University of Pennsylvania said yesterday it will bar transgender students from its women's sports teams as part of a deal with the Trump administration. Penn also agreed to retroactively strip champion trans female swimmer Lia Thomas of her records and titles and to apologize to other swimmers "disadvantaged" by her participation on the women's team during the 2021-22 season.

Who said what
Yesterday's settlement is the latest development in President Donald Trump's "ongoing campaign to remake higher education" by using taxpayer dollars to punish universities for policies that have provoked his "ire," The Wall Street Journal said. Trump has "eagerly sought to reduce transgender people's participation in public life," The New York Times said, and Penn's agreement bows to the administration's "new interpretation" of Title IX, the law that bans sex discrimination in education.

Penn allowed Thomas to compete under Title IX and NCAA rules "as then interpreted," Penn President J. Larry Jameson (pictured above) said in a statement. But failing to resolve the new administration's transgender-focused Title IX investigation "could have had significant and lasting implications" for the university. The NCAA began restricting trans women athletes after Trump signed an executive order threatening to "rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities." By last night, Thomas' name had been removed from the school's online records for the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle, though a note underneath said she had set those records "competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time."

What next?
It was "not immediately clear" whether Penn's agreement would "prompt the Trump administration to restore $175 million in research funding that it suspended in March," the Times said, but it "appeared designed to limit the threat of additional repercussions for Penn."