What Caught My Eye (no. 21)
Some interesting articles and podcasts that caught my eye this week
Here’s this week’s edition of articles I thought worth reading and sharing. Don’t hesitate to recommend your own reads; I may include some as well.
Adam Liptak, Abbie VanSickle, and Alicia Parlapiano, A Triumphant Supreme Court Term for Trump, Fueled by Emergency Rulings, New York Times, June 28, 2025. A review of the Court’s latest term by the crack Times team. It describes a Court that has fundamentally changed the way it does business—mostly to the president’s benefit. Consider: I”n the first 20 weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term, his administration filed 19 emergency applications asking the justices to pause lower court losses while lawsuits continued. That is the total number of such applications the Biden administration filed over four years, and far more than the eight applications filed over the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies.”
Laura Kelly, Senior Trump official: Israel’s border agreements ‘are all illusions’, The Hill, June 30, 2025. In a background briefing about the lifting on US sanctions on Syria, a “senior administration official” makes the astonishing claim that all of Israel’s borders that resulted at the end of its was are “illusions,” not to be taken as either given or subject to international law. That will come as news to Israel’s neighbors, let alone the Palestinians.
Clare Malone, Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out the Washington Post? New Yorker, May 12, 2025. The magazine’s media business reporter dissects Bezos’ ownership of the Post and what it means for the paper, its journalism, and future. (From a few weeks ago—slow to read through my stack of New Yorkers!).
Peter Frankopan, China, Russia and the ‘Dragon-Bear’ embrace, July 4, 2025. The author of a new book on the Silk Road reviews the Sino-Russian relationship and how it evolved under Presidents Xi and Putin. “For now, what unites Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China is not a shared worldview, nor similar local, regional or global objectives. Marriages of convenience last for as long as it suits both sides. In this case, there is a powerful incentive in framing the problems of the past and the challenges of the future in similar language, and with similar themes. And little is more powerful in such cases than the legacy of history.”
Joshua Chaffin and Victoria, Albert, The Improbable Rise of Zohran Mamdani, Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2025. A look at how a 33-year-old, democratic socialist, beat the Democratic establishment and become the party’s nominee for mayor. It’s both improbable and may contain important lessons of how generational change may be the next big driver in US politics.
Adam Tooze, Alligator Alcatraz’ policymaking leaves the field clear for China, Financial Times, July 4 2025. The star commentator returns from Davos in China to reflect on the seeming normalcy of China’s politics compared with the deeply disturbing politics of his native America. “The contrast is stark. On the Chinese side technocratic, top-down managerialism to please any centrist pinning for the 1990s. In the US , policy as post-truth reality TV.”
Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, How A Nuclear Attack on the US Might Unfold, Step by Step, New York Times, July 2, 2025. In the fifth of a series on the “Next Nuclear Arms Race” by the Federation of American Scientists, a detailed look at how a nuclear attack might unfold in the United States. A timely warning of real dangers that not only persist but are getting worse day-by-day.
David Gioe and Michael Hayden, Trump Is Breaking American Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, July 2, 2025. Two US intelligence veterans, including a former Director of the National Security and Central Intelligence Agencies, describe the danger of politicizing intelligence—a natural byproduct of the more authoritarian system this president is creating.
Finally, in case you missed it here are links to articles I wrote, interviews I did, panels I joined, and a synopsis of my weekly podcast on world news.
Iran Asks UN Security Council to Recognize Israel, U.S. as “Aggressors,” CNN, June 29, 2025.
Happy reading, watching, and listening!