7/21 to 7/27, 2025

Welcome back, folks. This week we’ve got denials and disclosures in the Middle East, Harvard’s president under the microscope, corruption charges flying in Moscow, and a lost typewriter that became a cultural obsession. Statues spark a fight in Mexico, cars and bikes clash in Toronto, and people wonder if A.I. could actually be your friend. Plus: Instagram guilt trips, Epstein conspiracies, and a whole lot of noise in world politics. This Week, Basically, hosted by Robyn Davies. Every week I’ll give you a roundup of the biggest stories in under ten minutes. Let’s get into it.

Let’s start with politics.

In Israel, the military itself is pushing back on one of the government’s loudest talking points. For months, officials claimed that Hamas routinely stole United Nations aid headed for Gaza. But now? Senior Israeli officers admit there’s no proof of systematic theft. They still say Hamas taxed goods, skimmed resources, or sometimes interfered, but the sweeping claim that the group made aid theft its core strategy just doesn’t hold up. Why does this matter? Because the original line helped justify Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian supplies, and those restrictions are one reason international critics accuse Israel of worsening Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. By walking it back, the military is signaling discomfort with the way politicians have framed the war. And it raises a bigger question: if one of Israel’s key justifications doesn’t stand, how much else is politics overplaying the battlefield?

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., Harvard’s president, Penny Pritzker, is under a spotlight that just won’t dim. She’s the face of the university in its increasingly bitter fight with the Trump administration. Federal officials have threatened billions in funding, tax breaks, and even Harvard’s ability to admit international students. Pritzker has stayed defiant — calling the demands unconstitutional and insisting Harvard won’t bow to political pressure. But critics inside the university are asking whether her approach is too combative, risking long-term damage for short-term defiance. Alumni are worried, donors are nervous, and students are caught in the middle of a culture war that started in Washington but is now playing out in Cambridge. For Pritzker, the fight is both personal and political; she’s not just defending Harvard’s independence, she’s defending its reputation as a place where government can’t dictate who studies and what ideas are allowed.

And over in Russia, corruption is once again in the headlines — not surprising, but the timing is striking. After battlefield failures in Ukraine, prosecutors are rolling out case after case against senior officials. Regional commanders are accused of pocketing money meant for troops. Procurement officers are charged with inflating contracts and siphoning funds. It’s a purge dressed up as accountability. The pattern is familiar: when the war effort stumbles, someone has to take the blame. But instead of generals losing their posts, it’s bureaucrats and mid-level managers going to trial. That raises two possibilities, either corruption really is crippling Russia’s military readiness, or the Kremlin is scapegoating convenient targets to distract from deeper failures. Either way, the headlines aren’t about Russian progress on the battlefield. They’re about who stole what, when, and how much.

From politics to history: the hunt for a lost machine. In the 1940s, a Chinese typewriter called the MingKwai was built to simplify typing thousands of characters. It was a marvel of design, a symbol of modernization, and then it vanished. For decades, scholars wondered if it still existed. Now, a professor in Hong Kong has tracked one down. The MingKwai isn’t just a quirky artifact; it represents a moment when China was trying to reconcile tradition with modern technology. Rediscovering it is like finding a missing link in the story of how East Asia balanced ancient scripts with industrial-age machines. The professor’s search became an odyssey through archives, collectors, and attics — a reminder that history doesn’t just sit in books, sometimes it hides in forgotten corners waiting to be found.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, statues of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara have been quietly removed from public plazas — and people are furious. For some, those monuments honored anti-imperialist heroes. For others, they represented a painful history of authoritarianism. Their removal has sparked protests, with crowds demanding answers from city officials. Was this about cleaning up public space? Or was it political, a deliberate attempt to rewrite history? Either way, the absence of the statues is louder than their presence ever was, reigniting old arguments about who gets celebrated and who gets erased. In a country wrestling with its own identity, the fight over two bronzes of foreign revolutionaries has become a fight about what it means to remember.

Closer to home, Canada is seeing a battle play out in the streets, literally. In Toronto, drivers and cyclists are at each other’s throats. Bike lanes have expanded rapidly, and while cyclists celebrate safer commutes, drivers complain about clogged traffic, lost parking, and an urban plan that favors two wheels over four. Tensions have boiled over into actual confrontations: honking, yelling, even collisions. City officials are stuck in the middle, trying to balance climate goals and commuter convenience. The fight isn’t just about bikes and cars. It’s about what kind of city Toronto wants to be: built for speed, or built for sustainability.

And speaking of the future: what does it mean to be friends with an A.I.? A New York Times writer profiled a woman who built a relationship, a genuine one, she says, with her chatbot. They share jokes, comfort each other, even “argue.” To her, it feels real. Critics argue that it’s dangerous to blur the line between human and machine, but the truth is people have always formed attachments to technology. From Tamagotchis to Siri, we project humanity onto the tools around us. The difference now is that A.I. talks back in ways that feel less like tools and more like partners. Whether that’s progress or peril depends on how you define friendship.

Meanwhile, a very human craving: posting vacation photos. Another opinion columnist confessed that after quitting social media, she still feels the pull to share. Without the post, she wonders, did the trip even happen? It’s funny but also true: we curate our lives not just for memory, but for validation. The likes, the comments, the proof that someone else saw it — all part of making an experience “real.” It’s the paradox of the digital age: freedom from the scroll feels healthy, but the urge to document never quite dies .

And then there’s Epstein. The scandal that won’t end, because it’s both a conspiracy theory and a genuine scandal. Conspiracy theorists insist there’s a hidden “client list” that will blow the lid off global elites. But the reality is, most of that list has been public for years. Flight logs, address books, depositions; they’re all out there. The problem isn’t a lack of information. It’s that the information is uncomfortable enough to feel like a cover-up even when it’s not. Epstein really did have ties to presidents, billionaires, and royals. He really was a convicted sex offender with powerful friends. That alone is scandalous, but it also feeds the belief that there must be more. And so the story cycles on: part fact, part fantasy, a mirror of our era where conspiracies thrive on too much information rather than too little .

Finally, in Southeast Asia, President Trump has inserted himself into a conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. After clashes on the border escalated, he announced he expects a quick cease-fire. Whether that’s optimism, bravado, or inside knowledge is anyone’s guess. Regional analysts are skeptical — past disputes between the two countries have dragged on for years. But Trump is betting that American pressure, or at least American pronouncements, will make a difference. For Thailand and Cambodia, the fight is local and old. For Trump, it’s another chance to cast himself as the dealmaker on the world stage.

So that’s the week. From Israel’s walk-back on Hamas aid to Harvard’s defiance in Cambridge, from Moscow’s corruption trials to a rediscovered typewriter in Hong Kong, and from Mexico’s missing statues to Toronto’s snarled streets, it’s a reminder that politics, culture, and identity are constantly colliding. Throw in A.I. companions, vacation-photo FOMO, Epstein conspiracies, and Trump’s latest diplomatic claim, and you’ve got another week where reality is stranger — and louder — than fiction.

That’s all for now. As always, this is This Week, Basically. I’m Robyn Davies. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you next week.