6/9 to 6/15, 2025

Iran reels after Israel’s biggest-ever airstrike, “No Kings” rallies take over all 50 states, and a deadly plane crash shakes India. Russia launches its largest drone attack on Ukraine, Apple debuts a sleek new look while the AI race rages on, and a stolen Buddhist painting finally returns home after decades.

Welcome back to This Week, Basically. I’m your host, Robyn Davies, and we’ve got quite the week to talk through – so let’s dive in.

Iran was left reeling — and firing back — on Friday after Israel launched its largest-ever assault on the country. Waves of coordinated airstrikes early that morning hit nuclear sites and reportedly wiped out much of Iran’s military chain of command, along with several nuclear scientists. Israel framed the move as a last-ditch effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, something Netanyahu called an existential threat. He promised the strikes would continue “as many days as it takes.” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei vowed retaliation, saying in a televised statement: “Life will be dark for them. They started a war.” Iran says 78 people were killed, 329 injured — and the nation is consequentially pulling out of Sunday’s planned nuclear talks in Omahn. Meanwhile, its military power and regional proxies have already been weakened by 20 months of Israeli attacks, raising the stakes even further for what could now become a much broader conflict in the region.

Protesters filled the streets of Los Angeles on Wednesday, marching against President Trump’s immigration crackdown — some waving American, Mexican, or hybrid flags as “Party in the U.S.A.” blasted from trucks, and others heading toward the towering City Hall under a sea-blue sky. While many demonstrations stayed peaceful, some turned chaotic — with cars set ablaze, stores looted, and objects hurled at police. Officers responded with force: tear gas, batons, foam rounds, and deafening explosives. Critics, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, have slammed Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard, saying it’s only “fanning the flames.” On Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Trump had illegally seized control of up to 4,000 Guard troops, ordering that they be returned to Newsom’s command. But the Trump administration immediately appealed, and by nightfall, a federal appeals court had paused the order — meaning Guard troops can stay in L.A. through the weekend, right as major protests kick off nationwide. The Justice Department blasted the ruling, calling it a “gross violation of the separation of powers.”

One of the biggest protest days since Trump’s second term began is set for Saturday. Under the banner “No Kings,” demonstrations are planned in all 50 states — with around 2,000 total events, ranging from rural meetups to massive rallies in cities like New York, Philly, Chicago, and Atlanta. Indiana alone has more than 30 protests mapped out. And it’s not just the U.S.: there’ll be solidarity marches in the UK, Mexico, and Germany. Organizers are calling it a “day of defiance” against what they say is authoritarian overreach by President Trump and his allies. The protests follow weeks of unrest over Trump’s immigration crackdown and his decision to deploy the military in LA. And in a made-for-headlines moment, Saturday also happens to be both Trump’s 79th birthday and the Army’s 250th anniversary, which he’s marking with a military parade in D.C. Asked about the protest slogan, Trump said, “I don’t feel like a king… We’re not a king at all, thank you very much.”

A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London crashed seconds after takeoff Thursday, killing at least 269 people in India’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades. Flight AI171 slammed into a college dining hall just after lifting off from Ahmedabad (Am de bawhd), then skidded through buildings and exploded in flames about a mile from the airport. The plane was carrying 125,000 liters of fuel. The blast was so intense that victims could only be identified through DNA — with families lining up Friday to provide samples. Among the dead were 241 passengers and crew, plus dozens more caught in the path of the crash. Officials warn the toll could rise as crews continue combing through the wreckage.

Russia launched nearly 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukrainian forces: the largest aerial assault of the war so far. The barrage included 479 drones and 20 missiles, with 10 strikes recorded despite most being intercepted. It marks a sharp escalation in Moscow’s ongoing campaign to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, just weeks after Ukraine targeted Russian air bases on June 1. That earlier attack triggered a wave of Russian retaliation, including a massive June 5 assault that ranked as the war’s second-largest until now. Meanwhile, peace talks are going nowhere. The latest round in Istanbul produced little more than another prisoner swap, and Trump administration pressure for a cease-fire doesn’t seem to be moving the needle.

While the rest of Big Tech is racing to shove AI into every corner of our lives, Apple is… making things prettier. On Monday, it unveiled a sleek new look for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS with a translucent “liquid glass” aesthetic: think Safari tabs that vanish as you scroll and floating controls you tap to reveal. It’s classic Apple: minimal, clean, and totally out of step with the AI arms race. Sure, they’ve still got some A.I. tools in the pipeline — like Live Translation across languages and screenshot-based web searches — but nothing close to the bombshells Google and Amazon have dropped this year. Apple’s larger vision, “Apple Intelligence,” was supposed to ship by now, with a smarter Siri and ChatGPT baked in. Instead, it’s delayed until later this year, after a quiet leadership shuffle. It’s the first time in years Apple’s failed to ship a promised feature on time, and Wall Street is watching.

Back in the summer of 1989, thieves posing as hikers stormed Bo-mun-saaa temple in South Korea during a violent thunderstorm and made off with four sacred Buddhist paintings. Two were found years later, but the last two vanished. Then, in 2023, officials discovered one of the missing works sitting in the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum collection, mislabeled online and unrecognized. The museum’s new director, Vanja Malloy, took charge, and last November, in an emotional ceremony, the painting was returned to a delegation of monks. “They immediately knelt and started praying,” Malloy recalled. Thanks to a $2.45 million grant to boost research into art provenance, the museum is now more committed than ever to tracking the origins of its pieces. The recovered painting is now back in Paradise Hall at Bomunsa temple — reunited with its two sibling artworks.

Sabrina Carpenter just dropped the cover for her new album Man’s Best Friend, and it’s causing quite a stir. The image shows her on all fours, wearing a black minidress, with a faceless guy pulling her hair. Some fans and groups like Glasgow Women’s Aid are calling it “disturbing” and “regressive,” saying it plays into tired stereotypes that treat women like objects or pets — basically reinforcing old-school ideas about control and power. This isn’t just about one album cover; it touches on bigger issues about how women get portrayed in pop culture and what that means for real life.
But here’s the flip side: Sabrina and some fans think she’s flipping the script — owning her sexuality and poking fun at how the world sees her. Carpenter even said in Rolling Stone that people complain about her singing about sex, but they’re the ones who make those songs popular. So, it’s like she’s calling out the double standard. People love the sexiness but don’t always want to admit it.
This whole conversation is important because it shows how tricky it is for female artists to balance being bold and not getting labeled as just “provocative.” It makes you think: when is sexy art empowering, and when does it just play into the same old stuff? That’s a debate that’s still very much alive.
And then there’s Lola Young, who’s shaking things up with her song One Thing. She’s making sex feel fun and light, not just heavy or serious; and, she flips gender roles in her video. It’s a reminder there’s lots of ways to talk about sex in music, beyond the usual drama.
Together, these two are showing us how pop culture keeps wrestling with big ideas about sex, power, and who gets to tell the story.

That is it for the week. Thanks for joining me, and I’ll see you again soon. As always, I’m Robyn Davies, and this is This Week Basically.