Yeah Gorsuch is on fire a bit. /13

"They're looking for someone with a thick skin and recent experience of flagship BBC news programming."

So the BBC director general has had to resign because Panorama suggested that Trump tried to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election? Because obviously that never happened …

Amen to that.

“More and more cabinet members — Rubio, Miller, Noem — live on military bases now, & it's another parallel to Iraq, where the administration lived in the Green Zone. There’s something deeply unhealthy about a society where leaders are literally shut off from the communities that they govern.”

The death of KitKat, a brown tabby cat, has reverberated throughout San Francisco after a Waymo struck the cat and continued driving. But mourners’ grief has been complicated by who, or what, should be held accountable.

Serhii was brilliant on the Rachman Review recently. @gideonrachman.bsky.social So looking forward to this.

Anne in typically excellent form.

Burmese are the best!

This lad is 19 today. Hope I look this good (and “I take no crap”) if I make it into my 90s.

just a second. did you all know that Zohran Mamdani is MIRA NAIR'S SON? Mira "made the movie Monsoon Wedding" Nair? all this time I have not been knowing that he is someone who *understands the value of the arts*? (I shared a cab to Mexico City airport with her once. She's great.)

Bang on by Michelle Goldberg in the NYT

A horrific mass murder is unfolding in Sudan, where no one can see it. The RSF are murdering civilians in El Fasher, having finally defeated the Sudanese army forces holding out in the city. The BBC has managed to speak to some who escaped www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7fC...

This week on World Review: Trump goes to Asia and gets a US-China trade truce. But what does it all really mean? Check out my conversation with Ken Moriyasu and @gideonrachman.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/ivodaald...

The second of two excellent @financialtimes.com assessments of Trump’s latest presidency - after @edwardluce.bsky.social on domestic policy, now @gideonrachman.bsky.social on global policy. www.ft.com/content/28f0... The Trump doctrine: don’t rely on America

Very timely new podcast from me with Mike Froman, head of Council on Foreign Relations and former USTR, on the strengths and weaknesses of the positions of Trump and Xi, heading into tomorrow's talks on.ft.com/3LaXS8Y

Good from @gideonrachman.bsky.social, getting a proper read on what an invasion of Taiwan by China actually means regardless of the US position and placing agency where it belongs, with Xi Jinping. In truth, the crisis would never end, as Japan learned in 1930. www.ft.com/content/f2de...

I'm sure this will turn out fine: data from 11 of Russia's 89 federal subjects shows that local govts are drawing down emergency reserve funds to pay military recruiters. Total spending on these boys now nearly rivals the regional budgets for education, healthcare, and other welfare.

The FT's @gideonrachman.bsky.social is running a series on "The Age of the Strongman." I joined him last week megaphone.link/NSR8120418136

There is little doubt that Xi will be pushing Trump for concessions on Taiwan when they meet this week. I hope @gideonrachman.bsky.social is right that the Washington consensus will prevent that from happening on.ft.com/3JiTGn6

A very worrying escalation of online harassment. Somebody has used a video of me saying "racism in football is a game of two halves" + put a fake voiceover on it saying "what I would say to the girls of Rotherham is it is a game of two halves" x.com/EuropaIneffa...

"Such is their fear of jail, bankruptcy or reprisal, that most people I spoke to insisted on anonymity. This was in spite of the fact that many of the same people said Trump would only be restrained by powerful voices standing up to him." My Weekend FT essay. Please read it. on.ft.com/4hqblpr

Civilisational decline is a thing.

Sidgwick Site #scape with Tulip tree. 📷 #photography

China is well positioned for a trade showdown with Trump—When Trump began his trade war, his starting assumption was that because America buys a lot more from China than the other way around — it was the US… www.ft.com/content/c2fd... @gideonrachman.bsky.social @financialtimes.com

Great conversation with Serhii Plokhy in my latest podcast. We discuss the return of nuclear blackmail in the Ukraine war, the weaponisation of nuclear power plants and whether we are on brink of a new nuclear arms race. Plus the history of nukes as described in his new book

Not sure why this image is so shocking, given everything he’s done but: it’s shocking! www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Good that Mamdani’s chosen sports are cricket and football. But Arsenal a disappointingly conventional choice. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/n...

Trump told Zelenskyy he was losing the war, warning: “If [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you” The US president threw Ukraine’s battlefield maps to one side & said he was “sick” of seeing the frontline again & again Scoop w @christopherjm.ft.com @maxseddon.bsky.social & @a-mackinnon.bsky.social

Trump Watches commercials are now running regularly on Newsmax

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

If Netanyahu hadn’t defied his own security advisers & ordered the botched Sept. 9 strike on Qatar, I doubt we’d be so close to a ceasefire today. That strike killed a Qatari & riled wealthy GCC states—right before the UN General Assembly brought them & other foreign leaders to the US.

Luxembourg’s Grand Duke Henri abdicates in favour of his son, as 43-year-old Guillaume is sworn in as head of the world’s last remaining grand duchy Finally some proper reporting from the FT's European Royal Family Correspondent, @bmoens.bsky.social on.ft.com/4gQkaZf

These stories of state-led law enforcement cruelty with no respect for process, inflicted on ordinary citizens with tiny infractions, remind me of my time reporting from authoritarian China.

Hegseth has issued a literal fat-wa

The biggest puzzle in the UK economy is why non pension savings are so high For decades no one could get Brits to save. Now they won’t stop. That this has happened without a recession shows UK economy under last and this govt is not the basket case I read about

1/This is Transatlantic leadership! In historic move, German Chancellor Merz calls out US: “democracy is under pressure, freedom of expression is being questioned, and the independence of the judiciary is being repressed“. www.reuters.com/technology/g...

“How to Fix America” 🎧➡️ @mattduss.bsky.social joined @gideonrachman.bsky.social on the @financialtimes.com Rachman Review to discuss the challenges defining America’s future. www.ft.com/content/4581...

Trump, Xi and Putin are giving rise to interesting new groupings of countries www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/...

Gorgeous. If I wasn’t banned from Russia, I’d be on the next flight to Novosibirsk

And the US isn't helping. Gift link: on.ft.com/3K8y5Oj

Poland's statement to Russia at the UN. "If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or 'by mistake', and gets shot down, please don't come here to whine about it. You have been warned." ~AA

According to @gideonrachman.bsky.social, Russia's goal of dividing the US from its allies seems to be having some success. "The suspicion between the Balts and the US is mutual," he writes, sharing how Trump admin officials complain of the "Estonianisation" of European policy.

@gideonrachman.bsky.social confirming our fears about the way Trump officials see NATO allies. on.ft.com/4niOyhx

Good morning. Nothing to worry about here. Nothing at all.