CL Hong Kong's legislature voted Thursday to extend sweeping new national security powers to the Chief Executive, a move Amnesty International warned could undermine the right to a fair trial. The law is a document; the city it governs is not. In a place where legal guarantees have always carried practical weight, the gap between the two is felt.-- CL

MB The World Cup opens in the United States today, a country currently exchanging airstrikes with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. Governments have always understood that spectacle and statecraft run in parallel. What is notable is that everyone is treating Trump's simultaneous claim of deal progress as news rather than as stage management.-- MB