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Israel and Hamas reached agreement on an initial six-week truce, in part postponing their most difficult disputes to a nebulous second phase – which neither side is sure of reaching.According to the agreement, 16 days into the ceasefire, Israeli and Hamas officials should begin negotiating the next steps: an end to the war, the release of the remaining living hostages from Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territory.Israeli leaders have long insisted that they will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed. That seemed far from reality on Sunday, when Hamas militants, some brandishing rifles, spread across parts of Gaza in pickup trucks, in a show of authority to both Palestinians and Israelis.Both Israel and Hamas have retained some of their bargaining chips. At the end of the...

While Kennedy's adoption of salvage farms may be new, the concept dates back nearly a century. In 1935, the government opened the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Ky., to research and treat addiction. Over the years, residents included Chet Baker and William S. Burroughs (who described the institution in his novel "Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict"). The program had high relapse rates and was contaminated by drug experiments on human subjects. In 1975, as local treatment centers began to proliferate across the country, the program was shut down.In America, therapeutic communities for addiction treatment became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Some, like Synanon, have become notorious for abusive and cult-like environments. There are now perhaps 3,000 around the worl...

Facendo il suo ultimo viaggio come massimo diplomatico americano la scorsa settimana, il Segretario di Stato Antony J. Blinken è arrivato a Parigi, la sua ex città natale, accolto da un eroe.Il presidente francese, Emmanuel Macron, ha proclamato Blinken “un eminente servitore della pace” durante una cerimonia al Palazzo dell'Eliseo prima di assegnargli il più alto tributo del paese, la medaglia della Legione d'Onore. Con il nastro di seta rossa appuntato sulla giacca, il signor Blinken ha definito la medaglia “l’onore di una vita”.La scena era molto diversa a Washington, pochi giorni dopo, quando Blinken tenne un discorso finale davanti a una folla di esperti di politica estera.“Segretario Blinken! La tua eredità sarà un genocidio! Sarai per sempre conosciuto come 'Bloody Blinken, Segretar...

The incoming Trump administration and Biden administration sparred on Saturday over the status of TikTok and a possible ban on the service, after the video app said it would be forced to "go dark" on Sunday when a federal government law goes into effect force.President-elect Donald J. Trump told NBC News that he will "most likely" find a way to give the company a 90-day extension when he takes office Monday "because it's appropriate."On Saturday, the White House press secretary called TikTok's claim that it would go dark "a stunt." TikTok, in a statement late Friday, had called on the Biden administration to assure Apple, Google and other tech companies that they would not be punished for providing TikTok services in the United States.“We have set out our position clearly and directly: act...

Nei suoi primi tre anni a capo della CIA, William J. Burns si è concentrato incessantemente nel triplicare le risorse dell’agenzia dedicate alla comprensione della Cina e nel contrastare la Russia e le sue misteriose partnership con Iran e Corea del Nord.Ma negli ultimi 16 mesi del suo mandato, il diplomatico diventato spia è stato ripiombato nella sua vecchia vita.Nel corso di quattro decenni al Dipartimento di Stato, Burns è diventato considerato il maestro nel creare “il canale secondario” – il titolo del suo libro di memorie – il raggio d’azione invisibile ed essenziale sia verso gli alleati che verso i nemici.Mentre la guerra tra Israele e Hamas minacciava di trascinare il Medio Oriente in una conflagrazione più ampia, il presidente Biden ha chiesto a Burns di nuotare ancora una volta...

More Americans are surviving cancer, but the disease strikes younger, middle-aged adults and women more frequently, the American Cancer Society reported Thursday.And despite overall improvements in survival, Black and Native Americans die from some cancers at rates two to three times higher than white Americans.These trends represent a stark shift for a disease that has long been considered a disease of aging, affecting many more men than women.The changes reflect declines in smoking-related cancers and prostate cancer among older men and a staggering increase in cancer in people born since the 1950s.Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, but the leading cause among Americans under 85. The new report predicts that there will be approximately 2,041,910 new cases t...

Davos arrives just in time for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump 2.0, and Europe is anxious. Trump is like an asteroid headed towards Earth, argues Hubert Védrine, the former French Foreign Minister, and debates over the impact will dominate the cozy internationalist bubble that builds up every year under the snowfall of the Swiss Alps.Trump speaks variously of huge new tariffs, of seizing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, of tying American involvement in European defense not only to increased military spending by Europeans, but also to the reduction of the surplus trade with the United States.Védrine and other analysts warn that Trump likes to talk big and then bargain, and that threats and problems come and go. As his former national security adviser, John Bolton, once told USA T...

Follow real-time updates on Supreme Court ruling against TikTok.As the TikTok ban approaches, hundreds of thousands of Americans looking for a new video-sharing app have migrated to Xiaohongshu, a social media platform that translates as "Little Red Book," the American nickname for a classic compendium of quotes from Chairman Mao. It all played out as a global prank on the American government: Threatened with exile from TikTok over concerns of Chinese interference, its users simply switched to another Chinese app, whose name evokes the Chinese Communist Party.When I downloaded Xiaohongshu, commonly called RedNote, it ranked first among free apps in Apple's US App Store. (The second was Lemon8, another Chinese alternative to TikTok owned by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.) I gave away m...

President Biden said Thursday that in the days after the war in Gaza began, he pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent civilian deaths and accommodate Palestinian concerns, while maintaining firm U.S. support for Israel.Biden spoke with MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell in his final television interview while in office, during which he also discussed his political career and presidency. The interview, which aired Thursday night, was recorded earlier in the day.The 15-month war, which began after Hamas carried out a deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Most of Gaza's approximately two million residents have been displaced at least once, and much of the enclave has been destroyed.Biden and other leaders announced a tentativ...

UnitedHealth Group reported Thursday that it earned less than expected in its latest quarter, citing higher medical costs and pressure on its insurance division at a time when the company is still reeling from the shocking murder of a top executive last month.UnitedHealth Group's revenue came in at $100.8 billion for the fourth quarter, below what analysts expected but still 6.8% higher than the same quarter a year earlier. The company's full-year revenue for 2024 rose to $400.3 billion. For UnitedHealthcare, the insurance division, full-year revenue increased to $298.2 billion, up 6% from 2023.The findings were the first for the company since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.The killing sparked public outrage at large health insurer...