Blog

Gazans realized the extent of the devastation in their old neighborhoods and Israelis awaited news on three newly released hostages as a day-long ceasefire between Hamas and Israel continued Monday.With the war's 15-month lull, Palestinians returned to the parts of the Gaza Strip from which they fled, picking their way through vast areas of rubble and trying to salvage what they could – a sofa, a mattress, a chair or a crate – from the rubble of their old homes.“People can barely recognize the destroyed places where they lived,” said Montaser Bahja, an English teacher, a day after visiting his old neighborhood in the northern city of Jabaliya.In a video shared with The New York Times, Mr. Bahja, 50, can be seen running through the streets with his son Alhassan, 21, and trying to reconcile ...

Three years ago, when Bob and Sandy Curtis moved into an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, NY, they thought they had found the best possible solution for senior care.In exchange for a steep entry fee — about $840,000, financed by the sale of the Long Island home they've owned for nearly 50 years — they would be taken care of for the rest of their lives at Harborside. They selected a contract from several options that set a stable monthly fee at about $6,000 for both of them and that would reimburse half of the entry fee to their estate after their deaths.“This was the final chapter,” Mr. Curtis, 88, said. “That was the deal I made.”CCRCs, or community living plans, provide increasing levels of care on a single campus, from independent and assisted living to n...

After winning the election and taking office in the White House, many presidents end up breaking a campaign promise at some point. Donald J. Trump won't even wait that long. He will break an important campaign promise when he takes the oath of office.As he sought to return to power in the fall, Trump repeatedly made a sensational, if implausible, promise with profound geopolitical consequences: He would broker an end to the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. And not just in 24 hours: he would have done it before being sworn in as president.“Before I even get to the Oval Office, right after I win the presidency, I will solve the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump promised at a June rally. “I will resolve this issue before I even become president,” he said during his televised debate w...

TikTok came back to life in the United States on Sunday after President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would issue an executive order to block a federal ban on the app.The abrupt change came just hours after major app stores removed the popular social media site and it stopped working for U.S. users as a federal law took effect Sunday. The company said in a post on X that "in consultation with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service."Trump said in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social that he "will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law's prohibitions take effect, so we can make a deal to protect our national security."The ban stems from a 2024 law that requires app stores and cloud computing providers to stop distributing...

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...