Blog

WASHINGTON —  What is Hamas, and what does it want?The radical Palestinian militant organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip for more than 15 years has sustained a bitter, lethal animus toward Israel that goes much deeper than sentiments found inside Palestinians’ other main ruler in the region, the Palestinian Authority.Hamas is a Sunni Islamic group that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and whose goals from the beginning have been to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation through any means necessary.The group was born in the dire poverty of the Gaza Strip under stifling Israeli military occupation in the 1980s and ’90s, and eventually built an active and well-armed military wing with help from neighbors such as Iran.From early on, Hamas was seen as a challenger to the Pal...

A Saudi dairy company that grows hay in Southern California and Arizona for export to the Middle East is set to lose several leases that allow it to pump unlimited water from government-owned farmlands. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs announced this week that the state has terminated one of the leases held by the company, Fondomonte, and will not renew three other leases when they expire in February. Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science. The action, although partly focused on details of the company’s rental agreements, reflects concerns among some political leaders about the use of water to export alfalfa and other water-intensive crops at a time when chronic shortages are prompting calls to rein in water use along ...

ANJAR, Lebanon — Hilda Doumanian stood in the main hall of the Anjar museum, scanning the glass cases holding items her ethnic Armenian forebears salvaged from their lands before they escaped to Lebanon more than eight decades ago. “This appears to be our fate: to be forcibly displaced every few decades,” she said, walking up to one of the displays: A collection of rust-encrusted kitchenware and bundles of braided silk from a village loom. Ancient-looking rifles. Religious vessels. Bibles so old their pages appeared more suspended dust than paper. “The Armenian genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century,” she said, slowly shaking her head in resignation, referring to the 1915 genocide by the Ottoman Empire. “Now in the 21st century we see the first genocide, and it’s Armenians ag...

SAN FRANCISCO —  For one last day, Dianne Feinstein reigned.She reigned over this lovely, enchanted, vexing and deeply troubled city. The city where she was born, the city that nurtured and sustained and tortured her, and sometimes broke her heart.Dignitaries arrived and tributes flowed from around the country as those closest to the late U.S. senator and former mayor gathered for a final remembrance outside San Francisco’s majestic City Hall.President Biden, in taped remarks, extolled Feinstein’s character and steel-rod spine. “She was always tough, prepared, rigorous and compassionate,” Biden said. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer hailed her as “one of the Senate’s great deal-makers.”“There are many adjectives that rightly describe Dianne Feinstein,” he said. “Strong. Unflappabl...

MEXICO CITY —  Branding the scourge of fentanyl deaths the “top of the agenda,” America’s senior diplomat on Thursday implored Mexico to help stop the flow of the drug into the U.S., but it was unclear whether he received a meaningful commitment from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, in Mexico City for a series of high-level security and economic talks, said in a news conference he had “no doubt about Mexico’s commitment to working collaboratively ... a commitment in words and deeds.”But López Obrador has been slow to acknowledge the depths of the fentanyl crisis, preferring until recently to blame U.S. consumption and not the role of Mexico in production and supply of the synthetic opiate, which is fabricated using chemicals from China.Mex...