New miscellaneous

As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken sat down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel this week, American and Arab officials were expressing cautious optimism over the latest proposal from Hamas for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.But just hours after speaking to Mr. Blinken, Mr. Netanyahu appeared more intent on delivering a fiery message aimed at his domestic audience. Instead of appearing side by side at a news conference with the secretary of state after they met on Wednesday — as is customary on such trips — the Israeli leader pre-empted him. Meeting on his own with reporters,…

When deportation flights from the United States to Venezuela resumed last fall after four years, it was a move meant to show that President Biden was aggressively tackling the record numbers of crossings at the U.S. southern border.The expulsions were also meant to deter other Venezuelans who might be considering the journey.But on Wednesday, for the second week in a row, U.S.-run flights to Venezuela carrying migrants did not depart as planned — a move that seems to be initiated by Venezuela.The Venezuelan government did not respond to repeated requests for comment about whether it was permanently halting the deportation…

Russia and China used an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday to sharply criticize recent U.S. retaliatory strikes on Iraq and Syria, calling the military action a violation of the territorial integrity of those countries that would further destabilize the Middle East.U.S. tensions with Russia have been high since that country’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, ordered his forces to invade Ukraine almost two years ago. The Security Council has frequently been a platform for U.S. and Russia’s spats over Ukraine, Syria and, most recently, the war in Gaza.China has sided with Russia on those issues and…

Runaway forest fires ravaged the coastal hills of central Chile, taking scores of lives, with hundreds of people reported as missing. Thousands of homes were destroyed, especially in the hilly neighborhoods around the resort town of Viña del Mar, where many older residents were not able to escape. The fires exploded on Friday amid unusually warm weather and strong winds.“We’re standing before a tragedy of immense proportions,” President Gabriel Boric said on Sunday, as survivors sought to comprehend their losses. He announced that the nation would observe two days of mourning.SundayUberlinda Silva, 72, in her burned house in El Olivar.Burned…

The United States on Friday carried out a series of military strikes against Iranian forces and the militias they support in seven sites in Syria and Iraq, marking a sharp escalation of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration has for four months sought to avoid.The airstrikes, targeting command and control operations, intelligence centers, weapons facilities and bunkers used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force and affiliated militia groups, made good on President Biden’s promise to respond to a drone attack in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers and injured at least 40…

At 4:30 p.m., the near-capacity crowd of 42,000 people at La Plaza México started restlessly whistling. They had waited since May 15, 2022 — a period of 624 days of legal challenges — for bulls to return to the world’s largest bullfighting arena, only to face another delay because of the hundreds of protesters outside.When the parade of the afternoon’s three matadors and their bullfighting entourage finally emerged to salute the fans, the arena in Mexico City erupted. Then, at 4:58 p.m., the first bull charged out and raced around the ring. Over the next two and a half hours…