What Is NATO?

You may remember that I’ve been blitzing my way through murder mysteries this winter. As it turns out, one Agatha Christie mystery is fun, two are interesting, but once you get past three or four, they start to raise real questions about the economic incentives of the early 20th century. If Jane Austen made a…

“There is simply no provision in the Geneva Conventions for what Israel is doing along the border, which is kind of a pre-emptive clearing of property,” said Professor Rajagopal, an expert in law and development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “On a particular property-by-property basis, Israel can take action, but not on a widespread…

When the owner of an underground club in Kyiv reached out to Western musicians to play in Ukraine, long before the war, there were not so many takers. But an American from Boston, Mirza Ramic, accepted the invitation, spawning a lasting friendship with the club’s owner, Taras Khimchak. “I kept coming back,” Mr. Ramic, 40,…

Bearing witness, at close range and often at great risk, is the essence of a dispatch, and in 2023, our correspondents filed 80 of them from 37 countries, capturing the human experience from almost every angle: the good, the bad and the wrenching. In a year marked by conflicts, dozens of dispatches came directly from…

American-led negotiators are edging closer to an agreement in which Israel would suspend its war in Gaza for about two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas, a deal that could be sealed in the next two weeks and would transform the conflict consuming the region. Negotiators…

No profit grows, Shakespeare once wrote, where no pleasure is taken. And so in the tedious march of life, we find joy in small things: The rising of the sun. A fine glass of wine. The greasy snap of a well-dressed potato crisp. But soft! Not so fast. Life affords no simple pleasures, and even…