Similar Stories to Thousands Flee Flood Waters As Un Warns Of 'grave' Impact From Ukraine Dam Breach on Bing News

Each year, in the darkest days of winter, Hanukkah reliably arrives. We kindle lights and discuss the possibility of miracles. Each year is different. We return to Hanukkah a little older and altered by the changes within ourselves, our communities, and the world. This year is darker than any I’ve lived through.

The fog of war currently shrouding Hamas and Israel is not the only fog obscuring a path forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While each side’s worst trauma has been triggered by Hamas’s depraved mass slaughter and Israel’s scorched-earth counter-attack—for Jews the Holocaust, for Palestinians, the Nakba—the fighting has also exposed a fundamental divide between two sets of grievances: what I call 1948—when the modern state of Israel was established; and 1967—when the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began. 1948 challenges Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state; 1967 challenges the Palestinians right to self-determination. Both rights are legitimate—Israel has a right to statehood and Palestinians have a right to self-determination—but only one can be negotiated. You can’t ask Israel to commit national suicide, though you can demand it recognize Palestinian rights. By conflating two sets of grievances represented by 1948 and 1967, Israelis and Palestinians have been able to valorize their own victimization and deny the other’s legitimacy.

Efrat Machikawa is convinced every day that passes with her 79-year-old uncle in Hamas captivity is threatening his life. Her uncle is hard of hearing and suffers from high blood pressure and other conditions that depend on life-prolonging medication, she says, similar to other elderly hostages still in Gaza. After hearing about conditions of captivity from the testimonies of freed hostages—of surviving in dark tunnels with only rice and bread to eat—she fears that those who remain are dying. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This is why we have to make sure they come back tomorrow,” Machikawa tells TIME in a video call from southern Israel on Saturday evening.

Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win, according to state media reports. Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia -– including one on the Kremlin itself -– and corroded its aura of invincibility. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A short-lived rebellion in June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation that Putin could be losing his grip, but he emerged from it with no permanent scars, and Prigozhin’s death in a mysterious plane crash two months later reinforced the view that Putin was in absolute control. Putin announced his decision to run in the March 17 presidential election during a Kremlin award ceremony, according to Tass and RIA Novosti state news agencies. About 80% of the populace approves of his performance, according to the independent pollster Levada Center.

For weeks, Motaz Azaiza’s Instagram feed has exclusively borne witness to the horrors unfolding in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, the 24-year-old photojournalist has dedicated his days to capturing the scenes of death, destruction, and anguish that have come to be associated with the besieged enclave. But as Israel’s punishing military campaign to root out Hamas from the Strip enters its third month, and as its ground invasion pushes further south to where millions of civilians are currently sheltering, Azaiza has warned that he may not be able to continue his work for much longer.

(LONDON) — European Union talks on world-leading comprehensive artificial intelligence regulations were paused Thursday after 22 straight hours, with officials yet to hammer out a deal on a rulebook for the rapidly advancing technology behind popular services like ChatGPT. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] European Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted that talks, which began Wednesday afternoon in Brussels and ran through the night, would resume on Friday morning. “Lots of progress made over past 22 hours” on the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, he wrote.