Social Responsibility

The most sweeping invasion of Israeli territory in decades, conducted by a Hamas force that had been widely seen as a ragtag collection of militants, has delivered a psychological shock to Israel so great that its very foundations are being questioned: its army, its intelligence services, its government and its capacity to control the millions of Palestinians in its midst.The war that began with a Hamas assault that has taken as many as 700 Israeli lives is not an existential struggle for the survival of the Israeli state itself, as were the 1948 war triggered by Israel’s foundation or the…

Nearly two decades ago, I tried to write a group biography about the senators whose offices happened to be on the second floor of the Russell Office Building on Capitol Hill. The group included John McCain, Joe Biden, Lindsey Graham and Chuck Hagel. I got to know and study each of those senators during that long-ago-abandoned project.The more I covered Biden, the more I came to feel affection and respect for him. Then, as now, he could be a tough boss, occasionally angry and hard on his staff. But throughout his life, Biden has usually been on the side of…

This column has been updated.It’s easy to note the parallels between Hamas’s attack on Israel on Saturday morning and the Yom Kippur war, which began 50 years ago Friday.Now, as then, Israel seems to have been taken almost wholly by surprise by an enemy whose capabilities it appears to have badly underestimated. Now, as then, Israelis have sustained losses — at least 600 dead, over 2,000 wounded and dozens of hostages taken — that go far beyond anything they suffered in recent years. Now, as then, there looms the prospect of a wider and deadlier war — the last time…

Steve Huckins, a native of Oregon, was preparing to move across the country when he went on Facebook to post a goodbye letter of sorts to his home state.“I had planned to die here,” Mr. Huckins, 59, wrote. “It’s a beautiful state. The mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the beaches. All are overshadowed by the societal and political climate.”Mr. Huckins and his wife, Ginger, were leaving Portland, Ore., one of the most progressive cities in the United States. They said Portland’s tolerance of homeless encampments, along with the open use of hard drugs and rising crime, had filled them with…

Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, 17,000 feet up in the Himalayas just south of India’s border with China, some slight shift started an avalanche. Snow, ice and boulders slid into a giant glacial lake a mile below, causing it to burst its banks. From there, catastrophes multiplied as the water cascaded down mountain valleys below.At least 26 people were killed in the tiny state of Sikkim, and another 142 are missing. But as much as the disaster was a shock, it was hardly a surprise. An academic paper published four years earlier predicted just such a sequence of events in…

It was 4:20 a.m., long before dawn on Monday, when a driver approached the house of a missing girl in upstate New York, placing a note in the black mailbox before darting off through a dark spider web of country roads.It might have been a note of condolence, or sympathy or even a tip. Instead, it was a ransom note, the state police said, one that led to the dramatic rescue later that day of the 9-year-old girl, found hidden in a cupboard in a rundown camper, just 14 miles from her home.The story of how state troopers, S.W.A.T. teams,…

Several teachers whom I spoke with or who responded to my questionnaire mentioned policies stating that students cannot get lower than a 50 percent on any assignment, even if the work was never done, in some cases. A teacher from Chapel Hill, N.C., who filled in the questionnaire’s “name” field with “No, no, no,” said the 50 percent floor and “NO attendance enforcement” leads to a scenario where “we get students who skip over 100 days, have a 50 percent, complete a couple of assignments to tip over into 59.5 percent and then pass.”It’s hard to find national data about…

Former President Donald J. Trump went on trial this month in a New York courtroom, facing a threat to the business empire that informed his public persona and undergirded his run for the White House. Friday was the trial’s fifth day.Much of the action happened outside the courtroom on Friday. Mr. Trump’s legal team tried and failed to pause the trial itself, but succeeded in delaying the implementation of a sweeping order by the trial judge that had been expected to have a serious impact on Mr. Trump’s real estate business.The trial stems from a lawsuit brought last year by…

The boy had seemed destined for a life of affluence and earthly pursuits. Born into the family behind a major mining conglomerate in Mongolia, he might have been picked to someday lead the company from its steel-and-glass headquarters in the country’s capital.Instead, the 8-year-old is now at the heart of a struggle between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Communist Party.He was just a toddler when everything changed. On a visit to a vast monastery in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, known for a towering Buddha statue gilded in gold, his father brought him and his twin brother into a…