Missiles manufactured by the Ukrainian defense firm Fire Point and video footage of a burning Russian refinery, at a defense industry conference in Kyiv on June 30, 2026. What matters in the new phase of Ukraine’s war with Russia, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear, “is to have the means to block the Russian fusillades,” Times columnist Serge Schmemann writes, “and there lies the current crunch.” (Jedrzej Nowicki/The New York Times) By SERGE SCHMEMANN Back w

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Five months after the United Nations reported acts of genocide in Sudan, another human rights catastrophe may be imminent. The Rapid Support Forces, a rebel group that controls parts of the country and has a history of committing atrocities, has gathered outside El Obeid, a strategically important city, and nearly encircled it. About 600,000 people are facing severe shortages of food, water and medicine, and the RSF has already killed some civilians thr

A supporter of Assemblywoman Claire Valdez at her primary night watch party in Brooklyn, June 23, 2026. (Will Matsuda/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS I grew up in a conservative movement that thought it had gotten the better of its worst ideological impulses. True, there were the usual Father Coughlin throwbacks, people like Pat Buchanan, who were against free trade, sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, down on the Jews and inveterately hostile to immigration, legal or otherwi

Recently arrived Sudanese refugees from various parts of north Darfur, including el-Fasher, at the Oure Cassoni refugee camp in eastern Chad, Nov. 28, 2025. Last year, a brutal militia overran el-Fasher, slaughtering some 60,000 people in a few weeks, after repeated warnings by human rights experts went unheeded, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes. (Ivor Prickett/The New York Times) By NICHOLAS KRISTOF Last year, human rights experts warned for many months that a brutal

An attendee holds a campaign flyer for Graham Platner, a veteran who was running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Maine, during Platner’s town hall in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, April 12, 2026. (Mark Peterson/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Graham Platner is out. Just months ago, the oyster farmer and Marine combat veteran looked like the answer to the question Democrats keep asking themselves: Where are the candidates who can excite people? Platner, ru

Graham Platner speaks to supporters in Blue Hill, Maine, after winning the Democratic nomination for the Senate on Tuesday night, June 9, 2026. (Sophie Park/The New York Times) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG Hopefully, by the time you read this, Graham Platner will have dropped out of the Senate race in Maine. If he hasn’t, he needs to, immediately. His campaign, which started with such excitement and inspired so many people in Maine, has become a shameful catastrophe. What’s left — be

By BRET STEPHENS In May 1944, Learned Hand delivered a brief but timeless address in New York on “the spirit of liberty.” Freedom, the great 2nd Circuit jurist warned, cannot be safeguarded by constitutions, laws or courts. Nor can there be freedom wherever “men recognize no check upon their freedom” — a road down which it becomes “the possession of only a savage few.” Instead, the judge said, the spirit of liberty lay in a combination of humility, curiosity, generosity and r

By ROSS DOUTHAT The last few times I wrote about unidentified flying objects, in the spring and fall of 2023, there had been a series of curious happenings — reveals and leaks and would-be whistleblowing — that convinced me that some group of people inside our government wanted Americans to believe that the national security state had secret knowledge about UFOs. This was a deliberately circumspect take on an extremely weird situation, which had three notable features. First,

Vice President JD Vance arrives at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday morning, July 1, 2025, prepared to cast a tiebreaking vote in the Senate on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and domestic policy bill. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times) By LYDIA POLGREEN Journalist Michael Kinsley once defined a political gaffe as when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth. Last week, Vice President JD Vance posted a classic of the form on the social platform X, part of an

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, Puerto Rico, too, has cause for celebration, notes contributing STAR columnist Gregorio Igartúa. Puerto Rico — time to celebrate! By GREGORIO IGARTÚA DE LA ROSA Special to The STAR The year 2026 holds great historical significance for our nation, marking the 250th anniversary of its founding in 1775. Given the importance of this event, impactful cultural activities have been organized -- particularly in the cap