By LYDIA POLGREEN For many Americans, there might be a temptation to disbelieve the enormity of what has happened in the Gaza Strip. After all, it is a catastrophe funded by our money, made possible by our weapons, condoned by our government and carried out by one of our closest allies. It’s little wonder that some want to downplay the damage. Their defense is to cast doubt on the numbers. It goes something like this: The death toll, counted by the Hamas-run Health Ministry,

“She’s not going to talk back,” one top Hollywood talent wrangler said dryly of AI actress Tilly Norwood. (Reddit via r/artificial) By MAUREEN DOWD In the immortal words of Emily Blunt, “Good Lord, we’re screwed.” She was on a podcast with Variety Monday when she was handed a headline about cinema’s latest sensation, Tilly Norwood. Agents are circling the hot property, a fresh-faced young British brunette actress who is attracting global attention. Norwood is AI, and Blunt is

Demonstrators hold signs during the nationwide No Kings Day protests at Pacific Park Plaza in Dallas on Oct. 18, 2025. Large crowds of protesters gathered in cities across the nation on Saturday to condemn a president they view as acting like a king, part of a daylong mass demonstration against the Trump administration. (Desiree Rios/The New York Times) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG This weekend, I was surprised to learn that Donald Trump seems to see himself in the same way I do: as

The backside of a cardboard cutout of President Trump at the New York Young Republican Club watch party at Downtown Social in the East Village, New York on Nov. 5, 2024. (Paola Chapdelaine/The New York Times) By DAVID FRENCH It has happened again. We learned last week that a cohort of Republican activists and political staff members had shared racist and misogynist messages in a private text chat. It’s a story that repeats itself with depressing regularity, varying only the n

President Vladimir Putin of Russia gestures that he can’t hear reporters as President Donald Trump looks on after both leaders left their aircraft to meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Russia has launched a new and dangerous campaign of provocation against NATO. Over the past six weeks, it has sent drones over Poland and Romania and flown fighter jets into Estonia. Russ

My keyboard, so used to criticisms of President Donald Trump, is shocked as I hammer out this column. But Trump genuinely deserves great credit for (belatedly) ramming through the Gaza Strip ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees. Bravo, Mr. President. Yet what lies ahead is more prayer than plan, and to make this a lasting peace it would help if we all discarded the Manichaean paradigm of good versus evil that many Westerners apply to Israelis and Palestinians (whil

Crowds gather as a helicopter carrying hostages freed from captivity by Hamas in Gaza arrives at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel, on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. With Hamas freeing the last 20 living Israeli hostages and Israel releasing some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, President Trump proclaimed an ‘end’ to the war, but big questions about Gaza’s future remain. (Amit Elkayam/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS Though it seems absurd in retrospect, there were many in Ha

A supporter of President-elect Joe Biden raises the flag at a rally in Wilmington, Del., Saturday Oct. 7, 2020. (Damon Winter/The New York Times) By ROSS DOUTHAT When Donald Trump was first elected president, foreign policy seemed like the zone of greatest danger, the place where a political novice promising to remake the world order was most likely to blunder into true catastrophe. Instead, Trump’s first-term foreign policy was broadly successful, with more stability, fewer