An A.I. deal as a diplomatic weapon A relatively small deal — by Microsoft’s standards, anyway — is leading to big geopolitical ripples on Tuesday. The tech giant is investing $1.5 billion in G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence company. On its face, that may appear to be just another effort by the tech giant to […]
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On Saturday night, while Iran fired drones and missiles into Israel, Donald Trump talked a lot about chaos. “What’s going on with the world?” Mr. Trump said while telling a story onstage. “Everybody’s fighting. Russia, Ukraine, Israel; the Middle East is blowing up. Everything’s blowing up. China’s going to be next with Taiwan; because of […]
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It was so close. Had just one missile or drone gotten through and killed a lot of Israelis, American officials feared, the region could have gone up in flames. So when Israeli and U.S. forces, with help from Arab allies, managed a near-perfect defense against last weekend’s aerial barrage from Iran, it represented not only […]
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Microsoft on Tuesday plans to announce a $1.5 billion investment in G42, an artificial intelligence giant in the United Arab Emirates, in a deal largely orchestrated by the Biden administration to box out China as Washington and Beijing battle over who will exercise technological influence in the Gulf region and beyond. Under the partnership, Microsoft […]
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The enormous salvo of Iranian weapons fired at Israel this weekend turned the countries’ long-running shadow war into a direct confrontation, raising fears that the countries’ old paradigm of trading carefully measured blows had been replaced by something more overt, violent and risky. But by Monday, Israel had yet to respond to the Iranian assault. […]
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Until Iran’s barrage of missiles and drones against Israel, the two countries had avoided open military intrusions into each other’s territory. Tehran most often acted through proxies, and Jerusalem via bombing runs and unacknowledged assassinations in the region. Iran’s unprecedented attack this weekend, which failed to kill a single Israeli, has perhaps now opened the […]
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When Iran agreed to a deal in 2015 that would require it to surrender 97 percent of the uranium it could use to make nuclear bombs, Russia and China worked alongside the United States and Europe to get the pact done. The Russians even took Iran’s nuclear fuel, for a hefty fee, prompting celebratory declarations […]
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A Chinese company targeted by members of Congress over potential ties to the Chinese government makes blockbuster drugs for the American market that have been hailed as advances in the treatment of cancers, obesity and debilitating illnesses like cystic fibrosis. WuXi AppTec is one of several companies that lawmakers have identified as potential threats to […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday after Iran’s overnight attack on Israel that the House would vote in the coming days on aid for Israel, and he suggested that aid for Ukraine could be included in the legislation. “House Republicans and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel,” Mr. Johnson said on […]
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President Biden and his team, hoping to avoid further escalation leading to a wider war in the Middle East, are advising Israel that its successful defense against Iranian airstrikes constituted a major strategic victory that might not require another round of retaliation, U.S. officials said. The interception of nearly all of the more than 300 […]
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At first blush, the case the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday seems technical, requiring the justices to parse a decades-old statute mainly concerned with the destruction of business records. But the case has the potential to knock out half of the federal charges against former President Donald J. Trump for plotting to subvert the […]
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The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia will travel to China on Sunday, the State Department announced, just days after President Biden met with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines in Washington as part of a broad diplomatic outreach in the region to counter China’s aggression. Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state […]
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The suffering of civilians in Gaza — tens of thousands dead, many of them children; hundreds of thousands homeless, many at risk of starvation — has become more than a growing number of Americans can abide. And yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his ultranationalist allies in government have defied American calls for […]
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Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid. Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that […]
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A former United States ambassador accused of working for decades as a secret agent for Cuba in one of the biggest national security breaches in years pleaded guilty on Friday and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Manuel Rocha, 73, pleaded guilty to two charges — conspiring to defraud the United States as a […]
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American intelligence analysts and officials said on Friday that they expected Iran to strike multiple targets inside Israel within the next few days in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in the Syrian capital on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders. The United States, Israel’s pre-eminent ally, has military forces in several places across […]
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President Biden’s effort to build American security alliances in China’s backyard is likely to reinforce the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s view that Washington is leading an all-out campaign of “containment, encirclement and suppression” of his country. And there is not much Mr. Xi can do about it. To China, Mr. Biden’s campaign looks nothing short […]
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President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong. Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the […]
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A coalition of a dozen liberal organizations and labor unions sent a letter to the White House on Thursday night demanding that President Biden end military aid to Israel until its government lifts restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza, the latest indicator of shifting mainstream Democratic opinion on the war. The group includes not only […]
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President Biden intends to use a first-ever joint meeting with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines on Thursday to send a blunt diplomatic message to an increasingly aggressive China: Beijing’s harassment of Philippine ships in the South China Sea is a violation of international law and must stop. In recent months, Chinese coast guard […]
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Since Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, a rare consensus has formed in Washington around this conviction: America must provide military support to Ukraine’s resistance. Three administrations and large majorities of both parties in Congress have consistently held that President Vladimir Putin’s aggression cannot be tolerated. When has such deep solidarity last occurred on […]
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An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday killed three sons of one of the most senior leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who said the strike would not weaken the group’s negotiating position or its resolve in its fight against Israel. Mr. Haniyeh, who leads the Hamas political bureau from exile, is a longstanding leader of the group. […]
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It was all very polite. Ambassadors, billionaires, a smattering of Biden family members and even one former president were all in attendance at the fifth state dinner President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, have held since taking office. The gauzy celebration leaned heavily into Japanese fans, cherry blossoms and other tokens of the […]
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President Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan reaffirmed on Wednesday the decades-old bond between their two countries, declaring a unity of military and economic purpose as they struggle to confront the actions of an increasingly hostile Chinese government. Mr. Kishida’s daylong visit at the White House culminated with a lengthy joint statement from […]
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The White House invited more than 200 guests to the state dinner hosted by President Biden for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday night, including business executives, union leaders, athletes and prominent Japanese Americans. Here is the full list of those invited as provided by the White House. THE PRESIDENT AND DR. BIDEN HIS EXCELLENCY […]
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Israeli authorities have improved aid delivery to Gaza but still “need to do more,” President Biden said on Wednesday, offering a measured assessment of how well Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is living up to promises he made last week. In a call with Mr. Netanyahu last Thursday, Mr. Biden said that the United States could […]
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Japan is giving the United States 250 cherry trees to replace more than 100 that will be torn up during construction around the Tidal Basin in Washington, the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said on Wednesday. The gift honors the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which the United States will […]
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President Biden said on Wednesday that the United States was considering dropping its prosecution of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who has been jailed in London for years while fighting extradition to face U.S. charges related to his publication of classified documents. Mr. Biden made the comment on the case of the embattled publisher, who […]
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In November the left-wing Israeli outlets +972 magazine and Local Call published a disturbing investigation by the journalist Yuval Abraham into the Israel Defense Forces’ use of an artificial intelligence system for identifying targets in Gaza — which one former intelligence official described as a “mass assassination factory.” Toward the end of a year clouded […]
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Deal making runs into presidential politics President Biden holds talks on Wednesday for Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, part of a state visit designed to show the U.S.’s commitment to a staunch ally. Despite the pomp and ceremony, the presidential election will loom over the meetings, with Biden’s opposition to Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. […]
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President Biden has again criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and called his approach to the war in Gaza a “mistake,” underscoring how the conflict has strained relations between the two close allies. Tensions between the Biden administration and Israel’s government have risen as the death toll in Gaza has climbed. Mr. Biden’s frustration […]
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