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'The Odyssey' is the political movie of the decade. Christopher Nolan's Finest Trick | The Ezra Klein Show | New York Times Opinion | 15:23 New York Times Podcasts | 749,018 views | August 2, 2026Sidebars:Taming Odysseus [08/16/2026]The Real History Behind Homer's 'Odyssey' [08/02/2026]

The confrontation, over a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, challenged a fragile cease-fire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had killed several Hezbollah members overnight on a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, challenging a fragile cease-fire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.The encounter happened in the area of the Ali al-Taher ridge, a hilltop about six miles from the Israeli border where violence has flared in recent days. The Israeli military said it had “struck” Hezbollah fighters in an Israeli-occupied area where its soldiers were operating, and that an Israeli soldier...

A Russian missile crashed in Poland on Thursday during an overnight assault on neighboring Ukraine, NATO said, an event that could risk bringing Russia closer to direct confrontation with the Western military alliance, to which Poland belongs. Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, said the incident was a “violation of Poland’s airspace by a Russian missile” and vowed to strengthen alliance defenses. The missile — which the Polish authorities originally called an “unidentified object” — struck a field in southeastern Poland, causing no injuries. On Thursday morning, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland told an emergency meeting that the missile...

“The Turner Diaries” is a work of white supremacist agitprop. It purports to be the diary of a neo-Nazi militant, Earl Turner, who is working to overthrow the United States government — or as the book calls it, “the System” — through a group called “the Organization.” Turner castigates “the System” for promoting integration, encouraging nonwhite immigration and placing Jewish people, Black Americans and other minorities in positions of authority over whites.Among other atrocities, the novel describes nuclear attacks on predominantly Black cities, a Holocaust of Jewish Americans, the total ethnic cleansing of California, the subjugation of women and the...

As the war with Iran has continued, some are finding that the stress is bringing back old anxieties.A 4-year-old child began having behavioral problems when his father left for war.A wife whose husband works in Army intelligence is already dealing with heightened anxiety, even though he hasn’t been deployed yet.A woman found this year that she is struggling to cope with the news of conflicts at home and abroad, nearly 20 years after she lost her fiancé in combat.More than 80 percent of military families have reported elevated stress from the war with Iran, driven by safety concerns, deployment changes,...

Federal agents are arresting spouses of Americans, tech workers and others whose visas have expired, including many who have active applications to stay in the country. The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent...

A Ukrainian strike last weekend on an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea has underscored the links between the wars that the two countries are fighting, raising tensions between them as well as the risk of more direct confrontation. Ukraine said the ship was carrying military equipment between Iran and Russia. Iranian officials said it was a commercial vessel, and it accused Ukraine of killing a sailor in the attack. ................ Iran and Russia have had a close military relationship for decades. The most visible recent example of this is the long-range attack drones that Tehran has supplied to...

For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under...

A recent Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for the Trump administration to end a humanitarian program that has allowed about one million immigrants to work legally in the U.S.Around Washington, Salvadoran-born crews have helped renovate, rebuild and maintain the Capitol, the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. In senior living facilities in Florida, Massachusetts and New York, Haitian caregivers assist aging Americans with daily activities.These workers are among more than one million people who have been allowed to live and work in the United States under a decades-old humanitarian program, and who now face the prospect of deportation.Last month, the...

On a sticky evening in July, leaders of the surging democratic socialist movement in New York City jumped onto Zoom to begin crafting the next phase of their campaign. Democratic socialist candidates had just toppled five incumbents, capturing two House primaries in the city and a handful more in state legislative races. But with an off-cycle election year ahead, leaders in the city’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America were shifting their focus from winning votes to changing policy. The group’s next order of business, its members agreed in the nearly hourlong Zoom, is to pressure Gov. Kathy Hochul,...

US intelligence briefings cited by The New York Times on Friday indicate that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, displays a far greater willingness to build nuclear weaponry than his father who preceded him. His father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died in joint US-Israeli airstrikes during the opening phase of the war, had maintained a long-standing fatwa (religious decree) against weaponization. While American analysts previously maintained that Tehran sought the threshold capacity to assemble a device, many considered the former leader's religious reluctance genuine. The younger Khamenei has avoided explicit public calls for a nuclear arsenal, noted The New...

On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran.By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war.Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.The officials described sensitive internal...

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.) has spent thousands of dollars in campaign funds on "makeup services" in 2026, and his artist of choice has a long list of Hollywood credits, including The Notebook and The Hunger Games, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Ossoff has paid makeup artist Stephanie Ponder $2,887 for "makeup services" since February, federal campaign finance disclosures show. The most recent payment of $900 came on June 10. An advertisement on the online production crew directory SHOOTS describes Ponder as an Atlanta-based freelancer and member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees who offers "Services for...

The incident, which targeted the computer systems of another company called Hugging Face, happened while OpenAI was testing the systems.OpenAI said on Tuesday that two of its artificial intelligence models went rogue and successfully hacked into Hugging Face, a digital library of A.I. technology that is popular among developers.The incident, which happened last week while OpenAI was testing the cybersecurity capabilities of its systems, displayed the kind of science-fiction potential that A.I. companies have warned would soon become a reality.A.I. labs like OpenAI and Anthropic have over the past year released A.I. models that are customized to expose cybersecurity problems,...

In this episode of Straight Up, Daniel Seaman cuts through the week's headlines to examine why media narratives often paint a very different picture from geopolitical reality. You'll learn why some of Israel's loudest critics continue to dominate the conversation, how new strategic alliances are expanding across Europe, Latin America and Asia and why Israel's growing technological and security influence may be reshaping global politics despite the headlines. Plus, you won't want to miss a remarkable New York Times report on an alleged Mossad operation that sounds almost too unbelievable to be true.

Most wildfires in Canada are impossible to fight. As smoke from forest fires in Canada have darkened skies south of the border, lawmakers in Michigan, Ohio and other U.S. states have accused the Canadian authorities of inaction and poor forest management. But most wildfires in Canada spread in such remote, vast areas that they cannot be fought effectively — and are often left to burn. Half of Canada’s wildfires, like the ones now burning in northern Ontario, burn in such areas — either unpopulated or dotted with small Indigenous communities, said Michael Flannigan, an expert on fire management at Thompson...

When President Trump tried to undermine and overturn the election results in 2020, he ran into stiff pushback — not just in the courts, but from many officials in his own government.He made sure there would be little room for such dissent when he returned to the White House. Those seeking to join Mr. Trump’s second administration had to pass a key litmus test: Did they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump?With like-minded allies now positioned in key roles throughout the government, Mr. Trump has trained the full arsenal of the federal government on one of his...

https://x.com/PrometheanActn/status/2076728881831178400Promethean Action@PrometheanActn·7hThe FBI asked the NYT not to publish Air Force One's classified defense details.They ran it anyway.Trump already told you why: "They go after the big names." Lincoln. McKinley. Now him. What do all three have in common? TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~Susan Kokinda: The FBI asked them not to do it, but they did it anyway.Just before the President departed Ankara, the New York Times leaked classified information about Air Force One's self-defense capabilities, and they ran it at a momment of renewed hostilities with Iran, and renewed threats to the President.On July 11, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas to...

On July 16, “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, will turn 75. Commemorating such a nice big number would surely strike its adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield, as the absolute nadir of “corny,” but maybe we could use a little corn, as the data centers invade our farmland. Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. “Catcher” has somehow inspired artists as...

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is extremely upset after being detained in the West Bank by armed Israeli settlers. This incident took place last Wednesday, but Khanna and The New York Times chose to report on it Saturday. Why Khanna was even there is another question. The 2028 election is still a long way off, and this soft launch was, frankly, awkward. The stunt got nuked by Israeli Ambassador Dr. Michael Leiter, who cooked Khanna’s stunt on CBS’ Face the Nation yesterday. Additionally, the California liberal was in a restricted military zone where civilians were not allowed. Lastly, Khanna refused to...