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      President Biden and Donald Trump, Some Tough Questions for Each of You

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      The stakes in this year’s presidential election are the greatest in my lifetime. So as a way to frame the choice before voters, I offer these foreign policy questions for President Biden and Donald Trump in the debate on Thursday:President Biden, for months you called on Israel to refrain from invading Rafah and to allow more food into Gaza. Yet Israel did invade Rafah, and half a million Gazans are reported starving. Haven’t you been ignored? And isn’t that because of your tendency to overestimate how much you can charm people — Senate Republicans, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu — to cooperate with you? When will you move beyond charm and use serious leverage to try to achieve peace in the Middle East?Mr. Trump, the Abraham Accords you achieved among Israel and several Arab countries were a legitimate foreign policy success, but you largely bypassed Palestinians. Perhaps as a result, those accords may have been a reason Hamas undertook its terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, to prevent Saudi Arabia from joining and recognizing Israel. So did the Abraham Accords bring peace or sow the seeds of war? Isn’t it a mistake to ignore Palestinians and to give Israel what it wants, such as moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, without getting anything in return?President Biden, you have been pushing a plan for Gaza that involves a cease-fire and a three-way deal with Saudi Arabia, America and Israel ending in a path to Palestinian statehood. Maybe it’ll come together, but if not, what’s your Plan B? If this war drags on, or expands to include Lebanon and perhaps Iran, how do you propose to deal with the Middle East more effectively than you’ve dealt with it so far?Mr. Trump, you’ve suggested that Israel is taking too long to finish the war in Gaza. So what precisely are you advocating? Are you saying that Israel should use more 2,000-pound bombs to level even more of Gaza and kill many more civilians? Or are you saying that Israel should cut a deal that leaves Hamas in place and then pull out?President Biden, Iran has enriched uranium to close to bomb-grade levels. In days or weeks, it could probably produce enough fuel for three nuclear weapons (though mastering a delivery system would take longer). Can we live with an Iran that is a quasi-nuclear power? What is the alternative?Mr. Trump, the reason Iran is so close to having nuclear weapons is that you pulled out of the international nuclear deal in 2018, leading Iran to greatly accelerate its nuclear program. Since you created this dangerous situation, how do you suggest we get out of it? If you are president again, do you contemplate solving this problem through a war with Iran — one that might now involve nuclear weapons? Or will you accept a nuclear Iran as the consequence of your historic mistake?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hunter Biden’s Laptop, Revealed by New York Post, Comes Back to Haunt Him

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      Many claims about the laptop’s contents have not been proved, but it played a role in the prosecution of Mr. Biden over a firearm purchase.When The New York Post first reported in 2020 about a laptop once used by Hunter Biden — which the paper said contained incriminating evidence against him and his father, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was running for president — it set off a firestorm.Many national news outlets raised questions about the existence of the laptop and the claims about its contents, while major social media platforms limited posts about The Post’s coverage. Conservatives said those reactions were evidence of liberal censorship.Many of the claims made by The Post in its coverage of the laptop, in which the publication sought to link President Biden to corrupt business dealings, have not been proved. But the laptop had enough incriminating evidence to continue to haunt Hunter Biden.The laptop and some of its contents played a visible role in federal prosecutors’ case against the president’s son, who was charged with lying on a firearm application in 2018 by not disclosing his drug use. A prosecutor briefly held up the laptop before the jury in Delaware, and an F.B.I. agent later testified that messages and photos on it and in personal data that Mr. Biden had saved in cloud computing servers had made his drug use clear.On Tuesday, the jury found Mr. Biden, 54, guilty of three felony charges. He will be sentenced at later date.Mr. Biden and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, arriving at federal court in Wilmington, Del., for a verdict in his trial on Tuesday.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Hunter Biden Trial, Focus Turns to the Biden Women

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      The women called to testify have at different times tried to support a man whose history of addiction continues to hit them with shrapnel.Naomi Biden Neal, Kathleen Buhle, Jill Biden and Hallie Biden attended Hunter Biden’s trial this week.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOne by one, the women drifted into the courthouse: The wife. The ex-wife. The daughter. The sister-in-law who, through the fog of tragedy and drug abuse, ended up an ex-girlfriend.Once inside the courtroom, they locked their eyes past the many strangers who watched them — people who wondered if they would break down, or say the wrong thing. If they would cry.Hunter Biden is the one on criminal trial, staring down gun charges. But the spectacle in the courtroom has forced the Biden women into an uncomfortable spotlight.In the family, public life has often revolved around the men. The women called to testify had, at different points, tried to support and protect the one who was the troubled husband, father and son — and whose ruinous history of addiction continues to hit them with shrapnel. The women who didn’t speak sat in the courtroom, playing parts of nurturers and sentinels.The pain of this responsibility was written on the face of Hunter Biden’s eldest daughter, Naomi Biden Neal, who testified on his behalf on Friday.“He seemed great,” a nervous-sounding Ms. Biden Neal, dressed in black with her hair pulled back, told the court on Friday. “He seemed hopeful.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jill Biden Leaves France to Attend Hunter Biden’s Trial

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      The first lady’s departure from a high-profile foreign trip was a dramatic illustration of the Biden family’s personal priorities. She is expected to return to France on Saturday.Jill Biden, the first lady, left President Biden’s side in France on Thursday to make the trans-Atlantic trip back to Delaware, where Hunter Biden is standing trial on gun charges.The first lady is then scheduled to return to France for a state visit on Saturday, according to her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander.The departure of the first lady from a high-profile foreign trip was perhaps the most dramatic illustration yet of the Biden family’s personal priorities, which lie some 3,600 miles away from France, in Courtroom 4A of the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington, Del.Hunter Biden is on trial on charges of lying about his drug use on a form to buy a gun in October 2018, and of illegally possessing the weapon.The boomerang trip also says something about the resolve of the first lady, who is not a blood relative of Hunter Biden but who is the woman who raised him since he was a small child. Over time, she has become her family’s protective backbone.“I’m his mom,” she said in an interview in 2022, when Hunter Biden was the subject of a federal investigation. “I mean, I have to support him and love him, and, you know, I’m constantly talking to him, sending him texts; ‘How you doing?’ Because it’s tough.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      FDA Panel Weights MDMA Therapy for PTSD

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      An independent group of experts is meeting Tuesday to consider whether to allow use of this illegal drug, also known as Ecstasy, to treat PTSD. The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to approve the use of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. An independent advisory panel of experts will review studies on Tuesday and is expected to vote on whether the treatment would be effective and whether its benefits outweigh the risks.The panel will hear from Lykos Therapeutics, which has submitted evidence from clinical trials in an effort to obtain agency approval to sell the drug legally to treat people with a combination of MDMA and talk therapy.Millions of Americans suffer from PTSD, including military veterans who are at high risk of suicide. No new treatment for PTSD has been approved in more than 20 years.What is MDMA?Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a synthetic psychoactive drug first developed by Merck in 1912. After being resynthesized in the mid-1970s by Alexander Shulgin, a psychedelic chemist in the Bay Area, MDMA gained popularity among therapists. Early research suggested significant therapeutic potential for a number of mental health conditions.MDMA is an entactogen, or empathogen, that fosters self-awareness, feelings of empathy and social connectedness. It is not a classic psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin, drugs that can cause altered realities and hallucinations. Among recreational users, MDMA is commonly known as molly or Ecstasy.In 1985, as the drug became a staple at dance clubs and raves, the Drug Enforcement Administration classified MDMA as a Schedule I substance, a drug defined as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Legalized Weed is Landing More Seniors in the E.R.

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      In Canada, cannabis poisonings rose sharply among people 65 and older after the country legalized the drug, a new study found.The NewsAs more places legalize marijuana, policymakers and health officials have worried about the health risks that the drug may pose to adolescents. But a new study suggests that an additional demographic is at risk: seniors.The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that after Canada legalized marijuana, the number of emergency room visits for cannabis poisoning rose sharply among people ages 65 and older. Poisonings doubled after Canada legalized sale of the cannabis flower, and then tripled just 15 months later, when Canada legalized the sale of edibles.“It’s often a baked good, a chocolate or a gummy,” said Dr. Nathan Stall, a geriatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital and researcher at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and lead author on the study. Dr. Stall noted that researchers and emergency room doctors were finding that seniors used drugs intentionally but also sometimes by accident, when edibles were mistaken for regular food or snacks.Symptoms of cannabis poisoning can include dizziness, confusion, nausea, loss of coordination and balance, drowsiness and hallucinations.The findings were consistent with other research published in the United States, Dr. Stall said, and showed that more attention needed to be paid to drug use by seniors, and to the health effects.“It’s somewhat in the shadows, and there is some ageism and bias in thinking that older adults aren’t using drugs,” Dr. Stall said.Edible marijuana samples at a cannabis testing laboratory in Santa Ana, Calif.Chris Carlson/Associated PressThe StudyThe study looked at 2,322 emergency room visits for cannabis poisoning among people 65 and older in Ontario. The visits spanned 2015 through 2022, allowing researchers to see what happened before and after October 2018, when Canada legalized the sale of dried cannabis, and January 2020, when the sale of edibles was legalized.In 2015, there were 55 emergency room visits caused by cannabis poisoning. That figure rose steadily to 462 by 2021, and then fell off slightly to 404 in 2022.Dr. Stall said he was motivated to undertake the study after being called into the emergency room to consult on an octogenarian who was experiencing severe confusion. The patient was barely conscious and showed strokelike symptoms. Multiple tests revealed no clear cause, until Dr. Stall ordered a toxicology test and found cannabis in the patient’s urine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Canada Re-Criminalizes Public Drug Use in British Columbia

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      A province that was a global pioneer in harm reduction took a step back after a political backlash.The government of Canada on Tuesday walked back part of a program allowing people in British Columbia to possess small amounts of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, without fear of criminal charges. At the request of the province and after a public backlash, people in British Columbia are no longer permitted to use drugs in public places.Under the changes, which went into effect immediately, adults will still be allowed to possess small amounts of drugs. But they will now have to use them in legal residences, at safe injection sites and at other harm-reduction centers established by the health authorities.The re-criminalization of public drug use in British Columbia underscores the difficulties that governments face as they grapple with the opioid crisis. Even in a province that has been a global pioneer of the harm reduction movement, an approach that seeks to reduce risky behavior rather than to punish drug users, there are no easy answers.The province’s coroner estimated that there were a record 2,511 toxic drug deaths last year. Drug overdoses from toxic substances kill more people ages 10 to 59 than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined in British Columbia, according to the provincial coroner’s office.The goals of decriminalizing possession were to enable police officers to focus their time on large drug distributors rather than users and encourage users to be open to treatment. But concerns about public drug use have quickly surfaced and raised repeatedly in the provincial legislature by members of opposition parties.Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, a professor in the medical school at the University of British Columbia who studies addiction and public health policy, said the decision amounted to “three steps back” in dealing with the opioid crisis.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s Stance on Marijuana Has a Political Upside, Allies Say

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      The president’s allies say the Justice Department’s chill take on marijuana has a political upside.On Labor Day in 2022, John Fetterman found himself in a room in Pittsburgh with President Biden.Fetterman, a Democrat who was then the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and in the middle of his successful run for the U.S. Senate, had a simple message he wanted to share: Go big on legal weed.And how did the president respond? “He was just, like, ‘Yeah, absolutely,’” Fetterman told me yesterday.The Justice Department on Tuesday said it had recommended that federal restrictions on marijuana become a whole lot chiller. And while it is not clear that lobbying from Democrats like Fetterman has played any role, the move was the latest step by the Biden administration to liberalize the nation’s cannabis policy — something his allies believe comes with an obvious political upside when more than two-thirds of Americans support legalization of the drug.“High reward, zero risk,” said the perpetually sweatshirted Fetterman, joking that he advises Biden only on matters of fashion and weed policy.Biden, a suit-wearing president who is more statesman than stoner, has become something of the pot president. It could elevate his standing specifically with young voters, who support rescheduling, or reclassifying, marijuana as a less serious drug, as well as with supporters of changes to criminal justice laws.One of the president’s allies just wishes he would talk about it more.“He has pardoned people, he initiated this rescheduling, but he has not embraced it. It’s not too late,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, the 75-year-old Democrat who has been pushing for looser cannabis policy for half a century. “The public needs to know that this is the single most significant step that has been taken by the federal government in the more-than-50-year-old war on drugs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More