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      Trump’s Strike on Iran Cements Netanyahu’s Political Comeback

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      The United States’ overnight attack could cause further escalation. To Israelis, it is already seen as a victory for Israel, and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Twenty months ago, in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career teetered on a precipice. As Israel’s prime minister, he had overseen the deadliest military lapse in the country’s history, wrecking his security credentials and collapsing support for his government.The United States’ overnight attack on Iran on Sunday, coupled with Israel’s own recent strikes, has taken Mr. Netanyahu to the brink of political redemption. For decades, he dreamed of thwarting Iran’s nuclear program, defining it as the greatest threat to Israel’s future, and its destruction as his highest military priority.Now, he is as close to reaching that goal as he may ever get. To many Israelis, it is a success that helps to revive his reputation as a guardian of their security, raises his chances of re-election and, depending on how the next weeks develop, could cement his historical legacy.“This night marks Netanyahu’s greatest achievement since he first came to power in 1996,” said Mazal Mualem, a biographer of Mr. Netanyahu. “From the perspective of the public, he has achieved a victory against what is considered the greatest threat to Israel since its founding.”In Iran, the short-term consequences of the U.S. strikes have yet to play out. It is not yet clear if they completely destroyed their targets. Even if they did, Israel could continue to attack Iran, seeking to further destabilize the Iranian government.Iran fired another barrage of missiles at Israel on Sunday, and many fear it will retaliate against U.S. military bases, embassies and interests. That could prompt more American and Israeli strikes on Iran, lengthening the war.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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      Iranians Find Pockets of Connection Amid Internet Blackout

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      Iranians managed to gain some unreliable connection to the internet on Friday after a near-total blackout that lasted four days.After Iranians were cut off from the world for four days, the country’s nearly complete internet blackout was abruptly lifted late Friday for some Iranians, who managed to get access to weak connections by switching to different servers or perhaps through sheer luck.But many said they thought the connections were temporary or unsafe, with the government still imposing tight restrictions that were difficult to bypass.“It feels like we’re in a dark cave,” said Arta, an Iranian who fled Tehran on Tuesday and was able to briefly send a few messages over Instagram late Friday.Like many others who have exchanged messages with The New York Times over the last week, he asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid scrutiny by the authorities.“Even SMS texts don’t go through sometimes,” he said.Many Iranians rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade government restrictions on the internet, but many of those services have been disrupted since Israel’s attacks began. On Saturday, as some connection returned, providers urged their users to act cautiously.“For your own sake, don’t spread the link, the server will disconnect, and our work will only get harder,” one organizer wrote on a VPN provider’s Telegram channel. The organizer warned that reports of disconnection were increasing again, and asked subscribers to not share their product link because their server was overwhelmed.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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      Europe’s Growing Fear: How Trump Might Use U.S. Tech Dominance Against It

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      To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently suspended the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes.When President Trump issued an executive order in February against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigating Israel for war crimes, Microsoft was suddenly thrust into the middle of a geopolitical fight.For years, Microsoft had supplied the court — which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and investigates and prosecutes human rights breaches, genocides and other crimes of international concern — with digital services such as email. Mr. Trump’s order abruptly threw that relationship into disarray by barring U.S. companies from providing services to the prosecutor, Karim Khan.Soon after, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., suspended Mr. Khan’s I.C.C. email account, freezing him out of communications with colleagues just a few months after the court had issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for his country’s actions in Gaza.Microsoft’s swift compliance with Mr. Trump’s order, reported earlier by The Associated Press, shocked policymakers across Europe. It was a wake-up call for a problem far bigger than just one email account, stoking fears that the Trump administration would leverage America’s tech dominance to penalize opponents, even in allied countries like the Netherlands.“The I.C.C. showed this can happen,” said Bart Groothuis, a former head of cybersecurity for the Dutch Ministry of Defense who is now a member of the European Parliament. “It’s not just fantasy.”Mr. Groothuis once supported U.S. tech firms but has done a “180-degree flip-flop,” he said. “We have to take steps as Europe to do more for our sovereignty.”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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      Medically Assisted Dying Closer to Legalization After Vote by UK Lawmakers

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      British lawmakers on Friday confirmed their support for assisted suicide for some terminally ill people, after months of scrutiny that followed an initial vote last year.British lawmakers on Friday approved plans to introduce medically assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales, advancing what would be one of the biggest social changes seen in Britain in decades.After a debate that was at times emotive and fraught but remained respectful in tone, legislators supported the proposal by a vote of 314 to 291.The vote on Friday was the second time lawmakers have approved the idea of medically assisted dying, after an initial vote in November of last year that was followed by months of scrutiny and debate in parliamentary committees. The issue has provoked deep division in and beyond the British Parliament.The bill passed by just 23 votes on Friday, significantly lower than last year, when the majority was 55. That may reflect concerns recently expressed by some medical professionals and organizations about the practicality of the legislation.The bill now goes to the unelected second chamber of the Parliament, the House of Lords. While the Lords can amend legislation, the fact that the bill has the support of elected lawmakers means that it is very likely to become law.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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      As Trump Debates Iran Action, the Meaning of ‘America First’ Is on the Line

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      As President Trump ponders involving the United States in Israel’s attacks on Iran, the G.O.P. faces a thorny question: What does “America first” really mean?A decade ago, President Trump electrified conservatives with his promises to get the United States out of foreign entanglements and to always put — say it with me — “America first.”As he weighs involving American planes and weaponry in Israel’s attacks on Iran, a brawl has broken out in the Republican Party over what “America first” really means.I wrote today about how a swath of Trump’s base is in an uproar over the president’s increasing openness to deploying U.S. warplanes — and perhaps even 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs — against Iran in an effort to help Israel finish off its nuclear program.“Everyone is finding out who are real America First/MAGA and who were fake and just said it bc it was popular,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted on X over the weekend. She added, “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.”The anger extends well beyond Greene’s social-media account, to cable television and the podcast feeds of the likes of Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Candace Owens. They are passionately arguing that intervening in Iran would contravene Trump’s long-held promise to steer the nation out of, not into, foreign entanglements, and threaten to fracture his whole coalition.It’s a remarkable fight, and one that raises a bigger question about who is really the keeper of Trump’s political flame. Is it the non-interventionists who have been there from the start, or the Republican hawks — the Senator Lindsey Grahams of the world — who are now sticking by the president?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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      How Florida’s Attempt to Let Teens Sleep Longer Fell Apart

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      After lawmakers required high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., school administrators complained that it was unworkable. Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a repeal.Florida’s brief attempt to let high school students sleep longer began two years ago when one of the state’s most powerful politicians listened to an audiobook.The book, “Why We Sleep,” argues that sufficient sleep is fundamental to nearly every aspect of human functioning. Paul Renner, then the Republican speaker of the State House, said reading it turned him into a “sleep evangelist”; he started tracking his own sleep and pressing the book on other lawmakers.To give teenagers more time to rest, he pushed for a new law that would require public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. and middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m. In 2023, Florida became only the second state — after California, its political opposite — to adopt such a requirement, and it asked schools to comply by 2026.“School start times are one of those issues that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind,” Mr. Renner said in an interview.This year, it all fell apart.Facing growing opposition from school administrators who said the later times were unworkable and costly, the Legislature repealed the requirement last month.Florida’s experiment was over before it began, an example of a policy driven by a single powerful lawmaker that flopped once he was termed out of office. It also illustrates how, even as concerns grow about the well-being of American teenagers, a modest scheduling shift with broad support from scientific and medical experts can struggle to gain traction.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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      Turning a Page, Germans Try Celebrating Their Recent Veterans

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      In a changed world, Germany’s government is trying to recruit more soldiers. A first step? Getting citizens to appreciate their military again.Like many good Veterans Day celebrations, the one in central Berlin on Sunday featured feats of strength. A former Naval boatswain named Peter Christian Duszynski, 35, pulled on a heavy bulletproof vest and reeled off nine flawless chin-ups. When he got stuck on the 10th, the crowd laughed and cheered him on.For Mr. Duszynski, the reception was welcome. Unlike Americans, British and others, Germans rarely show warm public support for former or active service members. The nation remains deeply ashamed of its Nazi past. Until Sunday, it had not celebrated an official Veterans Day since it reunified at the end of the Cold War.That reticence has been an obstacle as German leaders try to rebuild military strength, in order to counter a hostile Russia and hedge against a shrinking American security umbrella. Officials are now trying to recruit 60,000 new soldiers on very short notice. They need more than money to do it.They need the country to start appreciating its armed forces again.Visitors listening to Julia Klöckner, president of the German Parliament, give the day’s opening speech.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesThat is why, in the shadow of Berlin’s Parliament building, officials staged a main-event veterans’ celebration on Sunday. Across Germany, there were hundreds of related festivities, including more street fairs, communal breakfasts, bicycle races, hiking treks and photo exhibitions.“The soldiers are there, but they are usually not seen,” said Mr. Duszynski, 35, who had missions in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. “I think it’s important that we take steps to become more visible.”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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      Diplomacy With Iran Is Damaged, Not Dead

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      The push to do a deal on the country’s nuclear program could be revived, even after the Israeli strikes scuppered the latest round of talks.If war is diplomacy by other means, diplomacy is never finished. While Israel and Iran are in the midst of what could be an extended war that could spread, the possibility of renewed talks to deal with Iran’s expanding nuclear program should not be discounted.Negotiations are on hold while the war continues, and the future of diplomacy is far from clear. Iran will feel compelled to respond to Israel, and the Israeli campaign could last for days or weeks. For now Washington does not appear to be doing anything to press both sides to stop the violence and start talking again.But the Iranians say they still want a deal, as does President Trump. The shape of future talks will inevitably depend on when and how the fighting stops.“We are prepared for any agreement aimed at ensuring Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons,” the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told foreign diplomats in Tehran on Sunday. But his country would not accept any deal that “deprives Iran of its nuclear rights,” he added, including the right to enrich uranium, albeit at low levels that can be used for civilian purposes.Mr. Araghchi said Israel did not attack to pre-empt Iran’s race toward a bomb, which Iran denies trying to develop, but to derail negotiations on a deal that Mr. Netanyahu opposes.The attacks are “an attempt to undermine diplomacy and derail negotiations,” he continued, a view shared by various Western analysts. “It is entirely clear that the Israeli regime does not want any agreement on the nuclear issue,” he said. “It does not want negotiations and does not seek diplomacy.”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