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      Jake Sullivan Makes Covert Trip to Ukraine

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      Jake Sullivan met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials as additional U.S. aid continued to languish in the House.President Biden’s top national security official made a secret trip to Kyiv on Wednesday, as Ukrainian soldiers holding off Russian troops are running out of munitions and U.S. aid remains stalled in congressional gridlock.Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials “to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine in its self-defense against Russia’s brutal invasion,” said a national security spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson. “He stressed the urgent need for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the national security supplemental to meet Ukraine’s critical battlefield needs.”The covert trip showed the rising sense of urgency in the White House to pressure Congress to pass billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine, a financial package that the Biden administration says the country needs to defend itself against Russia.The White House has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to push House Republicans to support a $60 billion emergency spending plan for weapons for Ukraine and to bolster armament production in the United States.With that funding held back and future U.S. aid in limbo, the administration last week sent Ukraine a $300 million package that included air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, armor systems and an older version of the Army’s longer-range missile systems known as ATACMS. But that package is most likely going to hold off Russia for only a matter of weeks, U.S. officials have said.“Ukrainian troops have fought bravely, are fighting bravely throughout this war,” Mr. Sullivan said when the package was announced, “but they are now forced to ration their ammunition under pressure on multiple fronts.”Mr. Sullivan’s visit came one day after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with other backers of Ukraine in Germany to strategize on how to maintain military support for Kyiv.“Ukraine’s battle remains one of the great causes of our time,” Mr. Austin said. More

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      Blinken Will Travel to Israel as Part of Gaza Cease-Fire Efforts

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      Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to Israel this week, adding a stop to his latest Middle East trip amid intense diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.Mr. Blinken arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday afternoon. The State Department initially made no mention of Israel in announcing his travel plans, saying only that he would visit Saudi Arabia and then Egypt on the trip — Mr. Blinken’s sixth to the region since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel set off the war in Gaza.On Wednesday, the State Department said that Mr. Blinken would travel to Israel, as well, for talks with the country’s “leadership” about efforts to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza and to “dramatically increase” humanitarian aid deliveries to the enclave.There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli government. Nor were there details on whom Mr. Blinken would meet with.The visit will come as American and Israeli leaders are increasingly at odds over Israel’s approach to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has brushed aside President Biden’s opposition to a planned ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, saying on Tuesday that his government would press ahead despite pleas for restraint from the United States and other allies.In a phone call with Mr. Netanyahu this week, Mr. Biden argued that a ground invasion could be disastrous for those sheltering in Rafah and that Israel had other ways of achieving its objective of defeating Hamas.The White House is expected to host an Israeli delegation early next week to discuss Israel’s plans for the invasion, and the issue will also be on Mr. Blinken’s agenda when he is in Israel.The State Department said that on his visit, Mr. Blinken would “discuss the need to ensure the defeat of Hamas, including in Rafah, in a way that protects the civilian population, does not hinder the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and advances Israel’s overall security.”Mr. Blinken’s trip comes as negotiators from Israel have joined officials from Egypt and Qatar for meetings in the Qatari capital, Doha, aimed at securing a pause in the fighting in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held there by Hamas and other armed groups.Those efforts have taken on greater urgency as the death toll in Gaza climbs and as the United Nations warns that a famine in the enclave is “imminent.”John Yoon More

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      Who Is Leo Varadkar?

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      Mr. Varadkar, who said on Wednesday that he would step down as Ireland’s prime minister, has had a career of firsts. His resignation came as a surprise.When Leo Varadkar said on Wednesday that he was resigning as Ireland’s prime minister, the surprise announcement ended a chapter in the career of a politician who has twice led the country, but whose party faces a struggle in elections next year.As Mr. Varadkar ascended to the role in 2017, his identity — as the country’s first openly gay leader and its first with South Asian heritage — was viewed as evidence of Ireland’s rapid modernization. At 38, he was also its youngest leader.Mr. Varadkar was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a father born in India. Before embarking on a career in politics, he trained as a doctor. During a referendum campaign in 2015 on the legalization of same-sex marriage, Mr. Varadkar, who at the time was health minister, announced that he was gay, a measure credited with bolstering the “Yes” vote.By the time he became prime minister, or taoiseach, Mr. Varadkar’s party, Fine Gael, had been in power for six years and was facing a crisis over domestic policy, including issues like health, education and housing. In an election in 2020, the party slumped to third place and formed a coalition with its rival center-right party, Fianna Fáil, and with the Green Party to hold onto power.As part of the coalition deal, Mr. Varadkar resigned as leader and was succeeded by Micheál Martin, the leader of Fianna Fáil. After a stint as deputy prime minister, Mr. Varadkar returned to the top job in December 2022.Speaking in Dublin with cabinet members behind him on Wednesday, Mr. Varadkar trumpeted what he described as his government’s achievements on domestic issues and singled out moves to enshrine personal rights.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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      Antony Blinken Starts Mideast Trip in Saudi Arabia

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      Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the first stop of a Mideast trip amid efforts to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas for a pause in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages and a flow of more humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.The visit to the city of Jeddah comes as the Biden administration hopes it can convince Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a long-term objective that the United States considers important to stabilizing the broader Middle East.The State Department said that Mr. Blinken would be in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Egypt on Thursday to meet with the two countries’ “leadership.” It did not name specific officials.Mr. Blinken told reporters in Manila on Tuesday that his discussions in the Middle East would include postwar plans for Gaza and the wider region.He also said he would address “the right architecture for lasting regional peace,” an apparent reference to diplomacy between the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia to broker a joint agreement.Such a pact would likely require Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in return for its first-ever formal diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. In turn, the Saudis want the United States and Israel to support the creation of a civil nuclear program on Saudi soil, as well as greater military support from Washington.After a period of deeply strained relations, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and President Biden found common ground earlier this year over exploring a potential deal in which Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel and establish diplomatic ties. Many Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia, have long refused to establish a diplomatic link with Israel before the creation of a Palestinian state. Over the past decade, though, that calculus has shifted as the region’s authoritarian leaders have weighed negative public opinion toward a relationship with Israel against the economic and security benefits it could offer — and what they might obtain from the United States in return.Framing the prospect of building ties with Israel as a way to obtain greater rights for the Palestinians could allow Prince Mohammed to limit popular backlash in his own country, where hostility toward Israel and support for the Palestinians is widespread.Mr. Blinken’s trip comes as negotiators from Israel have joined officials from Egypt and Qatar to hold meetings in the Qatari capital, Doha, aimed at achieving a temporary cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held by Palestinian militants. More

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      Mexico Condemns Texas Law, and Says It Will Not Accept Deportations From the State

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      Mexico will not accept deportations made by Texas “under any circumstances,” the country’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow Texas to arrest migrants who cross into the state without authorization.The ministry condemned the state law, known as Senate Bill 4, saying it would separate families, violate the human rights of migrants and generate “hostile environments” for the more than 10 million people of Mexican origin living in Texas.Mexico’s top diplomat for North America, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, rejected the ruling on the social media on Tuesday, saying that immigration policy was something to be negotiated between federal governments.The Mexican government has severely criticized the measure since last year, and rejected the idea of local or state agencies, rather than federal authorities, detaining and returning migrants and asylum seekers to Mexican territory.“Texas has taken a very combative stance,” said Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican studies at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s only aggravating the problem because you violently close one part of the border, but others are still open.”A senior Mexican foreign ministry official who was not allowed to speak publicly said that the Supreme Court ruling would not affect existing migration agreements between the two countries.While Mexico has served as the United States’ immigration enforcer, often discouraging migrants from massing at the border, the country has also publicly pushed for two key policies to address the root causes that force people out of their home countries — such as poverty, violence, inequality and climate change — and expand regular pathways for migration.Last week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico said his administration was proposing that the Biden administration give legal status to at least five million undocumented Mexicans living and working in the United States.He has also called on the United States to suspend sanctions against Venezuela and lift the blockade against Cuba, saying that such measures would reduce migration flows from those countries. And he has called proposals to build walls or close the border as “electoral propaganda.”“Do you think the Americans and Mexicans will approve of this?” Mr. López Obrador said last month. “Companies cannot stand it. Maybe for a day, but not for a week.” More

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      U.S. Defense Secretary Praises NATO Allies for Commitment to Ukraine

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      Despite doubts about further U.S. aid, the American defense secretary told a meeting of Kyiv’s backers that the fight against Russia “remains one of the great causes of our time.”With additional American aid still in doubt, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Tuesday called for “creative, adaptable and sustainable ways” to continue arming Ukraine and praised European allies who were trying to bolster Kyiv’s military as the war against Russia entered a critical stretch.Mr. Austin, in Germany for the start of a semiregular meeting of nearly 50 nations who are supplying Ukraine’s forces, said that allies would “dig deeper to get vital security assistance to Ukraine.” He singled out Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden for recent donations of weapons and noted the Czech Republic’s efforts to provide 800,000 artillery shells — the first tranche of which could arrive on the battlefield within weeks.Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin would send Ukraine 10,000 rounds of badly needed artillery shells, 100 armored infantry vehicles and transport equipment in a new infusion of support worth 500 million euros, about $544 million.“Things are progressing sometimes in small steps, sometimes in larger steps, but the main thing is the constant supply of ammunition,” Mr. Pistorius told journalists in Germany, according to local news reports.The United States remains the single largest donor of military support to Ukraine, and last week, Washington pledged an additional $300 million of air defense missiles, artillery rounds and armor systems. The latest package also included attack missiles with a range of about 100 miles that dispense clusters of small munitions and can do damage over a wide area, though they are still at least a week from arriving.Yet Ukrainian forces are expected to burn through the new American aid within a few weeks, and it is unlikely that the Biden administration will be able to send much more unless Republicans in Congress agree to a $60 billion emergency spending plan to ship additional weapons to Ukraine and bolster armament production in the United States.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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      Serbian Leader Says Kushner Deal Is Not an Effort to Influence Trump

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      After news reports that Jared Kushner plans to redevelop a site in Belgrade bombed by NATO in 1999, Serbian politicians clashed over whether the deal was appropriate.The president of Serbia on Monday batted away any suggestion that he might have intentionally tried to steer a valuable real estate project in Serbia’s capital to Jared Kushner, Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law, in an effort to influence Mr. Trump should he return to the White House.“I died laughing,” the Serbian leader, Aleksandar Vucic, said at a rally, referring mockingly to news reports that Mr. Kushner was close to an agreement to invest $500 million in redeveloping a high-profile site in central Belgrade, the capital. “I read in some papers that I used this for a political influence on Trump, that corrupted America or someone in America. I am a miracle. It is incredible what all I can do.”Mr. Kushner, who was a senior White House adviser under Mr. Trump, has teamed up with a second former Trump aide, Richard Grenell, on the plan.The tentative agreement between the Kushner team and the Serbian government would grant Mr. Kushner’s investment firm a 99-year lease, at no charge, and the right to build a luxury hotel and apartment complex and a museum on the site of the former headquarters of the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999.News of the proposal provoked strong objections on Monday from opposition party leaders in Serbia during a meeting of the parliament.Opposition party leaders said they had not been properly informed of the plan and called it inappropriate that an American company owned by a Trump family member would be allowed to earn profits off a site that a United States-led coalition bombed 25 years ago.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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      New Havana Syndrome Studies Find No Evidence of Brain Injuries

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      The findings from the National Institutes of Health are at odds with previous research that looked into the mysterious health incidents experienced by U.S. diplomats and spies.New studies by the National Institutes of Health failed to find evidence of brain injury in scans or blood markers of the diplomats and spies who suffered symptoms of Havana syndrome, bolstering the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies about the strange health incidents.Spy agencies have concluded that the debilitating symptoms associated with Havana syndrome, including dizziness and migraines, are not the work of a hostile foreign power. They have not identified a weapon or device that caused the injuries, and intelligence analysts now believe the symptoms are most likely explained by environmental factors, existing medical conditions or stress.The lead scientist on one of the two new studies said that while the study was not designed to find a cause, the findings were consistent with those determinations.The authors said the studies are at odds with findings from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who found differences in brain scans of people with Havana syndrome symptoms and a control groupDr. David Relman, a prominent scientist who has had access to the classified files involving the cases and representatives of people suffering from Havana syndrome, said the new studies were flawed. Many brain injuries are difficult to detect with scans or blood markers, he said. He added that the findings do not dispute that an external force, like a directed energy device, could have injured the current and former government workers.The studies were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Monday alongside an editorial by Dr. Relman that was critical of the findings.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