World

George Best’s résumé, in the late 1960s, was pretty much flawless. He was a dazzling, edge-of-the-seat winger, certainly one of the finest players on the planet. For a time, he perhaps did not even require the caveat. He was an English and European champion. Along with Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, he was a sanctified member of Manchester United’s Holy Trinity.More than that, he was a true crossover star. He was a fashionista. He was a heartthrob. He dated models. He graced the hippest nightclubs. He owned a trendy boutique. He was a darling of the swinging ’60s, a genuine celebrity. He had sufficient cultural cachet that he was known, in Spain, as El Beatle.All of that should, of course, have afforded him unquestionable authority when it came to the game that made him famous. Sadly, thoug...

Peace talks in Cairo and at the U.N.. More information

The prospects for passing legislation to speed military aid to Ukraine this year are fading, as Republicans balk at striking a quick deal on immigration policy changes they have demanded in exchange for allowing the bill to move forward.After a weekend of intensive bipartisan border talks yielded progress but no breakthrough, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, acknowledged on Monday that negotiators were still far from completing a deal.“It’s going to take some more time to get it done,” he said on the Senate floor on Monday afternoon, laying out plans for the week that made no mention of any votes on the aid package for Ukraine.That was a reversal from last week, when Mr. Schumer announced he would delay the Senate’s holiday break and keep the chamber in ...

Chileans on Sunday rejected a new constitution that would have pulled the country to the right, likely ending a turbulent four-year process to replace their national charter with little to show for it.More than 55 percent voted to reject the proposed text, with 77 percent of the votes counted.It is the second time in 16 months that Chile, a South American nation of 19 million, has rebuffed a proposed constitution — the other was written by the left — showing how deeply divided the nation remains over the set of rules and principles to govern the country even after four years of debate.That debate began in 2019 after enormous protests prompted a national referendum in which four out of five Chileans voted to scrap the constitution, a heavily amended version of the 1980 text adopted by the b...

An urgent bid by the Biden administration to send a fresh infusion of money to Ukraine for its war against Russia has stalled on Capitol Hill as congressional Republicans demand sweeping changes to the immigration system.Bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill to resolve the impasse have focused on the U.S.-Mexico border — and whether the United States can keep using its current system for deciding who is allowed to enter the country and seek asylum.It is a highly charged debate that touches on a bedrock principle that has long been at the center of American immigration policy: that the United States should be a refuge for people who were being persecuted or under threat in their home countries.Here’s what is in play.Why focus on asylum?In recent years, a skyrocketing number of migrants have arri...

The main reason Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza for nine weeks has not pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt is that country’s heavily fortified border and Cairo’s ironclad determination to keep it closed.But pressure is building. Israel has been pushing Gaza’s 2.2 million residents relentlessly south as its forces seek to destroy Hamas’s military wing and its infrastructure, and about 85 percent of the population has been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are now living in squalid, cramped conditions in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost region, right along the border with Egypt.The bleak conditions have increased fears that the border with Egypt could be breached, allowing large number of Palestinian refugees to enter Egypt, potentially destabilizing an Ar...