The war has pushed Sudan towards the abyss
My colleague Declan Walsh and photographer Ivor Prickett spent three weeks in Sudan, a country that has been largely off-limits to foreign journalists for the past year. Since conflict erupted in April 2023, millions of people have been forced to flee, and looming famine threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.
Khartoum, one of Africa's largest cities and the country's capital, was turned into a burnt battlefield as the feud between the two generals plunged Sudan into civil war and made Khartoum the epicenter of one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.
According to US estimates, as many as 150,000 people have been killed since the fighting began. According to the UN, 9 million people have been forced from their homes, making Sudan the world's largest displacement crisis. Darfur, a region that became synonymous with war crimes two decades ago, is now under threat of a new genocide.
The United Nations has warned that more than 220,000 children could die from famine in the coming months, and if left unchecked, it could rival the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
On the ground: Starving babies fight for their lives in silent hunger wards. Every few days, a baby dies. Artillery shells fly over the Nile, hitting hospitals and homes. The state television station has been used as a torture chamber.
What's next: US-led peace talks are stalled, the Sudanese state is collapsing, and it threatens to engulf fragile regions, with experts saying it is only a matter of time before neighbouring countries such as Chad, Eritrea and South Sudan are dragged in.
Israel tried to influence US public opinion
Israel organized and funded a campaign last year using fake social media accounts and news sites to urge U.S. lawmakers to support the Gaza war, a Times investigation found, showing the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American public opinion.
The campaign began in October and is still active on X. At its peak, hundreds of fake accounts posing as real Americans posted pro-Israel comments. The United States has long been one of Israel's staunchest allies, but the war in Gaza is unpopular with many Americans, who have called on President Biden to withdraw aid to Israel in the face of mounting civilian deaths.
detail: The campaign did not have any widespread impact, Meta and OpenAI said last week. X did not respond to a request for comment.
Gaza:
UN says global heatwaves continue to break records
Earth is already experiencing its hottest year in the last 100,000 years, but the United Nations meteorological agency said today that there's nearly a 90% chance that by 2028, the planet will experience an even warmer year than it has in 100,000 years.
By then, it's almost as likely that the world will have reached a temperature 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above where it was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution — the level that countries tried to avoid in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
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Today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. For many of the veterans left behind, it will likely be their final visit to the coast of northern France. There are fewer than 200 of them. Their average age is about 100.
One of them is Bill Becker, 98, a former top gunner on American aircraft. “I made it,” he says with a tired smile.
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Saudi Arabia attracts tourists
Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia's royal family has spent lavishly to improve the country's reputation abroad and reduce its economic reliance on oil, including investing $800 billion in tourism.
But what is it like to travel to a country that has long been off-limits to most Westerners? Can the Saudi government convince would-be visitors to look past, or rethink, its long-standing associations with religious extremism, ultra-conservatism and human rights abuses?
To see the changes for himself, travel journalist Steven Hiltner spent a month traveling and photographing the Kingdom. Read about his journey and see the photos.