Thursday briefing

Biden defends clean energy agenda

During a tour of a wind turbine factory in Colorado, President Biden rebuked conservative opponents who had labeled his climate policies “a colossal failure.” But even as he emphasized the importance of an economy based on clean energy, the president said little on climate change, just days after refusing to attend COP28, the UN climate summit in Dubai, which starts today.

Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris will attend COP28 tomorrow and Saturday. She plans to “highlight the success of the Biden-Harris administration in achieving the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad,” a spokeswoman said.

Lisa Friedman, a reporter for The Times, reports on the conference, the twelfth she has attended.

What are you going to watch this time?

Lisa: A number of important things are about to happen, including a global assessment of how successful countries have been in meeting the climate targets they set in Paris in 2015 and finalizing the details of a new fund to help vulnerable countries deal with the losses and damage caused by global warming.

But the most important thing I will pay attention to is the political agreement that countries are debating on phasing out fossil fuels.

Which of the two key issues – the Loss and Damages Fund and a deal to replace fossil fuels with clean energy – is likely to be finalized?

Lisa: The ‘Loss and Damages Fund’ should be operational by the end of COP28, and it seems likely at this stage that this will happen. At the beginning of November, the US signed draft UN guidelines that stipulate that the fund will be housed at the World Bank for a minimum of four years. Neither developed countries nor anyone else would be obliged to pay into the fund.

Regarding the energy transition, I think most people expect an agreement to be reached. The only question is how ambitious it will be.

Henry Kissinger dies at age 100

Henry Kissinger, the scholar-turned-diplomat who engineered the U.S. opening to China, negotiated the withdrawal from Vietnam and used cunning, ambition, and intellect to reshape America’s balance of power with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and sometimes flouted democratic norms. values ​​to do this, died at the age of 100.

Few diplomats have been celebrated and vilified with as much passion as Kissinger, who advised 12 presidents from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden. As a German-Jewish refugee, he transformed almost every global relationship he touched, speaking with a lifelong Bavarian accent that sometimes added an indecipherable element to his statements.

From the archives: In 2011, Kissinger spoke with The Times to discuss the dangers of diplomacy, past and present.

Hamas and Israel extend ceasefire

Minutes before the deadline, Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for at least one day. Officials with knowledge of the talks said they also hoped the series of brief pauses would pave the way for a longer-term ceasefire to end the war.

Achieving that is not an easy task. Israeli officials have vowed not to halt their military campaign until Hamas’s leadership is eliminated and the group’s military and administrative infrastructure uprooted from Gaza, goals that remain remote.

Hamas released 16 people held hostage in the Gaza Strip last night, Israeli authorities said, bringing the number of prisoners released above 100, 70 of them Israelis. In return, Israel released another thirty Palestinian prisoners a few hours later. The exchanges so far have mainly focused on women and children.

Details: The Israeli army said more than 140 hostages remained in Gaza. Many of them are soldiers or men young enough to be called up for military service. Hamas officials have said it will demand a higher price for releasing people in these categories.

Opera star Maria Callas, who would have turned 100 on December 2, gave the genre’s melodramas a surprising sense of reality and her characters deep psychological depth, writes The Times’ classical music critic Zachary Woolfe in this review.

“She and her flash of a career,” he writes, “remain a beacon of artistic integrity and depth – of the cultivation of tradition and craft, of a desire to engage the past in the present – ​​in a culture that values ​​those values . qualities are becoming less and less.”

SPORTS NEWS

New football stadiums: Why do they cost so much to build?

The bicycle kick: Alan Shearer investigates the biomechanical beauty of the skill.

Tennis’s “premier tour” revolution: That could be possible within the deal transform the sport.

Gymnastics: In Britain, the weighing of athletes is being restricted after reports of abuse in the sport.

Paddington’s Great Adventure

Paddington is the busiest bear in Hollywood and appears opposite Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro. He even donned a spacesuit for ‘Interstellar’.

But his fame has nothing to do with a promotional schedule. That’s because every day since 2021, artist Jason Chou has been digitally inserting the anthropomorphic star into scenes from popular movies and television shows. He has no plans to stop.