Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Senator Chuck Schumer in a closed-door speech to Senate Republicans on Wednesday, days after the Democratic majority leader branded him an obstacle to peace in the Middle East and called for new elections to replace him after the war. winds down.

Netanyahu’s virtual appearance before Republicans — and a refusal by Schumer to allow him to make a similar speech to Senate Democrats — dramatized the growing partisan divide on Capitol Hill and in American politics over the leadership of Netanyahu and Israel’s offensive in the US Gaza.

At the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu called Mr. Schumer’s speech in the Senate last week “completely inappropriate and outrageous,” according to Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, who was present. And many Republican senators said they agreed with him.

“He wasn’t happy,” Mr Hawley said of the prime minister. “He made that very clear.”

In an explosive speech last week, Mr. Schumer named Mr. Netanyahu alongside Hamas as one of the main obstacles to peace, trying to make the case that Americans can love and support Israel and yet be deeply critical of Mr. Netanyahu and its far-right government.

President Biden called it a “good speech” and some Democrats applauded Mr. Schumer for speaking out at a time when Israel’s offensive against Hamas has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, including civilians. But conservative Jewish groups and Republicans were stunned and dismayed, accusing Schumer of crossing a dangerous line.

Former President Donald J. Trump went even further, saying in an interview that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and their religion. It was an extreme version of a tactic that many elected Republicans have long tried, portraying Democrats who question Mr. Netanyahu or his policies as denouncing Israel itself and even anti-Semitic.

His appearance at the Republican Party’s closed-door Confab on Wednesday was not the first time Mr. Netanyahu has waded into a bitter partisan fight over support for Israel, allying himself with Republicans eager to boost their support for Jewish wanted to show. In 2015, the prime minister accepted an invitation from Republicans in the House of Representatives to make his case against the Iran nuclear deal before Congress, without consulting the White House, which was then in the grip of negotiating the deal.

On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu told Republicans that his policies reflected the consensus of Israelis and that Mr. Schumer’s comments would not affect how he planned to proceed with his offensive.

“He made it very clear that he intends to continue the war against Hamas with the full extent of his power, and he said the American people are behind him,” said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. “He said even if we have to go alone, we won’t stop.”

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and minority leader, said he told Netanyahu he believed Schumer had crossed a line by “giving advice to a Democratic ally on when to hold elections or what kind of military campaign to feed. conduct.”

“It seems to me that bipartisan support for Israel is beginning to waver,” Mr. McConnell said, making clear he thought Democrats were responsible.

In his speech, Mr. Schumer accused Mr. Netanyahu of pursuing policies that undermine Israel’s own democratic values ​​and jeopardize the possibility of a two-state solution in the future. He has accused Republicans of politicizing support for Israel, which has historically been bipartisan, and accused Netanyahu of only targeting Republicans.

During the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu asked Republicans to continue their vocal support for Israel and help the country end the war, several attendees said.

“He emphasized several times that Israel is not asking for American ground troops, and is not asking for America to fight its war,” Mr. Hawley said. Mr. Netanyahu asked for financial help to “get the job done” and urged senators to support whatever bill the House sent them that includes billions of dollars in aid to Israel.

Mr. Hawley said Republicans directly asked Mr. Netanyahu for figures on civilian casualties in Gaza. “He was very aware of it, he talked about it at length,” Mr. Hawley said, noting that Mr. Netanyahu assured them that the Israelis were doing everything they could to minimize civilian casualties. He said he estimated the death toll at about 28,000, about 2,000 fewer than Gaza’s health ministry said.

Israeli officials had asked if Mr Netanyahu could also address Democrats at their weekly closed-door lunch, but Mr Schumer rejected the request, saying he did not think it was appropriate for a foreign leader to address US elected officials at once . party forum.

“Senator Schumer has made it clear that he does not believe these discussions should take place in a partisan manner,” a spokesperson said. “That is not helpful for Israel.”

Mr. Schumer defended his speech on Wednesday amid a barrage of accusations that he interfered in the democratic process of a close ally.

“I gave the speech out of true love for Israel,” he said. “If you read the speech, we only called for elections after hostilities have subsided, after Hamas has been defeated.”

Republicans made clear they planned to continue harassing him over his speech and blaming Democrats for the growing partisan divide over support for Israel.

“Schumer doesn’t have to like or dislike Benjamin Netanyahu on a personal level,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. “Schumer’s attack was against the people of Israel, because it was the people of Israel who voted. Chuck Schumer had the arrogance and audacity to try to instruct another nation as if it were a puppet state, a banana republic.”

Robert Jimison reporting contributed.

The spending showdown that has brought the government to the brink of a partial shutdown this week is being fueled by Republicans in Congress who, after failing in their attempts to cut federal funding, are still clinging to right-wing policy dictates.

Republicans in the House of Representatives loaded their spending bills with hundreds of partisan policy mandates, the vast majority of which had no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden.

These include measures targeting different parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda, such as one to restrict access to abortion drugs and another to stop the Department of Veterans Affairs from flagging veterans deemed mentally incompetent in a federal background check required to purchase a gun.

With just four days to go before funding for roughly a quarter of the government expires, some of these issues are emerging as major sticking points in negotiations to reach a deal to keep the money flowing. Republicans are also still trying to cut federal programs aimed at providing nutritional assistance to low-income families, as well as women and infants.

Complicating the picture for Speaker Mike Johnson, who met with President Biden and the other top leaders in Congress at the White House on Tuesday, is that Republicans themselves are divided over what to push for in the spending talks. Ultraconservative lawmakers who rarely support spending legislation have been the loudest voices in favor of cuts and tough policy provisions, but more mainstream and politically threatened Republicans have refused to support them.

In one case last fall, more moderate lawmakers helped defeat a spending bill that prevented money from being spent to enforce a District of Columbia law that protects workers from discrimination for seeking contraceptive or abortion services .

Republicans have also tried to undo a new Food and Drug Administration rule that would allow mifepristone — the first pill used in a two-drug abortion regimen — to be distributed through the mail and in stores. And they want to stop the VA from flagging that a veteran has been deemed mentally incompetent in a federal gun background check without a court order.

“These far-right agents of chaos in the House of Representatives do not represent the majority of Republicans in the country,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader, said Tuesday ahead of the meeting at the White House. “They do not represent the majority of Republicans in the Senate. They don’t even represent a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives. Yet they try to force everyone else into submission to get what they want.”

If Congress does not approve a new tranche of funding by midnight Friday, funding for military construction, agriculture, transportation and housing programs will expire. Funding for all other agencies, including the Pentagon, will expire at midnight on March 8.

The driving force behind this impasse is the same dynamic that has persisted since this Congress began a year ago. Far-right Republicans have tried to use their party’s razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives as leverage to force cuts and conservative policy conditions on how federal money from Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats can be spent. And the Republican speaker — first Kevin McCarthy and now Mr. Johnson — has worked to appease that restive group, agreeing to tailor spending bills to meet their demands, even though many of its members have rarely, if ever, supported appropriations bills during their time in the country. Congress.

The result is that congressional leaders have had to turn to Democrats three times to help them fund the government with short-term spending.

Right-wing Republicans have grown increasingly unhappy as they have watched government funding continue to flow without cuts or policy changes, and they are ratcheting up pressure on Mr. Johnson to secure some kind of conservative victory in the current spending negotiations.

Mr. Johnson told Republicans on a conference call Friday not to expect many of their top policy priorities to be included, though he said he expected to score some smaller victories.

Lucas Broadwater reporting contributed.

The spending showdown that has brought the government to the brink of a partial shutdown this week is being fueled by Republicans in Congress who, after failing in their attempts to cut federal funding, are still clinging to right-wing policy dictates.

Republicans in the House of Representatives loaded their spending bills with hundreds of partisan policy mandates, the vast majority of which had no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden. These include measures targeting different parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda, such as one to restrict access to abortion drugs and another to stop the Department of Veterans Affairs from flagging veterans deemed mentally incompetent in a federal background check required to purchase a gun.

With just four days to go before funding for roughly a quarter of the government expires, some of these issues are emerging as major sticking points in negotiations to reach a deal to keep the money flowing. Republicans are also still trying to cut federal programs aimed at providing nutritional assistance to low-income families, as well as women and infants.

Complicating the picture for Speaker Mike Johnson, who met with President Biden and the other top leaders in Congress at the White House on Tuesday, is that Republicans themselves are divided over what to push for in the spending talks. Ultraconservative lawmakers who rarely support spending legislation have been the loudest voices in favor of cuts and tough policy provisions, but more mainstream and politically threatened Republicans have refused to support them.

In one case last fall, more moderate lawmakers helped defeat a spending bill that prevented money from being spent to enforce a District of Columbia law that protects workers from discrimination for seeking contraceptive or abortion services .

Republicans have also tried to undo a new Food and Drug Administration rule that would allow mifepristone — the first pill used in a two-drug abortion regimen — to be distributed through the mail and in stores. And they want to stop the VA from flagging that a veteran has been deemed mentally incompetent in a federal gun background check without a court order.

“These far-right agents of chaos in the House of Representatives do not represent the majority of Republicans in the country,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader, said Tuesday ahead of the meeting at the White House. “They do not represent the majority of Republicans in the Senate. They don’t even represent a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives. Yet they try to force everyone else into submission to get what they want.”

If Congress does not approve a new tranche of funding by midnight Friday, funding for military construction, agriculture, transportation and housing programs will expire. Funding for all other agencies, including the Pentagon, will expire at midnight on March 8.

The driving force behind this impasse is the same dynamic that has persisted since this Congress began a year ago. Far-right Republicans have tried to use their party’s razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives as leverage to force cuts and conservative policy conditions on how federal money from Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats can be spent. And the Republican speaker — first Kevin McCarthy and now Mr. Johnson — has worked to appease that restive group, agreeing to tailor spending bills to meet their demands, even though many of its members have rarely, if ever, supported appropriations bills during their time in the country. Congress.

The result is that congressional leaders have had to turn to Democrats three times to help them fund the government with short-term spending.

Right-wing Republicans have grown increasingly unhappy as they have watched government funding continue to flow without cuts or policy changes, and they are ratcheting up pressure on Mr. Johnson to secure some kind of conservative victory in the current spending negotiations.

Mr. Johnson told Republicans on a conference call Friday not to expect many of their top policy priorities to be included, though he said he expected to score some smaller victories.

Lucas Broadwater reporting contributed.

Like thousands of people in southern Arizona, Josh Ramos' fate is intertwined with the University of Arizona. His mother's job as an accountant at the university supports Mr. Ramos's family and education by making him eligible for a degree. discount that reduces his tuition fees by 75 percent.

“This job has brought us a lot of stability,” said Mr. Ramos, 18, a freshman.

But the University of Arizona surprised the state late last year by announcing a $177 million award shortage in its annual budget of over $2 billion. As the 40,000-student campus prepares for layoffs, Mr. Ramos is concerned. About his mother's work. About having to drop out. About the future of his family.

And the entire state is concerned that Southern Arizona will suffer as the region's largest, most trusted employer loses credibility and trust.

The unrest has shaken the heavily Democratic city of Tucson, where many residents and university officials blame mismanagement at the top.

They say university leaders have landed in catastrophe by spending millions of dollars on top salaries, athletics, risky expansion efforts and tuition subsidies for out-of-state students. Now they worry that middle-class workers and Arizona students will be hit hardest by budget cuts.

“It will touch the heart of Tucson,” said Leila Hudson, associate professor and chair of the faculty.

Other flagship public schools including Penn State And University of West Virginia have recently suffered budget cuts due to inflation and declining enrollment. But the problems in Arizona irritated many people there, because the school was flourishing. The number of students and income are increasing and the university is making money more money from research subsidies and government funding.

University administrators say inflation, the pandemic and widespread overspending have contributed to the financial problems, and they are trying to balance the budget without hurting the university's academics or research. They say that despite the shortage, the university is not in danger of running out of money.

“The university has lost some credibility in the community, and we need to regain some trust,” John Arnold, the interim chief financial officer, said in an interview. Mr. Arnold is also executive director of the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees Arizona's public universities.

The university's response has failed to satisfy critics and Democrat Katie Hobbs. In a letter She told university leaders last month that there was “no coherent vision” for a way forward, criticizing the school for a lack of accountability and transparency and threatening to change its leadership.

To some, the financial mess points to a widening class divide in higher education, where top administrators and coaches can earn $1 million a year while lower-level instructors and part-time teachers say they get by on less than $50,000.

Faculty members say they have already been furloughed during the pandemic, and teaching positions and staff jobs have remained empty in recent years. As they struggled to keep up, they said, the university bought a struggling for-profit online university and spent more than $60 million to keep the athletic department afloat.

University President Robert C. Robbins struck an optimistic tone on Feb. 9 update who described the school's financial plans and said, “I am confident that together we will emerge from this challenge stronger.”

But that hasn't allayed the fear and anger on campus that grew after The Arizona Daily Star reported that Lisa Rulney, the university's chief financial officer, who resigned amid the mess, had stayed on as a consultant and was still receiving a $500,000 salary. Ms Rulney did not respond to requests for comment.

“We're all on the same stormy sea, but they're in yachts and we're in rafts,” said Gary Rhoades, an education professor who has spent months poring over the university's spending to understand the roots of the problems.

The university has now frozen hiring and pay increases, and faculty members who have been following the budget discussions said they are bracing for as many as 1,000 job losses. Earlier this month, the government asked individual schools and departments to outline cuts from 5 to 15 percent.

A union representing campus workers says a handful of people on one-year contracts have already been fired.

Students and campus employees have responded by holding protests outside the administration building, urging leaders to “cut off the top.”

They urged the university to start with its dozens of vice presidents, rather than targeting rank-and-file employees. Mr. Arnold, the interim head of finance, said the university would scrutinize “every” vice president. Expanding bureaucracies have also plagued and led to other universities and colleges higher administrative costs and tuition fees.

The gap between the university's five- and six-figure workforce is particularly acute in a city like Tucson, population 540,000, where an influx of buyers during the pandemic has pushed median home prices to $$$.385,000 from about $250,000.

Even the university food bank is burdensome: It announced this winter that rising prices and more users had forced it to stop offering hygiene products and cut back on some of its food options.

“I'm so excited to work here, and I feel like the school isn't excited to have me,” said Spencer Gantt, who works in information technology and is a member of United Campus Workers Arizona, the local union that represents the most of the demonstrations against layoffs.

Jobs like Mr. Gantt's are perhaps among the most vulnerable. A financial plan released this month showed that the university would make cuts in administrative areas such as human resources, marketing, communications and, to Mr. Gantt's dismay, information technology.

“I'm very scared,” he said. He worried that he wouldn't have a job in a month and said he didn't even know if he was at risk of being fired. He's putting off changing the oil in his Toyota Corolla until he has some certainty.

Some students and employees say they are noticing the consequences of the money problems. Samantha Gonsalves Wetherell, 21, said she was saddened that the university was delaying the release of a climate action plan, which she spent much of her student years helping to create.

“We are all looking for answers, but no one knows,” says Maria Sohn Hasman, program coordinator at the university. “I wake up every day wondering if this is the day I'm going to be fired.”

The university has yet to detail any cuts, but says it plans to save $27 million by permanently eliminating positions. It also said it would hire outside consultants to scrutinize the athletics department's finances and a polarizing new online venture, the University of Arizona Global Campus.

The university started the program by paying $1 in 2020 to acquire a for-profit online school called Ashford University. The deal added tens of thousands of new online students to the university's roster.

But critics say it also saddles the university with more than $200 million in new costs and ties the university to a school that stands And federal Officials say students have been duped by being misled about the cost and value of their degrees, leaving them with little other than debt.

Tuesday the Arizona Board of Regents released a report detailing how and why it acquired Ashford, in response to Arizona's governor demanding more information about the deal. The board said it had not “set aside” concerns about Ashford's business practices, and said Ashford had assured the university that those “practices had been corrected.”

Attorneys representing Ashford's parent company did not respond to requests for comment.

The university said its global campus has been “cash positive” for the university to date, largely because the university received a cash infusion with the acquisition. According to the university's budget projections, the global campus is expected to have a $2.5 million deficit this budget year but will make money next year.

Pam Scott, university spokeswoman, said the new campus will allow the university to “provide access to high-quality, world-class education to thousands of additional students – students who might not otherwise have the opportunity.” Since the takeover, the university says it has shifted its focus from recruiting students to keeping students in school and on the path to success.

With almost 17,000 employeesthe university is the largest employer in the Tucson area, and it says it's pumping it through $4 billion every year in the economy.

Even amid the turmoil, the sunny, red-brick campus bustles with energy and academic achievement.

Huge mirrors, built in a university laboratory under the football stands, are used to see into the deepest corners of the room. Students in a campus building that resembles a desert canyon are busy learning about sustainable desert agriculture. Scientists who have pioneered the science of studying tree rings are using them to decipher climate change and ancient disasters.

One afternoon last week, Hadi Alim, 22, flew by as he pondered whether his family would have a future on campus. His father, who maintains the university's computer networks, has started driving for Uber in case he loses his job.

Mr Alim, a university student studying sustainable built environments, pays his own tuition, which he said he was only able to afford because of the discount he receives as the son of an employee. He said he went to study abroad, somewhere cheaper, as a way out.

“I'm just trying to take it one day at a time,” he said, “and graduate as quickly as possible.”

A Chinese influence campaign that has sought for years to advance Beijing's interests is now using artificial intelligence and a network of social media accounts to deepen American discontent and division ahead of the U.S. presidential election, a new report says.

The campaign, known as Spamouflage, hopes to stoke disenchantment among voters by vilifying the United States as a country rife with urban decay, homelessness, fentanyl abuse, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure, according to the report published Thursday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit research organization in London.

An additional goal, the report said, is to convince the international public that the United States is in a state of chaos.

Artificially generated images, some of which have also been edited with tools such as Photoshop, have given rise to the idea that the November elections will damage and possibly even destroy the country.

A post on Other images showed the two men facing each other, cracks in the White House or Statue of Liberty, and terminology such as “CIVIL WAR,” “INTERNAL STRIFE” and “THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.”

The stories did not appear to have an overtly partisan slant, although Mr. Biden was the target of multiple negative portrayals, including references to his son Hunter Biden's legal troubles and claims that the president is a drug user. Spamouflage's attitude toward Mr. Trump was more ambiguous; posts claiming that his “anti-hero status makes him unstoppable” could be interpreted as flattering. Both men were portrayed as too old to rule.

In America's “hyper-polarized division,” China sensed an opportunity, said Elise Thomas, a senior analyst at the institute that wrote the report. Spamouflage's focus on social conflict and antagonism in the US presidential race could also indicate how Beijing hopes to shape the many other major elections taking place around the world this year.

“In this narrative universe, American democracy is portrayed as a source of disunity and weakness,” Thomas said in a statement. “They are trying to create a sense of a hardened superpower in disarray, unable to solve its internal problems and unfit to act as a leader on the international stage.”

Spamouflage has been active since 2017, Ms. Thomas wrote in the report, adding that the campaign is “notorious among researchers both for its sheer size and for its inability to generate any significant engagement from real social media users.” Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said last summer it had removed thousands of social media accounts and hundreds of pages linked to the campaign. Meta researchers linked the campaign to Chinese law enforcement.

Thursday's report focused on spammy posts on on X.

Researchers at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights warned in their report on digital risks to this year's elections that the main threat in the 2024 election came less from AI-generated content and more to do with the dissemination of false, hateful and violent material. The reportpublished Wednesday, said such content has become more common because numerous social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, had backed away from some of their previous commitments regarding election integrity.

The researchers picked to be reduced.

The researchers also noted that political polarization in the United States was likely to entice China and others to sow confusion among voters.

In the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe's comedy-drama about rock musicians in the 1970s, the character played by Zooey Deschanel at one point gives her younger brother some advice. “Listen to 'Tommy' with a candle burning, and you'll see your whole future,” she says.

I'm going to adopt that thought for today's newsletter: Stare at this annotated map with – or without – a lit candle, and you will see your entire future.

The graph, created by my colleague Lauren Leatherby, a Times visual journalist who has covered the world's demographic shifts, shows how the number of working-age people around the world is expected to change by 2050.

The European working population will shrink. This also applies to Brazil, China, Chile, Japan and Russia, among others. And that change, without mitigation, could have extremely negative consequences for those societies.

“Working age population” can sound technical and abstract. But these are the people who staff our offices and factories, work on farms, treat the sick, care for the very old and the very young. They are the ones who have and raise children; who build new things and repair old ones.

When that population shrinks, those activities become more difficult, expensive and less frequent. The economy is slowing down. Fewer workers getting paid generate less tax revenue. As the population ages, more and more people rely on government welfare programs to fund their pensions and health care, putting further pressure on these vital programs.

The baby riddle

This is primarily a story about birth rates. As countries get richer, people have fewer children; and it turns out that once birth rates drop, it's very difficult to get them back up. Although a number of countries have tried to increase fertility through tax breaks, cash bonuses, and even heroism rewards given to women who have many children, none of these programs have made more than a marginal difference.

But if you look at the map a little longer, you'll see the phenomenon that has allowed a few wealthy countries to cushion the blow of demographic change: immigration.

Australia, Canada and the United States have small green dots, indicating modest growth in the labor force. This is largely because those countries absorb relatively large numbers of immigrants, who not only immediately increase population numbers when they arrive, but also tend to have more children than the native population. In the United States, for example, the increase in births since the 1970s has been modest fully driven by births to immigrant mothers. According to Canada, immigration is the only driver of population growth government statistics.

To be clear, immigration can only be a partial solution to this demographic shift. To put the figures in perspective, to remain at the same level in 2050, Europe would have to absorb about half of the entire labor force growth in India, the most populous country in the world. China, which faces an even bigger deficit, could absorb all of Pakistan's growth And that of Nigeria – Africa's most populous country – and is still two million less than where it stands today.

At the same time, this map strongly suggests that the ability to attract and integrate large numbers of immigrants will be a key competitive advantage for countries in the coming decades.

However, to achieve this, political barriers will have to be overcome that partly arise from the same demographic shifts.

The political doom loop

Rafaela Dancygier, a political scientist at Princeton University, studies the politics of immigration and integration, including what fuels the rise of anti-immigrant far-right parties. She has found that many of the areas in Europe where anti-immigration policies are on the rise share certain characteristics: they have an aging population, fewer workers and fewer children.

“When people talk about population aging in general, they call this a national phenomenon,” she said in an interview. “And that is of course true. But there are also areas in countries, often outside cities, where this is already extremely pronounced. Because the young people are leaving, the working-age people are also leaving.”

Young people are moving to cities and wealthier regions to find work, while older generations are left behind in depopulating cities and regions, making such areas a microcosm of what the aging future could look like. (My colleague Jason Horowitz recently wrote about such a city in Italy.)

This shift is not necessarily inevitable. In Canada, the government is pursuing policies to achieve this increase immigration levels now to cope with some of the demographic decline.

But Europe's aging towns and cities and declining former industrial regions offer insight into why many countries have been slow to follow the lead of countries like Canada. Dancygier and others have found that areas undergoing depopulation are particularly receptive to far-right politics, putting policies to increase immigration further out of reach politically, even as they become more economically necessary.

The process, she said, goes something like this: As areas depopulate, the state tends to withdraw its services from the region. Schools close because there are fewer children. Train and bus lines are canceled or run less frequently. Hospitals closed. It's a local version of the kind of tension that aging countries will face at the national level when there are fewer workers to support more retirees.

That makes life more difficult in practice, she said, but there is also a psychological effect: people feel neglected and undervalued by the political elite.

Far-right parties “are very good at identifying the problem and addressing the grievances of voters living in these areas,” she said. But these parties do not offer realistic solutions to the problems of demographic decline. Instead, they scapegoat immigrants and blame asylum seekers and other foreigners for the region's problems.

That creates a vicious cycle in which the problems of depopulation ultimately fuel political parties whose policies actually make it harder to combat depopulation—a loop of doom from which it can be difficult to escape.

There are changes that can help. Large-scale immigration without investment in housing and public services is a problem; policy aimed at it help integration of immigrants can build connections between locals and newcomers, reducing prejudice and fear. Publicizing these successes and the benefits immigrants bring to their communities and the broader economy can counter political narratives about uncontrolled borders.

In the future, as the economic opportunity gap between continents narrows, recruiting immigrants may become more difficult. Countries that are currently relatively poor but whose populations will grow rapidly, including much of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, may be able to take advantage of their 'demographic dividend' to grow their economies rapidly. Because workers have better options at home, they will be less interested in emigrating elsewhere.

Take the example of Mexico. Although it was once the largest source of immigrants to the United States, net immigration remains so essentially zero since about 2009. (Many immigrants from other countries have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during that time, but that's another issue.) The decline in the net rate from Mexico is partly due to the fact that the United States has less have become hospitable to Mexicans, especially Mexicans. those who were undocumented. But it is also because the Mexican economy has improved. Workers who once came to the United States seeking opportunities can now find them at home.

Currently, political disputes over the extent to which borders should be closed and migrants kept out dominate public debate in many countries. But another conversation is too late. The reality of regions that are already depopulating, represented by the ever-expanding orange circles on the map, offers a glimpse into the future of the rich countries: an aging population and fewer workers and children, a trend that creates political divisions that make it difficult makes to change course. It is a challenge that policymakers will have to face sooner or later.

Microsoft said Thursday it would cut 1,900 positions in its video game division, including at Activision Blizzard, which it acquired three months ago for $69 billion.

The job cuts will take place at video game giant Activision, the maker of popular games like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, and at Xbox, according to a memo from Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Gaming, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The cuts amount to a nearly 9 percent reduction in Microsoft's 22,000-person video game team.

“Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy to bring more games to more players around the world,” Mr. Spencer said in the memo.

Microsoft, which is neck-and-neck with Apple as the world's largest publicly traded company, completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October after a year of regulatory hurdles.

So does the head of Activision Blizzard, Mike Ybarra announced on the social media platform X, that Thursday would be his last day at the company.

“After more than 20 years at Microsoft and with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard behind me, it's time for me to (again) become Blizzard's biggest fan from the outside,” Mr. Ybarra wrote.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After almost fifteen weeks of war, sharp divisions within Israel over the way forward in the Gaza Strip are increasingly coming to light.

A member of Israel's war cabinet, a general who lost a son in the conflict, urged in a television interview late Thursday that the country would pursue an extended ceasefire with Hamas to free the remaining hostages, a rebuke of 'total victory'. pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And in a sign of the growing exasperation among parts of the Israeli public over the government's inability to free the hostages, relatives and supporters of the prisoners partially blocked traffic on a major highway in Tel Aviv before dawn on Friday, prompting police to detain people for short periods of time. seven for 'participation in disorderly conduct and unlawful conduct'.

Israel's emergency ruling coalition is under intense and competing pressure as the war rages on. Right-wing politicians are urging the military to act more aggressively in Gaza, even as Israel faces outrage around the world over the massacre and decimation of much of its territory. At the same time, the hostages' families are pushing for concessions to secure their return.

The divisions between Israel and its closest ally, the United States, are also increasingly exposed. Netanyahu on Thursday appeared to rule out a long-stated U.S. foreign policy goal: a postwar peace process that would lead to the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

“Israel must have security control over all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu said at a news conference on Thursday, referring to an area including occupied territory that Palestinians hope will one day become their independent state. “I tell this truth to our American friends, and I put the brakes on the attempt to force us into a reality that would endanger the State of Israel,” he said.

President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Friday in their first conversation in nearly a month, as the two leaders increasingly disagree over the course of the war and the future of Gaza once the fighting ends.

The White House confirmed the call in a brief statement, saying only that the two leaders spoke “to discuss the latest developments in Israel and Gaza.” And in Yemen, the U.S. military hit three Houthi missiles and launchers, John F. Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told reporters on Friday, a pattern of attacks that the White House said will continue until the militant group attacks. on land strike. Shipping in the Red Sea.

The Israeli official who criticized the prosecution of the war, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, a retired military chief of staff, has exposed some of the lingering tensions within the wartime government. General Eisenkot said Israeli leaders must formulate a vision on how to end the war in Gaza, and on its desired outcome. Only a deal with Hamas would secure the release of the hostages, he said, adding that Israel has so far failed in its stated goal of destroying Hamas. On October 7, more than 240 people were taken hostage and approximately 130 people remain imprisoned in Gaza.

“We did not overthrow Hamas,” General Eisenkot told Uvda, an Israeli news program, in a pre-recorded interview. “The situation in Gaza is such that the war goals have yet to be achieved.”

General Eisenkot's views carry weight in Israel in part because of the personal price he paid in the war: his 25-year-old son, Master Sgt. Gal Meir Eisenkot was killed last month during fighting in Gaza, as was a cousin.

During the hour-long broadcast, he appeared willing to make a deal to free the hostages even if Israel had to accept an extended ceasefire with Hamas. He regretted that a weeklong ceasefire last November, under which groups of hostages were released daily in exchange for captured Palestinians, had expired, saying it would be difficult to reach a similar arrangement a second time. come.

Since the conflict began, at least 25 hostages have been killed in captivity, including at least one in a failed rescue attempt, according to Israeli officials. In December, soldiers misidentified three hostages as fighters and shot them dead.

General Eisenkot said a heroic rescue mission – like the 1976 Entebbe attack, in which Israeli commandos saved the lives of 103 people aboard a hijacked plane in Uganda – “will not happen” because the hostages were dispersed and largely held underground.

Tamir Pardo, former head of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, echoed General Eisenkot's message in a television interview on Friday evening. Those in Israel who talked about returning the hostages while eliminating Hamas were “blatantly lying,” he said.

While there is broad support among Israelis for the Gaza campaign, many have become increasingly irritated by the Netanyahu government's lack of progress in returning the hostages.

At a press conference on Thursday, some relatives of prisoners accused Israel's war cabinet of dragging its feet, and called on the government to strike an international deal for the hostages. “Stop lying to us,” said Shir Siegel, whose 64-year-old father, Keith Siegel, is one of the hostages. “You don't do everything you can.”

Underscoring the divisions in the war cabinet, General Eisenkot said Netanyahu bore “sharp and clear” responsibility for the country's failure to protect its citizens on October 7, when about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack. He urged new elections “within months.”

While elections could threaten wartime unity, “the Israeli public's lack of confidence in its government is no less acute,” he said.

As Israel's internal debate has grown louder, some world leaders have grown increasingly alarmed about the suffering of civilians in Gaza and the death toll there, which now exceeds 23,000, according to Gaza health officials.

This was said by a top official of Unicef, the UN children's fund a statement On Thursday he said conditions there were “some of the most horrific” he had ever seen, describing seriously injured children having to undergo operations in dangerous conditions.

“UNICEF has described the Gaza Strip as the most dangerous place in the world to live as a child,” said the official, Ted Chaiban, the agency's deputy executive director. “We said this is a war on children. But these truths don't seem to be sinking in.”

Mr Chaiban said his recent three-day trip to Gaza included a visit to the Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis, where the Israeli army says it is trying to crush a Hamas stronghold. The hospital has been overrun by people injured in airstrikes, and dozens of people sheltering there have fled in recent days as fighting rages around the complex.

He described meeting a child in the hospital whose spleen had been removed after shrapnel cut through her abdomen. The spleen plays an important role in the body's immune system, so the child must recover in isolation, Mr Chaiban said, because she is in “a war zone full of diseases and infections”.

A 13-year-old boy in hospital, Mr Chaiban said, had developed gangrene from a hand injury and had to undergo surgery to amputate his arm – without anaesthesia.

The United Nations has described dire conditions in the enclave, with scarce water, poor sanitation and many children who are malnourished and sick. Only 15 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functional, according to the World Health Organization, which has said that Nasser Hospital alone treated 700 patients on Monday, more than double the typical caseload.

Nadav Gavrielov And Adam Ragon reporting contributed.