Guantánamo Bay Explained: The Costs, the Captives and Why It’s Still Open

The Pentagon’s detention operation at Guantánamo once held hundreds of men who were captured by U.S. forces and their allies in the war against terrorism. Now there are just 15 prisoners as the prison enters its 24th year. President George W. Bush opened and filled it. President Barack Obama tried to close it but couldn’t. […]

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Peter Fenwick, Leading Expert on Near-Death Experiences, Dies at 89

In early 1988, the British neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick found himself drowning in letters from people who believed they had survived an encounter with death. “I slowly floated down a tunnel, not afraid in any way but looking forward to something,” one man wrote to him. “When it came I was absolutely at peace and going […]

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‘Approaching the Light’: Peter Fenwick and Stories of Near-Death Experiences

I didn’t fully understand the limits of my body until this past June, when I fell down my fire escape and floated outside myself in a near-death experience, much like the ones Peter Fenwick — a psychiatrist who researched end-of-life phenomena — documented over the course of his career. (Dr. Fenwick died on Nov. 22 […]

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Grand Slam prize money is enormous. The economics of tennis tournaments is complicated

Four times a year, one of the biggest and most important tennis tournaments in the world sends out an announcement full of dollar signs and zeroes with the words “record prize money” scattered liberally. The four Grand Slams, the first of which begins Sunday in Melbourne, are the high points of the tennis calendar. Players […]

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At Jimmy Carter’s Funeral, a Rare Image of Presidential Unity

Three days after the Jan. 6 anniversary, with its indelible images of costumed rioters running amok in the Capitol, former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral service in the National Cathedral presented a historical picture of a different kind, one that spoke not of upended norms, but of preservation and strength. It was a picture, unofficial but […]

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House Passes Bill to Sanction I.C.C. Officials for Israeli Prosecutions

The House on Thursday passed legislation that would impose sanctions on officials at the International Criminal Court, making a frontal assault on the tribunal in a rebuke of its move to charge top Israeli leaders with war crimes for their offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The bill instructs the president to freeze property assets and […]

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U.S. Steel Faces Stark Choices as Nippon Steel Merger Founders

For more than a year, U.S. Steel pursued an ambitious solution to its mounting challenges. Once a symbol of American industrial might, it had agreed to a takeover by Nippon Steel, a Japanese rival, in a bid to ward off obsolescence. Citing the need to finance a costly modernization of its mills, U.S. Steel warned […]

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Surviving and thriving in the nastiest spot on NHL ice

You gotta want it, right? That’s what they always say, “they” being the NHL players who dare tread into the lawless border between slot and crease, the coaches who send them there, and the fans in the 300-level relentlessly calling for blood. It’s about desire. It’s about a willingness to take the punishment, and an […]

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