Thursday Briefing

Gaza peace talks hit road blocks

In Cairo and at the U.N., talks about a possible truce between Israel and Hamas over the war in the Gaza Strip are making slow progress, as negotiators struggled to come up with plans for pausing the fighting, freeing hostages and speeding up help for Gazans.

A full cease-fire, enacted without preconditions, would be unacceptable for Israel, since it would allow Hamas to remain in control of parts of Gaza. Israel vowed to topple the group after it launched the devastating Oct. 7 attack in which, the Israelis say, some 1,200 people were killed and about 240 abducted.

At the same time, pressure is growing on Israel to stop its deadly military campaign in Gaza, where about 20,000 people have been killed according to health authorities, and to allow more desperately needed aid into the devastated enclave.

Details: Aid inspections have become a particular sticking point. The U.A.E. and Egypt say the current system is too cumbersome and have called for a U.N. inspection system that would leave Israel with no role in searching cargo entering Gaza — something Israel has urged the U.S. to reject.

At the U.N.: A planned resolution would call for extended pauses in the war, allow more aid into Gaza by land, air and sea, and urge the immediate release of all the hostages being held by Hamas. Council members have been fielding multiple last-minute requests by the Biden administration, and the U.S. vetoed two previous cease-fire resolutions.

A state ruling could reshape the 2024 election

The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will play a critical role in shaping the 2024 election, as they are asked to weigh in on a slate of lawsuits related to Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner. Here’s what you need to know.

Those suits now include a novel and momentous legal question: whether Trump should be disqualified from state ballots for engaging in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, in violation of a Reconstruction-era constitutional amendment.

The issues the court is now confronting could drastically affect the timing of the proceedings against Trump, the scope of the charges he should face or his status as a candidate, with potentially profound effects on his chances of winning the election. And the justices could easily become ensnared in several of the questions simultaneously.

Analysis: “In this cycle, the Supreme Court is likely to play an even larger role than in Bush v. Gore,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

Related:

• Trump’s rivals in the Republican presidential primary are bemoaning the ruling. So far, Trump’s legal troubles have only helped him raise money and increase his support.

• President Biden said it was “self-evident” that Trump had “supported an insurrection,” but that the matter was up to the Supreme Court to decide whether he should be on the ballot.

A long-awaited E.U. migration deal

After years of negotiations, European countries struck a deal to overhaul their joint migration system, an agreement aimed at allaying mounting pressure from ascendant far-right political parties across the continent.

The plan, named the E.U. migration and asylum pact, aims to make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers and to limit the entry of migrants into the bloc. It also seeks to give governments a greater sense of control over their borders while bolstering the E.U.’s role in migration management — treating it as a European issue, not just a national one.

Quotable: “Migration is a European challenge that requires European solutions,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in written comments.

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Around the World

A man was in jail for killing Karen Dannett’s father. But after examining more than 100 pages of documents, she felt riddled with doubt about the conviction. And so she reached out, writing: “I really need to hear your side of the story.”

When Detroy Livingston received her letter in jail, he experienced a surge of hope that he had not felt in years. Seven years later, he would walk free.

Rewatching ‘Home Alone’

In the 1990 holiday classic “Home Alone,” in which 8-year-old Kevin McCallister battles burglars through his spacious suburban home, a nagging question presents itself: Just how rich was this family?

Economists dug into data on housing costs and mortgage rates of the era and determined that the McCallisters would have been in the top 1 percent of Chicago-area households. Their home would have been affordable only to a household with an income of $305,000 in 1990 — or about $665,000 in today’s dollars.

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