How the Israeli Hostage Rescue Led to One of Gaza’s Deadliest Days
Same-Sex Couples in South Korea Win Landmark Rights Ruling
In a landmark ruling for gay rights in South Korea on Thursday, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples qualify for the national health insurance’s dependent coverage, a decision that rights activists hoped could pave the way for legalizing same-sex marriage in the country.
The decision would allow same-sex couples in the country to register their partners as dependents in national health insurance coverage, as married couples or couples in a common-law marriage can. Numerous other benefits are denied to same-sex and other couples living outside the traditional norms of family in South Korea.
In its ruling on Thursday, the country’s highest court ruled that denying a same-sex couple national health insurance dependent coverage “just because they are of the same sex” constitutes a serious discrimination that infringed upon citizens’ “dignity and values, their rights to pursue happiness, their freedom of privacy and their rights to be equally treated by the law.”
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Losing Hope, Venezuelans Vow to Leave Their Country if Maduro Wins
Reporting from Bogotá, Colombia
A young opposition activist planning to trek through seven countries and a perilous jungle to reach the United States. A journalist ready to abandon everything to build a new life abroad. A lawyer in her 60s, fearful that her last daughter is about to leave.
For thousands of Venezuelans, the decision to remain or flee their homeland depends on a single date: July 28. On that day, the country will vote in a high-stakes presidential election.
If the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, declares victory, they say they will go. If the opposition candidate wins, they will stay.
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Why Does Venezuela’s President Appear on the Ballot 13 Times?
On July 28, President Nicolás Maduro will appear over and over again on Venezuela’s presidential ballot.
His challengers, including the leading opposition candidate, are farther down and appear far fewer times.
The ballot features 38 different political parties. They make the election feel legitimate and democratic, even though the electoral process has already been considered far from fair.
Mr. Maduro faces one serious opponent in Edmundo González, who is leading the race with support from more than 50 percent of respondents in several polls. Mr. González appears in a much less prominent location.
The design of the ballot is just one way Mr. Maduro may be trying to tip the scales in his favor.
“We haven’t seen anything similar to this,” said Staffan Darnolf of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a group outside Washington that advises more than 30 countries on electoral operations.
The ballot’s layout, he added, seems to provide Mr. Maduro a clear upper hand.
“It is an advantage to be on the top part of a ballot, because normally that’s what people are looking at,” he said.
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Closing Arguments for Evan Gershkovich Expected Friday in Russian Court
The espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich, the imprisoned reporter for The Wall Street Journal, appears to be moving ahead quickly, with the court in Russia where he appeared on Thursday scheduling closing arguments for Friday.
Mr. Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in the city of Yekaterinburg for the second hearing in his espionage trial, the court’s press service said, according to RIA Novosti, a state news agency. The court said that it had finished investigating evidence in Mr. Gershkovich’s case and was ready to move to closing arguments.
The hearing was initially scheduled to take place on Aug. 13. According to Mediazona, a Russian news outlet, the court moved it ahead at the request from Mr. Gershkovich’s lawyers.
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In Argentina, a Catholic President and His Rabbi
President Javier Milei of Argentina is a Catholic who leads Pope Francis’s native country.
He also regularly studies the Torah, attends Shabbat dinner and has said that perhaps his most important adviser is his rabbi.
Over the past several years, Mr. Milei has taken an intense and, among most world leaders, unusual interest in Judaism.
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Ukraine Loses Hard-Won Position Near Dnipro River in the South
Ukrainian troops have lost a hard-won position on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson, after months of bloody fighting to hold on to a piece of land in what some Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts have described as a futile operation.
The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday night that fighting continued on the eastern bank but that most of the main positions in the village of Krynky, where its troops had gained a foothold, “were destroyed by intense, combined and prolonged enemy fire.” The statement came after several Ukrainian news media outlets reported that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the village, which now lies in ruins.
The operation to establish a bridgehead on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro had been controversial from the start. Launched last fall, it was seen as an attempt to open a new front in the south that would disrupt Moscow’s logistics and tie down its troops in the area. But military analysts warned that the operation, which consisted of dangerous river crossings, was vulnerable in its logistics and unlikely to lead to rapid breakthroughs.
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