First Run News

RAQQA, Syria — From the top-floor sniper position in western Raqqa, members of an American-backed militia scanned the ground for any signs of movement. “We have hot soup, we have bread: Come out and surrender,” one of the fighters said on a loudspeaker. “The ISIS members and their families who surrendered to us are safe.” I was one of a handful of journalists who accompanied the militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, for about 10 days. Twice I went to the front lines in the city, which has been largely liberated after a four-month battle.

It was never just a traffic circle. Not before Syria fell into civil war and the Islamic State moved into Raqqa, when there was lush grass and a fountain at its center, and children splashed in the heat of the summer and visited the Cafe al-Naem ice cream shop. And not after, when it became a symbol of the battle for Raqqa, and, the militants decided, an ideal spot for public executions. The traffic circle is known as Naem — Arabic for “paradise.” When a summer heat wave hit Raqqa, nestled on the banks of the Euphrates River, children jumped into the fountain at the center of the Naem traffic

Its de facto capital is falling. Its territory has shriveled from the size of Portugal to a handful of outposts.

Its de facto capital is falling. Its territory has shriveled from the size of Portugal to a handful of outposts.

BARCELONA, Spain — The Spanish government said it was preparing emergency measures to halt Catalan secessionism in its tracks after the region’s leader warned on Thursday that separatist lawmakers could vote in favor of a declaration of independence, significantly escalating the territorial battle between the national and regional governments. The announcement from the central government came almost immediately after Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan leader, warned national leaders in a letter that the separatists were prepared to press ahead with independence if the national government used emer

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the second in a radically new class of treatments that genetically reboot a patient’s own immune cells to kill cancer. The new therapy, Yescarta, made by Kite Pharma, was approve

RIO DE JANEIRO — Federal prosecutors in Brazil on Wednesday charged a Brazilian partner in the former Trump Hotel Rio de Janeiro with paying bribes to propel the city’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. The businessman, Arthur César de Menezes Soares Filho, is a fugitive in the United States, according to Brazilian prosecutors.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday backed away from his endorsement of a bipartisan Senate proposal to stabilize health insurance markets, throwing the legislative effort into doubt even as the chief architect of the deal predicted that it would become law before the end of the year. The latest actions by the White House confused Republicans on Capitol Hill and irked Democrats — but in the end, their effect was not clear.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday backed away from his endorsement of a bipartisan Senate proposal to stabilize health insurance markets, throwing the legislative effort into doubt even as the chief architect of the deal predicted that it would become law before the end of the year. The latest actions by the White House confused Republicans on Capitol Hill and irked Democrats — but in the end, their effect was not clear.

WASHINGTON — Four days after his son died in Afghanistan, John F. Kelly, then a Marine Corps general, eulogized two Marines killed by a truck bomb in Iraq. He made only a fleeting, oblique reference to his son Second Lt. Robert Kelly as he paid tribute to the two other fallen service members who held their ground for six seconds as a truck bore down on them. Now Mr.