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BEIRUT — Diplomats and other officials say there have been several sticking points in ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as conditions for an agreement appear to be ripe. Israel’s military has killed nearly all of the militant group’s top leaders, but it continues to fire missiles into Israel.

This year, the U. S. Department of the Interior’s Interior Business Center moved into a new office space in Denver. Building 48 is part of a sprawling complex of government service buildings, the largest concentration of federal agencies outside of Washington D. C. The building has been repurposed several times; it was previously a World War II munitions plant and most recently an aging National Archives and Records Administration warehouse.

Rice is not just a food—it’s the heartbeat of cultures, a unifying thread that has woven together the histories, traditions, and daily lives of countless communities across the globe. For billions of people, rice is more than a staple; it’s a symbol of identity, heritage, and survival. To imagine a world without rice is to imagine a world without culture, a loss that goes beyond the physical and touches the very soul of humanity. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] As a chef and founder of Fieldtrip, a rice bowl shop in New York City, and author of The Simple Art of Rice, a cookbook focused on rice, I have dedicated my career to understanding and celebrating this essential grain.

Each year during Native American Heritage Month in November, school classrooms around the country focus on Indigenous history. For educators in Illinois, this fall marks the first school year with a new state mandate to teach Native histories in elementary and high school classrooms, a shift that brings Illinois into alignment with at least 14 other states that require teaching Indigenous histories.

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. As word ricochetted around Washington last week that Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Justice was pulling his name amid untenable scrutiny of a dating life alleged to include minors, drugs, and cash, nowhere were the sighs of relief louder than from the DOJ staffers themselves. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Disaster dodged,” one career prosecutor texted me in the hours that followed Gaetz’s professed self-decided exit.

Over the past two years, we’ve witnessed advances in AI that have captured our imaginations with unprecedented capabilities in language and ingenuity. And yet, as impressive as these developments have been, they’re only the opening act. We are now entering a new era of autonomous AI agents that take action on their own and augment the work of humans.