2025
January
17
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 17, 2025
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

A ceasefire in the Middle East would seem to signify, at long last, a chance for new beginnings. But in talking to people in Israel and Gaza, Taylor Luck and Ghada Abdulfattah suggest something less clear in their powerful report today.

The uncertainty that has defined the war is not so easily shaken off. First, the long breath, held for some 15 months, must find some space merely to exhale into days not filled by pounding fear. People must reestablish some sense of their own humanity, a beginning to a beginning.


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News briefs


Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Shir Torem/Reuters
Protesters seeking the release of hostages seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack from Gaza embrace ahead of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 16, 2025.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump meet in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019.

On Film

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Fernanda Torres, seen here as Eunice Paiva, recently won a Golden Globe for her “I’m Still Here” performance.

In Pictures

Guy Peterson
HIGH ACHIEVER: The Agadez Mosque in Agadez, Niger, is the world’s tallest mud-brick structure. Its minaret rises 89 feet.

The Monitor's View

AP Photo/Mike Caudill
Michael Vick holds a whistle around his neck after he is introduced as the head coach of the Norfolk State football team, Dec. 23, 2024 in Norfolk, Va.

A Christian Science Perspective

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Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris signs the interior of the center drawer of her desk in the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff records the longstanding tradition Jan. 16, 2025.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us this week. Next Monday will be the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday in the United States, which means we would normally be taking the day off. But it also happens to be Inauguration Day for President-elect Donald Trump. So we will be sending you a special newsletter on that topic Monday. The regular Daily will return Tuesday. 

More issues

2025
January
17
Friday
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