The New York Times: Μια νέα αυγή για τη Συρία – Μια ιστορική μετάβαση της εξουσίας στη Συρία και τα σχέδια του Ντόναλντ Τραμπ για την επόμενη κυβέρνησή του – Τι ήξερε η Άλις Μούνρο – Οι αντάρτες διεκδίκησαν την εξουσία στη Συρία – Το Ισραήλ προειδοποίησε για παρουσία της Χαμάς στα σχολεία του ΟΗΕ – Ο Τραμπ σηματοδότησε ένα επιθετικό άνοιγμα – Νότος Κορέα: Η προσπάθεια των βουλευτών να παραπέμψουν τον Πρόεδρο Γιουν Σουκ Γιολ κατέληξε σε αποτυχία το βράδυ του Σαββάτου, παρατείνοντας την αβεβαιότητα στη χώρα – Αλίκη Munro, η βραβευμένη με Νόμπελ Καναδός συγγραφέας που πέθανε φέτος, ήταν γνωστός στο σπίτι ως «St. Αλίκη», ένα παράδειγμα αρετής και συμπόνιας – Η Παναγία των Παρισίων άνοιξε ξανά

A toppled statue of Syria’s late president, Hafez al-Assad, in Damascus yesterday. Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Rebels claimed power in Syria

In a stunning fall, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has fled to Russia, state media there and two Iranian officials said yesterday, after he lost his hold on power to a lightning fast offensive by rebels. Here’s the latest.

Earlier in the day, the main group in the rebel coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, announced that its fighters had taken the capital. “The city of Damascus has been liberated; the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled,” a rebel said in a state television broadcast, adding, “Long live a free and independent Syria for all Syrians of all sects.”

The al-Assad family had ruled Syria with an iron fist since the early 1970s, and many citizens greeted the president’s fall with hope after long living in fear of their oppressive government. But deep uncertainty over who will rule Syria next raised worries of a possible power vacuum, even as celebratory gunfire crackled around Damascus and prisoners were freed. Here’s our analysis of what may lie ahead.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the Islamist rebel leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who spearheaded the rebel offensive, declared the group’s achievement “a victory for the whole Islamic nation.” Once linked to Al Qaeda, his group has tried to gain legitimacy by eschewing jihadist ambitions and by focusing on organized governance. Read more about the rebels.

First person: “Our hearts are dancing with joy,” one Damascus resident said. “We can’t predict the future and anything is possible, but the most important thing is we got rid of this oppressive regime.”

In other news:

Israeli soldiers standing next to an access point made by the Israeli military into a tunnel said to have been built by Hamas that ran beneath an UNRWA school, as photographed during an escorted tour in February. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Israel warned of a Hamas presence in U.N. schools

At least 24 employees of schools in the Gaza Strip run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees were members of the militant groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad, according to interviews and internal Hamas documents shared with The New York Times by the Israeli government. A majority were top administrators, and the rest were school counselors and teachers, the documents say.

The refugee agency, known as UNRWA, operated nearly 290 schools across the territory before they were shuttered by the war. It employs roughly 13,000 people, including thousands in the schools, and it has a duty to maintain the neutrality of its facilities in the conflict zones in which it operates.

Response: UNRWA officials say Israel is pursuing a campaign to discredit the agency, which provides services to millions of Palestinians in the region. It is difficult, U.N. officials say, to guarantee that there are no militants among the agency’s workers in Gaza, where UNRWA is one of the largest employers, and where Hamas has exercised control for nearly two decades.

Verification: The records bear similarities with other Hamas records that The Times has examined, and the names and identification numbers listed match those in a separate UNRWA database. The information was shared at The Times’s request, and the Israeli government did not choose to share the materials with the agency itself, a U.N. official said.

Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Trump signaled an aggressive opening

In Donald Trump’s first sit-down broadcast interview since being elected again, he outlined an aggressive plan for opening his second term, vowing to move immediately to crack down on immigration and pardon hundreds of his backers who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Read our fact-check of the interview, which aired on NBC.

Trump also indicated that he would try to bar automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents and that he planned to fire the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray.

He has threatened to lock up political foes like Liz Cheney who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack, but said in the interview that he would not directly order his new attorney general or F.B.I. director to pursue the matter. (Cheney, in turn, said his threats were an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”)

Quotable: “I’m really looking to make our country successful,” Trump said when asked about investigating President Biden and his family. “I’m not looking to go back into the past. I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.”

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Photo illustration by Vanessa Saba

Alice Munro, the Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author who died this year, was known at home as “St. Alice,” a paragon of virtue and compassion. But the revelations that she knew that her youngest daughter, Andrea Skinner, had been sexually abused by Munro’s partner, Gerald Fremlin, and that Munro stayed with Fremlin regardless have rocked literary circles.

In the months since the revelations emerged, The Times Magazine revisited Munro’s stories, spoke with members of her family and tracked down a number of her unpublished letters. Here’s what we know.

Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Notre-Dame has reopened

More than five years after a devastating fire, the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris reopened to the general public over the weekend.

Last night, 2,500 worshipers gathered there as its first regular Mass was celebrated below the soaring stone arches — the old ones indistinguishable from the new. “Fire has not conquered stone, despair has not conquered life,” Msgr. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the cathedral, declared in his opening remarks.

For more: Take a look at photos of the interior and a 3-D model, read about how 250 companies and 2,000 people did the work and see photos of the opening weekend.

Romulo Yanes for The New York Times

Cook: Our food writer describes this easy vegetarian dinner as “pizza in rice form.”