Could Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei be near death? American and Israeli Intelligence analysts have been debating the state of the Iranian political and spiritual leader's health since Khamenei posted a tweet Wednesday asking supporters to pray for him.

The tweet – "I ask all of you dear ones to pray for me" – appeared on "Khameneil.ir," a Twitter site in English closely followed by Iran watchers and viewed as more or less official.

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New York City's problems make for depressing front-page news. More than 11 percent of its jobs have vanished. Small shops are shuttered. Residents are fleeing. The city's tax base has shrunk, just as its needs and crime rates soar. The celebrated melting pot is no longer melting. Over 30 percent of city residents receive public assistance. The mayor tries hiding New York's dire fiscal straits, including its dwindling economic base and rising taxes, through accounting shenanigans, as the city's deficit and long-term debt spiral.

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It's a new day in the Middle East and in Washington. While the contours of President Joe Biden's Mideast policies are still being formulated, his administration took two important actions in as many days that highlight not only his goals for the region but also his red lines.

On Friday, the administration implemented a law passed by Congress which former President Trump had ignored requiring the declassification of an intelligence report on the brutal killing and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

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No industry in New York City has been hit as hard by Covid-19 as theater, and no industry is said to be as vital to the city's recovery. But the much-heralded, long-awaited reopening of Broadway remains largely aspirational. When the pandemic shuttered New York's theaters on March 12, 2020, performing-arts professionals hoped for a summer revival. As the virus spread, prospects for a reopening in the fall gave way to hope for non-virtual theater by January 2021, and then for summer 2021. Last October, the Broadway League predicted that New York theaters would finally reopen in fall 2021. In January, Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, made the target date vaguer by telling performing-arts professionals at a virtual conference that he thought that theaters could safely reopen "sometime in the fall of 2021," with patrons still wearing masks and social distancing, "if everything goes right."

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The release of a prominent female activist this week is Saudi Arabia's latest gesture to curry favor with the Biden administration. Will it work?

Under intense American and international pressure, Saudi Arabia has released from prison Loujain al-Hathloul, who led the charge for women to drive in the kingdom. But far more is at stake than the fate of the country's most prominent feminist activist, or that of other women and male activists who are not famous and still languish in Saudi jails.

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