Protesters and police clashed in the streets of Valencia in eastern Spain on Saturday, as tens of thousands of people marched to demand the regional president resign over his response to floods that killed more than 220 people.

Near Valencia’s City Hall Square, police used batons and shields to push back an angry crowd who at times threw chairs and other objects at the officers, video footage showed. Elsewhere in the city several buildings were vandalized, according to the Valencia mayor, though there have been no reports of serious injuries.

Local media – citing government information – reported an estimated 130,000 people took part in the protest.

The demonstrations started around 6 p.m. local time, when thousands of people – many of them carrying placards and chanting “killers!” – took to the streets to demand the resignation of Valencia’s regional president Carlos Mazón over what critics say was too slow a response to what was the worst natural disaster the region has seen in decades.

The floods, which began in late October, saw a year’s worth of rain dumped on the region in less than 8 hours, which came rushing down the rivers and tributaries toward the Mediterranean sea, picking up cars and destroying bridges along the way.

“The regional government didn’t warn on time for the flooding, didn’t respond on time,” a protester told Reuters.

“So we want them to quit and to let the new government take over the responsibility to clean up the mess that they left.”

Another protester said, “The only thing I want to say is that this abandonment and institutional negligence must be held accountable.”

Mazón has claimed he wasn’t warned early enough about the severity of the rain by central authorities, while the Spanish government says it tried calling Mazón at least four times before being able to reach him.

The regional president, who according to some Spanish media reports was at a restaurant hours into the floods, has denied missing any calls prior to the floods turning catastrophic.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government and local agencies continue to search for over 70 people who remain missing.

More than 8,400 soldiers are taking part in the efforts, according to the Spanish government, along with divers searching near Valencia’s shore.

Valencia’s mayor María José Catalá took to X following Saturday’s protests to urge calm.

“With absolute respect to everyone, I consider that confrontation and vandalism will never be the solution,” she wrote.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, joined other members of Britain’s royal family at a Remembrance Day event in London on Saturday – the latest public appearance by the princess since she underwent preventive treatment for cancer earlier this year.

Catherine, also known as Kate, was shown in a photograph attending the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, along with King Charles and her husband, Prince William.

The festival is an annual commemorative concert which honors all those who have lost their lives in conflict.

Queen Camilla was originally set to attend but pulled out due to a chest infection, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday.

Kate, 42, announced that she had completed chemotherapy in September but cautioned that the road to recovery was still long. She said she would undertake more public engagements when possible as she continues to recover.

In October, she made her first public appearance since her cancer treatment to meet the bereaved families of three children killed in a knife attack in Southport, northwest England.

Kate is also set to attend a Remembrance Day service on Sunday, Buckingham Palace said.

Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist who was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital mourned their loss while a 37-year-old suspect was in custody Saturday.

The victim, Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on Nov. 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest.

Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.

The man was detained on Nov. 7 and questioned by police, and later allegedly confessed to the killing.

After Michalski’s disappearance, her family and friends had launched an effort to find her, starting a Facebook group to gather tips on her whereabouts. Her parents traveled to Hungary to assist in the search, but while en route learned that she had been killed.

At a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday night, the victim’s father, Bill Michalski, told The Associated Press that he was “still overcome with emotion” at the death of his daughter.

“There was no reason for this to happen,” he said. “I’m still trying to wrap my arms around what happened … I don’t know that I ever will.”

Police detained the suspect, an Irish citizen, on the evening of Nov. 7. Investigators said that Michalski and the suspect had met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man’s rented apartment. Police alleged the man killed Michalski while they were engaged in an “intimate encounter.”

Police alleged the suspect confessed to the killing, but said it had been an accident. Police said that he had attempted to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and hiding Michalski’s body in a wardrobe before purchasing a suitcase and placing her body inside.

Allegedly, he then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, around 90 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooden area outside the town of Szigliget.

Video released by police showed the suspect guiding authorities to the location of the body. Police said the suspect had made internet searches before being apprehended on how to dispose of a body, police procedures in missing person cases, whether pigs really eat dead bodies, and the presence of wild boars in the Lake Balaton area.

They said he had also made an internet search inquiring on the competence of Budapest police.

Crime scene photographs released by police showed a rolling suitcase, several articles of clothing including a pair of fleece-lined boots, and a small handbag next to a credit card bearing Michalski’s name.

According to a post by an administrator of a Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” which was created on Nov. 7, Michalski, who went by “Kenzie,” was a nurse practitioner who “will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman.”

At the candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday, Michalski’s father gave brief comments to those who had gathered, and was wearing a baseball cap he said he had received as a gift from his daughter.

Michalski had visited Budapest before, and called it her “happy place,” her father told the AP.

“The history, she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here,” he said. “This was her city.”

Qatar, which has long hosted Hamas’ political office in Doha, has alongside Egypt served as an intermediary for the two sides, which do not officially maintain direct contact.

Except for a brief flurry of activity last month, there have been no real negotiations since six Israeli hostages were executed by Hamas and discovered in a Gaza tunnel at the end of August. During a temporary ceasefire mediated by Qatar and Egypt last November, Hamas released 105 hostages and Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has insisted that any agreement with Israel must lead to a permanent end to the war in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused that demand. In July he effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, 11th-hour demands.

There are 101 hostages still held in Gaza. Israel’s military campaign, launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health; the UN reported that 70% of the fatalities in the first six months of the conflict were women and children.

The Israeli minister of economy, Nir Barkat, appeared to offer the first official Israeli reaction to the move, saying on X that “Qatar was never a mediator, but Hamas’ defender, the one to fund and protect the terrorist organization.” Netanyahu for years backed payments to Hamas through Qatar, in order to divide Palestinian politics and – detractors allege – prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

It is not the first time the Qatari government has expressed frustration. in April, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that Qatar’s efforts were being misused for “narrow political interests” by some involved in the conflict, “which required the state of Qatar to conduct a comprehensive evaluation” of its role.

The Qatari government has now told the Biden administration that it is willing to restart its mediation efforts “when both sides reach an impasse and demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table with the objective of putting an end to the war and the suffering of civilians.”

It may be horrific and redefine the world order. Or it may be underwhelmingly bluster over substance. But US President-elect Donald Trump’s second term will certainly be disruptive. And even the most severe American isolationism – the greatest amount of doing little – will likely herald significant change.

We really know staggeringly little about Trump’s foreign policy. He says he likes it that way. We know he’s against wars that drag in America. He seems fond of dictators, or at least strongmen. He likes what he sees as good deals and destroys what he thinks of as bad ones. He dislikes American allies that he thinks take advantage. He doesn’t believe in global warming. His first term highlighted a man keen to be at the very heart of every matter.

But the president-elect is unique also in how little he’s had to articulate his foreign policy positions. Recall the horror that met George W. Bush being unable to name Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a 1999 campaign interview? Trump would never be asked such a “gotcha” question.

The mainstream media is chewing glass over how it got this election so wrong. A similar exercise in assessing Trump’s likely foreign policy is perhaps in order. To be clear: Trump does not inherit a world at peace, where America’s unquestioning role as a beacon of freedom and moral superiority has brought enduring calm.

The incumbent Biden administration leaves a series of global crises at best unsolved – at worst raging. The current White House may have done the very best anyone could have in meager circumstances. But is it possible that some disruption could be fruitful? Could a chaotic rethink work? At risk of toadying towards an incoming administration, let’s develop that thought for a moment.

Trump’s first term was of itself relatively uneventful compared with the four years that followed. The end of ISIS; immigration bans and odd insults; leaving the Iran deal while making another one with the Taliban; letting Turkey invade northern Syria; and all that weird coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Biden term encompassed a comparative deluge: the sudden yet inevitable collapse of America’s longest war in Afghanistan; the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and then October 7 in Israel, then the spiral of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. Trump may have set some of that in motion, but undoubtedly Biden had the busier watch.

Did Trump have any hand in his own calm first term? If you’re looking for a bright spot in 2017 to 2021 – where erratic, angry gestures might have paid off – the assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 is a glaring case in point. I recall hearing the news that Soleimani – not just the commander of the Quds force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, but at that time the region’s most eminent military personality – had been killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad.

Even one US official involved in the operation expressed surprise to me about the move’s audacity. It felt like the wheels might come off the region, if Iran went to the mattresses to seek revenge. But, in the end, remarkably little happened. And the limits of Iranian power – fanned by years of its role in fighting Syrian rebels and then ISIS – became evident. The US could suddenly kill Iran’s most prominent commander whenever it wanted, without major comeback.

Did that lead to Iran’s growing sponsorship of proxies who slowly walked the region into the crises that followed October 7? Possibly. Or did the strike simply curtail Iranian ambitions? We won’t ever know; but it was the first of many occasions in the years to come when Iran looked weak.

Trump’s clear alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks set to benefit the Israeli incumbent. Yet the president-elect’s broader instincts may limit Israel’s options. The endless funding and arming of Israel’s multiple conflicts is anathema to Trump’s wider goal of reducing US global involvement.

He may also be mindful of the damage supporting the war in Gaza did to the Democrats in the election that he won. Netanyahu must surely have completed much of his regional to-do list, after the horrific assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, and may find his victorious US counterpart less willing to bail him out of any new assaults.

The ongoing war of attrition with Iran will need urgent attention. Yet Tehran now has experience of Trump as someone willing to be wildly incautious and unafraid of international norms. If Iran seeks a nuclear weapon, it can expect a very violent US response. Trump may also pre-empt that Iranian decision by attacking Iran, with Israeli backing. As President Joe Biden – who did all he could to avoid war with Iran – leaves power, Iran looks incredibly weak. Tehran must now deal with a US president it allegedly tried to kill and who has shown – four years ago when Iran was more powerful than it is now – he is unafraid of a war with them.

Trump’s mixture of erraticism and pride may have the most impact on China, whose leader, Xi Jinping, congratulated him on his victory while warning the US would lose from confrontation and gain from cooperation. A damaging tariff war may be avoided through deal-making. But above all China must confront the heady mixture of a US president who would deeply resent having to fight to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, but probably dislike as much being labeled weak if he backed down from such a fight.

Beijing must have frustratingly few signals it can study about the intentions of such a singular and irrational decision-maker, and therefore struggle with knowing when, and if, a potential move on Taiwan would encounter the US boots on the ground that Biden promised.

The earliest, and most risky decision Trump will face is over the continued US support for Ukraine. Any deal will likely involve Kyiv accepting territorial concessions and provide a pause in fighting that allows Moscow to regroup. That will, in of itself, prove hugely dangerous for European security.

But in the current moment we are at in the war, Ukraine is equally in need of time to regroup and rearm. It is losing territory at the fastest pace perhaps yet since the invasion, and would immediately benefit from the frontlines being frozen. It also finds itself at the sharp, bleeding end of Biden’s biggest foreign policy paradox: give Kyiv enough support to not lose, but not enough to let it defeat Russia. Ukraine will one day run, eventually, out of troops willing to fight.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has known the day would come when the idea of another “forever war” became unappealing to NATO, and the world’s largest military alliance eventually sought to wind down its involvement. Everything Trump has said suggests he wants that same exit very soon.

Trump’s grotesque and incomprehensible fondness for Putin makes the details of any deal highly dangerous for Europe and the NATO alliance, founded to confront Russia. But it is a moment Ukraine would – short of a Russian domestic revolt or collapse – have arrived at eventually anyway. Does Moscow accept a better deal hatched with a US president who has been less confrontational and personally offensive towards Putin? Does Putin risk Trump taking greater personal offense if that same deal is later betrayed, and their entente exposed as a sham?

The answers to these questions are for now unknowable. But it would be naive to think they necessarily bode well for Kyiv.

Yet Trump’s ascendancy has not brought with it a new set of global crises and problems. Instead, it means the US and its allies must ready themselves to deal with the same issues with different focus, means and priorities.

That may prove catastrophic for the current world order, and Western democracies as a whole. Or it may force tired societies and alliances to adopt a new spirit of enlightened compromise and impassioned defense.

A suicide bombing at a train station in southwestern Pakistan on Friday killed at least 24 people, according to a senior local government official.

Another 53 people were injured in the attack in the city of Quetta, Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat said in a statement.

“Explosion at the railway station was a suicide bombing,” the statement said.

The blast happened on a platform at the city’s main railway station at about 9 a.m., Senior Police Superintendent Muhammad Baloch said.

“The explosion happened when a large number of passengers were present on the platform,” he said.

Security forces have cordoned off the area, and investigations are underway. The province’s Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti has ordered an inquiry into the incident.

In a statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack.

An insurgency in Balochistan has been running for decades but has gained traction in recent years since the province’s deep-water Gwadar port was leased to China, the jewel in the crown of Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure push in Pakistan.

The BLA has been responsible for the deadliest attacks in Pakistan this year, most recently in October when it targeted a convoy of Chinese engineers and investors in the city of Karachi leaving two Chinese citizens dead.

A seaman who fell off a cargo ship survived almost 20 hours at sea before being rescued off Australia’s southeastern coast on Friday, according to emergency services.

The man in his 30s drifted several kilometers in the open sea before he was pulled from the water by a recreational angler, local rescue authorities have said.

He had last been seen aboard Double Delight, a Singapore-flagged bulk carrier, at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday. Details on how he fell from the cargo ship are not immediately available.

The ambulance service in New South Wales state responded to reports that a seaman had been found at 6:20 p.m. Friday, a spokesperson said. They added that it came from Boatrowers Reserve, near Blacksmiths Beach south of the city of Newcastle.

“The patient, a man in his 30s, was conscious, breathing and alert when assessed by NSW Ambulance paramedics and treated for suspected hypothermia before he was transported to John Hunter Hospital in a serious but stable condition,” NSW Ambulance said in a statement on Friday.

“He was wearing a life jacket, he was conscious, he was able to communicate with us, he was very cold, he was hypothermic and exhausted – he was absolutely exhausted,” she added.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said local officials told them earlier in the day the sailor had reportedly gone overboard the previous evening, about 8 kilometers southeast of Newcastle.

The authority said it had deployed water police and marine rescue units for the rescue, as well as two sea vessels and two helicopters.

Jason Richards from NSW Marine Rescue told 9News that they had no idea how long the man was in the water for in the beginning.

“We later found out he’d been missing since 11.30 p.m., so it sort of increased the search efforts a little bit.” he said, adding that “hearing that he was found alive was just fantastic.”

In a statement, Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport confirmed that police and medical teams were immediately alerted.

The São Paulo Secretary of Public Security said authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the homicide. Further details will be released upon completion of the incident report.

No United States leader has handled relations with North Korea quite like Donald Trump.

The former president went from threatening Kim Jong Un with “fire and fury” if the North Korean leader continued testing missiles, to becoming his pen pal, meeting him in a series of unprecedented summits, and boasting that the two had fallen “in love.”

Now, that unlikely friendship will be put to the test. The former president is set to return to the White House at a moment of acute alarm among the US and its allies about Kim and the threat posed by his regime.

Pyongyang is believed to have sent thousands of troops and tons of munitions to Russia as Moscow wages war on Ukraine, in what Western leaders see as a major escalation. Days before Trump won the US presidential election, it lobbed another threat – testing an intercontinental ballistic missile with the range to strike anywhere in the United States.

On the campaign trail, Trump said Kim “misses” him and implied the country would not be “acting up” when he returns to office.

But the second Trump administration will face an emboldened and arguably more dangerous North Korean leader.

Kim – and potentially his arsenal – are now bolstered by burgeoning ties with Moscow, and he has hardened his stance toward the US and its ally South Korea after the failed diplomacy of the last Trump era.

That makes reaching an agreement between the two to rein in North Korea’s weapons program all the more challenging – and raises questions of whether Trump, known for his impulsive foreign policy, might seek to shift the goal posts on what the US wants to see from North Korea, experts say.

‘Closest comrade’

A series of 2018-19 meetings between Trump and Kim in Singapore, Hanoi and the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea created unprecedented optics for both leaders.

Then, the president of the world’s democratic superpower was pictured smiling and posing for photos alongside a typically isolated autocrat known for his ruthless rule over his people and drive to build sanctions-defying weapons as a means of preserving his regime.

For Trump, the meetings were a bid to accomplish what US presidents have repeatedly sought to do in other ways – curb Pyongyang’s rogue nuclear program. For Kim, they were both a chance to try to get relief from heavy international sanctions – and a rare opportunity to be granted such prestige on the world stage.

But talks ended without any breakthrough – with an abrupt ending to a 2019 summit in Hanoi amounting to what experts say was a huge loss of face for Kim.

Though the leaders met once more that year, Pyongyang has since refused to reengage with the US, experts say, and restarted weapons testing it had appeared to pause alongside that dialogue. While it has yet to initiate a nuclear test since 2017, Kim has recently vowed to increase the country’s number of nuclear weapons “exponentially.”

“The circumstances in which we must deal with North Korea have changed fundamentally compared to five years ago,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

She pointed to the “higher price tag” on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs due to further advancements since Hanoi, as well as North Korea’s “foreign policy reorientation” after the collapse of that summit “set off a fundamental skepticism within the North Korean leadership circle about the strategic value of the United States.”

Kim over the past year has raised international concern by breaking with decades of policy toward South Korea – classifying it as a “permanent enemy.” He’s called on his army to accelerate war preparations in response to “confrontation moves” by the US – actions that came as the Biden administration strengthened ties and increased military drills with South Korea and Japan.

And then there’s the deepening of ties with Russia. The North Korean leader has met with his “closest comrade” Russian President Vladimir Putin twice since last September and inked a major defense pact in June.

Western officials have also warned of what they see as an emerging anti-West ‘axis’ of China, North Korea and Iran with Russia – a trope that, whether actualized or not, is likely to be welcomed by Kim as he seeks to reduce isolation and gain international clout.

“From Kim’s point of view, he has a lot more to gain economically, militarily, and diplomatically by aligning (North Korea) with China and Russia than by reengaging with the United States when the returns are so uncertain,” said Lee.

New breakthrough

All that raises the stakes for how Trump would engage Kim – and calls into question whether the autocrat would even be willing to sit down again – were Trump looking to rekindle the bromance.

But it was “unclear” how Kim would respond to new talks and if he would “get back to the pledge of denuclearization,” O’Brien said, referring to past pledges that never came to fruition. For the US, asking for anything less than denuclearization would be a “hard position” to take, he added.

In response to Trump’s comments that Kim missed him, North Korean state media over the summer said that they “do not care” who takes office in the US. The official position from Pyongyang appears to be that, regardless of what happens in the US, Kim’s nuclear weapons policy will continue.

Still, Kim’s fundamental goals – recognition by the United States as a de facto nuclear power and sanctions relief for economic development – are seen by many observers to remain.

That means the North Korean leader may look for benefit in Trump’s return.

Despite the Pyongyang leader seeing the US as untrustworthy, “Trump’s reelection is likely to encourage Kim Jong Un considerably – at the very least, it would allow him to reassert his personal friendship with Trump … and communicate with him,” said Eul-Chul Lim, director of the North Korea Research Center at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES) in Seoul.

Kim “is likely to capitalize on the fact that a stronger North Korea-Russia alliance would be beneficial to his bargaining power with the United States,” he said.

Whether Trump is interested in deal-making – and what kind of deal – is another question.

Some observers have raised concern that he may seek to water down US demands in favor of getting a coveted deal – or else could ramp up tensions again.

“Trump can be unpredictable… and his style during his first term is not an entirely accurate indicator of future behavior. We will have to see if Trump 2.0 still wants to cap and eventually roll back North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” said Duyeon Kim, a Seoul-based adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“The worst scenario is if Kim convinces Trump 2.0 to scrap denuclearization and even be okay with North Korea advancing its nuclear weapons capability indefinitely,” she said.

Geopolitical fault lines

But hardening geopolitical fault lines since Trump’s last term in office have also fundamentally changed the ground upon which any US-North Korea engagement could be laid.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has driven Russia closer not only to North Korea but also to China – the US’ main geopolitical rival.

Even as Trump has expressed admiration for Putin – and a skeptical view of US alliances such as those with NATO, Japan and South Korea – there are likely to be limits to how far he can reshape those relationships if he seeks to counter Beijing.

Trump will also be dealing with a very different South Korea, where a conservative Yoon Suk Yeol government has emerged as a strong US partner in ramping up deterrence against North Korea – and is unlikely to encourage Trump to meet with Kim without a clear path to Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

“The likelihood of the US abandoning South Korea is low, not least given the gravity of the threat from North Korea, Russia, and, of course, China,” said Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who focuses on the Korean Peninsula.

And “even if leader-to-leader dialogue may catalyze some very short-term reduction in tensions – it is difficult to believe that Pyongyang will make any significant concessions on the ‘treasured sword’ of its nuclear program,” he said.

Tech tycoon Elon Musk joined a call between US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the day after the presidential election, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Zelensky previously said on X that he called Trump on Wednesday and congratulated him on “his historic landslide” win. “We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our cooperation. Strong and unwavering US leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace,” Zelensky wrote at the time.

Trump’s victory comes at a precarious moment in the conflict for Kyiv as Russia makes gains in the eastern Donbas region, which Russian President Vladimir Putin aims to capture in full.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump cast doubt on continued US commitment to Kyiv as the war drags on more than two and half years after Russian forces invaded. He has also made comments that suggest the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia.

Musk – whose pro-Trump super PAC spent more than $118 million in the 2024 campaign – has pitched himself to lead a broad effort to slash spending inside the federal government. His inclusion on Trump’s call with Zelensky raises questions about what his influence will look like in the incoming administration.

In Ukraine, Musk’s Starlink internet service has provided a significant frontline advantage to Ukraine’s smaller military since the 2022 invasion, permitting its forces to share real-time drone feeds between units, and communicate in areas where combat has disrupted cellphone service.

But there have also been concerns about Musk’s reported links with hostile foreign leaders.

A September Wall Street Journal report said the SpaceX founder and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in “regular contact” since late 2022, saying they had discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.”

It raised national security concerns as SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military may have granted Musk access to sensitive government information and US intelligence.

Musk did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that Musk and Putin have only had one telephone call in which they discussed “space as well as current and future technologies.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.