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 A Russian strike on a nine-story building in the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded dozens, an official said Sunday, as Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack described by officials as the largest in recent months. Among the eight killed in Sumy, 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the border with Russia, were two children, said Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko. More than 400 people were evacuated from the building. The rescuers were checking every apartment looking for people who might be still in the damaged building. “Every life destroyed by Russia is a big tragedy,” said Klymenko. The drone and missile attack, which targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure, came as fears are mounting about Moscow’s intentions to devastate Ukraine's power generation capacity ahead of the winter. Also Sunday, President Joe Biden authorized for the first time the use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia, after extensive lobbying by Ukrainian officials. The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea's decision to send thousands of troops to support Russia in the Kursk region where Ukraine mounted a military incursion over the summer. It is the second time the U.S. has permitted the use of Western weapons inside Russian territory within limits after permitting the use of HIMARS systems, a shorter-range weapon, to stem Russia's advance in Kharkiv region in May. The first reaction from Ukraine to the long-awaited decision from the U.S. was notably restrained. “Today, much is being said in the media about us receiving permission for the relevant actions. But strikes are not made with words. Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly video address. Earlier, Zelenskyy said that Russia had launched a total of 120 missiles and 90 drones in a large-scale attack across Ukraine. Various types of drones were deployed, he said, including Iranian-made Shaheds, as well as cruise, ballistic and aircraft-launched ballistic missiles. Ukrainian defenses shot down 144 out of a total of 210 air targets, Ukraine's air force reported later on Sunday. “The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is damage to objects from hits and falling debris. In Mykolaiv, as a result of a drone attack, two people were killed and six others were injured, including two children," Zelenskyy said. Two more people were killed in the Odesa region, where the attack damaged energy infrastructure and disrupted power and water supplies, said local Gov. Oleh Kiper. Both victims were employees of Ukraine's state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, the company said hours later. The combined drone and missile attack was the most powerful in three months, according to the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, Serhii Popko. One person was injured after the roof of a five-story residential building caught fire in Kyiv’s historic center, according to Popko. A thermal power plant operated by private energy company DTEK was “seriously damaged,” the company said. Russian strikes have hammered Ukraine’s power infrastructure since Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, prompting repeated emergency power shutdowns and nationwide rolling blackouts. Ukrainian officials have routinely urged Western allies to bolster the country’s air defenses to counter assaults and allow for repairs. Explosions were heard across Ukraine on Sunday, including in the capital, Kyiv, the key southern port of Odesa, as well as the country’s west and central regions, according to local reports. The operational command of Poland’s armed forces wrote on X that Polish and allied aircraft, including fighter jets, have been mobilized in Polish airspace because of the “massive” Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine. The steps were aimed to provide safety in Poland's border areas, it said. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday acknowledged carrying out a “mass” missile and drone attack on “critical energy infrastructure” in Ukraine, but claimed all targeted facilities were tied to Kyiv’s military industry. Although Ukraine’s nuclear plants were not directly impacted, several electrical substations on which they depend suffered further damage, the U.N.’s nuclear energy watchdog said in a statement Sunday. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, only two of Ukraine’s nine operational reactors continue to generate power at full capacity. Ukrainian drones strike Russia A local journalist died Sunday as Ukrainian drones struck Russia's embattled Kursk region, its Gov. Aleksei Smirnov reported. Moscow’s forces have for months strained to dislodge Ukrainian troops from the southern province after a bold incursion in August that constituted the largest attack on Russia since World War II and saw battle-hardened Ukrainian units swiftly take hundreds of square miles (kilometers) of territory. In Russia’s Belgorod province, near Ukraine, a man died on the spot after a Ukrainian drone dropped explosives on his car, local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported. Another Ukrainian drone on Sunday targeted a drone factory in Izhevsk, deep inside Russia, according to anti-Kremlin Russian news channels on the Telegram messaging app. The regional leader, Aleksandr Brechalov, reported that a drone exploded near a factory in the city, blowing out windows but causing no serious damage. A man was briefly hospitalized with a head injury, Brechalov said.

President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the weapons as Russia deploys thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war, according to a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the matter. The decision allowing Kyiv to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, for attacks farther inside Russia comes as President Vladimir Putin positions North Korean troops along Ukraine's northern border to try to reclaim hundreds of miles of territory seized by Ukrainian forces. Biden's move also follows the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the United States' vital military support for Ukraine. The official and the others knowledgeable about the matter were not authorized to discuss the U.S. decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's reaction Sunday was notably restrained. “Strikes are not made with words," he said during his nightly video address. “Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.” Zelenskyy and many of his Western supporters have been pressing Biden for months to allow Ukraine to strike military targets deeper inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles, saying the U.S. ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids. Zelenskyy's statement came shortly after he posted a message of condolence on Telegram following a Russian attack on a nine-story building that killed at least eight people in the northern city of Sumy, 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the border with Russia. Russia also launched a massive drone and missile attack, described by officials as the largest in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and killing civilians. The attack came as fears are mounting about Moscow’s intentions to devastate Ukraine’s power generation capacity before the winter. “And this is the answer to everyone who tried to achieve something with Putin through talks, phone calls, hugs and appeasement,” Zelenskyy said. The comment appeared to be a dig at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who spoke Friday with Putin in the first such call with a sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years. Some supporters have argued that the limitation and other U.S. constraints could cost Ukraine the war. The debate has become a source of disagreement among Ukraine’s NATO allies. Biden had remained opposed, determined to hold the line against any escalation that he felt could draw the U.S. and other NATO members into direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. Putin has warned that Moscow could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allies allow Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory. News of Biden's decision followed meetings over the last two days with the leaders of South Korea, Japan and China. The addition of North Korean troops was central to the talks, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru. Biden did not mention the decision during a speech at a stop in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil on his way to the Group of 20 summit. Asked about the decision, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the U.N. position is “to avoid a permanent deterioration of the war in Ukraine.” “We want peace, we want fair peace,” Guterres said Sunday before the summit in Rio de Janeiro. He didn't elaborate. The longer-range missiles are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to one of the people familiar with the development. The overall supply of ATACMS missiles is short, so U.S. officials in the past have questioned whether they could give Ukraine enough to make a difference. Some supporters of Ukraine say that even a few long-range strikes deeper inside Russia would force its military to change deployments and expend more of its resources. North Korea has provided thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow try to claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year. The introduction of North Korean troops to the conflict comes as Moscow has seen a favorable shift in momentum. Trump has signaled that he could push Ukraine to agree to give up some land seized by Russia to find an end to the conflict. As many as 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian assessments. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea also has provided Russia with significant amounts of munitions to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles. Trump, who takes office in January, spoke for months as a candidate about wanting Russia’s war in Ukraine to be over, but he mostly ducked questions about whether he wanted U.S. ally Ukraine to win. He also repeatedly slammed the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in aid. His victory has Ukraine’s international backers worrying that any rushed settlement would mostly benefit Putin. America is Ukraine’s most valuable ally in the war, providing more than $56.2 billion in security assistance since Russian forces invaded in February 2022. Worried about Russia’s response, however, the Biden administration repeatedly has delayed providing some specific advanced weapons sought by Ukraine, agreeing only under pressure from Kyiv, its supporters and in consultation with allies. That includes initially refusing Zelenskyy’s pleas for advanced tanks, Patriot air defense systems and F-16 fighter jets, among other systems. The White House agreed in May to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weaponry for limited strikes just across the border with Russia.

At least 10 people died and others were injured in a blaze at a nursing home near Zaragoza in northeastern Spain, before firefighters managed to extinguish the flames, local authorities said Friday. The alarm was raised just before 5 a.m. on Friday in Villafranca de Ebro, about 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the city of Zaragoza. Two people remained in critical condition, officials said. The cause of the fire was not yet known. Local media said 82 people had been living in the nursing home, which focused on treating people with dementia and mental health issues. Jorge Azcón, head of the regional government of Aragon, which includes Villafranca de Ebro, told reporters outside the nursing home that an investigation would be opened into the cause of the fire. The immediate priority was to transfer the remaining uninjured residents to other facilities, he said, including one in the city of Huesca, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) away. Volga Ramírez, mayor of Villafranca de Ebro, told reporters that intense smoke from the blaze was likely responsible for the deaths. “It is due to smoke inhalation,” Ramírez said, “not because they were burned.” She said that the remaining residents of the center had been safely evacuated. Zaragoza fire chief Eduardo Sánchez told reporters that firefighters had extinguished a blaze in one room of the center. On X, formerly Twitter, Azcón announced that all government events in the Aragon region were cancelled for the day. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X that he was “shocked by the tragedy" and expressed condolences to the victims. The fire took place just weeks after devastating flash floods in the Spanish region of Valencia killed more than 200 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The floods were the worst natural disaster in Spain's recent history.

New storms in Spain caused school closures and train cancellations on Wednesday, two weeks after flash floods in Valencia and other parts of the country killed more than 220 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Coastal areas of Valencia were placed under the highest alert on Wednesday evening. Forecasters said up to 180 millimeters (7 inches) of rain could fall there within five hours. Cleanup efforts in parts of Valencia hardest hit by the Oct. 29 storm were still continuing, and there were concerns over what more rain could bring to streets still covered with mud and debris. In southern Malaga province, streets were flooded, while 3,000 people near the Guadalhorce river were moved from their homes as a preventive measure. Schools across the province were closed, along with many stores. Train service was canceled between Malaga and Madrid, and between Barcelona and Valencia. Valencia's regional government also restricted the use of private vehicles until Thursday in areas hit by the October storm, when tsunami-like floods caused severe car pile-ups. There were no reports of deaths due to the new storms. Spanish weather forecaster AEMET put Malaga on red alert, saying up to 70 millimeters (roughly 3 inches) of rain had accumulated in an hour. Parts of Tarragona province in the east also faced heavy rain and remained under red alert. The forecast in Malaga delayed the start of the Billie Jean King Cup tennis finals between Spain and Poland, which was set for Wednesday. The storm system affecting Spain is caused by warm air that collides with stagnant cold air and forms powerful rain clouds. Experts say that drought and flood cycles are increasing with climate change.

British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday with “Orbital,” a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station that ponders the beauty and fragility of Earth. Harvey was awarded the 50,000-pound ($64,000) prize for what she has called a “space pastoral” about six orbiting astronauts, which she began writing during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The confined characters loop through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets over the course of a day, trapped in one another’s company and transfixed by the globe’s ever-changing vistas. “To look at the Earth from space is like a child looking into a mirror and realizing for the first time that the person in the mirror is herself," said Harvey, who researched her novel by reading books by astronauts and watching the space station's live camera. "What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves.” She said the novel “is not exactly about climate change, but implied in the view of the Earth is the fact of human-made climate change." She dedicated the prize to everyone who speaks "for and not against the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life." “All the people who speak for and call for and work for peace — this is for you,” she said. Writer and artist Edmund de Waal, who chaired the five-member judging panel, called “Orbital” a “miraculous novel” that “makes our world strange and new for us.” Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, noted that “in a year of geopolitical crisis, likely to be the warmest year in recorded history,” the winning book was “hopeful, timely and timeless.” Harvey, who has written four previous novels and a memoir about insomnia, is the first British writer since 2020 to win the Booker. The prize is open to English-language writers of any nationality and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel. De Waal praised the “crystalline” writing and “capaciousness” of Harvey’s succinct novel — at 136 pages in its U.K. paperback edition, one of the shortest-ever Booker winners. “This is a book that repays slow reading,” he said. He said the judges spent a full day picking their winner and came to a unanimous conclusion. Harvey beat five other finalists from Canada, the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, chosen from among 156 novels submitted by publishers. American writer Percival Everett had been the bookies’ favorite to win with “James,” which reimagines Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of its main Black character, the enslaved man Jim. The other finalists were American writer Rachel Kushner’s spy story “Creation Lake”; Canadian Anne Michaels’ poetic novel “Held”; Charlotte Wood’s Australian saga “Stone Yard Devotional”; and “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden, the first Dutch author to be shortlisted for the Booker. Harvey is the first female Booker winner since 2019, though one of five women on this year’s shortlist, the largest number in the prize’s 55-year history. De Waal said issues such as the gender or nationality of the authors were “background noise” that did not influence the judges. “There was absolutely no question of box ticking or of agendas or of anything else. It was simply about the novel,” he said before the awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a grand former Victorian fish market in central London. Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to novels originally written in English published in the U.K. or Ireland. Last year’s winner was Irish writer Paul Lynch for post-democratic dystopia “Prophet Song.” Lynch handed Harvey her Booker trophy at the ceremony, warning her that her life was about to change dramatically because of the Booker publicity boost. Harvey said she was “overwhelmed," but remained down-to-earth about spending her prize money. She said she'd disburse “some of it on tax. I want to buy a new bike. And then the rest — I want to go to Japan.”  

Anti-government protesters in Serbia on Monday demanded arrests and the resignations of top officials over the deadly collapse of a concrete roof at a railway station that killed 14 people in a northern city this month. The rally in Belgrade blamed the collapse on rampant corruption and sloppy renovation work on the station building in Novi Sad — part of a wider deal with Chinese state companies involved in a number of infrastructure projects in the Balkan country. Borislav Novakovic, a former mayor of Novi Sad, accused the ruling populists of “filling their bloody pockets while filling cemeteries in Serbia." The state was "responsible for the crime that took 14 lives,” he added. The crowd chanted “jail” in response. The several thousand protesters demanded that Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and his government step down and that those responsible for the collapse be arrested. Authorities have opened an investigation and Serbia’s construction minister submitted his resignation last week, but no one has been charged or detained in connection with Nov. 1 accident. Monday's rally was peaceful, unlike one last week in Novi Sad when masked people threw rocks, bottles and red paint at City Hall after thousands marched peacefully. Police used tear gas against the rioters. Government officials have promised full accountability, but there is widespread skepticism because the populists control both the police and the judiciary. The train station, originally built in 1964, has been renovated twice in recent years and was inaugurated by Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, over two years ago as a major stopover for a planned fast train line between Belgrade and Budapest.

Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in the eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to demand the resignation of the regional president in charge of the emergency response to last week’s catastrophic floods that left more than 200 dead and others missing. A group of protestors clashed with riot police in front of Valencia's city hall, where the protestors started their march to the seat of the regional government. Police used batons to beat them back. Regional leader Carlos Mazón is under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens’ cellphones until hours after the flooding started on the night of Oct. 29. Many marchers held up homemade signs or chanted “Mazón Resign!” Others carried signs with messages like “You Killed Us!” Upon arrival at the regional government seat, some protesters slung mud on the building and left handprints of the muck on its facade. Earlier on Saturday, Mazón told regional broadcaster À Punt that “there will be time to hold officials accountable,” but that now “is time to keep cleaning our streets, helping people and rebuilding.” He said that he “respected” the march. Mazón, of the conservative Popular Party, is also being criticized for what people perceive as the slow and chaotic response to the natural disaster. Thousands of volunteers were the first boots on the ground in many of the hardest hit areas on Valencia’s southern outskirts. It took days for officials to mobilize the thousands of police reinforcements and soldiers that the regional government asked central authorities to send in. In Spain, regional governments are charged with handling civil protection and can ask the national government in Madrid, led by the Socialists, for extra resources. Mazón has defended his handling of the crisis saying that its magnitude was unforeseeable and that his administration didn’t receive sufficient warnings from central authorities. But Spain’s weather agency issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, for bad weather as early as 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning as the disaster loomed. Some communities were flooded by 6 p.m. It took until after 8 p.m. for Mazón’s administration to send out alerts to people’s cellphones. Mazón was with Spain’s royals and Socialist prime minister when they were pelted with mud by enraged residents during their first visit to a devastated area last weekend. Sara Sánchez Gurillo attended the protest because she had lost her brother-in-law, 62-year-old Candido Molina Pulgarín. She said his body was found in a field of orange trees after he was trapped by the water in his home in the town of Cheste, west of Valencia. She wanted Mazón to go, but also had harsh words for the country's leaders. “It’s shameful what has happened,” Sánchez said. “They knew that the sky was going to fall and yet they didn’t warn anyone. They didn’t evacuate the people. We want them to resign!” “The central government should have taken charge. They should have sent in the army earlier. The king should have made them send it in. Why do we want him as a symbolic figure? He is worthless. The people are alone. They have abandoned us.” The death toll stood at 220 victims on Saturday, with 212 coming in the eastern Valencia region, as the search for bodies goes on. Thousands more lost their homes and streets are still covered in mud and debris 11 days since the arrival of a tsunami-like wave following a record deluge.

The catastrophic torrential rains that overflowed rivers and normally dry canals in eastern Spain last week triggered flash floods that submerged entire communities and killed scores of people. The deluge left behind a landscape of devastation, especially in Valencia, the hardest-hit region. The search for the dead and missing continues, more than a week since the Oct. 29 floods hit — as well as a gargantuan cleanup and recovery effort. Here’s a look at Spain’s deadliest natural disaster of the century, by the numbers: At least 219 people are dead and 93 missing The historic floods caused 219 deaths, 211 of them in the Valencia region alone. Another seven people died in neighboring Castilla La Mancha and one more in southern Andalusia. Ninety-three people have been officially declared missing, but authorities admit that the real number could be higher. Another 54 bodies remain unidentified. In total, 36,605 people have been rescued, according to authorities. The cost of damage is in billions The full extent of the damage is unknown, but Spain’s Consortium for Insurance Compensation, a public-private entity that pays insurance claims for extreme risks like floods, estimates that it will spend at least 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in compensation. The consortium has received 116,000 insurance claims for flood damage, with 60% of the claims for cars and 31% for homes. Spain’s Association of Insurance Companies anticipates the flooding will break a historic record for payouts. The Transport Ministry has so far repaired 232 kilometers (144 miles) of road and rail tracks but the highspeed train line between Valencia and Madrid is still demolished. The central government has approved a 10.6 billion-euro ($11.6-billion) relief package for families, business and townhalls. The Valencia regional government is asking Madrid for 31 billion euros ($33 billion) in aid as well. Record rainfall set off the disaster The drought that has hit the country for the past two years and record hot temperatures helped magnify the floods, scientists say. Spain's meteorological agency says that 30.4 inches fell in one hour in the Valencian town of Turis, an all-time national record for rainfall set on Oct. 29. The devastated village of Chiva also received more rain in eight hours than the town had experienced in the preceding 20 months. Read: Spain searches for bodies after flood of the century claims at least 95 lives The storms honed in on the Magro and Turia Rivers and the Poyo canal, turning them into swift currents that swept away everything in their path. To the human eye, it looked as if a tsunami-like wave of water and mud cut a swath through the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia. The European Space Agency said that, according to satellite images captured on Oct. 31, water covered an area of 15,633 hectares (38,600 acres). About 190,000 people were directly affected, the agency said. In all, 78 municipalities had at least one resident perish in the floods. More than 17,000 troops and police, and an army of volunteers The emergency operation mobilized by central authorities has grown to more than 17,000 troops and police officers. The operation includes 8,000 soldiers — 2,100 of them belonging to military emergency units specialized in disaster response — along with 9,200 additional police officers from other parts of Spain. Thousands of ordinary citizens volunteered, with no definite estimate as to exactly how many, have helped from day one with the cleanup effort. Read: 51 dead from flash floods in Spain The government said that in the first week after the floods, authorities restored electricity to 147,000 homes and distributed some 178,000 bottles of water to places that were still without drinking water. What we still don't know Spanish authorities have yet to say how many calls about missing people they received, give an estimate of the property damage, or release a calculation of how much land was devastated. And at this point, no one can guess when the recovery effort will be concluded.

  Around 50 European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, were reassessing their trans-Atlantic relations at a summit Thursday in the hope that Donald Trump's second U.S. presidency will avoid the strife of his first administration.   European officials will also be seeking a strong common stance on Russia at the one-day gathering.   Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister during Trump's first 2017-2021 presidency, said that “I worked with him very well for four years. He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.” And he insisted that the common challenges posed by Russia in Ukraine affected both sides of the Atlantic.   “Russia is delivering the latest technology into North Korea in return for North Korean help with the war against Ukraine. And this is a threat not only to the European part of NATO, but also to the U.S. mainland,” Rutte said coming into the summit. Trump strongly pushed the European NATO allies to spend more on defense during his first presidency, to up and beyond 2% of gross domestic product and to be less reliant on U.S. military cover. That point has totally sunk in. “When he was president, he was the one in NATO who stimulated us to move over the 2%. And now, also thanks to him, NATO, if you take out the numbers of the U.S., is above the 2%.,” Rutte said. Charles Michel, the council president of the 27-nation European Union, agreed that the continent needed to become less reliant on the United States.   “We have to be more masters of our destiny," he said. "Not because of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, but because of our children.” During his election campaign, Trump has threatened anything from a trade war with Europe to a withdrawal of NATO commitments and a fundamental shift of support for Ukraine in its war with Russia — all issues that could have groundbreaking consequences for nations across Europe. Trump has said he would end the war in Ukraine, now well into its third year, within days of being reelected. Ukraine and many of its European backers fear that this means a peace on terms favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin and involving the surrender of territory. European allies in NATO hope to convince Trump that if he helps to negotiate any peace, it should be done from a position of strength, for both Ukraine and the United States. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the summit’s host and an ardent Trump fan, said early Thursday that he already had a phone call with the incoming president overnight, announcing that “We have big plans for the future!” So did hard-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who lauded the “deep and historic strategic partnership that has always tied Rome and Washington.” That partnership came under constant pressure during Trump’s first term, from 2017-2021.   Trump’s administration slapped tariffs on EU steel and aluminum in 2018, based on the claim that foreign products, even if produced by American allies, were a threat to U.S. national security. Europeans and other allies retaliated with duties on U.S.-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans, among other items.   The impact of the U.S. election result could be felt in Europe for years to come, on issues including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as migration and climate change.   Among the leaders, Zelenskyy, who is expected to make another plea for more aid as his country fends off Moscow’s invasion. The timing is laden with significance as Trump has vowed to end the war “within 24 hours” of being elected — something leaders in Kyiv interpret as an impending evaporation of U.S. support following Trump's win.   Further compounding an already complicated situation, Germany — Europe’s troubled economic juggernaut — sank into political crisis after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister.   It raises the specter of an election in a few months and yet another standoff between the emboldened hard right and the establishment parties in Europe. Those two combined “adds even more pepper and salt to this situation,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

  CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it's ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.   “It's this relentless nature of the warming that I think is is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.   Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global warming.   He cited other factors that contribute to exceptionally warm years like last year and this one. They include El Nino — the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — as well as volcanic eruptions that spew water vapor into the air and variations in energy from the sun. But he and other scientists say the long-term increase in temperatures beyond fluctuations like El Nino is a bad sign.   “A very strong El Nino event is a sneak peek into what the new normal will be about a decade from now,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with the nonprofit Berkeley Earth.   News of a likely second year of record heat comes a day after Republican Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and promised to boost oil drilling and production, was reelected to the presidency. It also comes days before the next U.N. climate conference, called COP29, is set to begin in Azerbaijan. Talks are expected to focus on how to generate trillions of dollars to help the world transition to clean energes like wind and solar, and thus avoid continued warming.   Buontempo pointed out that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold of warming for a single year is different than the goal adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That goal was meant to try to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times on average, over 20 or 30 years.   A United Nations report this year said that since the mid-1800s on average, the world has already heated up 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) — up from previous estimates of 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) or 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). That's of concern because the U.N. says the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals of the world's nations still aren't nearly ambitious enough to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius target on track.   The target was chosen to try to stave off the worst effects of climate change on humanity, including extreme weather. “The heat waves, storm damage, and droughts that we are experiencing now are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Natalie Mahowald, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.