Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, hit back on Tuesday morning at President-elect Trump’s vow to impose 25 percent tariffs on all products coming into the United States from Mexico, signaling that her country was prepared to respond with retaliatory tariffs of its own.

Ms. Sheinbaum also said that raising tariffs would fail to curb illegal migration or the consumption of illicit drugs in the United States, an argument that Mr. Trump had made in his warning on tariffs.

“The best path is dialogue,” Ms. Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference, calling for negotiations with the incoming Trump administration while laying out steps that Mexico has already taken to assuage some of Mr. Trump’s concerns.

Ms. Sheinbaum, reading from a letter she is planning to send to Mr. Trump, noted that illegal crossings at the border between Mexico and the United States had plunged from December 2023 to November 2024, largely as a result of Mexico’s own efforts to stem migration flows within its own territory.

“Migrant caravans no longer reach the border,” she added.

Ms. Sheinbaum also called on U.S. authorities to do more to address the root causes of migration.

“Allocating even a fraction of what the United States spends on warfare toward peace building and development would address the deeper drivers of migration,” Ms. Sheinbaum wrote in the letter.

Ms. Sheinbaum also raised the specter of a broader tariff war that could inflict damage on the economies of both nations, pointing to multinational car manufacturers like General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Co., which have operated in Mexico for decades.

“Why endanger them with tariffs that would harm both nations?” Ms. Sheinbaum wrote. “Any tariffs imposed by one side would likely prompt retaliatory tariffs, leading to risks for joint enterprises.”

Mexico is far more dependent on trade with the United States than vice versa, exporting about 80 percent of its goods to its northern neighbor.

But numerous sectors in the United States, such as semiconductor and chemicals manufacturers, also rely on exporting to Mexico. Exports to Mexico accounted for nearly 16 percent of overall American exports in 2022.

Ms. Sheinbaum also said that Mexico was already taking steps to combat the smuggling of fentanyl to the United States. But she argued that the core problem was demand for fentanyl within the United States, calling the crisis “fundamentally a public health and consumption issue within your society.”

“It is widely known that the chemical precursors used to produce fentanyl and other synthetic drugs are illegally entering Canada, the United States, and Mexico from Asian countries,” Ms. Sheinbaum wrote. “This underscores the urgent need for international collaboration.”

For Mohammad Kanso, the ancient Roman temples of Baalbek felt like home.

The 2,000-year-old ruins, the pride of Lebanon and considered some of the grandest of their kind in the world, were his childhood playground. When he grew up, he got the same job his father had, running the lights that illuminate the towering columns at night.

But as Israeli airstrikes crept closer to the site, his family was forced to flee earlier this month. Days later, a missile landed yards away from the temple complex, obliterating a centuries-old Ottoman-era building.

“My entire world went black,” said Mr. Kanso.

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah has triggered a humanitarian crisis. Almost a quarter of Lebanon’s population of about five million has been displaced and more than 3,700 people have been killed, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. But it has also gravely threatened the tiny Mediterranean nation’s antiquities, a shared source of pride in a country long divided by sectarian strife.

The temple complex of Baalbek, which is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is just one of the sites that are at risk. Archaeologists, conservationists and even the Lebanese military are now racing to protect thousands of years worth of Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman treasures.

Last week, UNESCO placed 34 cultural sites in Lebanon under what it calls “enhanced protection,” a measure that defines an attack on them as a serious violation of the 1954 Hague Convention and “potential grounds for prosecution.” But many antiquities are not on the list, and some have already been damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes, according to Lebanese officials and the United Nations, including historic churches and cemeteries, centuries-old markets and castles from the Crusades.

Even as cautious optimism mounts around a potential cease-fire deal, much of Lebanon’s heritage has already been irrevocably lost, and the sheer scale of the destruction remains unclear. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government would be forced to juggle the extensive cost of restoration with a deepening humanitarian crisis, and there remains uncertainty over whether a truce could hold and how restoration of these sites would fit in.

“They are destroying memory,” said Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, a Lebanese archaeologist who runs Biladi, an organization focused on preserving the country’s heritage. She compared the damage from Israeli strikes to that carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State in Iraq.

When asked whether Israel deliberately targets cultural sites, the Israeli military said in a statement that it strikes in Lebanon only when necessary, adding that sensitive sites are taken into account during military planning and that each “goes through a rigorous approval process.”

Israel has accused Hezbollah of embedding in civilian areas, including near cultural heritage sites. The Israeli military did not respond when asked to provide specific evidence of this claim, which archaeologists and Lebanese officials dispute.

The Lebanese military, which is not a part of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, has another mission: protecting the country’s treasures.

Gen. Youssef Haydar is spearheading these efforts. He leads a specialist regiment that has been transporting artifacts out of the country’s hard-hit south, including some dating back to the Roman and Byzantine civilizations.

At the regiment’s base, a few miles outside Beirut, General Haydar’s troops conducted drills in which they piled sandbags on top of real-life artifacts, including a sarcophagus, a strategy designed to protect them from shrapnel or the shock waves of nearby blasts.

“The more you sweat,” General Haydar said, as he watched his troops, “the less you bleed in war.”

There has been wide-scale destruction in dozens of historic border towns, archaeologists said, that has damaged or destroyed entire areas. Strikes have also expanded to include the centers of big cities, including in Baalbek and Tyre, where Hezbollah enjoys considerable support.

The large-scale destruction of towns and cities has even disturbed the dead. Historic cemeteries in Lebanon also have been damaged or destroyed amid Israel’s offensive, many of them considered heritage sites by archaeologists. The Israeli military said in at least one case that a Hezbollah tunnel compound had been built underneath a cemetery in southern Lebanon.

“It’s not collateral damage,” General Haydar said. “Why the cemeteries? This is heritage. This is history.”

Before the war, about 125,000 people lived in Tyre, about 10 miles from the Israeli border and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. But most have fled amid evacuation orders covering city blocks, and Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah have pounded the area in recent weeks.

Much of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes such marvels as the Tyre Hippodrome, a chariot-racing arena that was one of the largest in the ancient Roman world. The bombardment has already leveled modern buildings within the site, according to the U.N. agency.

Although no visible damage to the ruins has so far been detected, archaeologists say they can only conduct field inspections once the war ends, because of the risks to their lives.

Lebanon has endured myriad wars and crises that have tested conservationists. But it was Beirut’s deadly port explosion in 2020, which destroyed large parts of the capital, including historic buildings and artifacts, that proved most destructive. It was an especially hard-learned lesson for Beirut’s museums and galleries, some of which are now shielding their collections amid the war.

The Sursock Museum, which was heavily damaged in the blast, has in recent weeks moved its entire collection, which includes works by prominent Lebanese artists, into its basement, about 80 feet underground.

In the closed gallery recently, the walls and glass cabinets were stripped bare, and the building’s stained glass windows propped open to protect against sonic booms from the Israeli fighter jets circling overhead.

“We’ve learned one thing from the Beirut explosion,” said Rowina Bou-Harb, the museum’s chief archivist. “Save the heritage.”

Khalid Rifai, who leads government conservation efforts and recently fled his home in Baalbek, recalled how his unit struggled in the wake of the port blast.

“We didn’t have any materials, money, architects, and staff,” he said. “Right now, we’re facing the same crisis on a much wider scale.”

In Baalbek, the Israeli airstrike near the ruins earlier this month left stones and twisted rebar strewed in front of the temples. A burned-out bus lay abandoned in the empty parking lot where tourists once entered the site.

Although the temples remain intact, Mr. Kanso fears they will not survive.

“I hope they remain standing tall for all the coming generations to witness,” he said.

Reporting contributed by Jacob Roubai and Gabby Sobelman.

The belongings of Volodymyr Nikulin, a Ukrainian police officer stationed near the country’s eastern front line, boil down to this: a shrapnel-riddled car, a small sack stuffed with sweaters and pants, and two plastic bags filled with basic food and medicine.

Keeping it simple is essential for Mr. Nikulin, who has had to leave three cities to escape the advance of Russian forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region, losing his home each time. So he has learned to live with little, and to be ready to pack up on short notice.

He has barely bothered to settle into the friend’s apartment he currently occupies in Sloviansk, a city 15 miles from the combat zone, leaving the bedroom untouched and sleeping instead in a small office. The distant rumble of Russian bombing regularly echoes through the walls, a reminder he may soon have to leave everything behind, again.

“Who knows where I’ll be in a few months?” Mr. Nikulin said on a recent morning last month in Sloviansk, acknowledging that Russian forces in the area were creeping closer. He joked that he could at least count on his damaged car, recalling how it had helped him escape several Russian attacks.

“It’s my lucky car,” Mr. Nikulin, a 53-year-old police lieutenant colonel, said with a thin smile.

Mr. Nikulin’s story of fleeing city after city under assault — Donetsk in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists took control of the city; and then, after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Mariupol in 2022 and Myrnohrad this summer — is emblematic of the plight of millions of Ukrainians displaced by the war. Like many, he has left beloved towns, watched his homes be destroyed or occupied, and mourned neighbors killed in the fighting.

As a police officer evacuating besieged cities, he has also braved ordeals, including helping journalists escape Mariupol so they could reveal harrowing images of the Russian onslaught there.

Working for the national police near the front lines means living with constant uncertainty amid Russia’s near-daily attacks. Mr. Nikulin often rushes to sites hit by missiles to help pull the wounded from the rubble. A police station where he used to work has been struck several times, and colleagues have been killed while guarding stations bombed by Russian forces.

“We’re targets for the Russians,” Mr. Nikulin said as he drove through Kramatorsk, another frontline city near Sloviansk. He was wearing a khaki jacket without insignia, to avoid being identified by disloyal locals who might tip off the Russians.

With Russian troops now advancing steadily in the Donbas, Mr. Nikulin’s cycle of evacuations may be far from over. Still, he believes he will one day return to his hometown, Donetsk, confident that the Ukrainian army will turn the tide on the battlefield.

A reserved man with piercing blue eyes, Mr. Nikulin grew up in Donetsk in the 1970s and 1980s when it was part of the Soviet Union. The son of a miner and a garment factory worker, he aspired to a military career and studied at the Donetsk Military Academy. He graduated in 1992, a year after Ukraine gained independence from the U.S.S.R., and he eventually joined the local police force.

Back then, Donetsk was afflicted by gang wars fueled by the post-Soviet economic collapse. “Everyday, there were several murders using firearms and bombs,” he recalled, as local businessmen, backed by gangs, fought for control over state-owned assets.

But over time, the city transformed and pacified. Mr. Nikulin grew fond of its gritty charm, a mining powerhouse reborn with gleaming skyscrapers and artsy cafes. One of his happiest memories is watching a 2012 European Soccer Championship quarterfinal match in Donetsk’s new stadium.

“The city was changing, developing, becoming more European,” he said.

Then, in the spring of 2014, pro-Kremlin, Russian-backed insurgents staged an armed uprising in Donetsk, rallying against Ukraine’s turn West. As the rebels quickly overran the city, Mr. Nikulin said he worked covertly with colleagues to secure control of computer servers containing critical financial and security data.

When he was finally forced to leave Donetsk that July, he packed only summer clothes, thinking he would return in a few weeks. “T-shirts, a cap, shorts — no jacket,” he said.

“No one understood that we would be gone for such a long time,” he said. He paused briefly and added, “I don’t want to say forever.”

Mr. Nikulin moved with his police department to the port city of Mariupol, further south, and quickly felt at home again. A dozen miles from Russian-seized territory to the east, Mariupol became an “island of freedom” for those fleeing Russian occupation, he said. Its lively markets and sunlit promenades along the Azov Sea offered a precious sense of normalcy.

Until Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Mariupol was a prime target for Moscow’s forces, which soon encircled the city. Inside, Mr. Nikulin and his colleagues worked to keep order, tackling looters who raided stores as panic gripped the besieged population, and assisting residents when Russian bombs fell on their homes.

The documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” filmed by Associated Press journalists who covered Russia’s siege of the city, opens with a tense scene of Mr. Nikulin, clad in body armor, inside a hospital as Russian tanks surround it. “Tanks have entered,” he is heard saying over a walkie-talkie, alerting Ukrainian forces. “I have a visual on it myself.”

Without Mr. Nikulin, the documentary, which won an Oscar this year for its gut-wrenching account of Russia’s brutal assault, might never have seen the light of day.

In Mariupol, he helped the Associated Press reporters find internet access amid attacks so they could transmit their images. Then, he smuggled them out of the city, driving them through 15 Russian checkpoints in his bomb-damaged car, with plastic covering its smashed windows. They hoped the Russian soldiers would not search the car and find the reporters’ cameras hidden under the seats, which would mean immediate arrest — or worse.

“It was stressful,” Mr. Nikulin said, recalling how he tried to distract the soldiers at checkpoints by offering them cigarettes.

Mykhailo Vershynin, who led the Patrol Police in Mariupol during its defense, said Mr. Nikulin “was like a father” to the journalists. “He really wanted the world to know what happened to Mariupol.”

After escaping Mariupol, Mr. Nikulin relocated to Myrnohrad, about 80 miles north. From there, he continued helping evacuate frontline eastern towns like Toretsk, which Russian forces recently entered.

His phone is full of videos showing brick houses flattened by bombs. Still, convincing residents to leave could be difficult, he said, because some are old and have never lived elsewhere, while others believe they will be better off under Russian rule.

“It’s complicated,” he said with a sigh. “But we have to get these people out.”

“For him, it’s more than just service — it’s deeply personal,” said Yevhen Tuzov, a Ukrainian volunteer who has worked with Mr. Nikulin on evacuation missions, noting that the police officer couldn’t bear to watch his home region be chipped away by Russia.

Last summer, Mr. Nikulin was wounded in the back by missile shrapnel while rescuing people after a Russian strike in Pokrovsk, near Myrnohrad. Despite the injury, Mr. Nikulin continued working, occasionally traveling to Kyiv to undergo three surgeries that removed the shrapnel.

Despite witnessing so many cities and towns fall to Russia, Mr. Nikulin has maintained his optimism. He says that while the first phase of the war, from 2014 to 2022, turned into a frozen conflict, complicating Ukraine’s efforts to reclaim lost territory, the full-scale war that began nearly three years ago presents an opportunity for Ukraine to regain its land.

“I know, it sounds so strange,” he said of his optimism. But he recalled how that same upbeat belief had driven him during the seemingly doomed escape from Mariupol in 2022. “Hope was our power.”

For now, however, Mr. Nikulin continues to retreat.

When Moscow’s forces launched a new offensive toward Myrnohrad this summer, he was forced to move again, this time leaving an apartment belonging to his wife’s family. He recorded a video of his departure in mid-August.

“Home sweet home,” he says in English in the video, before walking through corridors adorned with floral wallpaper and past a kitchen table strewn with apples, a kettle and salad bowls. His heavy breath is audible, betraying his deep emotion.

He concludes, “I don’t want to say goodbye.”

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.

Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday that Russia launched 188 attack drones against the country overnight, calling it a record number as both sides intensify aerial assaults.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that it had shot down 76 of the drones in the “massive attack” but that nearly all the rest had disappeared from radar. It was unclear how many of those drones had been intercepted by other means, such as electronic interference, and how many had struck targets.

Some critical infrastructure was hit and residential buildings were damaged in several regions, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Damage to the power grid in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine, caused electricity and water outages, the local authorities said.

Russia’s military has attacked Ukrainian cities with waves of drones almost every night since September in a campaign that analysts say is intended to test and wear down air defenses. The drones have also targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a renewed effort to plunge the population into cold and darkness as winter sets in.

The overnight drone assault, however, stood out for its sheer scale. It came as both Ukraine and Russia have been stepping up tit-for-tat air attacks over the past week.

Last Tuesday, Ukraine struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made missiles for the first time. Moscow vowed to respond and test fired an intermediate-range missile designed to deliver nuclear weapons, though it was not armed with nuclear warheads. The strikes represented a demonstration of force by both sides and shifted the focus away from ground assaults to a Cold War-style missile brinkmanship.

On Tuesday, ambassadors from Ukraine and NATO’s member states were set to discuss a possible response to Russia’s use of the intermediate-range missile, which was fired at the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine. The strike caused little damage, but it raised alarm in Ukraine at a time when Moscow has been elevating threats of nuclear war.

Ukrainian officials were expected to use the Tuesday meeting, to be held in Brussels, to reiterate their requests for allies to send more air-defense systems to counter Russian attacks.

Months of Russian drone and missile bombardments have depleted Ukraine’s air defenses. In recent weeks, Russian drones have increasingly penetrated central Kyiv, home to government administration buildings and the presidential palace. The once rare buzz of drones flying overhead at night and the rat-tat-tat of heavy machine guns trying to take them down now echo regularly through the heart of the capital.

Rescuers found five survivors and four bodies on Tuesday from the wreck of a boat carrying tourists that sank amid high waves off the Red Sea coast of Egypt a day earlier, according to the Egyptian authorities. Search efforts were continuing for seven other missing passengers and crew, they said.

On Monday, 28 people were rescued, including foreign tourists and Egyptian crew members, the governor of Egypt’s Red Sea province, Maj. Gen. Amr Hanafy, said in a statement that evening. Those survivors, who he said had only minor injuries, were taken to a hotel.

The boat, with 44 passengers and crew members onboard, had left Marsa Alam, a beach town on the Red Sea, on Sunday for a six-day diving trip that was scheduled to end on Friday in Hurghada, a resort farther north along the coast.

The area is dotted with popular diving and snorkeling destinations known for their vivid, climate-change-resistant coral reefs. Off Marsa Alam, tourists can swim with dugongs — a species of sea cow similar to manatees — and with dolphins.

The boat that sank, the Sea Story, was carrying 13 Egyptians, as well as 31 visitors from countries including the United States, Belgium, Britain, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland, the authorities said. Of those still missing after Monday’s rescues, four were Egyptian, and 12 were foreign, they added.

Two Belgians, one Egyptian, one Finn and one Swiss were rescued on Tuesday, according to official statements, which did not give the nationalities of the four bodies that had been recovered.

The Egyptian Meteorological Authority had warned on Sunday morning of coming high waves and turbulence in the Red Sea. It was unclear whether the crew had seen the warning before setting off that day.

According to the official statement, the passengers and crew reported that a large wave suddenly hit the boat early Monday morning, capsizing the 111-foot vessel. Within seven minutes, it had sunk, trapping some of the passengers inside their cabins.

Marsa Alam residents said that they had noticed high waves around the time of the sinking.

The first distress call reached the authorities at 5:30 a.m., the statement said. A nearby diving boat rescued some of the passengers, and the Egyptian Navy found others.

General Hanafy said that the Sea Story had passed a safety inspection in March and had no recorded technical defects. He added that the investigation into the boat’s sinking was ongoing.

Rania Khaled contributed reporting.

Pakistan deployed its army within the nation’s capital on Tuesday with orders to shoot protesters if necessary, as deadly clashes escalated between the police and supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The government said that at least six members of the security force had been killed in the violence, as thousands of protesters marched to Islamabad to demand Mr. Khan’s release from prison.

The police used tear gas and rubber bullets against the demonstrators, who pressed ahead toward a public square near major government offices, where they planned to hold a rally. Mr. Khan’s supporters dismantled roadblocks that had been put in place to stop them while patriotic songs blared from vehicles. Some danced in front of the slow-moving convoy, some chanting, “Revolution! Revolution!”

When they reached the square in late afternoon, some chanted the slogan “Prisoner Number 804” — a reference to Mr. Khan — while others climbed atop shipping containers that had been set up to block their advance.

Mr. Khan, an enormously popular politician and former cricket star who has been jailed since August of last year, called for the demonstration over the weekend. Pakistan’s military-backed civilian government put the capital on lockdown, blocking major highways and suspending cellular and internet services in several areas. But protesters managed to enter the city on Monday night.

Security officials said on Tuesday that the army had been deployed to secure important government sites and that troops had been ordered to shoot if needed.

Officials also said that four paramilitary troops had been killed overnight by protesters who ran over them with a vehicle. Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., denied that accusation. Two police officers were reported to have been killed in earlier violence.

Several journalists were attacked by protesters on Tuesday. A photographer for The Associated Press was assaulted and his vehicle was damaged.

Mr. Khan, who was ousted as prime minister in 2022, was arrested last year on various corruption charges, which he and his supporters say were politically motivated attempts to sideline him after he began publicly criticizing the military. But Mr. Khan’s popularity has not diminished, and he has been able to mobilize other large protests from prison. Tensions between Mr. Khan and the military heightened after this year’s elections, which P.T.I. claims were rigged against it.

Mr. Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, is leading the latest protest, having earlier spearheaded a large rally in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which is controlled by Mr. Khan’s party. Other protesters joined the march after holding rallies at sites across the country.

Addressing a charged crowd of supporters early Tuesday, Ms. Bibi said the protesters would not leave the city until Mr. Khan was released. “We will go back only if Khan comes out and tells us to go back,” she said.

Mr. Khan accuses the government and the military of conspiring to crush his party and undermine democracy, including by rigging elections. He has also criticized recent legal changes that limit the power of Pakistan’s judiciary, arguing that they are meant to keep him out of power.

The government, which says the charges against Mr. Khan are legitimate, depicts him as a figure who is unwilling to follow the rule of law and has accused him of causing chaos through his protests.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif accused protesters of deliberately attacking security officers. “Pakistan cannot afford any chaos or bloodshed, and violence for malicious political objectives is unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

After the protesters reached the square where they had planned the rally, officials broadcast announcements through the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque urging them to refrain from violence.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, warned the protesters not to push forward and enter an area known as the Red Zone, which houses government buildings including the prime minister’s residence, Parliament and the Supreme Court.

By 5 p.m., paramilitary troops and police officers had managed to push the protesters away from the square and farther down the road.