India and Pakistan have seemingly pulled back from the brink again. But so much was new about the nuclear-armed enemies’ chaotic four-day clash, and so many of the underlying accelerants remain volatile, that there’s little to suggest that the truce represents any return to old patterns of restraint.

A new generation of military technology fueled a dizzying aerial escalation. Waves of airstrikes and antiaircraft volleys with modern weapons set the stage. Soon they were joined by weaponized drones en masse for the first time both along the two countries’ extensive boundaries and deep into their territory — hundreds of them in the sky, probing each nation’s defenses and striking without risk to any pilot.

Then the missiles and drones were streaking past the border areas and deep into India’s and Pakistan’s territories, directly hitting air and defense bases, prompting dire threats and the highest level of military alert.

Only then did international diplomacy — a crucial factor in past pullbacks between India and Pakistan — seem to engage in earnest, at what felt like the last minute before catastrophe. In a new global chapter defined by perilous conflicts, distracted leaders and a retreating sense of international responsibility to keep peace, the safety net had never seemed thinner.

“Going back historically, many of the India-Pakistan conflicts have been stopped because of external intervention,” said Srinath Raghavan, a military historian and strategic analyst.

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King Charles III was busy last week marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and preparing to fly to Canada to open its Parliament later this month. But his public schedule was eclipsed yet again by a highly publicized eruption from his estranged younger son, Prince Harry.

It has become a familiar pattern for the 76-year-old monarch. Two years after his coronation, his reign is shaping up as both eventful and oddly unchanging in its core narrative: that of a beleaguered father managing a messy brood.

Harry’s emotional plea to be reconciled with his family — made in a recent interview with the BBC, in which he mused about how long his cancer-stricken father had left to live — resurfaced bitter ruptures within the royal family, which has yet to find its footing in the still-fledgling Carolean era.

“There is an overhang in the way we see Charles’s reign,” said Ed Owens, a historian who writes about the British monarchy. “It hasn’t really gotten going, nor are we sure how long it will last.”

To be sure, the king has done a lot. Despite undergoing weekly treatments for cancer diagnosed last year, he traveled to France, Australia, Poland and Italy. He found time to curate a playlist for Apple Music (Kylie Minogue and Bob Marley feature), played host at state banquets and posed for portraits.

But Harry’s comments, which came after a legal defeat over his security arrangements in Britain, dragged attention back to the rift that opened in 2020 when he and his wife, Meghan, withdrew from royal life and moved to California.

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When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met President Trump at the White House in February, the two men could not have been more in sync. The president had designated Houthi militants in Yemen as a terrorist organization. They both spoke of stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Mr. Trump even mused about expelling Palestinians from Gaza.

“You say things others refuse to say,” Mr. Netanyahu gushed in the Oval Office, with cameras running. “And then, after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads. And they say, ‘You know, he’s right.’”

Two months later, in another White House visit, Mr. Netanyahu sat almost silently next to the president for more than a half-hour as Mr. Trump expounded on topics having nothing to do with Israel.

That meeting, in April, underscored a growing divide between the two men, who are increasingly in disagreement on some of the most critical security issues facing Israel.

As Mr. Trump heads this week to the Middle East for his first major foreign trip, the president has, for now, rejected Mr. Netanyahu’s desire for joint military action to take out Tehran’s nuclear abilities. Instead, Mr. Trump has begun talks with Iran, leaving Mr. Netanyahu to warn that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.”

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Pope Leo XIV returned to the balcony where he was presented to the world as the new leader of the Roman Catholic church just days ago, using his first Sunday address to the faithful to call for peace.

“Never again war,” he said to a roar from the tens of thousands who had gathered in St. Peter’s Square at noon. Leo’s appeal was addressed to the world’s most powerful leaders, and he noted that it had been almost 80 years to the day since the “immense tragedy” of World War II had ended. He quoted Pope Francis, his predecessor, who often referred to the current global wave of violence as “a third world war in pieces.”

Leo was elected pope on Thursday, becoming the first American pontiff on the second day of the conclave. Since then, he has had a busy calendar, with Vatican observers watching closely for clues on how he plans to lead.

On Friday, with the cardinals who had elected him the previous day, he celebrated his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel as pope. In his homily, he pledged to align himself with “ordinary people.”

The pope met with the cardinals again on Saturday, saying he would continue the work of Francis in steering the church toward greater collegiality and a focus on caring for marginalized people.

On Sunday, he continued to echo themes that Francis spoke about regularly in his Sunday addresses, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

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Undercutting a weekend of European diplomacy, President Trump on Sunday implored Ukraine to accept a Russian proposal for direct talks rather than insist on a cease-fire first — as had been laid out in a plan announced a day earlier by European leaders during a visit to Kyiv.

The leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland had set a deadline of Monday for Russia to accept a 30-day cease-fire — one initially proposed by the Trump administration — or face additional sanctions.

When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a counteroffer of direct talks, without mentioning a cease-fire, France and Germany rebuffed the proposal. Mr. Trump’s envoy to Ukraine in the talks, Gen. Keith Kellogg, had also earlier Sunday said Russia should halt hostilities as a first step in negotiations.

But Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that “President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine.” The Russian leader, he wrote, wanted direct talks to be hosted by Turkey instead. “Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Zelensky responded cautiously to the Russian counteroffer of direct talks, insisting again on a halt in the fighting. After Mr. Trump’s post, Mr. Zelensky added a new twist to the diplomatic brinkmanship, saying he would personally attend negotiations. Mr. Putin, in suggesting direct talks, had not proposed a presidential meeting.

Mr. Zelensky’s declaration in a post on X did not clarify whether his participation would depend on Russia first accepting a cease-fire, but he called again for Russia to halt hostilities to allow for diplomacy.

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In the eyes of many of his fellow Greenlanders, Jorgen Boassen is a traitor.

A few weeks ago at a dive bar in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, someone slugged him in the face, sending him to the hospital. But whatever the consequences of his convictions, he insists he isn’t scared.

“The United States has my back,” he said.

Mr. Boassen, 51, a former bricklayer, is a fervid supporter of President Trump. He campaigned for him in the United States and helped coordinate Donald Trump Jr.’s visit to Greenland this year. On his coffee table at home, three pristine MAGA hats occupy a place of honor.

While his championing of the American president — who has vowed to take over Greenland “one way or the other” — has made Mr. Boassen unpopular at home, it has also turned him into an unlikely political player in the Arctic, a region of growing importance in a warming world eager for its untapped resources.

As he lounged on a couch in his apartment on the edge of Nuuk, wearing a pink T-shirt emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s face, his phone buzzed with a stream of texts from journalists and filmmakers who wanted to talk and investors who hoped he was their ticket to riches in Greenland.

In the debate about the future of the world’s largest island, a semiautonomous overseas territory of Denmark, Mr. Boassen has made it his mission to bring Greenland and the United States closer together.

Still, Mr. Boassen noted he “doesn’t always agree” with the American president.

While Mr. Trump wants to claim the island for the United States, Mr. Boassen is pushing instead for a tight security alliance between an independent Greenland and Washington. That has made him one of the most visible Greenlanders agitating to break with Denmark.

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