For two days last month, a vision of canine paradise emerged in the heart of a city regularly pounded by Russian drones and missiles.

Under sunny skies, thousands of dogs of all sizes and shapes reveled at a festival held in a former Soviet-era factory in the city, Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. They frolicked in sandboxes, splashed in plastic pools and dove into ball pits — all to the backdrop of pop music blaring from loudspeakers.

In tents and disused warehouses, artists sketched dog caricatures, vendors displayed patterned pajamas and hats for pets, and groomers pampered Pomeranians and chow chows with brushes and lotions.

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The world’s largest river is parched.

The Amazon River, battered by back-to-back droughts fueled by climate change, is drying up, with some stretches of the mighty waterway dwindling to shallow pools only a few feet deep.

Water levels along several sections of the Amazon River, which winds nearly 4,000 miles across South America, fell last month to their lowest level on record, according to figures from the Brazilian Geological Service.

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Sue Gray, the chief of staff to Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, resigned abruptly on Sunday after weeks of speculation about turf wars in Downing Street, a media storm over her pay and questions over responsibility for a series of political errors.

Ms. Gray said in a statement that it had “become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change.”

In a statement, Mr. Starmer thanked Ms. Gray for “all the support she has given me, both in opposition and government, and her work to prepare us for government and get us started on our program of change.”

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Before Oct. 7, Naama Giller let her children roam freely through her Israeli village on the border with Gaza. Her front door was rarely locked. She liked living in a place animated by communal festivities, outdoor life, the din of boys and girls playing.

Now, she darkens her home at night to avoid being targeted in strikes from Gaza. Most of the children in the village, Netiv Ha’asara, left and have not returned. Military patrols and the thud of bombs are the soundtrack to a spartan and ghostly life.

“Our village now is empty, deserted,” Ms. Giller said.

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In announcing on Sunday that he would appoint 21 new cardinals, Pope Francis once again elevated clerics from far beyond Catholicism’s traditional centers of power, in line with his vision of a more global, less Eurocentric church. It also further cemented his imprint on the men who will one day choose his successor.

Four of those he selected were from South American countries: Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. Also on the list were archbishops and bishops from Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia Iran, and two from Africa: the archbishop of Algiers, Jean-Paul Vesco and Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo of Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Only one North American was selected, Archbishop Francis Leo of Toronto.

Francis read the list of cardinals during his Sunday Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.

The new cardinals will be installed at a ceremony known as a consistory on Dec. 8, a feast day on the Catholic calendar.

It will be the 10th such ceremony since Francis was elected in 2013. Before Sunday, he had already named 92 of the 122 cardinals under 80, the age cutoff for voting in the conclave to elect his successor. Of the others, 24 were named by Pope Benedict XVI and six by St. John Paul II.

Francis, the first pope from South America, has diversified the College of Cardinals more than any of his predecessors, installing cardinals from more than 20 countries that had never been represented before. He has shifted membership away from Europe, acknowledging the growth of the Roman Catholic church in Africa, Asia and Latin America, even as church attendance has gradually declined in parts of Europe.

The shift was perceptible in two almost back-to-back trips last month: a tour in the Asia-Pacific region where adoring crowds greeted Francis, in some cases after walking through jungle for days to see him, and a trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, where the reception was more fraught.

Experts said the trips reflected the reality of a changing church.

Referring to Africa and Asia, Alberto Melloni, a church historian, said that Francis “is convinced that down there, the church is coming to life,” while in Europe, “the church is dying.”

On the list announced Sunday were Vatican officials who have positions that have not traditionally carried the rank of cardinal, including an official who works with migrants, the Rev. Fabio Baggio and the official who organizes Francis’ foreign trips, Monsignor George Koovakad, who was born in India.

The Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, a British theologian who is one of the spiritual advisers for a meeting underway at the Vatican this month to chart the future of the church, will also be made a cardinal.

Acknowledging the ongoing war in Ukraine, Francis also appointed Bishop Mykola Bychok, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, who at 44 will be the youngest cardinal. Dominique Joseph Mathieu, the Belgian-born bishop of Teheran-Ispahan, Iran, was also named.

In the 1970s, Pope Paul VI set a limit capping the number of cardinals who could vote for a new pope at 120. Both John Paul II and Benedict exceeded that limit; Francis did so too with his previous set of appointments, last year.

He has considerably upped that total with Sunday’s appointments: 20 of the 21 new cardinals will be under 80, increasing the chances that his successor will share his vision of a more pastoral, inclusive church.

The MV Ruby has languished off the coast of Britain for more than a week, its hull cracked, its propeller damaged. Yet no port will let the ship dock, fearing that the thousands of tons of Russian fertilizer it carries could lead to a disastrous explosion.

Over the weekend, the MV Ruby remained 14 miles off the coast of Kent, in southeastern England, where it has been since last month.

For weeks now, the ship has sailed around northern Europe’s coastline, looking for a friendly port. But no country has allowed it to approach, fearing a repeat of the explosion in 2020 in Lebanon that destroyed the Port of Beirut and killed more than 190 people.

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For many Tunisians, there seems to be little point to the presidential election on Sunday. There are barely any candidate posters, no debates and not much suspense. The president, Kais Saied, appears so sure of victory that he has not even issued any policy proposals.

His leading challenger is in prison, serving three separate sentences on what his lawyers say are falsified charges, the longest sentence lasting 12 years. At least eight other would-be candidates are in jail or under a form of house arrest, and others have been disqualified from the ballot.

More than a decade after mass protests toppled the country’s longtime dictator, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, prompting other Arab Spring revolts across the Middle East, few in Tunisia still believe they live in a democracy. The string of punishments for the president’s critics and his ever-tightening hold over the election process in recent months have left little doubt that Mr. Saied’s one-man rule is here to stay.

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