Extreme weather is contributing to undocumented migration and return between Mexico and the United States, suggesting that more migrants could risk their lives crossing the border as climate change fuels droughts, storms and other hardships, according to a new study.

People from agricultural areas in Mexico were more likely to cross the border illegally after droughts and were less likely to return to their original communities when extreme weather continued, according to research this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Across the globe, climate change — caused by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas — is exacerbating extreme weather. Droughts are longer and drier, heat is deadlier and storms are rapidly intensifying and dumping record-breaking rain.

In Mexico, a country of nearly 130 million people, drought has drained reservoirs dry, created severe water shortages and drastically reduced corn production, threatening livelihoods.

Researchers said Mexico is a notable country for studying the links between migration, return and weather stressors. Its mean annual temperature is projected to increase up to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2060, and extreme weather is likely to economically devastate rural communities dependent on rain-fed agriculture. The US and Mexico also have the largest international migration flow in the world.

Scientists predict migration will grow as the planet gets hotter. Over the next 30 years, 143 million people worldwide are likely to be uprooted by rising seas, drought, searing temperatures and other climate catastrophes, according to a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The new migration research comes as Republican Donald Trump was reelected to the US presidency this week. Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and promised mass deportations of an estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally.

Researchers said their findings highlight how extreme weather drives migration.

Filiz Garip, a study researcher and professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, said advanced nations have contributed far more to climate change than developing countries that are bearing the brunt.

Migration “is not a decision that people take up lightly … and yet they’re being forced to make it more, and they’re being forced to stay longer in the United States” as a result of weather extremes, Garip said.

The researchers analyzed daily weather data along with survey responses from 48,313 people between 1992 and 2018, focusing on about 3,700 individuals who crossed the border without documents for the first time.

They looked at 84 agricultural communities in Mexico where growing corn was dependent on weather. They correlated a person’s decision to migrate and then return with abnormal changes in temperature and rainfall in their origin communities during the May-to-August corn growing season.

The study found communities experiencing drought had higher migration rates compared to communities with normal rainfall. And people were less likely to return to Mexico from the US when their communities were unusually dry or wet. That was true for recent US arrivals and people who had been there longer.

People who were better off financially were also more likely to migrate. So were people from communities with established migration histories where friends, neighbors or family members who previously migrated could offer information and help.

These social and economic factors that influence migration are well understood, but Garip said the study’s findings underscore the inequities of climate adaptation. With extreme weather events, not everybody is impacted or responds in the same way, she said, “and the typical social and economic advantages or disadvantages also shape how people experience these events.”

For Kerilyn Schewel, codirector of Duke University’s Program on Climate, Resilience and Mobility, the economic factors highlight that some of most vulnerable people aren’t those displaced by climate extremes, but are rather “trapped in place or lacking the resources to move.”

Schewel, who was not involved in the study, said analyzing regions with migration histories could help predict where migrants will come from and who is likelier to migrate because of climate shocks. In “places where people are already leaving, where there’s a high degree of migration prevalence, … that’s where we can expect more people to leave in the future,” she said.

The survey data used from the Mexican Migration Project makes this study unique, according to Hélène Benveniste, a professor in Stanford University’s department of environmental social sciences. Migration data of its scale that’s community specific is “rarely available,” she said in an email. So is information about a person’s full migration journey, including their return.

The finding that return migration decisions were delayed by weather stress in origin communities is “important and novel,” said Benveniste, who studies climate-related human migration and was not involved in the study. “Few datasets enable an analysis of this question.”

But increased surveillance and enforcement along the US-Mexico border make returning home — and moving back and forth — more difficult, said Michael Méndez, assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine. And once undocumented migrants are in the US, they often live in dilapidated housing, lack health care or work in industries such as construction or agriculture that make them vulnerable to other climate impacts, he said. Méndez was not involved in the study.

As climate change threatens social, political and economic stability around the world, experts said the study highlights the need for global collaboration around migration and climate resilience.

“So much of our focus has been, in a way, on the border and securing the border,” said Schewel from Duke. “But we need much more attention to not only the reasons why people are leaving, but also the demand for immigrant workers within the US.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

An Israeli airstrike on a multi-story building in northern Gaza killed at least 27 people, relief officials said, as the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders in the area, where it is mounting a major offensive.

The home of the Mbahouh family in Jabalya was struck on Thursday afternoon, according to the spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, Mahmoud Basal.

He said the four-story property was sheltering more than 50 displaced people, and some had been trapped in a warehouse at the bottom of the building.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks has demolished entire neighborhoods and rendered large swathes of the strip uninhabitable.

At least 43,469 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,561 people injured in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health there.

Human rights agencies warned of “apocalyptic” survival challenges for Palestinians trapped in Jabalya, home to a large refugee camp, where the Israeli military ramped up aerial and ground attacks in early October that it says are targeting Hamas’ renewed presence in the area.

Israeli airstrikes and shelling reportedly killed at least 30 other people in Gaza since Wednesday. Most of those Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the Beit Lahiya area of northern Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike struck a residential building in the Mashrou’ neighborhood of Beit Lahiya, killing six people and injuring several others, journalists and medics say, who added that a further six people were killed in second strike in the same area. Four others were killed in a separate drone strike in Beit Lahiya, they said.

In addition, six people had been killed, according to local journalists, as a result of Israeli artillery shelling west of Jabalya camp in northern Gaza.

New evacuation orders

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that “troops started to operate in the area of Beit Lahiya following prior intelligence information and a situational assessment indicating the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.”

The IDF said it also continues operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza and had killed some “50 terrorists” over the past day.

The military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X a demand that residents leave several areas of northern Gaza, saying that “once again, terrorist organizations are launching rocket attacks toward the state of Israel.”

Adraee said that the “specified area has been warned multiple times previously. We inform you that the specified area is considered a dangerous combat zone, so for your safety, move south immediately.”

“They were at home when suddenly a missile hit their building… They have no connection to any organizations or anything like that. They were unarmed, poor people with difficult circumstances, who struggled to build this home.”

Among those in the building were orphans who had been raised by their grandmother, Abu Najeh said.

Israeli operations also continue in southern Gaza, where the IDF said Thursday that a “number of armed terrorists” had been killed in the Rafah area.

The Palestine Red Crescent said paramedics had transferred five bodies to hospital as a result of an Israeli drone attack in the Al-Janina neighborhood, east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip. Journalists said four of those killed were from the same family.

Additionally, they said, two people were killed in a strike launched from an Israeli military quadcopter.