Harrowing

Under the church’s roof in Gaza City: shelter, fear and a choice to stay On a cramped compound in Gaza City, a handful of nuns, a priest and 450 people — among them disabled children, the elderly and the wounded — are sheltering beneath the vaulted roof of the Holy Family Catholic Church. Father Carlos Ferrero speaks softly on the phone, his voice threaded with exhaustion and faith, and describes a place where the ordinary rhythms of worship have been folded into the thud of distant explosions and the constant calculus of…

Recent satellite images of Spain's Valencia region vividly illustrate the immense destruction wrought by catastrophic flooding. Captured by the commercial earth imaging company Planet Labs, these photos were taken in the aftermath of a torrential storm system that unleashed an astonishing amount of rainfall—equivalent to an entire year’s worth—across southeastern Spain within just a few hours, specifically from the day after Tuesday. Tragically, the disaster has claimed at least 211 lives, marking it as one of the most…