At least four people have been taken to the hospital after an explosion in an apartment building in The Hague, the Netherlands on Saturday, according to authorities.

The blast took place around 6:15 a.m. local time, firefighters said, causing the three-story apartment building to partially collapse and set on fire. Five different apartments were affected by the explosion, they said.

Police are appealing for witnesses who may have seen a car driving away from the scene at a very high speed shortly after the incident.

The Dutch Urban Search and Rescue service said in a post on X that it had sent a rescue group to the scene, including four dog handlers and a structural engineer.

By 11:30 a.m. local time, the fire was nearly out and rescue dogs were searching for possible victims, firefighters said.

The dogs could not search the building for long, however, because there is a risk that it could fully collapse, according to the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

Firefighters told NOS that there is not currently a clear picture of the total number of victims in the incident. Some 40 homes have been evacuated, NOS reported.

One man told the broadcaster that his first thought upon seeing the aftermath of the explosion was that it was due to a rocket attack. He heard a child calling for help from the rubble, he said, but was unable to reach them when people pulled him back from the fire.

The Hague municipality stated on Saturday morning that one of the four injured people is a child, but a spokesperson for the regional safety authority later said that this wasn’t true, NOS reported.

Forensic officers are also at the scene collecting evidence, the broadcaster said.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in a post on X that he was “shocked” by images of the damaged apartment building, and that he has spoken with the mayor of The Hague to offer help. The Dutch king and queen said in a statement that their thoughts were with those affected by the incident.

Ron Davis Alvarez: New life through music

“We all need to learn from each other. We are an orchestra for everyone.”

Alvarez grew up in the favelas of Caracas, Venezuela. At 10, he joined El Sistema, a globally acclaimed program providing free classical music training to children from under-resourced communities. “I fell in love with music from my first class,” he said.

By 14, he was teaching classes; by 16, he was conducting. Eventually, Alvarez worked for El Sistema to help spread their innovative teaching methods worldwide. It was this work that led him to first visit Sweden in 2015.

Alvarez was in Stockholm just as unprecedented numbers of refugees were arriving in the country, most from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He was struck by their plight and wanted to help. After moving to Gothenburg the following year, he created a music group for refugees and started with 13 students. He knew playing music together would help them make friends, express themselves, and rebuild their self-esteem. He named the group the Dream Orchestra to emphasize their potential.

Eight years later, the program has more than 300 members, from 3 to 56 years old, of more than 25 nationalities. While many are immigrants and refugees, the group also includes many second-generation immigrants as well as native Swedes.

Stephen Knight: Saving the lives of dogs and their owners

“When somebody makes that decision to go into treatment, it’s one of the biggest decisions, the bravest decisions, they’ll make.”

In 2011, when Knight was 51 years old, he had lost everything to meth addiction – his family, his job, his home, and nearly his life. HIV positive and living out of his car, Knight entered rehab at the behest of his mother.

Eight months into recovery, Knight answered the door of his sober living apartment to find a friend in tears. She had relapsed, and in her arms was a 15-pound Maltese/Dachshund mix named Jayde. Knight’s friend said no one would take Jayde, and she asked Knight for a ride to a shelter so she could surrender her.

Instead, Knight became a dog dad to Jayde. He soon learned that other people struggled to find temporary homes for their beloved pets when they needed to enter rehab, often delaying or forgoing substance abuse treatment because of it.

Today, Knight and his organization, Dogs Matter, provide foster care for pets while their owners are in rehab. They vet applicants, conduct animal behavior assessments, and execute contracts that require participants to stick to their recovery plan and complete a 12-month post-release wraparound program. His nonprofit has helped more than 1,200 dogs and their owners.

Payton McGriff: Empowering girls and elevating women

“Talent and resilience and resourcefulness is so equally distributed worldwide, but opportunity is not.”

A marketing major, McGriff was pursuing her dream job in business when she took an entrepreneurship class her senior year at the University of Idaho. Tasked with creating a business or nonprofit, she remembered reading that many impoverished families who want to educate their daughters can’t afford tuition fees, school supplies, and the uniform mandated in many countries.

She connected with her professor, who encouraged her to join a spring break trip to his home country of Togo. There, she saw first-hand the reality of what girls faced and sought solutions. “A uniform is typically one of the more expensive pieces,” McGriff said. “They can be one of the most cost-effective ways to keep girls in school.”

Ultimately, McGriff founded Style Her Empowered, known as SHE. In their first year, the group hired local seamstresses in Togo and provided uniforms and school fees to 65 girls. But the girls quickly outgrew their uniforms. That problem led to her team’s creation of ‘the uniform that grows.’ Designed by the seamstresses – with input from the students, McGriff, and others – the dress now has adjustable elements that create a tailored fit for every body type and enable it to grow up to a foot in length. The uniform can fit a girl for up to three years, adjusting six sizes; when outgrown, it can be handed down to younger girls.

Today, SHE provides 1,500 girls a year in Togo with free uniforms, school fees, supplies, tutoring, and much more, while also bringing opportunities and education to the women they employ.

Rachel Rutter: Supporting ‘the newest newcomers’

“They’ve already been through so much trauma, it can be jarring when they arrive here and realize that it’s really just beginning.”

As an immigration lawyer who works closely with unaccompanied migrant children, Rutter knows how long and difficult their journeys are and the desperate situations they are fleeing. Early on, she saw the hurdles her young clients had to overcome after arriving in the US. They lacked stable housing and consistent meals and needed mental health and academic support.

“I saw that these kids don’t just need legal status, they also need all of these other things if they’re going to really heal and be successful,” Rutter said.

Compelled to fill in those gaps, she created Project Libertad in 2015. The nonprofit provides free legal representation, essential and social services, and newcomer support programs to immigrant youth. The organization has assisted more than 1,100 individuals, representing more than 90 young people in immigration cases.

Through their Immigrant Children’s Defense Project, Rutter and her group protect vulnerable youth across Pennsylvania, helping them apply for immigration status and representing in court those who are facing deportation.

Yamilée Toussaint: Lighting up the stage with STEM

“I just started to wonder about a world where the benefits that you get from dance can lead to the outcomes that we’re looking for in STEM.”

Growing up, Toussaint had a love for math but says the dance studio was her “home away from home.” This dual passion led her to study mechanical engineering at MIT, where she was also head of the dance team. She noticed that she was one of only two Black women in her major. Later, while teaching high school math, she became determined to empower girls of color to get excited about science, technology, engineering, and math.

In 2012, she created STEM From Dance, a nonprofit program that combines dance with STEM education to make these subjects more engaging and accessible. Today, the program works with girls of color ages 8 to 18 in nine cities across the US and is free to its participants.

The organization’s school and summer programs typically attract girls who identify as dancers but are hesitant about STEM. Through the supportive community and hands-on projects, the girls begin to see themselves as programmers, engineers, and innovators.

“Through dance, we’re able to create this atmosphere that feels comfortable,” Toussaint said. “And with that space, we’re able to introduce something that feels kind of intimidating.”

Working in small groups, the girls choreograph dance routines that include STEM elements, such as LED light strips that they code to light up with the music. The girls also create songs through computer science that they incorporate into their performance. To date, more than 2,000 girls have benefitted from the program.

In every crisis lies opportunity, and in every opportunity lurks crisis.

The startling advance of Syria’s opposition in a week is the unintended consequence of two other conflicts, one near and one far. It leaves several key US allies with a new and largely unknown Islamist-led force, governing swathes of their strategic neighbor – if not most of it, given the pace of events, by the time you read this.

Syria has absorbed so much diplomatic oxygen in the past 20 years, it is fitting this week of sweeping change popped up as if from a vacuum. Since the invasion of Iraq, the US has struggled to find a policy for Syria that could accommodate the vastly different needs of its allies Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and its sometime partners Iraq and Lebanon.

Syria has always been the wing-nut of the region: linking Iraq’s oil to the Mediterranean, the Shia of Iraq and Iran to Lebanon, and NATO’s southern underbelly Turkey to Jordan’s deserts. George W Bush put it in his Axis of Evil; Obama didn’t want to touch it much in case he broke it further; Donald Trump bombed it once, very quickly.

It has been in the grip of a horrifically brutal dictatorship for decades. Hama, Homs, Damascus – all again in the headlines overnight because of the regime’s swift fall, yet too home to the most heinous parts of its history – respectively the 1982 massacre of 20,000 in Hama, or the 2012 siege and then starvation of Homs, or the gassing with Sarin in Ghouta, near Damascus, of children in basements in 2013. Then there was ISIS from 2014 to 2017. There seemed little more you could subject Syria to, until this week brought it liberation, thus far at an unknown cost, with vast caveats.

The swiftly changing fate of Bashar al-Assad was not really made in Syria, but in southern Beirut and Donetsk. Without the physical crutches of Russia’s air force and Iran’s proxy muscle Hezbollah, he toppled when finally pushed.

Israel’s brutal yet effective two-month war on Hezbollah probably did not pay much mind to Assad’s fate. But it may have decided it. Likewise, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 34 months ago, likely considered little how few jets or troops it might leave Moscow to uphold its Middle Eastern allies with. But the war of attrition has left Russia “incapable” of assisting Assad, even President-elect Donald Trump noted on Saturday. And indeed Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cut a weakened figure this weekend, saying: “What is the forecast? I cannot guess. We are not in the business of guessing.” These are not the words of a steadfast and capable guarantor, rather those of a regional power seeing its spinning plates hit the floor.

Iran has been wildly hamstrung in the past six months, as its war with Israel, usually in the shadows or deniable, evolved into high-stakes and largely ineffective long-range missile attacks. Its main proxy, Hezbollah, was crippled by a pager attack on its hierarchy, and then by weeks of vicious airstrikes. Tehran’s pledges of support have done little so far but result in a joint statement with Syria and Iraq on “a need for collective action to confront” the rebels.

The Middle East is reeling because ideas taken as a given – like pervasive Iranian strength, and Russian solidity as an ally – are crumbling as they meet new realities. Assad prevailed as the leader of a blood-drenched minority, not through guile or grit, but because Iran murdered for him and Moscow bombed for him. Now these two allies are wildly over-stretched elsewhere, the imbalance that kept Assad and his ruling Alawite minority at the helm is also gone.

When established regional powers seem suddenly unable to act, there is often a moment of significant risk. But this is one seized by Turkey, a NATO member which has dealt with the most fallout from Syria’s turmoil.

Ankara has had to play the long game over Syria, and housed over three million of its refugees since 2012. It has had to see the Kurdish militants – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that the US trained, equipped and helped to fight ISIS – develop a stronghold along its border. From Ankara’s perspective, the Syria problem has never gone away even though attention to it faded; it would one day need to alter the enduring mess in its favor.

The sweeping offensive by Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS) – with its impetus, equipment and inclusive communications strategy, telling Syria’s disparate and panicked ethnic groups their new society would view them all as one – spoke of a sophisticated hand behind it. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made his strongest suggestion to date whose hand that was when he said Friday he had tried to negotiate the future of Syria with Assad, failed, and he wished the offensive well, all the way to the Syrian capital. It was not a subtle message. But it does not need to be at a time of seismic change Erdogan has likely long awaited.

Exactly who Turkey has empowered remains unclear. HTS’s upper echelons, in short, began as al-Qaeda, found ISIS too extreme, and are now trying to suggest they’ve grown up. From Ireland to Afghanistan, the history of this sort of evolution is messy. It’s not always simple for extremists to reform, yet also possible sometimes they can change just about enough. Separately, while Turkey may have lit the touch paper of HTS assaults, the speed of Assad’s collapse may not have been anticipated. There is such a thing as too great a success.

The unknowable impact of vast, fast change left Syria mired in half-policies and US inaction before. Back in 2013, then-US President Barack Obama said he would retaliate militarily if Assad used chemical weapons, but did not enforce this “red line” when Assad deployed Sarin in Ghouta in 2013. His officials partially justified his walkback by suggesting too much further damage to the already frail Assad regime could let increasingly jihadist rebels to advance so fast, they could be in control of Damascus in months. It is possible they were right back then; it is yet more likely the failure by Obama to act emboldened Russia and Iran for years.

We don’t know a lot about what is happening now in Syria or what it means. HTS may prove a better governor of Syria’s ethnic mix than Assad was, which won’t be hard. Assad may melt away into exile in a lavish row of Moscow dachas, and his hollow autocracy may crumble fast. Russia may lick its geopolitical wounds and concentrate on the catastrophic bleed that is its invasion of Ukraine. Iran may pause to reflect, and instead ready itself for the possible tsunami of aggression that could come with Trump’s White House.

Obama’s argument was made to a Western audience exhausted by Iraq and Afghanistan, and preoccupied by terrorism. And it marked a form of war-weary isolationism, in which an over-stretched US was reluctant to instigate more change it could not control. Obama ended up funding and arming the Syrian opposition so feebly it was slaughtered and – when its extremists joined up with radicals from Iraq’s long-running insurgency against the US occupation – metastasized into ISIS. That was about the worst possible outcome. The West had played its hand so weakly in one low-grade conflict, it won the four-year industrial-strength horror of a war against the ISIS caliphate.

This may prove the swift and severe change that Syria needed to stabilize – a shaking of the carpet that leaves society smoother. Syria’s past 13 years have been so brutal it deserves exactly that. Yet they have also proven how out of reach peace can be, and deep its suffering can go.

Syrian rebels appear to have entered the capital Damascus after facing scant resistance from regime forces, as President Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long grip on power seemed to wane by the minute.

Hours before, Syria’s main armed opposition group said it had “fully liberated” the major city of Homs, north of the capital. Syrians were seen tearing down and setting fire to posters of Assad after rebels had entered the city, in scenes reminiscent of pro-democracy protests in the city during the Arab Spring more than a decade ago.

Just a day ago, observers were saying Homs was of huge strategic importance to the rebels, as its capture effectively split the Assad regime in two, severing the government in Damascus from the coast. But by Sunday morning, it was not clear there was even a functioning regime left to speak of.

The rebels’ progress has been stunningly swift. After bursting out of their territory in the northwestern Idlib province, the main rebel group captured Aleppo and Hama in just over a week of fighting. After they were joined Friday by a fresh uprising in the southern Daraa province, both groups set their sights on Damascus.

“We were able to liberate four Syrian cities within 24 hours: Daraa, Quneitra, Suwayda and Homs,” said Lt. Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, a spokesperson for the main rebel group. “Our operations are continuing to liberate the entire Damascus countryside, and our eyes are on the capital, Damascus.”

It had been expected that the regime would mount a firmer defense of Damascus, but the rebels said that senior Assad regime officials were preparing to defect to them in the capital.

Echoes of earlier protests

The scenes recall one of the most symbolic images from the Arab Spring in Syria, when pro-democracy protesters tore down Assad posters on top of the same gates in 2011.

Nearby, residents were also seen celebrating in Clock Tower square, one of the focal points of the original anti-government protests.

To stamp out those protests, the regime army launched a brutal assault on the city’s Khalidiya neighborhood in 2012, using tanks and mortars to attack civilian homes, causing some to collapse. Regime troops stormed the area, slaughtering families in their homes. Around 200 people are thought to have died in the massacre.

In a video live-streamed from Clock Tower square by a resident late Saturday, a resident threw a framed portrait of Assad on the ground, shattering its glass. Over the course of 10 minutes, Syrians filled the square, chanting in celebration at the growing apparent collapse of the Assad regime.

Buckingham Palace has revealed the official 2024 Christmas card for King Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla.

On Saturday, the palace released the image selected for the festive greetings card, which was taken earlier this year by Millie Pilkington. Pilkington, one of the United Kingdom’s most respected portrait photographers, has taken numerous snaps of the family over the years.

The portrait of the happy couple was snapped in April in the garden at Buckingham Palace.

It captures King Charles, 76, dressed in a gray suit and blue tie, standing in side profile with his hand in his pocket. Camilla, 77, wearing a blue wool crepe ensemble by luxury couturier Fiona Clare, stands next to him.

The message inside the card reads: “Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and New Year.”

It’s a more casual option than last year’s photograph taken in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace following the King’s coronation.

Senior members of the Windsor clan traditionally release a copy of the seasonal card they send to family, friends and colleagues.

Royal-watchers will now be looking forward to seeing this year’s card from the Wales family.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have been busy in recent days. Prince William traveled to France on Saturday to join world leaders at reopening celebrations for Notre Dame. The Parisian cathedral has undergone extensive restoration following a devastating fire in 2019.

While in the French capital, the heir to the British throne met US first lady Jill Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

On Friday evening, William’s wife Catherine hosted her annual Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey.

The evening – which was dedicated to those who have “shown love, kindness and empathy towards others in their communities” – featured performances from the Westminster Abbey choir as well as breakout British singer-songwriter Olivia Dean, American musician Gregory Porter and UK hitmaker Paloma Faith.

Prince William, Olympic champion swimmer Adam Peaty and actors Sophie Okonedo, Michelle Dockery and Richard E. Grant gave readings.

South Korean prosecutors on Sunday detained a former defense minister who allegedly recommended last week’s brief but stunning martial law imposition to President Yoon Suk Yeol, making him the first figure detained over the case.

The development came a day after Yoon avoided an opposition-led bid to impeach him in parliament, with most ruling-party lawmakers boycotting a floor vote to prevent the two-thirds majority needed to suspend his presidential powers. The main opposition Democratic Party said it will prepare a new impeachment motion against Yoon.

On Sunday, ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun was taken into custody at a Seoul detention facility after undergoing an investigation by prosecutors, a law enforcement official said, requesting anonymity in line with privacy rules.

The official gave no further details. But South Korean media reported that Kim voluntarily appeared at a Seoul prosecutors’ office, where he had his mobile phone confiscated and was detained. The reports said police searched Kim’s former office and residence on Sunday.

Repeated calls to Seoul prosecutors’ offices and police agency were unanswered.

Senior prosecutor Park Se-hyun said in a televised statement Sunday that authorities launched a 62-member special investigation team on the martial law case. Park, who will head the team, said the probe would “leave no suspicions.”

Yoon accepted Kim’s resignation offer on Thursday after opposition parties submitted a separate impeachment motion against him.

Kim is a central figure in Yoon’s martial law enforcement, which led to special forces troops encircling the National Assembly building and army helicopters hovering over it. The military withdrew after the parliament unanimously voted to overturn Yoon’s decree, forcing his Cabinet to lift it before daybreak Wednesday.

In Kim’s impeachment motion document, the Democratic Party and other opposition parties accused him of proposing martial law to Yoon. Vice Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho told parliament that Kim Yong-hyun ordered the deployment of troops to the National Assembly.

The Democratic Party called Yoon’s martial law imposition “unconstitutional, illegal rebellion or a coup.” It has filed complaints with police against at least nine people, including Yoon and Kim Yong-hyun, over the alleged rebellion.

In a statement Wednesday, Kim said that “all troops who performed duties related to martial law were acting on my instructions, and all responsibility lies with me.”

Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung told reporters on Thursday the prosecution plans to investigate the rebellion charges against Yoon following complaints. While the president mostly has immunity from prosecution while in office, that does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.

The Defense Ministry said it has suspended three top military commanders over their alleged involvement in the martial law imposition. They were among those facing the opposition-raised rebellion allegations.

On Saturday, Yoon issued an apology over the martial law decree, saying he won’t shirk legal or political responsibility for the declaration. He said he would leave it to his party to chart a course through the country’s political turmoil, “including matters related to my term in office.”

Since taking office in 2022 for a single five-year term, Yoon has struggled to push his agenda through an opposition-controlled parliament and grappled with low approval ratings amid scandals involving himself and his wife. In his martial law announcement on Tuesday night, Yoon called parliament a “den of criminals” bogging down state affairs and vowed to eliminate “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces.”

The declaration of martial law was the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea. The turmoil has sparked alarm among key diplomatic partners like the U.S. and Japan.

The scrapping of Yoon’s impeachment motion is expected to intensify protests calling for his ouster and deepen political chaos in South Korea, with a survey suggesting a majority of South Koreans support the president’s impeachment. Yoon’s martial law declaration drew criticism from the conservative ruling party, but it is determined to oppose Yoon’s impeachment apparently because it fears losing the presidency to liberals.

Ruling People Power Party leader Han Dong-hun said Sunday the PPP will work with the government to determine Yoon’s early and orderly exit from office in a way that minimizes confusion, but he didn’t say when that would happen. He also claimed Yoon will not be involved in state affairs, including foreign policy.

Yoon’s presidential office didn’t immediately respond. The Democratic Party criticized Han Dong-hun’s comments, saying that the exclusion of an incumbent president from state affairs isn’t supported by the constitution. The party said authorities should immediately arrest Yoon and all others implicated in the case.

The presidential office said Sunday that Yoon accepted the resignation offer by Safety Minister Lee Sang-min, who has also faced an opposition-led impeachment motion over his alleged role in the martial law enforcement.

In a parliamentary hearing on Friday, Lee, one of Yoon’s closest associates, defended Yoon’s martial law decree, saying the president exercised his powers “within the boundaries of constitutional processes and law.”