New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made a “formal and unreserved” apology in Parliament on Tuesday for the widespread abuse, torture and neglect of hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults in care, many of them Indigenous.

“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” Luxon said, as he spoke to lawmakers and a public gallery packed with survivors of the abuse.

An estimated 200,000 people in state, foster and faith-based care suffered “unimaginable” abuse over a period of seven decades, a blistering report released in July said at the end of the largest inquiry ever undertaken in New Zealand.

“For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility,” Luxon said.

“Words do matter and I say these words with sincerity: I have read your stories, and I believe you,” he added. The Prime Minister was apologizing on behalf of previous governments too, he said.

The results were a “national disgrace,” the inquiry’s report said, after a six-year investigation believed to be the widest-ranging of comparable probes worldwide. Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 2019 — in a country that today has a population of 5 million — nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse. Many more were exploited or neglected.

They were disproportionately Maori, New Zealand’s Indigenous people.

In response to the findings, New Zealand’s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture, and pledged an apology to all those abused in state, foster and religious care since 1950.

Luxon’s government was decried by some survivors and advocates earlier Tuesday ahead of the apology for not yet having divulged plans for the financial compensation of those abused.

Since September 1, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv has been spared from Russian drone attacks on just one night – October 14.

Every other night, many of its 4.5 million residents have been woken by sirens and rushed to some form of shelter or hidden in their bathrooms.

In the first week of November alone, sirens blared for 43 hours.

The onslaught is just one indicator of Russia’s ability to prosecute its assault at full throttle, even as Ukraine faces deep uncertainty about future support from the US and Europe.

The cities of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa have also suffered frequent drone and missile strikes in recent weeks in what appears to be a renewed Russian effort to break the resolve of Ukrainian civilians.

On Saturday night, Ukrainian air defenses detected a record 145 incoming Shahed drones.

The spike in attacks on cities comes as Russian forces continue to make incremental gains in Donetsk, while Ukrainian units suffer from manpower shortages and are increasingly stretched along the vast front line.

‘Constant anxiety’

Viktoria Kovalchuk said that after debris from a drone fell close to her home last week her 6-year-old son Teo was “very scared and grabbed onto me.”

Kovalchuk said Teo was in a state of constant anxiety. “For the past two months, when the shelling has become more frequent, we have been hiding in the bathroom or going down to the shelter in the basement,” Kovalchuk said.

“I don’t remember when we had a proper night’s sleep.”

“We will restore everything on our own and continue to work as we have been doing,” he insisted.

Alarms alone are hugely disruptive to the city’s life. Bridges close, public transport is halted, and the two parts of the capital either side of the Dnipro river are effectively cut off.

Many children don’t come to school during alerts, Usov said.

Many air defense batteries are run by volunteers from all walks of life – among them one of the judges on Ukraine’s Supreme Court, Yuriy Chumak.

“We have been doing this for over two years,” he said, but the intensity of drone attacks had peaked over the past two to three months.

Their equipment is low-tech – machine-guns on the roofs of eight high-rise buildings. “Drones were flying low, (so) it was realistic and cheap to shoot them down with a machine gun.”

“At night, we are on duty continuously. There are attacks every day now,” Chumak added.

The drone attacks seem calculated to instil fear rather than cause mass casualties, but several people have been killed in recent weeks. Among them was 15-year-old Mariya Troyanivska, described by her Kyiv school as an inspiration “who loved life and gave joy to everyone around her.”

The relentless attacks do appear to be eroding morale. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology regularly asks people whether Ukraine should continue fighting for as long as it takes. The number saying yes has fallen from 73% in February to 63% last month.

‘Difficult’ front lines

That perception is likely fed by news from the front, where Russian assaults continue to erode Ukrainian defenses, especially close to the key hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

The commander in chief of the military, Oleksander Syrskyi, said Saturday that, “the situation remains difficult and tends to escalate. The enemy, taking advantage of its numerical superiority, continues to conduct offensive actions and focuses its main efforts on the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions.”

After a two-week trip to Ukraine last month, analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting said the key problem is to integrate newly mobilized troops.

Muzyka posted on X that the Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk “has stretched the already small Ukrainian forces even further.”

The Ukrainians are using a variety of battlefield drones to inflict losses on the Russians. Syrskyi said more than 52,000 enemy targets were destroyed or damaged by drones in October alone.

But drones cannot compensate for a shortage of infantry, Muzyka reflected. Despite a law passed earlier this year to improve mobilization, “the presence of newly mobilized units/soldiers is practically imperceptible.”

“We have a situation in which the Ukrainians not only cannot keep up with replacing losses, but also lose soldiers at an increasingly rapid pace due to falling morale,” Muzyka said on X.

Russian forces have become more adept at exploiting weaker points on the front line, enabling them to eat away at Ukrainian defenses within 6 miles (10 km) of Pokrovsk.

On many other parts of the 600-mile frontline, the Ukrainians are also on the defensive, with some analysts expecting another Russian push in the south. The only gains for the Ukrainians this year have been inside Russia, where they launched a surprise incursion in the Kursk region in August.

The negative outlook has darkened the mood among Ukraine’s allies, who talk much less about Kyiv prevailing on the battlefield – and much more about it holding enough ground to force the Kremlin to negotiate.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin implied as much. “No single capability will turn the tide. No one system will end Putin’s assault. What matters is the combined effects of Ukraine’s military capabilities — and staying focused on what works.”

Rym Montaz of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assesses that there is a “growing, quiet consensus that negotiations, which will entail accepting at least a temporary loss of sovereignty over territories, are the only way to end this war.”

“Kyiv is at one of its weakest points since February 2022, and the prospect of selling such a negotiation is a political minefield” for Zelensky, Montaz says.

Victory, defined by the Ukrainian government as ousting Russian troops from all its territory, is widely seen as unattainable.

In a new essay in Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass says that “Washington must grapple with the grim reality of the war and come to terms with a more plausible outcome.”

“There is no game-changing weapon or lifted restriction that would allow Ukraine to simultaneously defend what it already controls and liberate what it does not,” Haas writes.

Ukrainian officials are putting a brave face on a gloomy outlook.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Saturday: “I am convinced that we are all united by the goal of achieving a just peace for Ukraine and stopping Russian aggression … We are talking about a just peace, not appeasement.”

The path to any negotiation is – to put it mildly – unclear. The Kremlin says its goals in Ukraine are unchanged: the annexation of four eastern and southern Ukrainian regions. Russian forces already occupy almost all of Luhansk and substantial parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – altogether some 20% of Ukraine.

“If Ukraine wants to persuade Russia to join peace talks, it must first stabilize the front and rebuild its forces enough to be able to conduct offensives,” says Muzyka.

Talk of how to end the conflict will now go into overdrive with Donald Trump’s election triumph. Trump has previously said he could end the war in 24 hours and in September he declared: “I think it’s in the US’ best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.”

One option favored by his vice president-elect, JD Vance, is to freeze the conflict on its current lines with a heavily fortified demilitarized zone to deter future Russian aggression. Along a poorly defined front line hundreds of miles long, that would be a daunting and perhaps impossible task.

It would reward the Kremlin with control of territories already seized. Moscow would also demand guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality or at least the indefinite suspension of its drive to join NATO.

Even if on the backfoot, this would be impossible for President Volodymyr Zelensky to swallow without guarantees of Ukraine’s future security. And after the sacrifices of the past 1,000 days, it would also be unpalatable to many Ukrainians.

But the destination may be changing.

Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist who was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital mourned their loss while a 37-year-old suspect was in custody Saturday.

The victim, Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on Nov. 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest.

Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.

The man was detained on Nov. 7 and questioned by police, and later allegedly confessed to the killing.

After Michalski’s disappearance, her family and friends had launched an effort to find her, starting a Facebook group to gather tips on her whereabouts. Her parents traveled to Hungary to assist in the search, but while en route learned that she had been killed.

At a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday night, the victim’s father, Bill Michalski, told The Associated Press that he was “still overcome with emotion” at the death of his daughter.

“There was no reason for this to happen,” he said. “I’m still trying to wrap my arms around what happened … I don’t know that I ever will.”

Police detained the suspect, an Irish citizen, on the evening of Nov. 7. Investigators said that Michalski and the suspect had met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man’s rented apartment. Police alleged the man killed Michalski while they were engaged in an “intimate encounter.”

Police alleged the suspect confessed to the killing, but said it had been an accident. Police said that he had attempted to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and hiding Michalski’s body in a wardrobe before purchasing a suitcase and placing her body inside.

Allegedly, he then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, around 90 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooden area outside the town of Szigliget.

Video released by police showed the suspect guiding authorities to the location of the body. Police said the suspect had made internet searches before being apprehended on how to dispose of a body, police procedures in missing person cases, whether pigs really eat dead bodies, and the presence of wild boars in the Lake Balaton area.

They said he had also made an internet search inquiring on the competence of Budapest police.

Crime scene photographs released by police showed a rolling suitcase, several articles of clothing including a pair of fleece-lined boots, and a small handbag next to a credit card bearing Michalski’s name.

According to a post by an administrator of a Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” which was created on Nov. 7, Michalski, who went by “Kenzie,” was a nurse practitioner who “will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman.”

At the candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday, Michalski’s father gave brief comments to those who had gathered, and was wearing a baseball cap he said he had received as a gift from his daughter.

Michalski had visited Budapest before, and called it her “happy place,” her father told the AP.

“The history, she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here,” he said. “This was her city.”

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.