Massive snowstorms and record heat hit eastern China over the weekend, with residents of one province wrapping up against driving snow and their compatriots down the coast heading outdoors to enjoy ice cream.

Blizzards on Sunday swept across the eastern province of Shandong, south of Beijing, with snow piling up to 13 centimeters (5.1 inches) deep in some areas, according to state-run outlet the Global Times.

Photos from provincial capital Jinan showed residents bundled up in thick coats and boots, workers shoveling snow from roads, and parks boasting newly-built snowmen.

City authorities issued two red alerts for road ice and blizzard dangers, while several districts canceled classes for Monday, the Global Times reported.

Travel was also disrupted, with delays on multiple high-speed rail lines through the province.

But about 400 miles down the coast in the finance hub of Shanghai, residents experienced a weekend of record heat.

The city of almost 25 million recorded its hottest early March in more than 150 years, according to the Global Times.

Temperatures hit a new early March record on Saturday – then rose even higher on Sunday to 28.5 degrees Celsius (83 Fahrenheit). Residents took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather, flocking outdoors in t-shirts and shorts; photos from the city show people eating ice cream in the sun and children frolicking in public fountains.

Temperatures in Shanghai are expected to drop in the coming days. But the vastly different conditions across the country reflect the increasingly unpredictable climate that in recent years has brought soaring temperatures, prolonged droughts and devastating floods.

Last year was China’s hottest since nationwide records began more than 60 years ago and in Shanghai, it was the warmest year since the Qing dynasty, Reuters reported, citing local authorities.

It was a weekend for the history books. What began with US President Donald Trump furiously berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House ended with a show of European unity in London and vows to wrestle negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine war away from the US.

Here are five key takeaways from a public bust-up that has profound implications for Washington’s relationship with some of its strongest allies:

Zelensky-Trump fallout

The unprecedented scenes that unfolded in the Oval Office on Friday appalled Western allies, but came after weeks of fundamental changes in transatlantic relations led by a new White House administration pushing an “America First” agenda.

Those changes first became apparent when US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last month that Kyiv joining NATO was unrealistic – upending the alliance’s stated policy while handing Russia a major concession – and told European allies the US will no longer prioritize European and Ukrainian security.

Later, Vice President JD Vance made a blistering speech to European leaders in Munich, claiming they are suppressing free speech, losing control of immigration, refusing to work with hard-right parties in government – and that the biggest threat they face comes “from within,” rather than China and Russia.

And Trump had already wrongly accused Kyiv of starting the conflict and labeled Zelensky a “dictator.”

Then Zelensky met Trump on Friday as their two countries tried to hammer out an agreement that would give Washington access to Kyiv’s mineral resources in exchange for investment and what Ukraine hopes would be concrete security guarantees.

That deal looks off the table for now after the fiery showdown which saw the Ukrainians instructed to leave the White House, accused of being ungrateful for American military support.

Europe steps up

Western nations were quick to signal their continued support for Zelensky and his war-torn country.

On Saturday Zelensky arrived in London, where British Prime Minister Keir Starmer embraced him in front of the TV cameras. That warm reception also extended to a meeting with King Charles at Sandringham House.

But it was at a crucial summit of European leaders in London that European unity and allyship with Ukraine was on full display, as they attempted to forge a path toward a ceasefire and ramp up ongoing military support for Kyiv.

Starmer told the summit that the West is at a “crossroads in history” and “this is not a moment for more talk. It’s time to act.”

NATO chief Mark Rutte said more countries agreed to ramp up defense spending, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was vital for Europe to “rearm” and would present a plan to do that this week.

Fresh plan to stop the fighting

During the meeting, France and Britain proposed an alternative peace deal for Ukraine that would involve a month-long limited ceasefire, French President Emmanuel Macron told Le Figaro newspaper.

Countries would enter a “coalition of the willing” to defend a deal and guarantee peace, Starmer said, and his country would back this with “boots on the ground and planes in the air.”

Any potential peace plan would have to involve Russia, but Moscow would not dictate the terms of “any security guarantee,” Starmer added. Zelensky has not said whether he agreed with the proposal and Russia has already said it will not accept European troops as peacekeepers.

And it remains to be seen whether this proposal has legs with the White House, which has pursued direct peace talks with Moscow that currently do not include Ukraine or Europe.

American support still needed

What was clear from the meeting is that US support is still crucial for Ukraine peace efforts. Starmer reiterated any plan would need “strong US backing.”

Since his disastrous visit to Washington, Zelensky has repeatedly expressed his gratitude for both US and European military support. “There has not been a day when we have not felt this gratitude,” he said in his nightly address Sunday night.

Zelensky said on Saturday his country was ready to sign the rare minerals deal with the US, and called the US a “strategic partner,” saying it would not benefit anyone other than Russia if US assistance to Ukraine were to stop.

A win for Putin

Putin has been tight lipped about the Oval Office fracas although Russian state media and officials have reacted with glee.

Moscow is now anticipating talks aimed at rebuilding the US-Russia relationship will continue in the weeks ahead and, though nothing has been announced in public, there’s talk of a Trump-Putin summit being fast-tracked.

When emergency workers arrived at the home of Tetyana Kulyk and her husband Pavlo Ivanchov shortly after it was hit by a Russian drone on Wednesday, all they could do was recover their charred bodies.

Kulyk, a renowned Ukrainian journalist, and Ivanchov, a surgeon and university professor, were killed when the drone hit their home just north of Kyiv.

Neighbors told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne they heard screams and tried to enter the burning home through the garage, only to discover the whole house had turned into an impassable inferno.

As US President Donald Trump pushes for “a deal” to end the war in Ukraine – and dresses down Ukraine’s president in front of reporters at the White House – Moscow every day keeps launching deadly attacks against Ukraine.

Kulyk and Ivanchov are just two of the more than 75 Ukrainian civilians who have been killed by Russia since Trump held what he called a “highly productive” phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin less than three weeks ago.

Trump said that he was convinced after the call that the Russian leader wants to end the war. “I think he wants to stop fighting. I see that. We spoke long and hard,” the US president said.

Trump berated Zelensky for allegedly not wanting to engage in diplomacy with Putin, who has repeatedly violated earlier agreements, launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and is overseeing the killing of Ukrainian civilians on daily basis.

Speaking in front of the cameras on Friday, Trump criticized Zelensky for “the hatred he’s got for Putin” and accused him of not wanting a peace, a suggestion Zelensky rejected.

And meanwhile the fighting is continuing – and the civilian death toll is mounting in Ukraine.

Russia has consistently denied targeting civilian infrastructure, despite the ample evidence, and has pointed to the deaths on its own territory from Ukrainian attacks.

Among those killed in Ukraine in recent weeks was Olga Moroz, a baker born in 1968, who died when a Russian rocket hit the yard of her home in Kramatorsk. Local media quoted her friends as saying she was a hard worker who was always cheerful and was taking care of her elderly mother.

A Russian missile hit a building in Kryvyi Rih, crushing 21-year-old Vladimir Pimenov. Local media said the man, a talented dancer, died in hospital. Pimenov’s girlfriend was critically injured in the strike and remains in hospital, the report said.

In the town of Bilytske, in the Donetsk region, a Russian strike on a residential building killed Yevhen and Olga Buryane, young parents of two children. Local volunteers have organized a fundraiser in support of the orphans.

Several Ukrainian civilians were killed on Friday, as Trump and Zelensky were preparing for and held their disastrous meeting at the White House.

A civilian passenger was killed when a Russian drone hit a minibus in Kherson, according to the Ukrainian prosecutors, while two civilian men in their early 60s were killed by Russian drones cycling through the town on Lyman in eastern Ukraine.

Over the weekend, at least seven more Ukrainian civilians, including a teenager, were killed in Russian attacks.

Putin demands more of Ukraine’s territory

Trump sent a delegation of American diplomats earlier this month to meet their Russian counterparts for peace talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine was not invited to the summit.

The meeting lasted more than four hours and was described by a member of Moscow’s negotiating team as “positive.”

And while Trump seemed to suggest Putin is ready to negotiate, the Russian leader has been busy reiterating demands that have long been unacceptable to Kyiv.

Putin has repeatedly made his goals clear: He wants to gain control over the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as hold onto the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, Russia currently occupies about 99% of the Luhansk region, 70% of the Donetsk region, and roughly 75% of both the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Trump and his officials have said that it is unlikely Ukraine will be able to get back much of its pre-war territory, with the president even going as far as suggesting that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.”

According to Ukrainian officials, some 6 million people, including 1 million children, live under Russian occupation, in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak human rights situation.”

But Russian troops are inching ahead in a number of locations along the frontline, slowly taking over more and more of Ukraine’s territory.

The eastern cities of Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk saw numerous attacks in recent days, with nine people killed in Kostyantynivka and three in Pokrovsk in the past week, Ukrainian officials said.

But while many of the attacks have targeted cities and towns in eastern parts of the country, the last three weeks have shown that nowhere is safe in Ukraine.

The Russian military even fired missiles at Kyiv, on the very day Trump and Putin were speaking, killing one person and injuring a child. It regularly launches deadly attacks against civilians in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, as well as Kherson in the south.

As the news of their killing broke on Wednesday, Kulyk and Ivanchov were hailed by their friends and colleagues, with many highlighting their respective achievements.

Serhiy Cherevaty, the director general of Ukrinform, the Ukrainian National News Agency, where Kulyk worked, praised her work on programs focused on Ukraine’s soldiers.

“She will forever remain in our hearts and in our memory,” he said in a statement.

“Tetiana was not just a professional in her field; she was a voice that told the world about the resilience of the Ukrainian people,” said Serhiy Tomilenko, the president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

The Bogomolets National Medical University where Ivanchov worked said he “didn’t just operate, he organized the entire healing process – from admission to discharge from hospital, he passed his knowledge on to students and colleagues and was a role model to students who aspire to become qualified doctors and responsible citizens.”

Ivanchov, it added, “was the person who made the university into what it is today.”

At least one person has been killed and several others have been injured after a car rammed into pedestrians in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, local police said Monday.

The incident occurred shortly after midday local time (6 a.m. ET), said Stefan Wilhelm, a spokesperson for Mannheim police. A suspect has been arrested, he added.

Germany’s federal government issued an “extreme danger” warning in the city and said a large-scale police operation is underway.

Germany has been rocked by a string of deadly car ramming attacks in recent months.

In December, a vehicle plowed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people, including a 9-year-old boy. The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who had lived in Germany for more than a decade and worked to help Saudis leave his home country. Social media posts showed he was a fervent critic of Islam.

In February, a person drove a Mini Cooper into demonstrators in Munich, killing a mother and her child and injuring more than 30 others. The suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan man.

That attack came on the eve of the Munich Security Conference and just days before the country’s federal election, where concerns over immigration and security helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to second place.

Monday’s attack comes as Germany celebrates “Rose Monday,” a carnival held before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

At least one person has been killed and several others have been injured after a car rammed into pedestrians in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, local police said Monday.

The incident occurred shortly after midday local time (6 a.m. ET), said Stefan Wilhelm, a spokesperson for Mannheim police. A suspect has been arrested, he added.

Germany’s federal government issued an “extreme danger” warning in the city and said a large-scale police operation is underway.

Mannheim University Hospital said that three of the injured people it has received are receiving urgent acute care, including a child. Police have not yet said how many people were injured.

Germany has been rocked by a string of deadly car ramming attacks in recent months. Police have not yet said whether Monday’s incident was a deliberate attack.

In December, a vehicle plowed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people, including a 9-year-old boy. The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who had lived in Germany for more than a decade and worked to help Saudis leave his home country. Social media posts showed he was a fervent critic of Islam.

In February, a person drove a Mini Cooper into demonstrators in Munich, killing a mother and her child and injuring more than 30 others. The suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan man.

That attack came on the eve of the Munich Security Conference and just days before the country’s federal election, where concerns over immigration and security helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to second place.

Monday’s incident comes as Germany celebrates “Rose Monday,” a carnival held before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

German police were already on high alert ahead of the carnival celebrations, but the incident in Mannheim has prompted some forces to take additional measures. Police in Ulm, a city southeast of Mannheim, said they have “noticeably increased” their presence around carnival events.