There is a particular kind of dread that settles along a coastline when a distress call goes out. It arrives first as a raw electronic signal, fragmented across maritime radio channels, and then as a flurry of urgent messages between control rooms, rescue teams, and ships nearby. Last night, that dread touched the north-west coast of Ireland as a Russian oil tanker named Myra declared an emergency dozens of miles offshore. The seas were already turning angry. Storm Boelo had arrived, and Met Éireann had issued a status red marine warning for the region. Waves were mounting, wind was screaming…

On a bright autumn weekend, a black Mercedes-Maybach rolled across the Yalu River, carrying a man whose whereabouts have always been watched with more anxiety than almost anyone else on earth. Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, was on his way to Dandong, China—not by his private train or airplane, as on all five of his previous visits to China, but by car. The New Yalu River Bridge, which had opened just days earlier on October 15, became the stage for an unusually personal piece of diplomacy. North Korean state television aired footage of the leader’s car crossing the gleaming span,…