The body of the assassinated Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was buried in a private ceremony in the country’s capital on Friday night.

They said the burial was carried out in deep privacy, with his coffin escorted by members of the police along with his closest relatives.

Villavicencio, an anti-corruption campaigner and lawmaker who was outspoken about the violence caused by drug trafficking in the country, was gunned down at a campaign rally in Quito on Wednesday.

The killing of Villavicencio, who belonged to the Movimiento Construye political party, came just 10 days before the first round of the presidential election was set to take place.

Authorities said Thursday that they had arrested six suspects, all Colombian nationals and gang members, in connection with his assassination. The suspected shooter died earlier in police custody following an exchange of fire with security personnel, though his nationality remains unclear.

The Andean country, a relatively peaceful nation until a few years ago, is now plagued by a deteriorating security crisis fueled by drug trafficking and a turf war between rival criminal organizations.

Violence has been most pronounced on Ecuador’s Pacific coast as criminal groups battle to control and distribute narcotics, primarily cocaine.

The assassination prompted an outpouring of condemnation from inside Ecuador and around the world, including from the UN Human Rights chief, the United States and European Union.

During the investigation, authorities seized a rifle, a machine gun, four pistols, three grenades, two rifle magazines, four boxes of ammunition, two motorcycles, and a stolen vehicle believed to have been used by the suspects.

The attack also prompted President Guillermo Lasso to request help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he tweeted earlier that a delegation would soon be arriving in the country.

Growing up in a small village in southern Ghana, Osei Boateng watched many of his family members and neighbors struggle to access basic health care. In many regions of the country, it can take hours to get to the nearest hospital.

Boateng said many people lost their lives due to preventable or treatable diseases. His grandmother and aunt were among them.

“My grandmother was a very big part of my life,” said Boateng, 28. “It was very hard when we lost her, and it was due to something that could have been easily prevented. That is the painful part of it.”

The average life expectancy in Ghana is 64 years old, and the most common causes of death are largely treatable conditions, such as malaria, stroke, and respiratory infections.

Feeling an urgent call to help, Boateng decided he would make it his life’s mission to bring health care to remote communities in Ghana. He worked hard in school and got a scholarship to study biology at Cornell University in the US.

“I was learning a lot about hypertension and diabetes and things that people back home didn’t know they could die from,” said Boateng, who ultimately earned his master’s in Healthcare Administration. “Early screening wasn’t an option for us.”

He realized that education and preventative health care was lacking in many remote areas of Ghana. Yet telling people to go to the doctor wasn’t the answer.

“I realized that these people don’t have the luxury of time,” Boateng said. “The food that they put on the table is determined by what they sell in the market. If I tell them to go to the hospital, there’s no way they are going to go.”

Doctor’s office on wheels

Boateng wanted to find a way to remove these barriers to health care access and education. He started his nonprofit, OKB Hope Foundation, and in 2021, he converted a van into a mobile doctor’s office and started bringing health care directly to those in need.

A few times a week, the mobile clinic and medical team travel long distances to remote communities in Ghana and provide free routine medical care.

On each trip, Boateng’s team consists of a nurse, physician’s assistant, doctor, and operation assistant. In the van, they can run basic labs like bloodwork and urinalysis as well as prescribe and provide medications.

“It’s like a one-stop shop for people,” said Boateng, adding that most of the people they see have one health issue or another.

Since its launch, Boateng says the Hope Health Van has served more than 4,000 Ghanaians across more than 45 rural communities who otherwise don’t have easily accessible medical care.

Empowering local communities

To supplement the mobile clinic, Boateng’s organization has also trained 20 volunteers to serve as local health advocates. They check people’s vitals, such as blood pressure and glucose levels, and provide the medical team with timely data for assessing how to move forward with care and treatment, especially for those whose health is at risk.

“We are empowering local community members to be able to provide care to their own community members,” Boateng said.

To date, the health advocates have helped more than 1,000 people.

In his efforts to provide basic medical care and save lives, Boateng realized that mental health was also an issue he needed to address.

“In Ghana, if you show mental health symptoms or even if you express that you are depressed, you are seen as a weak person,” he said.

For Boateng, it’s important to treat the whole person. Last year, he and his organization launched an initiative to integrate mental health into their care and destigmatize getting help. They also speak at schools to show younger generations there is no shame in taking care of your mental health.

Throughout Ghana and beyond

Boateng has big plans for the future. He hopes to expand to provide more consistent and high-quality medical care not only to those living in remote areas of Ghana but in other countries as well.

“I believe that our model can be replicated in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he said. “So, the goal is to really develop strategic partnerships and get additional mobile health vans for the communities or the regions that we want to serve.”

Boateng has gone all in on his OKB Hope Foundation, recently quitting his job to dedicate his time to bringing health care to his home country. But for him, the sacrifices are well worth the reward.

“Words cannot describe the feeling that you get providing care for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be alive if your mobile health van wasn’t there.”

Want to get involved? Check out the OKB Hope Foundation website and see how to help.

To donate to OKB Hope Foundation via GoFundMe, click here

Venus Williams rolled back the years with a vintage performance to secure her first win against a top-20 player in four years.

The 43-year-old Williams defeated Russian Veronika Kudermetova 6-4 7-5 in the first round of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati on Monday.

Kudermetova is seeded 16th in the tournament and would have been expected to ease her way past Williams, but the seven-time grand slam winner had other ideas.

“Definitely satisfaction from today is (from) all the work that goes into just being here at all,” the veteran American said after the win.

“I did my best to be here as soon as possible in the best form possible I could bring in that amount of time. So that makes it satisfying, to be able to get a win with very little time to prepare.”

In both sets, Williams found herself 4-1 down and on the back foot, but, as on so many occasions throughout her career, she found a way to battle back.

“I think at some point when you’re down a double break, you start to think, ‘Well, I at least want to just hold serve for the rest of this set,’” Williams said. “Simple thoughts like that. Then you get a little bit closer. You’re like, ‘Okay, maybe I just want to win another point.’

“Definitely some big holes today that I usually don’t play from … But that’s tennis. That’s what’s so exciting.”

Williams will now wait to see who she faces in the next round in Cincinnati as she continues her preparation ahead of the 2023 US Open.

Her previous victory against a top-20 opponent also came at the Western & Southern Open in 2019 when she defeated Kiki Bertens in the second round.

When English Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion signed an Ecuadorian midfielder from Independiente del Valle for just £4.5 million ($5.7 million), unsurprisingly there was little fanfare surrounding the transfer.

Fast forward two years and the teenage midfielder with just a handful of professional appearances to his name has now become a record-breaking transfer.

Moisés Caicedo has been sought after by some of the world’s biggest soccer clubs and it is Premier League side Chelsea who has pried the Ecuadorian away from Brighton.

Multiple outlets including Sky Sports and the BBC report that it’s a British record fee of £115 million ($146 million) that Chelsea and Brighton have agreed upon.

The midfielder has signed for Chelsea on an eight-year contract.

“I am so happy to join Chelsea! I am so excited to be here at this big club and I didn’t have to think twice when Chelsea called me. I just knew I wanted to sign for the club,” the Ecuadorian said in a statement. “It’s a dream come true to be here and I can’t wait to get started with the team.”

As the transfer fee may suggest, the record-breaking move didn’t come without its fair share of complications.

Premier League giant Liverpool believed that it would be the team securing the signing of Caicedo after having a £111 million ($141 million) bid for the midfielder accepted just days ago.

This even saw the usually coy Liverpool head coach, Jürgen Klopp, speak out on the potential signing.

Speaking in a press conference on Friday, Klopp said: “I got told I can confirm a deal with [Brighton] is agreed.”

In the 2023 January transfer window, Caicedo was also heavily linked with a move to Chelsea, as well as a move to the Blues’ London rival, Arsenal.

Upon interest from the Gunners, Caicedo issued a plea on Instagram to Brighton chairman Tony Bloom asking for a move to be pushed through.

Caicedo’s statement read: “I am grateful to Mr. Bloom and Brighton for giving me the chance to come to the Premier League and I feel I have always done my best for them.

“I always play football with a smile and with heart. I am the youngest of 10 siblings from a poor upbringing in Santa Domingo in Ecuador.

“My dream is always to be the most decorated player in the history of Ecuador.

“I am proud to be able to bring in a record transfer fee for Brighton which would allow them to reinvest it and help the club continue to be successful.”

While the winter move never materialized, Brighton has now negotiated an even more substantial fee for Caicedo.

The 21-year-old will star in Chelsea’s midfield alongside former record British transfer, Argentinian midfielder Enzo Fernández.

Fernández signed for Chelsea in January 2023 for £107 million ($132 million) and, while incredibly expensive, Chelsea’s new midfield partnership represents both the present and the future of a new-look Blues squad which looks to come back from its 12th place finish in last season’s Premier League.

Chelsea shared a 1-1 draw with Liverpool in its first Premier League game of the season and now takes on West Ham United in its next game on Sunday where fans could be treated to the sight of Caicedo making his debut.

Novak Djokovic is preparing to play on American soil for the first time since 2021 after the Covid vaccine requirement for non-US travelers was lifted earlier this year.

Djokovic, who is unvaccinated against Covid-19, will play at the Western & Southern Open in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Ohio, this week, before heading to the US Open, the final grand slam of the calendar year, in New York later this month.

His last match in the States was at the 2021 US Open when he lost to Daniil Medvedev in the final.

Asked about his absence from US tournaments since then, the Serbian star told reporters on Sunday: “The reason why I was not here for two years, I have zero regret on that. I’m just glad to be back.

“I’ve had plenty of success on American soil with Indian Wells, Miami, obviously Canada and here, [I’ve] won many times at these Masters 1,000 events, all of them. Of course, the US Open as well being the pinnacle of the hard-court season – I’m just excited.”

Djokovic had applied for a visa to compete at Indian Wells in California and at the Miami Open earlier this year but wasn’t granted special permission to enter the US.

Several weeks later, the Department of Homeland Security announced that, from May 12, non-US travelers entering the country would no longer have to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Having won a men’s record 23rd grand slam singles title at the French Open earlier this year, the 36-year-old Djokovic then reached the Wimbledon final but lost to Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in a thrilling five-set encounter.

Djokovic and Alcaraz, the top two players in the world rankings, are both scheduled to compete at the Western & Southern Open this week having received byes into the second round.

Djokovic, also due to play doubles on Tuesday alongside compatriot Nikola Ćaćić, will face either Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Argentina’s Tomás Martín Etcheverry, while Alcaraz plays Australian Jordan Thompson on Tuesday.

Regarding his defeat in the Wimbledon final, Djokovic said on Sunday that he was “over it in a day” and looking forward to the hard-court swing.

“After 20-plus years of professional tennis, there’s still fire going,” he said. “There’s still that drive and motivation to really come at the biggest tournament in sport and try to win titles and try to bring some good, I guess, sensations to the crowd.”

This year’s US Open, which Djokovic will attempt to win for a fourth time, begins on August 28 and concludes on September 10.

Spain created more history at the Women’s World Cup, shocking favorite Sweden to reach the final for the first time thanks to a dramatic 2-1 win in Auckland, New Zealand.

After the majority of the match ticked by without much of consequence to write about, three goals in the final 10 minutes set the semifinal before at Eden Park alight.

Teenager Salma Paralluelo seemed to have won it for Spain with an 81st-minute strike which broke the deadlock, only for Sweden to level with a brilliant goal from Rebecka Blomqvist in the 88th minute.

But with extra-time looming, Spain’s response was ruthless and immediate. Saving the best goal until last, Olga Carmona found the back of the net with a sublime effort from the edge of the box just 94 seconds after Sweden had made it 1-1.

Competing at just its third World Cup, Spain is now within a game of winning the sport’s biggest prize having never before progressed beyond the round of 16.

When asked what she was thinking about when standing on the pitch as the full-time whistle blew, Paralluelo told reporters: “My family, everyone that supports me, in them [the players], we deserved it. We’ve taken this little step, and now, we’ve got one more big push.

“We’ve just got the final left, we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing every match.

“We’ve been going from one challenge to another and now we have the last one – the big one – and we’re going to work hard to do it.”

So dominant were La Roja in possession against Sweden, a team ranked third in the world, and so impressive have they been in the knockout stages, they will be confident of victory against either Australia or England in Sunday’s final.

Sweden may have had the pedigree – only the US has appeared in more World Cup semifinals – but Spain had the creativity and the stardust.

Leading figures in Spain congratulated the team on its achievement. “To the final!” Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, while Spain’s men’s World Cup winner Andrés Iniesta called the players “giants.”

Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas wrote on social media: “Bravo!!! Proud of this team of women football players with class, heart and faith in themselves. Thank you!!!”

A remarkable achievement

Spain’s ascent on the world stage is made all the more remarkable given the tumultuous year women’s soccer in the country has experienced.

Last September 15 players declared themselves unavailable for selection, saying they were unhappy with the training methods of head coach Jorge Vilda.

The Spanish football federation (RFEF) stood by Vilda and some of the players, including two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, returned to the fold. After the 2-1 win over the Netherlands in the last eight, Vilda acknowledged the federation for its support, telling reporters: “Without that we would not be here. I’m quite sure all of this would not have happened.”

It says much about the depth of talent at Spain’s disposal that it has reached the final without some of the country’s best players and with Putellas starting for the first time at this tournament against Sweden, having been a substitute in the other five matches as she continued to find fitness and form after sustaining a serious knee injury last year.

Paralluelo makes an impact

It was Putellas’ replacement, the 19-year-old Paralluelo, a 57th-minute substitute, who contributed much to Spain’s victory.

Spain had monopolized possession prior to her introduction and had a couple of chances to take the lead – captain Carmona and Aitana Bonmati went close from distance in the first half

But Sweden’s defense wasn’t seriously threatened until Paralluelo’s cut-back in the 69th minute presented Alba Redondo with a brilliant opportunity to score from four yards out, only for the Spaniard to direct her shot into the side-netting.

Nevertheless, it was a warning to the Swedes whose best chance had come towards the end of the first half when Fridolina Rolfo forced a fine save from Spain goalkeeper Cata Coll from close range.

With the opening goal, Paralluelo – who had scored the extra-time winner against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals – became the second-youngest player to score in a Women’s World Cup semifinal and also sparked a dull contest into life.

Blomqvist’s third goal of the tournament looked set to have forced the match into extra-time before Carmona’s coup de grâce.

The heartbreak of defeat at this stage of the tournament is a familiar feeling for the Swedes who have now lost four World Cup semifinals and were undone this time by Spain’s only two attempts on target.

History buffs will be able to stroll close to the spot where legend says Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome authorities open a new walkway on the ancient site on Tuesday.

Accounts, embellished by William Shakespeare, tell how the Roman dictator was stabbed to death by a group of aggrieved senators on the Ides of March – March 15 – in 44 BC.

According to tradition, he died in the capital’s central Largo Argentina square – home to the remains of four temples.

They are all currently below street level and up until recently could only be viewed from behind barriers close to a busy road junction.

From Tuesday, visitors will be able to move through the site at ground level on the walkway and see the structures up close.

Italian fashion house Bulgari funded the work at a site that was first discovered and excavated during building work in Rome in the 1920s.

The area – close to where Caesar is supposed to have exclaimed “Et tu, Brute?” as he saw his friend Brutus among his murderers – is these days also home to a sanctuary for stray cats.

Non-residents will pay 5 euros ($5.50) to visit it.

In one Instagram photo, a family of four – dad, mom, brother, sister – pose in New Orleans sporting layers of green and purple Mardi Gras bead necklaces.

In another, the foursome squeezes onto a hotel couch as Mom and Dad clink champagne glasses, all smiling at the camera.

The Morrisons could seem like secret agents living double lives – an Arizona suburban family by day, world explorers by weekend.

Online, they’re known as American Travel Family, and their 11,000 YouTube subscribers follow along as the Morrisons visit popular tourist destinations like London, the Dominican Republic and Disneyland.

However, alongside the “I’m so jealous!” and “have a great trip!” comments, there can be a darker side to putting the lives of teenagers and children up for public consumption.

A digital reckoning

Chris McCarty, an undergraduate at the University of Washington, has launched a one-person campaign to permanently change the way that kids are compensated for their appearances on their parents’ social media accounts and vlogs.

McCarty, who uses they/them pronouns, was spurred into action by controversy that erupted when Myka Stauffer, a parenting blogger, announced that she had placed her adopted child with special needs with a different family after the boy had appeared on her social media feeds.

McCarty started a campaign called Quit Clicking Kids, aimed at stopping people using children on social media for monetary gain, in 2022.

So far, McCarty’s work has focused on parenting bloggers like Stauffer, whose online personas are based around raising their kids. McCarty believes that kids deserve privacy and a say in how they are depicted online, especially those who are too young to consent.

Yet it’s not only channels devoted to parenting and family that feature kids in front of the camera.

Family travel accounts abound online. There are “worldschooling” families who educate their kids while on the road, families who travel the US in an RV or campervan sharing their tips about how to do the same, and families who review hotels and resorts.

The most popular content creators can easily clear six or seven figures per year with advertising revenue and brand partnerships.

But how should that money be allocated?  If children help – passively or actively – to create content that brings in money, do they deserve a share of the income?

The film and TV industry has already had a reckoning around these issues.

The Coogan Law is named for famous 1920s child star Jackie Coogan, whose parents squandered his fortune. Now, child actors in the state of California must have 15% of their earnings placed in a trust account that their parents or guardians cannot access.

McCarty believes there should be a new Coogan-esque law for children who appear in online videos and social accounts.

“First of all, child actors aren’t portraying their real life. So even though it’s very intensive in a lot of cases to be a child actor, especially depending on the size of the role, their personal information isn’t what’s being shared,” says McCarty. “Whereas in these family vlogger cases, usually it is very intimate and personal details that are shared to a wide viewership and monetized.

They add: “There are all sorts of ways to skirt around regulations, and then of course for children on family vlogging channels, there aren’t even any regulations to skirt around.”

Even if the United States did pass laws, they might not apply to traveling families, who have no fixed address or create their content in other countries.

In May 2023, the US Surgeon General’s office issued an advisory about social media and kids’ mental health.

“There is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said in the statement.

“Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment. And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address.”

Stacey Steinberg, the director for the Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, draws lines between the reasons why people share kid photos online.

“Most parents are sharing for social capital, or for community building, or to stay in touch with family and friends who live far away, whereas families that are influencers are gaining not just social capital, but financial capital,” she says.

She points out that there are limitations with legislations like the Coogan Law – for one thing, they only apply in a few states, and they don’t cover all the reasons that kids might work.

“Many of our laws in our country that govern child labor carve out exceptions to children who are working for their parents. So, for example, if my children worked on my farm, the laws would be very different than if they worked on the farm down the street. And that’s because the United States has strong foundation of parental autonomy. We have a strong history of parents being able to decide what’s best for their kids.”

Kids goofing around on their family’s YouTube channel, then, might be the contemporary equivalent of kids doing chores around the farm a century or two ago.

The difference, though, is that strangers from around the world couldn’t watch a kid milk a cow – or turn it into a meme.

“There’s a big leap between Coogan’s Law and regulating influencer parents, not simply because you’re moving towards the internet space, but because you’re trying to regulate money that a child makes as part of a family business. And Coogan’s Law doesn’t apply in those situations,” adds Steinberg.

Empowerment or abuse?

Mom Brooke Morrison is the primary family vlogger and social media poster at American Travel Family, which she started in 2020 when her son Parker was 13 and daughter McKenzie 10.

Morrison says that she and her husband put 15% of their online earnings into trust accounts for their children. Now, though, her daughter has expressed an interest in acting and being on camera more. She says that if McKenzie makes a “day of” video for Instagram or TikTok that isn’t a scheduled, edited piece, she’ll send her daughter a few dollars via Apple Pay.

She says that there should be hard boundaries around which things parents share about their kids online. “I feel not every family has the intentions we have,” she says. “Some parents see stars in their eyes and utilize their children to get up the ladder as a revenue source.”

Caz Makepeace, who runs Y Travel Blog with her husband Craig, says that she has used her family’s YouTube channel to teach their two daughters about how to run a business.

“We pay our kids and I use it as a lesson for them,” she says. “I get them to negotiate with me. They hate that I do that, but I’m like, ‘Well, if you’re not going to stand up for your worth, nobody else is going to, so start learning now.’”

Makepeace admits that as her daughters get older, they’re less interested in appearing on camera unless there’s a financial incentive. “I mean, that’s real life, isn’t it? No one wants to work and not get rewarded for it.”

She and her husband have started taking more solo trips – in order to give their kids breaks from content creation, but also to diversify their videos and reach different audiences.

Still, no one can really understand another person from simply viewing their online presence.

The case of Machelle Hobson serves as a cautionary tale. The mom of seven had a successful YouTube channel called Fantastic Adventures, where her children were shown dressing up as superheroes and playing games.

However, the off-screen version of the Hobson kids’ lives wasn’t anything like it was depicted in videos.

In 2019, Hobson was arrested and charged with two counts of molestation of a child, seven counts of child abuse, five counts of child neglect and five counts of unlawful imprisonment.

According to the police, the children were beaten and punished if they didn’t want to be on camera or if they didn’t remember their “lines.”

Before her social media accounts were shut down, Hobson made between $106,800 and $1.7 million per year.

New regulations for a new way of life

McCarty believes that working at the state level is the fastest way to make real-time change in the content creation industry.

On August 11, Illinois became the first US state to sign a bill like this into law. The law states that if a minor is featured in at least 30% of an influencer’s revenue-generating video during a 30-day period, the minor is entitled to a share of the revenue. That revenue must be put into a trust account that the child can access after they’re 18.

For some activists, though, current regulations don’t go far enough.

For example, Facebook and Instagram both require users to be at least 13 years old. However, that doesn’t prevent parents and other adults from featuring children and babies on their own accounts.

And even if a kid says they’re OK with something being shared online, they can’t control how other people repackage and respond to that content.

Years later, when they apply for college or a job, the first thing under their name on Google might be a critical article or an embarrassing photo. Once the bell is rung, it feels impossible to un-ring.

For parents like Makepeace and Morrison, the pros of family travel vlogging – free vacations, money from brands and sponsors, special guided tours and access to famous attractions – outweigh the negatives.

In the case of the Makepeaces, who are from Australia, travel vlogging has even provided a path to US citizenship. At the end of the day, Caz insists, they’re a family who travels a lot and happen to have lucked into making a living from it.

“We’ve just been able to have this incredible travel lifestyle together,” she says, “and create these amazing memories.”

Four Australian surfers who went missing after their boat was struck by a storm in a remote part of Indonesia have been rescued after more than 38 hours at sea, according to parents of the missing tourists.

Australians Steph Weisse, Will Teagle, Jordan Short and two unnamed Indonesian nationals were found “bobbing on surfboards” by a surf charter boat involved in the frantic rescue to locate the group.

Dramatic video of that moment showed both the stranded castaways on their surfboards cheering and hollering alongside their rescuers as they realized they had successfully found each other in a vast expanse of ocean.

A further search picked up Australian Elliot Foote, however one Indonesian crew member remains missing.

Foote’s father, Peter Foote, said his son was separated from the rest of the group because he’d gone looking for assistance.

“He left his mates bobbing in the water to go to search for help. The charter boat found them and then went and found Elliot,” Peter said.

“He’s in a great place to celebrate, with his girlfriend [Weisse] and 10 mates in paradise. He’s still got eight nights to enjoy then I’m looking forward to him coming straight home.”

The group’s boat was last seen Sunday evening local time after they encountered bad weather and heavy rain on a journey to the remote Pinang island from Nias, a popular surfing destination some 150 kilometers from Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.

A second boat with the rest of the party successfully reached Pinang Island Sunday evening, the families said, helping to raise the alarm.

While Indonesian authorities conducted search and rescue efforts with support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the families of the four Australians said the surf charter boats made all the difference by using their local knowledge of the currents to locate where the group may have drifted.

According to their families, the four Australians were on a surf trip in Indonesia to celebrate Foote’s 30th birthday.

Friends in Australia have hailed what they described as a near miraculous rescue.

“Her mum and I were speaking the whole way through, just saying if anyone can survive this, it’s Steph,” she added.

“It’s funny because Steph actually had that conversation with us before she left. The last thing she said to us was, it’s amazing that you know we only get one life…we kept replaying that conversation over and over in our heads.”

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, DFAT said “the Australian Government expresses its deep gratitude” to those involved in the search and rescue efforts.

Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong said in a tweet that the government will “continue to provide support to the four Australians and their families.”

“The search continues for a crew member who is still missing,” she wrote. “Our thoughts are with them and their loved ones.”

The names of the Indonesian crew who were on board the boat have not been shared yet by authorities.

Indonesia has long been a popular destination for Australian tourists thanks to its proximity and a wealth of budget flights to places like Bali.

The western island of Sumatra is one of Indonesia’s less commonly traveled destinations but the coral-fringed islands around Nias are popular with intrepid surfers and boast multiple world class breaks, particularly around Lagundri Bay.

Jack Scott was fed up with the way things were going with his career. Straight out of university with a degree in mechanical engineering, Scott, 24, had spent nine months working for a refrigeration company in a job he didn’t enjoy.

Feeling the need to make change, he quit.

Meanwhile, his college friend James Fleming, 25, was making good money as an office-based training organizer, but was growing weary of long hours at his laptop.

So when his latest contract ended he teamed up with Scott and the London-based pair decided to hit the road and go traveling – a decision that would take them on an epic overland odyssey and change their lives in unexpected ways.

“For me, there were a lot of late nights tapping away at a keyboard,” said Fleming. “Essentially, I was quite burned out at that point and this trip was the best thing for it.”

The pair are just one example of tired twentysomethings quitting the rat race to go traveling.

Nicole Hu, a 26-year-old blogger, ended up quitting her Chicago sales job during the pandemic before taking a short trip that became a very long international adventure.

“I could not do another day,” said Hu. “It was just so draining.”

Many Gen Z and millennials are reporting increased levels of burnout due to work-related pressures, according to a survey by consultancy Deloitte. The report said that the Covid pandemic had prompted legions of young workers to re-evaluate work-life balance.

Burnout is typically defined as chronic workplace stress, characterized by feelings like energy depletion and mental distance from one’s job.

Young people packing their bags and heading for the workplace exit isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon.

Content creator Preethi Parthasarathy quit her job in a bank in late 2017 when she was 26, questioning whether it was what she wanted to be doing for the next 35 years. Again, it was a decision with surprising and far-reaching consequences.

“Hustle culture is glorified,” she said. “I get it, but I’m not the kind of person who can put everything, especially my health, on the backburner to make money just so I can climb the corporate ladder.”

Shifting gears

Once they were freed from the shackles of employment, Scott and Fleming set about getting as far away from the sources of their burnout as possible, hatching an eccentric plan to drive from the hometown of one friend to the other – a journey of 17,000 miles from Orkney, Scotland, to Harare, Zimbabwe.

“I suggested ‘how about we start from my house and go to your house,’” says Scott. “It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”

The pair bought a Land Cruiser advertised on Facebook and modified it with bull bars, a snorkel and a roof box before setting off on their voyage in 2022.

Despite the feeling of liberation from their unfulfilling jobs, they said it was hard going at times, waking before dawn to make the most of daylight and driving up to 14 hours a day on mountain dirt roads through Nigeria, Cameroon and the Congo.

At one point they found themselves stuck in mud for five hours in Lopé National Park, Gabon, waiting for a truck to pull them out.

“We essentially just had to drive almost every day for about three weeks,” said Fleming. “Luckily it was scenic.”

He joked: “The playlist got dry very quickly.”

After they made it to Zimbabwe, the pair were joined by more university friends for a two-week “victory lap” of the country.

But then the return to normality beckoned.

For Fleming, that was delayed a further six months after he found a job working in conservation in Zimbabwe.

“I was pretty fried mentally at the end of that trip, just blown away by it all. I wasn’t quite ready to leave that,” he said.

Scott, meanwhile, returned to his refrigeration job, but didn’t last long before being lured back out onto the road. “I had always been complaining before the trip to Fleming, and he’s heard a lot about how a fridge works, which he’ll be sick of,” he said.

Earlier this year Scott quit his job again and went backpacking around Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. After returning to the UK, he switched his career and is now diving for scallops in Orkney.

A change of direction

Over in Chicago, Nicole Hu had been enjoying her sales job since landing it straight out of university in 2019. There wasn’t much to complain about. She liked her colleagues, had a supportive boss, and it was low stress – until the pandemic hit the US.

When she moved back home to Chicago and started working remotely, her plans to climb the corporate ladder crumbled away, as did her job satisfaction. So she began to formulate a plan.

As the pandemic rolled on, Hu saved up her salary and when travel restrictions started to ease up in 2021, she decided to quit her job and booked a ticket to Guatemala.

It was only supposed to be a two-week trip, but she spent the summer volunteering in Europe before landing in Mexico for a 10-day visit that ended up lasting three months.

With the uncertainties of the pandemic still lingering, she found herself with other travelers contemplating a future with no concrete plans.

“It was like, we’ll figure it out,” she said. “A lot of people were doing the ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, let me just travel for a year, 10 months, six months and then do whatever.’”

The unpredictability of travelling long-term appealed massively to Hu, who says she loved the spontaneity of catching overnight buses and turning up in new destinations with no idea where she was going to stay.

“Something like that is way more exciting than having to wake up at like 8:30 a.m., turn on your computer, and just have to be on a Zoom meeting right away,” she said. “You know, the same thing every day.”

Hu, who now blogs her travels, says friends and other people her age are also embarking on adventures after contemplating the fragility of their careers.

In the current US economic climate, she says it’s increasingly difficult for young people to keep up with inflation and maintain the standard of living needed to raise a family.

“You might as well enjoy your life while you can,” she added.

Hu now focuses on eking out her money to keep exploring for as long as possible. She says she has a packed travel schedule up to September, before hopefully moving to Madrid to work.

The road less travelled

When Preethi Parthasarathy told the people around her she was going to quit her stable bank job in India to go travel, the reactions were generationally split.

Her millennial peers were jubilant and said they were going to live vicariously through her.

Middle-aged acquaintances were cautious but ultimately supportive of her taking an opportunity they’d never had.

“The older ones lost it,” said Parthasarathy. She was bombarded with questions about her lack of a back-up plan and her financial future.

It has even led to a significant career change for Parthasarathy, she’s now a content creator, charting her adventures on social media and her own website, branded Peppy Travel Girl.

“I come from a very modest background, I’m not like loaded or anything,” she said. “I was very certain that if I was doing this, I was doing this on my terms.”

Parthasarathy says that while her family were stressed out at the decision to quit her job and go traveling, they had trust in her.

At the time in India, she said it was an unusual move. “It’s a much more common phenomenon now, I’m kind of glad that I was one of the earlier ones to do it,” she said.

It wasn’t an overnight decision for Parthasarathy, but she recognized that a change had to be made.

“My life had been relatively predictable. Suddenly, I was getting into complete uncertainty and unpredictability,” she said. However, on the first day she had an accident and ended up bedbound in a dorm for a whole week.

Initially, she thought the universe was sending a sign that she shouldn’t travel.

“Should I just go and ask for my job back? I’m not sure whether this was the right decision,” she joked.

Eventually, she found her travel mojo and managed her first proper post-job trip to Kashmir, the Himalayan region in India’s north. She describes it as a paradise. She saw snow for the first time in years, and tried out skiing.

With no job to return to at the end of her stay, she simply kept traveling – and hasn’t stopped since, clocking up endless miles of globetrotting with highlights including Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Parthasarathy said that the experiences she’s had, the places she’s been to, and risks she’s taken have shaped her into who she is today.

“I feel like had I continued in my corporate job, I would have been a very different person,” she adds. “I prefer being this person, there is so much more growth.”

She still gets burned out, just not as much as she did back when she was in her traditional nine to five.

Recently, Parthasarathy took a pause in her current career. During a trip to Australia, she was close to quitting after six months of nonstop travel and content creation across different time zones.

Her solution was another break, just minus the content creation.

“I just travelled for travel, and I kid you not I’ve come back with a renewed sense of energy,” she said. “I feel like breaks are so underrated and so important, no matter what you’re doing.

“Whatever your job, it’s so important to give your body that time to reset.”