A Russian warship fired warning shots and boarded a cargo ship it claims was headed to Ukraine in the Black Sea on Sunday, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.

Russia pulled out of a UN and Turkish-brokered deal in July that allowed Ukraine to move its grain via the Black Sea and warned that any ships headed to Ukraine would be treated as potentially carrying weapons. Ukraine made a similar threat to ships traveling to Russian ports.

Russia said the warship fired warning shots when the captain of the Palau-flagged dry cargo ship failed to respond to a request to stop for an inspection.

“The Russian warship opened warning fire from automatic small arms fire to forcefully stop the vessel,” the statement said.

The ministry claimed the ship – named Sukra Okan – was headed to the Ukrainian port of Izmail. Marine traffic websites currently shows the cargo vessel’s destination as the Romanian port of Sulina which is close to Izmail. Kyiv did not immediately comment on whether or not the ship was headed to a Ukrainian port.

“In order to inspect the bulk cargo ship, a Ka-29 helicopter with a group of Russian servicemen was hoisted from the patrol ship Vasily Bykov,” the ministry said. “Following radio conversations, the ship stopped its course and the boarding team landed on the bulk cargo ship,” the statement said.

This week Ukraine announced that it would open up a temporary humanitarian corridor for ships to sail to and from its ports and has opened up registration for merchant vessels to use the sea route.

Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain producers and their deal – a rare point of agreement in the middle of a war – did much to stabilize prices.

Kyiv argues that Russia’s withdrawal amounts to a blockade of Ukrainian products. Russia long complained that it had been unable to export its own foodstuffs.

A Ukrainian Navy spokesperson, Dmytro Pletenchuk, said the temporary routes aim to overcome the global food security crisis and added that they would allow shipowners and companies to “finally take back their merchant vessels that are in humanitarian captivity due to the constant threats of Russians at sea.”

Pletenchuk said ship owners and captains have been warned of the existing danger and said Ukrainian Armed Forces will help to ensure the security of the merchant ships sailing through the corridors, with the Navy “doing everything we can to ensure security.”

It remains unclear when ships might use the route given the potential dangers there.

England’s Harry Kane has made his official Bayern Munich debut, coming on as a substitute in the club’s crushing 3-0 defeat to German Cup winners RB Leipzig in the Super Cup final in Munich on Saturday.

The 30-year-old came on in the second half to a rousing ovation from the crowd at the Allianz Arena. However, it wasn’t enough as the club dropped its season opener.

RB Leipzig’s Dani Olmo scored a hat trick as the German side won its first Super Cup.

It comes hours after Kane announced on social media that he was leaving Tottenham Hotspur, the club he has spent the past 19 years playing for, having signed a reported a $126 million transfer deal with Bayern Munich.

He was Tottenham’s all time record goalscorer – 280 goals in 435 appearances in all competitions. But despite all his goals for Tottenham, he did not win a trophy with the club.

Addressing his decision to leave the club a day before Tottenham’s first game of the season, Kane said: “I felt like this was the time to leave. I didn’t want to go into the season with a lot of unresolved future talk.”

In a separate video shared on his official social media accounts, Kane thanked his teammates, coaches, managers and Tottenham fans. “I’ve given everything that I possibly could to make you proud,” he said.

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy said that Kane would “always be welcomed back” to the club. “It goes without saying… He’s a much loved and valued member of the Spurs family, forever in our history.”

“Harry was clear, however, that he wanted a fresh challenge and would not be signing a new contract this summer. We have reluctantly, therefore, agreed to his transfer,” Levy said.

Women’s World Cup 2023: Live scores, fixtures, results, tables and top scorers

Australia reached the Women’s World Cup semifinals for the first time, sending a sell-out crowd in Brisbane into ecstasy, with an incredible penalty shootout victory over France.

The co-host had played in the quarterfinals on three previous occasions but had never made it beyond the last eight. On home soil, the Matildas’ fortunes changed and history was made in a thrilling conclusion to the match.

Cortnee Vine, the 20th penalty taker in the shootout, sealed victory, securing a 7-6 win on penalties and a tie against either England or Colombia.

France had a goal rightly disallowed in extra-time, and with neither side able to break the deadlock over 120 minutes this entertaining quarterfinal had to be decided on penalties.

Both teams missed from the spot in the shootout – but it was France’s four misses which proved the most costly, giving Vine the chance to end a tense shootout and spark wild celebrations among the Australian players in front of nearly 50,000 equally jubilant fans.

As the Matildas did a lap of honor around the pitch, fans danced, waved flags and cheered a team which has captured the imagination in the sport-loving country.

Australia head coach Tony Gustavsson told reporters that he is “so freaking proud” of his team and thanked supporters. “You are part of this win,” he said, paying tribute to the crowd. “You belong to this team tonight, every single person in this country.”

It was a cruel way for France to lose, especially as Les Bleues had had plenty of opportunities to score during a match in which momentum switched from one team to the other throughout.

Ultimately, Vicki Bècho’s miss – the 19-year-old hit the post to present Vine with the opportunity to send her country into a frenzy – was the costliest of all.

But Mackenzie Arnold’s role must not be forgotten either. Having missed a chance herself to seal Australia’s progress during the shootout, the Australia goalkeeper bounced back to save Kenza Dali’s spot-kick. With the initial penalty having had to be retaken as the goalkeeper was deemed to have come off her goalline early, Arnold held her nerve to save Dali’s second effort.

France head coach Hervé Renard told reporters that “fate chose” a winner. “Tonight, we have to be proud of these girls who played an exceptional match,” he said. “It went from right to left, from left to right – to say who deserved it more is difficult.

“Congratulations to Australia, and congratulations to all the staff who have done a wonderful job.”

An entertaining match

For a match with so much on the line, it was a surprisingly open encounter.

France started the brighter and was particularly dangerous during set pieces. Maelle Lakrar twice went close – incredibly shooting over the crossbar from four yards on one occasion – while France’s record goalscorer Eugénie Le Sommer forced a save from Arnold with France’s only shot on target in the first half.

As the half progressed, Australia gained in confidence and the decibels rose inside the partisan stadium.

Five minutes from half-time, the home team had the best opportunity of the match when Pauline Peyraud-Magnin came off her line with her defense scrambling. The ball fell for 20-year-old Mary Fowler whose eyes would’ve widened in the face of an open goal.

But as she shot at the target, France’s Élisa de Almeida raced across the goalline to block Fowler’s goalbound effort. It was incredible defending that stopped her team from falling behind.

France’s defense was worked harder after the break, especially when the 55th-minute introduction of superstar striker Sam Kerr added further impetus to the home team’s attack.

Kerr had not featured in any of the group stage matches because of a calf injury and had made a brief appearance as a substitute in the last-16 win over Denmark, but despite a lack of game time in this tournament her impact was immediate in Brisbane.

It was Kerr’s driving run towards the box created space for Hayley Raso, whose shot from the edge of the box drew a diving save from Peyraud-Magnin.

Afterwards, Kerr told reporters: “I’m so happy, I can’t put it into words. It’s just a whirlwind, but really proud of the girls, it’s been a team effort, from the staff to the players and to the fans. I can’t believe it.

“We have so much belief. We are riding the wave of excitement and we are playing some of our best football. The girls are smashing it and it’s a team effort.

“It’s changing football in this nation for ever. The country is going nuts. And we’re loving It …”

For all of Australia and France’s endeavor, defenses held firm and the match went to extra-time. In the 99th minute, Wendie Renard headed the ball into the net but the goal was immediately disallowed as Australia’s Alanna Kennedy was fouled in the box as she attempted to defend the corner.

Substitute Vine then went close for Australia minutes later, the Matildas player stretching every sinew only for her outstretched leg to direct the ball inches wide, but her moment would come later.

With penalties looming, Renard substituted his goalkeepers, bringing on Solene Durand for Peyraud-Magnin, but the strategy failed to deliver as the tournament’s most thrilling match so far went Australia’s way.

In travel news this week, devastation from the fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui continues to grow, with most of the tourist town of Lahaina destroyed. As wildfires become more common, this is what to do if you’re caught in an affected area and here’s how to help the victims of the disaster in Hawaii.

Here’s what else is happening in the world of travel.

Famous hiking route set for full comeback in 2024

Love is in the air – or at least, it’s really high up a cliff.

Italy’s Via dell’Amore (“Path of Love”) bills itself as “the most romantic walk in the world.” It’s long been the most popular hiking path in the roughly 75 miles (121 kilometers) of trails that wind around the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It closed after a landslide in 2012, but now – after a lengthy refurbishment – the first section has reopened for a summer preview until September 30. The full trail will reopen in July 2024.

To combat overtourism in what is one of the most visited regions in one of the world’s most visited countries, access is now only by guided tour (tickets are just over $5) to protect the landscape for future generations. Tourists are reminded to be respectful of local culture and heritage, lest the “path of love” turn into a “walk of shame.” 

Escaped bear delays flight

A lot can happen in the course of getting a plane from point A to point B.

In Dubai, a flight was delayed after a bear escaped from the hold (see this video of the cub safely back in its crate).

Elsewhere: On British Airways, there was a cock-up on the catering front recently that led to passengers being served Kentucky Fried Chicken on an international flight.

And in the United States, a woman flew from Denver to Chicago to collect her daughter’s lost lacrosse kit when her luggage tracker found it before her airline could.

There are some exciting new developments on the fancy side of aviation, however.

A private luxury terminal is coming to the world’s busiest airport this September, the second to be opened by operator PS after a similar experience opened at Los Angeles’ LAX in 2017.

Also this fall, new airline Beond will start flying all-premium cabin flights to Maldives, with lie-flat seats that share components with Ferrari cars. Dubai and Delhi are the first two cities from which it’ll offer direct flights.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous

Opportunities may be coming up to experience life as lived by humanity’s most gilded individuals, in the form of a night’s lodging.

Actor and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow’s California guesthouse will open for booking on Airbnb on August 15, for an overnight stay on September 9. The Goop guru will be there herself to welcome guests to the one-bedroom, one-bath abode, and the lucky visitors will be invited to indulge in a spa day and participate in a transcendental meditation session.

And in Llwynywermod, on the edge of Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, a home formerly belonging to King Charles might soon become available to rent. The three-bedroom royal lodging is set in the grounds of a ruined mansion, and Charles added his own touch to the place by planting jasmine and honeysuckle to climb the walls.

Riding an iconic 1940s train

“Red-carpet treatment” started with the crimson rug that greeted guests on the 20th Century Limited passenger train, known as “the most famous train in the world” in the 1940s. Now that it’s been restored, train lovers can ride this US icon once again.

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These 10 concepts could change the way we experience the world. 

This might just be the future of travel.

They were strangers in Bolivia. 

Six months later, they fell in love in Paris.

Whenever Andrea Camila was feeling sad, she’d cast her mind back to that summer.

That summer, to be precise, was 2014. The summer Andrea first crossed paths with Lewis Kelly. A summer of first love, unforgettable sunsets and – later – a crushing first heartbreak.

Back then, Andrea was 14, “kind of boy-crazy” and on vacation in Clearwater Beach, Florida, with a bunch of friends and family.

Andrea had lived in Florida since moving there from Puerto Rico as a young kid. But while it was familiar territory, there was something different about hanging out in the Sunshine State on a vacation, versus being there during the school year.

Andrea and her friends quickly befriended the other teenagers staying at the hotel. Then, the group whiled away days at the beach, laughing and joking together until the sun sank through the cloudless sky into the ocean.

While most of the kids at the hotel were from the US, there was one notable exception: a 16-year-old Irish boy called Lewis Kelly.

Unlike the American teenagers, Lewis kept himself to himself, spending his days hanging out with his parents and sunbathing by the pool.

But unbeknownst to Lewis, he was the talk of the resort: the fact he was from Ireland was both intriguing and swoonworthy to the American teenagers – especially Andrea.

She’d spend all day thinking about Lewis, stealing glances whenever she spotted him across the pool.

It was true that Lewis shared an accent with One Direction’s Niall Horan. But he was much quieter than any boybander. He seemed aloof, “a loner,” as Andrea thought back then. She couldn’t figure out how she’d ever get talking to him. But she kept daydreaming all the same.

“I was telling my friends about how cute I thought he was,” recalls Andrea. “I was watching him, whenever we were at the restaurants.”

On one occasion, Andrea was gazing at Lewis as they both sat on opposite sides of the hotel pool. Lewis was unaware, preoccupied with his lunch.

“Andrea saw the whole thing from across the pool, and she started laughing. I didn’t even notice that she started laughing because I was so shocked that I just got robbed by a bird.”

While Lewis was oblivious, Andrea’s friend wasn’t. She side-eyed her as Andrea giggled.

“Alright,” said Andrea’s friend. “Enough is enough. We’re going to talk to him.”

Andrea protested, but it was too late. Her friend had already grabbed her arm and was making a beeline for Lewis.

“I was like, ‘No, please,’” recalls Andrea. “But then we went up to each other. And it was obviously perfect.”

Andrea and Lewis hit it off instantaneously, first laughing about the seagull and the cookie, then chatting about Ireland and the US.

Right away, it was obvious that Lewis was less of a loner, and more just the odd one out among a group of American teenagers, and a bit too shy to introduce himself to the other kids unprompted. Heartened by this, Andrea suggested they could all hang out later that day, at the hotel’s lounge. Lewis said he’d definitely swing by.

“I just thought she was going to be a friend,” says Lewis. “And then, obviously, that didn’t happen. We became a lot more than friends.”

Still, this didn’t happen right away. When Lewis made it to the lounge that day, the other teenagers flocked to him before Andrea could even say hi.

“Everyone was all over him, like, ‘Oh my god, your accent is so cute,’” she says. “Everyone was obsessed with him, creating a circle around him.”

Andrea sat back. She didn’t want to be one of the crowd. She wanted a meaningful, one-on-one chat with Lewis.

Later that evening she worried she’d missed her chance. But now that Lewis was part of the gang, he and Andrea had plenty of time to get to know each other over the next few days.

“We gradually hung out a little bit by a little bit,” says Lewis. “Then, after a week, we started realizing we liked each other.”

“I mean, I knew I liked him,” says Andrea, laughing. “He had to realize.”

They shared their first kiss in the rain. They went for walks on the beach. They swam in the pool together.

But their happiness was tempered by the knowledge that their summer romance would be fleeting. Lewis lived in Ireland, Andrea lived in the US. Sure, they could try and keep in contact. But they were teenagers with no means to travel across the world to visit one another. It was hard to see how it could work out.

“He told me he loved me right before he got his bus to the airport,” says Andrea. “And I hadn’t even thought about love. At that point, I was 14. I was like, ‘What? He loves me. This means he’s my first love. What is happening?’”

Andrea was so overwhelmed by the thought that she didn’t say the words back until Lewis had already started to walk away. She said them anyway, under her breath.

From first love to first heartbreak

Now on different continents, Andrea and Lewis stayed in touch via Facebook Messenger and Skype.

It was doable at first. But then Lewis traveled to the Irish countryside with a group of friends and had no internet access while he was there.

When Andrea didn’t hear from him, she assumed he’d forgotten about her.

“He didn’t let me know that he wasn’t going to have Wi-Fi,” she says. “I just thought I was being ghosted.”

Although Andrea felt she and Lewis “were supposed to be in love forever,” she figured he saw her as just a summer fling.

So, she sent him a message that was more like a “paragraph,” essentially saying: “This is actually not okay, what you’re doing. I’m not going to deal with it.’”

In the message Andrea sounded definitive, like she knew what she wanted and what she wouldn’t put up with. But in reality, she was a 14-year-old going through her first heartbreak. For months afterward, Andrea cried every day.

“For the first good year, I was literally head over heels, absolutely in love,” she recalls. “Even like a year later, I remember I had a New Year’s kiss with someone, and I felt so bad. I was like, ‘It’s not Lewis, I’m betraying Lewis.’ Even though, literally, we hadn’t been together for months. But it felt like a betrayal.”

Time went on.

“Obviously, after years go by, it becomes a little bit less intense,” says Andrea.

But even so, she still thought about Lewis often. They each remained vaguely aware of one another, privy to social media updates but not knowing much else.

For a while, Lewis went through a period of sending Andrea constant Snapchats. They left her conflicted.

“I remember, it would just bring back all the feelings,” she says. “It was really upsetting because I was like, ‘We’re not together. It’s been years.’”

Andrea sent Lewis a text, asking him to rein in the Snapchats: “You’re a blast from the past that I don’t want to remember,” she wrote.

Despite this, Andrea says she was still “totally obsessed” with Lewis. That’s why she’d often find herself thinking about summer 2014 and daydreaming. She wouldn’t dwell on the sad ending, and would just revisit the memories of the happy, sun-drenched haze.

Lewis didn’t fully let go of Andrea either.

“Throughout the years, randomly, Andrea would pop into my head,” he says.

On one such occasion, in 2017, Lewis typed a note to himself in his iPhone: “I will marry Andrea Camila.”

The action felt instinctual. The note felt like a premonition.

Despite this feeling of certainty, Lewis didn’t reach out to Andrea. By then, it had been years since they’d messaged directly. Lewis just felt weirdly sure he and Andrea would just reunite, eventually.

An unexpected reunion

Cut to spring 2018. Andrea was 18 and had just graduated high school. Lewis was 20 and midway through a degree at Dublin City University.

Looking back, neither is quite sure how it started. But, suddenly, out of the blue, they started messaging again.

“And on that same day that we started messaging, I was like ‘I’ll come to Florida, and then you can come to Europe, and then we can go interrailing, we can travel all around Europe,’” recalls Lewis.

“We made all these plans literally within an hour of starting to text again,” says Andrea.

“And we actually went through with them,“ adds Lewis.

Lewis booked a flight to Florida for July 2018. Over the two months, he and Andrea messaged back and forth constantly. Then they moved on to regular FaceTime calls.

“We were having an amazing time,” says Andrea. “We literally became best friends in that amount of time.”

At first, Andrea was sure they were flirting. She figured Lewis flying to Florida to visit her was for sure a grand gesture.

“This is going to be romantic,” she thought. “We’re so cute.”

Then, as the date of his arrival got ever closer, Andrea started doubting herself.

“Maybe he doesn’t see this the way I see this,” she thought. “Maybe he just wants to be friends. I don’t want this to be weird.”

Lewis had the same anxieties.

“You overthink things,” he says. “Especially when you’re in that talking phase, you overthink everything.”

Still, Lewis imagined that when Andrea saw him at the airport, she’d run into his arms. He expected it’d be a romantic reunion, reflective of all the years they’d spent apart. On the airplane over, he looked forward to the moment.

Instead, when they saw each other again at arrivals, Andrea played it cool.

“I was just like, ‘Hey, man. How are you doing?’” she recalls. “I just didn’t want to give him the impression that I was the girl obsessing over him.”

Andrea was also a bit flustered because Lewis caught her just as she was about to head into the airport bathroom. In the end, the moment wasn’t what either of them expected.

“It was definitely awkward,” says Lewis. “I think it was scary and awkward and nerve wracking.”

“When you’re talking on FaceTime, I don’t know, it’s such a different thing than being in person with someone,” says Andrea. “Since we hadn’t seen each other for four years, it was just like, ‘How do we act? Are we supposed to be as flirty and cute as we are on FaceTime? Or do we need to treat this as like a new thing, kind of, because this is a real, in-person encounter?’”

These questions continued to whirl around Andrea’s head as she drove Lewis back to her dad’s lakeside cottage, and showed him around the house.

But, by the evening, Lewis and Andrea were lying together on the dock, looking up at the night sky together, starting to feel at ease.

“We just laid there on these blankets, and were stargazing.” says Andrea. “We talked for hours. And so it became really comfortable. But it was still not romantic. Neither of us was wanting to take that step yet.”

Over the next couple of days, every evening, Lewis would leave the guest room he was staying in and go into Andrea’s room. They’d sit together, watching anime on her laptop. These moments always felt charged.

“I think he’d always be about to kiss me, but then turn away and not kiss me,” says Andrea. “Then, finally, one day he kissed me. I think it was about a week after.”

“I was building up the courage to officially ask her out,” says Lewis. “I don’t know why I got so nervous, it took me so long.”

When he actually said the words aloud, it was Friday July 13, 2018. Later, Andrea and Lewis looked over their Facebook messages and old photos from summer 2014. They did the math and realized they’d met on a Friday the 13th too.

“It’s a crazy coincidence,” says Andrea. “For other people. It’s an unlucky day. But for us, it’s literally the luckiest thing.”

Committing to the future

For a couple of days, it all felt like fate. Andrea and Lewis were giddy with happiness.

But then, as Lewis prepared to head back to Ireland, Andrea panicked. Yes, they had the European interrailing trip planned. But then what? She wasn’t sure she could take the heartbreak of a relationship with Lewis ending all over again.

“I was like, ‘It’s not going to work. It doesn’t make sense. Explain it to me, how’s it going to work? You live in Ireland, I live over here. This doesn’t make sense at all,’” Andrea recalls.

“He started crying. He was like, ‘I wasn’t thinking about all these things. I just want to be with you.’ He basically proposed to me. He basically said, ‘All I know is I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’”

At this – and the tears – Andrea was totally taken aback.

“It was so intense,” she recalls. “I thought I was the one who was head over heels for him, now he’s literally professing his entire love to me.”

Andrea felt like she needed to bring a dose of reality to the situation.

“Hold on a second, man,” she said. “What are you saying? You want to marry me? We’re just 18 and 20.”

“I wasn’t thinking about all of the ways it wouldn’t work,” replied Lewis. “I just want to make it work and be with you.”

At this, Andrea started crying.

“You know what, you’re right,” she said, once her sobs had subsided. “We’re going to make this work. And it’s going to happen.”

The conversation felt like a promise. Later that summer, as planned, Andrea and Lewis went interrailing together, enjoying traveling through Europe by train. Then, they committed to the long distance, transatlantic relationship.

The couple made it “bearable,” as Andrea puts it, by always planning when they were next going to see each other.

Andrea spent all her free time babysitting and working as a delivery driver to save money for flights. When Lewis wasn’t studying, he worked in a store, and scoured the internet for low cost flights.

Still, the following year, in 2019, Andrea and Lewis started to struggle with the distance.

“It just didn’t make sense to be apart,” says Andrea. “We were just aligned, we needed to be together.”

On a whim, Andrea booked a flight to Ireland. She temporarily moved in with Lewis and his family for three months. His family welcomed her, while Andrea’s parents were “supportive” of her decision.

“They really liked Lewis,” she says. “They’d met him that summer, when he came in 2018. And they had also met him in 2014 a little bit. So they knew him, and they knew he was a good guy.”

When, after three months in Ireland, Andrea’s visa ran out, they swapped and Lewis visited Andrea in Florida for three months.

This started a pattern that continued for a while – they’d alternate three months in each other’s home countries, occasionally meeting in other destinations instead.

They were both interested in filmmaking, and around this time started filming YouTube videos together. At first, these videos didn’t get many views. But Andrea and Lewis’s audience engagement was good from the beginning. Viewers seemed to be invested in their chemistry and love story.

The couple decided to dedicate as much time as they could to content creating, working part time jobs on the side to fund their endeavors. Lewis dropped out of college.

“We were like, ‘Why would we make a plan B? We don’t need to go to college to do this.’ We know we love making videos. So let’s just only do that,” says Andrea.

It was in the early days of the pandemic, says Andrea, that the gamble paid off and the couple “blew up” on social media.

“Because everyone was on their phone. Everyone was on the internet, and that’s when people started finding us,” says Andrea. “And we just started getting more followers. We went on TikTok, and it was crazy.”

From there, Andrea and Lewis started sharing updates on their lives on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, including in 2021, the moment Lewis asked Andrea to marry him.

A proposal and a wedding

On the day of the proposal, Lewis organized a jam-packed day and scavenger hunt around Florida – packing in everything from jet skiing, indoor skydiving, to, finally, a beach picnic.

Lewis pretended the picnic was a social media brand deal to throw Andrea off the scent. When the truth was revealed, Andrea welled up.

“It was definitely very emotional,” she says. “We were both bawling.”

In January 2023, Andrea and Lewis got married at Azulik Uh May, a contemporary art museum in a Mexican jungle. Naturally, it was a Friday 13 – it seemed only right. The couple say the wedding day was “a dream.”

In her vows to Lewis, Andrea voiced how, while she was excited to marry him, her overall feeling was a sense of calm and certainty.

“What I feel is just natural,” she said to him. “It’s not like, ‘Wow everything is going to change.’ It’s just natural.”

Today, reflecting on the wedding day, Andrea says she just felt “this is just what’s meant to be happening and what’s meant to be. It just felt amazing to share that with all of our friends and family.”

A ‘magnetic pull’

Today, several months into married life, Andrea and Lewis are looking towards the future – a future they expect to be defined by travel.

Come September, they’re planning to visit all 48 contiguous US states in an old American school bus they’ve been busy converting. Longterm, the couple imagine splitting their time between the US, Puerto Rico and Ireland, while also spending plenty of time on the road.

Andrea and Lewis are still young, at 23 and 25, but next year will mark the 10-year anniversary of the summer they met on vacation.

Over the years, it was just some magnetic pull towards each other.

Lewis Kelly

“We always think about what would 14 and 16 year old us think, if they saw us married,” says Lewis. “We were just on vacation, and we just fancied each other.”

“I can’t get over it,” says Andrea. “And whenever I think about it, I feel like it’s just magic or something. It just doesn’t make sense, but in the best way.”

Andrea and Lewis also find it surreal to think of their four years apart, their unexpected reunion, and their period of long distance.

They’re grateful, says Andrea, that “we found each other after.”

“I think it’s like a weird magic thing,” she says.

“Clearly, over the years, it was just some magnetic pull towards each other,” says Lewis.

Two Israelis have been arrested for questioning and five others detained following the reported killing of a Palestinian man in the West Bank, Israel Police said in a statement Saturday.

It is rare for Israeli settlers to be arrested for attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. They are almost never prosecuted, even if arrested.

A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli settlers in the village of Burqa, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said late Friday.

It is the first accusation from the Ministry that settlers have killed a Palestinian villager since February, and the second this year, although both Palestinian officials and international observers regularly document violence by settlers against Palestinians.

The ministry said Qusai Jamal Maatan, 19, was fatally shot in the neck by Israeli settlers during an attack on his village. Two others were injured, according to the ministry.

Maatan was buried Saturday morning.

The IDF said in a statement that they arrived after reports of “violent clashes between Israeli civilians and Palestinians,” and that “it was reported that during the clashes, Israeli civilians shot toward the Palestinians and as a result, there was a Palestinian casualty.”

The IDF also said Israeli civilians were reportedly injured by rocks hurled at them.

There was no immediate comment from the Shomron (Samaria) Council, which represents settlers in the northern West Bank and would not normally issue a statement on Shabbat.

A legal aid group that defends settlers said Saturday that the settler who shot the Palestinian was acting in self-defense after Palestinian villagers began harassing an Israeli shepherd.

Honenu, the legal group, said the incident began when Palestinians from Burqa threatened the shepherd from Oz Zion – a settler outpost – which is illegal not only under international law but under Israeli law.

The shepherd called other settlers “to prevent deterioration,” Honenu said, after which dozens of Palestinians attacked them with clubs, fireworks and rocks.

One of the settlers was hit in the head with a rock “at point blank range and was seriously injured,” according to Honenu, and he managed to defend himself with a licensed gun he was carrying.

He is currently in intensive care following an operation at Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, and under arrest, Honenu said.

The second Israeli settler who was arrested helped transport him to the hospital, Honenu said.

Honenu attorney Nati Rom said: “My client acted according to the law, and as is required of any licensed firearm holder – to protect his life and the lives of other civilians.”

A statement released by the Israeli military said both Israelis and Palestinians threw stones in the West Bank confrontation.
The army has imposed a closed military zone on the area while investigations by Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency (ISA) are ongoing.

The US State Department qualified the incident as a “terror attack”.

In a statement released on Twitter, now known as X, it said: “We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers that killed a 19-year old Palestinian.”

“The US extends our deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones. We note Israeli officials have made several arrests and we urge full accountability and justice.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates strongly condemned attacks by what they referred to as “organized and armed terrorist settler militias” against unarmed Palestinian citizens in Burqa.

The ministry expressed concern over the lack of real punishment for attacks by settlers on Palestinian villagers, saying the incidents have emboldened settlers to commit further crimes. The ministry accused Israeli government ministers and their followers of incitement.

The coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu includes two parties primarily supported by settlers, Israelis who live in the West Bank in order to cement the country’s hold on the Palestinian territory. Settlements are considered illegal under international law. Israeli asserts the West Bank is “disputed,” not “occupied,” and denies that the settlements are illegal.

The United Nations warned last month of a dramatic rise in West Bank settler attacks on Palestinian people and property, with nearly 600 such incidents registered during the first half of the year.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said it had recorded 591 settler-related incidents in the territory in the first six months of 2023, resulting in Palestinian casualties, property damage, or both.

Iraq’s official media regulator on Tuesday ordered all media and social media companies operating in the Arab state not to use the term “homosexuality” and instead to say “sexual deviance,” a government spokesperson said and a document from the regulator shows.

The Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) document said the use of the term “gender” was also banned. It prohibited all phone and internet companies licensed by it from using the terms in any of their mobile applications.

A government official later said the decision still required final approval.

The regulator “directs media organizations … not to use the term ‘homosexuality’ and to use the correct term ‘sexual deviance,’” the Arabic-language statement said.

A government spokesperson said a penalty for violating the rule had not yet been set but could include a fine.

Iraq does not explicitly criminalize gay sex but loosely defined morality clauses in its penal code have been used to target members of the LGBT community.

Major Iraqi parties have in the past two months stepped up criticism of LGBT rights, with rainbow flags frequently being burned in protests by Shi’ite Muslim factions opposed to recent Koran burnings in Sweden and Denmark.

More than 60 countries criminalize gay sex, while same-sex sexual acts are legal in more than 130 countries, according to Our World in Data.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on Friday took aim at Russia’s “corrupt” elite that placed President Vladimir Putin in power.

In what he called “My Fear and Loathing” – his first lengthy statement since he was convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison by a court in Moscow last week – Navalny said he hated self-serving Russian officials, so-called “reformers” of the 1990s who are concerned only with “their own wealth.”

“That is why I can’t help it and I fiercely hate those who sold, drank, and wasted the historical chance that our country had in the early 1990s,” Navalny said.

“I hate Yeltsin, […] Chubais and the rest of the corrupt family who put Putin in power,” he said, referring to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and former high-level Russian official Anatoly Chubais.

“Is there any other country where so many ministers of (a) government of reforms became millionaires and billionaires? I hate the authors of the most stupid authoritarian constitution, which they sold to us idiots as democratic, even then giving the president the power of a full-fledged monarch,” he added.

Navalny blamed the Russian leadership in power after the collapse of the Soviet Union for “not even trying to make obvious democratic reforms.”

He called the election in Russia in 1996 “fraudulent” and “one of the most dramatic turning points in Russian modern history,” noting that back then “the general unfairness of the election” didn’t bother him.

But he said “Russia will still have a chance” to turn things around into the democratic direction.

“This is a historical process. We will again be at the crossroads,” he said.

However, he admitted there are times when he jumps up “in horror and cold sweat” at night in prison and feels that Russia “had a chance again, but it again went the same way as in the 90s.”

Navalny was last week sentenced to 19 years in jail on a raft of extremism charges in what was widely seen as a political move by Moscow to silence him.

He was already serving sentences totaling 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up.

Before his incarceration, he was taken from Russia to Germany in August 2020 for treatments after he was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has denied involvement in the poisoning, with Putin himself saying in December 2020 that if Russian security services had wanted to kill Navalny, they “would have finished” the job.

A former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor has said there is “reasonable basis to believe that genocide is being committed against Armenians” in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks,” said Luis Moreno Ocampo in an expert opinion letter on Monday.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked area between Eastern Europe and Western Asia that is home to a large Armenian population but is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been battling over the region for decades. Ocampo worked at the Netherlands-based ICC until 2012.

On Monday, UN experts urged Azerbaijan to lift a blockade on the Lachin corridor, the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The blockade has been in place for the past seven months.

In a press release, the UNHCR called on Azerbaijan to end “the dire humanitarian crisis” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which it said had resulted in shortages of food, medication, and hygiene products.

“The blockade of the Lachin corridor is a humanitarian emergency that has created severe shortages of essential food staples including sunflower oil, fish, chicken, dairy products, cereal, sugar and baby formula,” it said.

Medical supplies were also “rapidly depleting,” it added.

The UNCHR urged the Azerbaijani government to “uphold its international obligations to respect and protect human rights,” and called on Russian peacekeeping forces in the region to protect the corridor.

Both requests are in accordance with the ceasefire agreement of November 2020.

“It is essential to ensure the safety, dignity, and well-being of all individuals during this critical time,” they added.

The issue was raised at a UN Security Council meeting on August 3, with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Vahe Gevorgyan, warning that Azerbaijan’s blockade had affected 2,000 pregnant women, around 30,000 children, 20,000 older persons and 9,000 persons with disabilities.

In July, the European Union foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the EU was “deeply concerned about the serious humanitarian situation” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, arguing that it is “incumbent on the Azerbaijani authorities to guarantee safety and freedom of movement along the Lachin corridor imminently and not to permit the crisis to escalate further.

A spokesperson for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that Blinken had spoken to Azerbaijan’s president to “express deep concern for the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabak” and underscored the “urgent need for free transit of commercial, humanitarian, and private vehicles through the Lachin corridor.”

European officials took some small comfort when China attended a summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last weekend. The meeting aimed to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine.

While Beijing didn’t budge from its stated position of impartiality, China’s mere presence at a meeting to which Russia says it was not invited has, some sources claim, sent a message to the international community that it’s not willing openly to pick Russia’s side against the West.

It might be a very small victory, but in the diplomatic world of zero-sum games, Russian President Vladimir Putin not getting exactly what he wants is something to celebrate.

“From our point of view, China is visibly engaging with the West, talking to the Ukrainians, and pushing back on Russia. We really welcome that,” the official said. Multiple European sources have echoed this view.

However, while China’s engagement with the international community might be a blow for Russia, it’s still being viewed with suspicion by Western allies, not least because of the continued economic, diplomatic and security ties the countries share.

Despite the optics of its delegation’s attendance in Jeddah, Beijing has not appeared to scale back ties with Russia. Its top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a day after the Jeddah talks concluded, reiterating Beijing’s “impartiality” in the conflict.

The two countries’ militaries have continued joint exercises throughout the war, including a naval patrol off the coast of Alaska last week. Putin is also expected to visit China in October, according to Russia media, after being invited by China’s Xi Jinping in March.

The same senior EU official acknowledged that there is little incentive in China for the war to stop outside of Beijing’s external relations with economic partners. “From their perspective, its biggest rival, the US, is distracted and Russia has become even more of a junior partner. The only downside is how it makes others think about China.”

It’s no secret that China’s relationship with Europe has become tetchy. That, officials say, is bad for Chinese leaders who see European nations as up for grabs in the battle for global dominance between Beijing and Washington.

It’s also no secret that China’s close ties with Russia – and failure to condemn Moscow’s full-scale invasion – have made a number of European countries, especially those geographically close to Russia, uncomfortable and led to a rethink in what Europe’s relationship with China should be.

Alicja Bachulska, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, agrees:

“China’s current activities are definitely about damage control in terms of PR. China is sitting on the fence and it will continue doing so until it can. Attending this kind of meeting, especially if Russia is not involved, fits very much into this strategy. It makes good headlines for all those who still believe, quite naively in my view, that China can make a difference.”

In short, China coming to the table hasn’t moved the dial in Brussels on what is arguably the EU’s most complicated but important international relationship.

Europe still imports vastly more from China than it exports, a reflection of the level of dependency it has on China. In 2022, the trade deficit was €396bn ($436 billion), more than double that of 2020.

However, this has happened against the backdrop of Europe cooling on signing official treaties and agreements. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, negotiated for nearly a decade before being agreed in principle, is on ice because China has sanctioned Members of the European Parliament for criticizing China’s human rights record.

Europe has also changed its official view of China, acknowledging in 2019 that Beijing is a “systemic rival.” Since 2019, Brussels has undertaken specific policy initiatives that deliberately aim to challenge China’s dominance in Eurasia.

The official explained that even positive steps like this are ultimately weighed against other behaviors, such as Beijing’s respect for human rights, its threatening stance toward Taiwan and alleged state-sponsored corporate espionage. In that respect, China’s action or inaction on Ukraine is just another lens through which Brussels can view its various gripes against Beijing.

This dual reality, Europe needing China for some things but deeming it a security risk and nefarious actor on the world stage, is what makes all this such a headache.

Indeed, even with relations as tricky as they are, China has welcomed the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and even the European Commission president herself, Ursula von der Leyen, in recent months.

Brussels has set itself ambitious objectives in areas like climate change, leading the way on new technologies and having an independent foreign policy. The EU didn’t want to pick between the two main powers of the East and West, so opted for a third way where the US remained its primary partner, but it would deepen economic ties to China.

In doing so, it hoped it could encourage China to fall in line with European thinking on climate change, the rules-based international order and human rights, among other things.

In 2023, European officials know that China represents a major security concern and that becoming overly dependent on China is a risk. But they also accept that if they’re to achieve their lofty aims, they might need China’s help.

“The big dependencies of the future will be things like cheap electric vehicles, solar panels, steel for wind farms. These are things that China can produce cheaply and already has a head-start in terms of becoming a major provider for the international market,” says Sam Goodman, from the China Strategic Risks Institute.

Goodman also notes that Europe’s current economic outlook could leave smaller states susceptible to the lure of Chinese money in terms of big infrastructure projects.

“China has historically been keen to buy up or heavily invest in European infrastructure projects, be they nuclear power stations, roads or water companies,” he said. “European nations have cooled on this lately, but it might be tempting for countries struggling economically to take some money as a quick-fix.”

Others say that Europe doesn’t want to end up in the same position it did with Russia in terms of relying on one provider so heavily for energy or other resources, especially in the event China becomes even more forceful in its own backyard and goes from systemic rival to full-blown international pariah, as seen with Putin’s Moscow.

Between these fears over security, Europe’s international ambitions and China’s global ambitions, it might seem hard to pin down exactly what either side want from their future relationship.

“I don’t think that China yet sees Europe as a lost cause. It hopes it can still turn the heads of enough European countries that it can stop America running away in the battle over new technology,” says Charles Parton, former first counsellor to the EU delegation in Beijing.

“They have lost on things like Huawei recently and will be desperate to remain competitive on semiconductors, AI, all the things that will matter a lot in the coming years,” he adds.

For Europe, it’s more complicated. Officials say Brussels is committed to walking the narrow path of the US remaining its closest ally while resisting Washington’s calls to completely disengage with China. It will achieve its global aims without becoming overly dependent on China, they say, while simultaneously working with China on some of the most important issues facing the world today.

It’s an ambitious approach, but one leaves much of its own future in the hands of fate. Or at the very least, in the hands of a country that has been downgraded as a partner to Europe so significantly in the past decade.