The MLS has a new attendance record after 82,110 fans turned up to watch the Los Angeles derby between LA Galaxy and LAFC.

Dubbed “El Tráfico” – a nod to the famous El Clásico rivalry between Spanish soccer clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid and the fact that the two LA teams are separated by just 11 miles of congested highway – the match has become one of the MLS’ fiercest rivalries.

The derby game smashed the previous MLS record which had been set in 2022. Charlotte FC’s first ever game saw 74,479 spectators flock to the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte to witness their team face the Galaxy.

Fans at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday were treated to a tight game as LA Galaxy took a 2-1 victory thanks to a winner from former Barcelona player Riqui Puig.

Tyler Boyd opened the scoring for the Galaxy in the first half with a sensational curling effort past LAFC goalkeeper John McCarthy.

The visitors came back into the game early in the second half thanks to Ilie Sánchez’s headed equalizer. However, parity didn’t last long, and the Galaxy quickly regained the upper hand.

Roles were reversed for the winner as Puig, who assisted Boyd’s opener, raced onto a cross from the scorer of the first goal and slid a finish home past McCarthy.

“I love pressure, I love playing these games, I love playing derbies against big teams. And I’m honestly very happy,” Puig said post-match, per the MLS.

“I think every player plays soccer to play these games, these stadiums, to have 82,000 people watching you.

“I don’t play for money, I play for these experiences,” the 23-year-old added.

LAFC are currently third in the Western Conference, three points behind leaders St. Louis City SC, whereas LA Galaxy are in 13th as they look to hunt down the playoff spots.

If South Korean Park Eun-seon’s soccer journey has been a long and winding one, with plenty of ups and down, her inclusion in her country’s 2023 Women’s World Cup squad offers a moment of redemption.

The 36-year-old striker – nicknamed “Park-latan,” a nod to Swedish soccer great Zlatan Ibrahimović – has had a turbulent career; from joining the senior squad for the 2003 Women’s World Cup aged 17 to considering quitting the game altogether due to controversy regarding her gender.

Park has always enjoyed sports, but the thought of playing soccer seriously only arose when her school’s physical education teacher spotted her potential and suggested she give it a go.

When she decided to pursue the game more seriously, Park transferred to Changdeok Girls’ Middle School, which had a girl’s soccer team – the team disbanded in 2012, according to the Seoul Football Association.

About three years later, Park became the youngest South Korean woman, at the age of 17, to join the senior squad ahead of the 2003 Women’s World Cup in the US.

“Back then, I think I was more excited about being selected for the national team than feeling any pressure,” Park recalled.

Despite the excitement, the team’s first ever World Cup run ended early as it lost to soccer powerhouses Brazil, France and Norway in the group stage.

But high schooler Park was happy to have lived the special experience.

“When I first went to play in the World Cup, just the fact that I could play with world-class players made me really happy,” she added.

Thoughts of quitting the game

Young and talented, Park’s career was in the ascendancy. She was called again to join the senior team for the 2004 Olympic qualifiers and even the Under-19 squad for various international competitions.

According to Jeon, Park has the ability to use her power and height to great effect.

Measuring 182cm (about six feet), Park was the tallest of her teammates at both her club – Seoul City Amazones – and the national team.

In 2013, Park scored a total of 19 goals in the South Korean women’s league – WK League – to become the top scorer of the season.

It helped her team finish second in the table, where it advanced to the playoffs before losing in the final.

Then – when the future seemed ever brighter – everything changed. The coaches of six rival teams questioned the striker’s gender, threatening to boycott the league if she did not undergo gender testing.

Their claims stirred huge controversy in the country and the National Human Rights Commission issued a statement, labeling the act of requiring a gender verification test “sexual harassment.”

The Seoul Sport Council also said the claims were “a serious violation of human rights” and requested the coaches to “take responsible actions” and formally apologize.

At the time, Park took to social media to tell her side of the story.

She wrote in a now deleted Facebook post that she had previously taken gender verification tests to play at the World Cup and the Olympics, which made her “upset and feel ashamed” at a young age.

“It hurts that it’s a similar situation to when many coaches were nice to take me [to their teams] but then changed abruptly,” Park wrote, referring to when she was suspended from playing in three competitions held by the Korea Women’s Football Federation for joining the Seoul City Amazones straight out of high school in 2005, violating the federation’s policy.

The federation formerly required that high school graduates play two years of college soccer before joining semi-professional teams in the WK League, according to local media reports.

The six rival coaches insisted that the comments regarding gender testing were “a joke,” and the controversy eventually fizzled out, but while everyone else involved gradually went about their business, the events left Park scarred.

“I wasn’t angry, but a bit puzzled. I wondered why I had to go through all that. I frequently thought about even quitting soccer, but felt that doing so would be like admitting the claims.”

Park took some time off the pitch to sort through her emotions, but never gave up on the sport. She transferred to Russian club Rossiyanska in 2014 and then returned to the WK League in 2015.

“To see her continue soccer and overcome the tough times – that came back to me as passion. It really meant a lot,” Jeon said.

“Maybe I was that good?” Park said, adding that she can now laugh about it and move on.

A possible ‘Last Dance’

In 2015, Park was called up to join the national team for that year’s Women’s World Cup in Canada, where the team lost 3-0 to France in the last 16.

That was the last time Park wore the Red Devils’ jersey, until the team’s current head coach, Colin Bell, called her up to the squad about a year before the upcoming Women’s World Cup.

“I played in various competitions and made a lot of trouble along the way, but the current head coach called me to the national team for the first time in seven years, so now I’m preparing well,” Park said as she expressed her gratitude to Bell for giving her an opportunity.

Despite concerns over her age, being the second oldest player after 38-year-old goalkeeper Kim Jung-mi, Park shone on the pitch when she netted goals in two consecutive friendlies against Zambia in April.

Bell said he had asked Park to give the team a good 15 to 20 minutes per match when he called her to the national team last year.

“Since then, she has shown herself working hard and getting strong,” said Bell after the two friendlies, according to the Korea Football Federation.

“Personally, I want to keep her like a flower in a greenhouse until the World Cup,” Bell said in April, hinting at a possible World Cup call-up for the 36-year-old striker this summer that has now been confirmed.

As she awaited South Korea’s final squad announcement, Park added: “I honestly don’t think it’s easy to play in the World Cup three times as a member of the national team, so personally it’d be very meaningful.

“It’s an opportunity that will never come again, so I want to get a goal that I can brag about later. ‘I scored a goal in the World Cup!’ I want this to be an opportunity where I can make this come true,” she said of her World Cup hopes.

South Korea is due to face Columbia in its first Group H match at the 2023 Women’s World Cup on July 25 and “Park-latan’s” dream may well come true on the biggest stage of them all.

Park will also be joined by South Korean teammate Casey Phair in Australia and New Zealand. The 16-year-old was born in the US and, according to Reuters, is the first player of mixed heritage to be selected for a Korean World Cup squad.

A place for women, by women: that’s what Umoja, a village in Samburu County, northern Kenya, represents. It looks much like other tribal settlements or manyattas – with surrounding grasslands and huts, where communal living is the norm – except for one thing.

It’s void of men.

Umoja is the Kiswahili word for unity, and it’s evident that this concept is at the core of this community. Founded in 1990 as a sanctuary for women of Samburu escaping gender-based violence, Umoja is home to females of all ages. Men are prohibited from entry to create a safe space for girls and women who are survivors of sexual violence and abuse, ostracized by their families, as well as those escaping child marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM).

Ghanaian photographer Paul Ninson first found out about the Umoja women from a blog post and decided to go to Kenya to photograph this village in 2017, partly because, he said, he felt these stories “needed to be told from (an African) perspective.” With no prior contact with the women, he took the trip blind, knowing only the general location of the village.

The first few members of Umoja were from remote Samburu villages scattered across the Rift Valley. Exact numbers ebb and flow, but at its largest, this self-sustained village has been home to about 50 families made up of women and their children, and continues to educate its residents on women’s rights and gender-based violence. Any male children of the women are permitted to live in the village until they turn 18.

He says gaining access was very difficult, and he was only welcomed by the women after explaining the purpose behind his visit, adding that they were “very, very happy” when he showed them the pictures he took.

The lifestyle of those who live there is modest, with the women working to earn income for food and educational resources for the village’s children and some of the women themselves. Located about a kilometer away from Umoja is a campsite where many tourists stay when visiting the region to explore the famous Maasai Mara wildlife reserve. Tourists who wish to visit Umoja are charged a small entrance fee, and can buy elaborate beaded jewellery and other crafts handmade by the Samburu women.

“Community storytelling”

“Village with no men” is one of several photography series by Ninson, who said he aims to capture images that “raise awareness about social, environmental, or political issues and inspire people to take action, provoke thought and discussion about important topics.”

He decided to travel to other African countries to share “undertold or untold stories of people of the continent” – an element of what he calls “community storytelling.”

“We [Africa] have narrative problems; how we’ve been depicted over and over again,” Ninson said. This, he added, is a consequence of Africa’s stories being told by outsiders.

After expanding his portfolio with images he shot around Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia, Ninson went to New York to study at the International Center of Photography in 2019, where he worked closely with a friend and mentor, Brandon Stanton, of the storytelling platform “Humans of New York.”

Africa’s largest photography library

It was while exploring New York as a student that Ninson started accumulating photobooks written by and about Africans – books that Africans didn’t have access to back home, he said.

Ninson resolved to buy as many as possible to send to Ghana, keeping them in his apartment until he ran out of space and had to get a storage unit. Eventually, with the support of Stanton and the Humans of New York platform, he raised over $1 million to fund the first stage of the Dikan Center in Ghana’s capital of Accra – Africa’s largest photography library and visual education space, which opened in December 2022.

Stanton, who attended Dikan’s opening, said watching Ninson build the center was “surreal.”

“He has stepped into a leadership role so effortlessly and intuitively. So many people who meet him walk away feeling as if they have met a future leader of Ghana,” Stanton said, adding that “(Ninson) has been so successful in launching the Dikan Center that it is often overlooked that he is an elite photographer.”

Ninson said Dikan, which means “take the lead” in the Twi language, is a space that has already started to teach other storytellers on the continent through workshops and classes, offering free use of the vast library of photobooks, and putting on photo exhibitions.

His goal, Ninson said, is “to connect people with each other and with the world around them,” and plans to return to Umoja within the next year.

“I believe in the power of storytelling,” he added. “It has the power to bring people together and to help us see the world in new and unexpected ways.”

It sounded like a travel lover’s dream: a three year cruise, looping the globe in search of an eternal summer, for what appeared to be a relatively affordable price.

When Life at Sea Cruises announced its 36-month voyage in March, with cabins starting at $29,999 per person per year for an all inclusive lifestyle, many people rushed to book.

But that dream appeared to morph into a nightmare in May, when the wheels came off, with part of the team quitting the company in what appeared to be a disagreement about the ship itself, and passengers pulling out of the enterprise.

Now, however, the project appears to be back on, with a bigger ship confirmed for those three years of exploration. The launch date is still set for November 1, 2023.

Life at Sea Cruises is now owned and operated entirely by Miray Cruises, a company with a 30-year history of operating in the Aegean. Miray was the cruise partner involved from the start.

It was Miray’s ship, the MV Gemini, that had been earmarked as the vessel to be used for the cruise back in March – something that became central to the breakdown in relationships between Miray and members of the former Life at Sea executive team.

All 22 leavers, say Petterson, are now working on a rival project: Villa Vie Residences – which, according to the website, will be a “world cruise… circumnavigating the globe every three and a half years.”

Bigger ship, fewer guests

Meanwhile, Miray says it is launching its first Life at Sea cruise in its new ship as planned in November.

The ship – built in 2003 and currently operating for another cruise line – has 627 cabins with capacity for 1,266 passengers, but Holmes said that they plan to sell a maximum of 532 cabins, or around 85%, to keep things feeling spacious onboard. Each cabin will have around 20 square feet more room than on Gemini, and while the cheapest digs on Gemini were on deck two, on Lara they will start at three, with some entry level rooms on deck four.

Holmes says the company always planned to acquire another ship so that they could continue their Aegean itineraries. Instead of buying a replacement for Gemini, they decided to splash out on a bigger vessel for the three year stint. The team first saw the new ship in March, when they were marketing the round-the-world cruises on the Gemini. Holmes says they continued to market the Gemini until they were sure that the Lara sale would go through in time to make the Life at Sea sailing.

“We looked at a lot of different vessels and we liked her layout,” she said. “She has lots of nice public spaces, an open pool deck, a running track – we liked the way everything was laid out on her.

“My big focus is on public spaces – you don’t want to be cooped up in a cabin for three years.[The Lara has] great covered outdoor spaces, open spaces, and a deck on top to watch the stars.

“You can get out close to the bow of the ship, and can see the ocean coming at you. She just met those criteria – and the restaurants are nice, the bars are big, there’s a lot of space… she just ticked all those boxes.”

Holmes won’t identify the current name of the ship which will become MV Lara, or who Miray has bought it from – but according to the details she can give (it’s currently in UK waters, and has recently completed a voyage around northern Europe), the odds are that it’s the AIDAaura, one of three ships of AIDA Cruises, a German-centric subsidiary of Carnival. Supermodel Heidi Klum is currently godmother to the ship, which has four restaurants, two lounges, five bars and clubs, and two pools, according to AIDA Cruises.

The company will “say goodbye” to the ship in September after 20 years and more than 800 voyages, according to AIDA’s website.

Cancellations and caveats

The upheaval has caused some passengers to back out entirely.

“When traveling alone, especially as a senior female, safety is the primary concern. With the unsettling changes surrounding the three year cruise, I decided the risk was too great for me,” she says.

“I am very disappointed, as I had my heart set on cruising the world for the next three years. I wish everyone who decides to go a happy and safe voyage.”

Holmes says that the company is “approaching 40%” capacity with current bookings – which puts it at over 200 rooms sold. The Gemini had around 50% prebookings when the ship was withdrawn – of a total of 400 cabins. New bookings have evened out the cancellations, she says.

“We’re selling pretty steadily – not too quickly, which is good,” she says. “We don’t want to force people into doing something they’re not 100% OK with. For me that’s more important than trying to get the quantity.”

The original offer required a $5,000 deposit to lock the rate in. “A lot did back out once they realized they couldn’t afford it, or weren’t comfortable being on the ship, or had family obligations. We had a few people trying to sell their houses and weren’t successful. A lot thought, ‘Yeah, I can totally do that,’ and then realized ‘I can’t afford to take three years off,’” she says.

Not everyone is taking three years off, however. The company will remove the onboard casino and replace it with coworking spaces and meeting rooms.

It is also planning to make the cruise relatively sustainable for what is generally held to be an unsustainable industry. Miray aims to make the ship free of single-use plastic, launder sheets and towels on a weekly basis, and switch to LED lighting where possible – “a huge fuel consumption saver,” claims Holmes.

Of the guests who have signed up so far, there’s a 60-40 couples-single split, and an age range from 30-something to 80-something. So far, most are American.

Meredith Shay, from Florida, is one of those still going.

“I have no trepidation at all, I’m over the moon excited to just drop out and then drop into a new life,” she says.

Shay put down her deposit for a balcony cabin on March 2, and sees the company split as a “hiccup.”

“It came and went in two days, and it all worked out,” she says.

“The people who left are creating their own ship, and we’re all happy for them, but we’re a group that has stuck with this from the get go. And this Miray team is accommodating to everyone – If there are concerns, they fix it, if there are ideas they put them into place. It’s a real team effort because we’re pioneers.”

Another guest, Ingrid Warwick, is so undeterred that she has even requested an upgrade to a balcony cabin.

“When the initial sales crew left we had concerns – theories can run rampant [on social media]. But we were impressed with how the Miray executive team handled the situation. Of course there’ll be ups and downs, and not everything will be exactly 100%, but they are putting the effort in,” she says.

“The people who canceled certainly had understandable concerns – you plan to put your life on hold for three years and travel onboard with a foreign cruise line. That’s going to give you pause, and I understand their decision.”

However, those going ahead have “really developed a bond,” she adds.

Her only quibble so far? The “islandy vibe” of the ship as it is. “It’ll get old very quickly when living on a ship for three years,” she says. However, Miray has shown guests renderings of their plans for new cabins. “We know there’s a short timeline but we are hopeful that the accommodations are what were presented to us – or as near as possible.”

Holmes says that Miray will take possession of the ship in late September, with the cruise departing in November. “That’s actually a long time – we’re doing a lot of work but amazing things can be done in two to three weeks,” she says.

The ship will be in dry dock for two weeks in Germany, where its hull will be repainted and work will start on the business center and offices, she says. “The rest will be done on the way back to Istanbul – there’s lots of work that can be done [during a voyage] as long as it’s not ‘hot’ work like welding.”

Battling it out in court

As for the allegations from their former coworkers, Holmes calls the “unseaworthy” comment “defamatory,” adding that ships pass “multiple inspections” annually to get their passenger safety certificates, and that the claim is “completely invalid. There are so many different safety [certifications] they have to go through to allow a passenger to set foot onboard,” she says. The Gemini’s Passenger Ship Safety Certificate (PSSC) was last issued in October 2022 and will be renewed next week, she says.

Court documents show that Miray is suing Petterson on four counts, including defamation, interference with business relationships, and making personal use of intellectual property and confidential business information. In an affidavit submitted to the court, Holmes claims that the contact details of Life at Sea clients were offered to a third party cruise line, and that Miray staff were blocked from contacting their clients over 11 online accounts by Petterson.

“I stand by my comments on what has been said and what transpired and look forward to proving every detail in court. I am confident we will have a positive outcome,” he said.

“They decided to pick on the term ‘unseaworthy.’ Clearly the ship floats. However we have dozens of emails, recordings and messages suggesting the Gemini could not perform the itinerary as advertised.”

Holmes says that some guests signed up to the original cruise are waiting to go with Villa Vie Residences. “Some loved the last team and that’s totally fine – I’m sure they’re going to do a great job as well,” she says.

In the meantime, the countdown is on for the world’s longest cruise.

“I’m traveling by myself but I don’t consider it by myself at all because the other people are amazing,” says Shay. “I’m traveling with 500 other people.”

Raising a child in South Korea is no easy task. By the time their toddlers can walk, many parents have already begun scouting out elite private preschools.

Their goal? That by the time these toddlers turn 18 they will have grown into students able to ace the country’s notoriously uncompromising, eight-hour national college entrance exam known as the Suneung and win their place in a prestigious university.

But getting to this point involves an arduous, expensive journey that takes its toll on both parents and children alike. It’s a system widely blamed by researchers, policymakers, teachers and parents for a litany of problems, from inequality in education to mental illness in the young and even the country’s plummeting fertility rate.

Hoping to solve some of these issues, the South Korean government took a controversial step this week: making the college entrance exam easier.

Officials will remove so-called “killer questions” from the Suneung, also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said in a news briefing Monday.

These notoriously difficult questions sometimes include material that isn’t covered in public school curricula, Lee said, lending an unfair advantage to students with access to private tutoring. He added that while it was “a personal choice” for parents and children to seek tutoring, many feel forced to do so due to the intense competition to do well in the exam.

The ministry “seeks to break the vicious cycle of private education that increases the burden for parents and subsequently erodes fairness in education,” Lee vowed.

Mind-bending questions and a life-changing exam

By the time South Korean teenagers enter high school, much of their lives revolve around academic results and preparing for the day of the CSAT – a date that is widely seen as making or breaking one’s future.

They have good reason to be anxious; the “killer questions” range from headache-inducing advanced calculus to obscure literary excerpts.

The ministry published several sample questions this week, drawn from past CSAT tests and mock exams, to illustrate the types of problems that would be removed in future tests.

One question, combining math concepts such as the differentiation of composite functions, was deemed “more complicated than those covered in public schools, which can cause psychological burden on test takers,” the ministry wrote. Another sample question asked test takers to analyze a lengthy passage about the philosophy of consciousness.

In the face of such tough odds, most Korean students enroll in extra tutoring or classes at private cram schools known as “hagwons.” It’s common for students to go from their regular school classes straight to evening hagwon sessions, and then to continue studying by themselves into the early morning hours.

As a result, the hagwon industry in South Korea is massive, and profitable. In 2022, South Koreans spent a total of 26 trillion won (almost $20 billion) on private education, according to the Ministry of Education.

That’s almost as much as the GDP of such nations as Haiti ($21 billion) and Iceland ($25 billion).

Last year, the average student across elementary, middle and high schools spent 410,000 Korean won (about $311) per month on private education, said Lee – the highest figure since the education ministry began tracking figures in 2007.

Cycle of inequality

Hagwons have become so prevalent in South Korea that last year 78.3% of all students from elementary to high school participated in private education, according to the education ministry. That places huge pressure on the few families and students who can’t afford the extra classes.

And the competition for university admission is steeper in a country where nearly 70% of students enter higher education – a higher proportion than in other wealthy nations, with the United States at 51% and the United Kingdom at 57%, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It’s why many South Korean parents, across various income brackets, pour their resources into their children’s education, for fear they will fall behind otherwise.

But this system deepens and perpetuates educational inequality, experts argue. The burden is significantly higher for poorer families, who tend to spend a much higher proportion of their income on their children’s education compared to wealthier households. And still, the playing field remains uneven, with studies showing a clear gap in student achievement between low and high income families.

On Monday, the education minister singled out hagwons for criticism, accusing them of being “private education cartels” that profit off the anxiety of parents and students.

“Parents, teachers and educational professionals all want the government to take an active role so that private education can be absorbed into the (public) school education,” Lee said, promising to make the system fair and to “eradicate” hagwon culture.

To this end, the government has set up a temporary call center for residents to report wrongdoings by hagwons and private academies, he said.

He added that the government will also provide more after-school and tutoring programs within the public sector, and provide better childcare services to prevent students from being “cornered” into attending hagwons.

The cost of excellence

This educational rat race also takes a heavy toll on both students and parents.

Critics have long argued that the burden on students is one factor driving a mental health crisis in the country, which has the highest suicide rate among OECD nations.

Last year, the Ministry of Health warned that the suicide rate was increasing among teenagers and young adults in their 20s, partly due to the lingering effects of the pandemic.

A 2022 government survey added to the grim picture. Of the nearly 60,000 middle and high school students surveyed nationwide, almost a quarter of males and one in three females reported experiencing depression.

In a previous report, nearly half of Korean youth aged 13 to 18 cited education as their biggest worry.

Education weighs heavily for parents, too. Experts believe the staggering expenses are a major factor behind South Koreans’ growing reluctance to have children – along with other burdens like long working hours, stagnant wages and sky-high housing costs.

South Korea is regularly ranked the most expensive place in the world to raise a child from birth to age 18, in large part due to the cost of education. Many couples feel they must focus their resources on just one child, if they have kids at all.

Last year, the country’s fertility rate, already the world’s lowest, fell to a record low of 0.78 – not even half the 2.1 needed for a stable population and far below even that of Japan (1.3), currently the world’s grayest nation.

“The costs of child-raising are high, and represent a large part of the budget of low-income families. Without additional income, having a child leads to a lower standard of living, and low-income families face a poverty risk,” said the OECD in a 2018 paper, adding that “giving up or postponing childbearing is one way to avoid poverty.”

The government itself has long grappled with this issue, saying in 2008 that families were “heavily burdened by excessive spending” in childcare and education. Without new policies to reduce this burden, the country risks “further exacerbating the problem of low birth rates in our society,” it warned.

A step in the right direction?

Efforts to fix the problem so far have proved largely ineffective. The government has spent more than $200 billion over the past 16 years to encourage more people to have children, with little to show for it.

Activists say South Korea needs deeper change instead, such as dismantling entrenched gender norms and introducing more support for working parents.

Targeting the CSAT, some hope, could be a step in that direction. Some groups, such as the civic organization The World Without Worry About Private Education, welcomed the decision, saying it was necessary to prevent children from being “immersed in excessive competition.”

But others aren’t convinced, with some critics online calling it a surface-level solution to a more complex issue, coming as the government looks to shore up support ahead of next year’s general election.

And many high school seniors, preparing to take the exam in November, have complained they feel blindsided by the abrupt change after spending years studying material they thought would be included. Some agreed the private education sector needed reform, but doubted the effectiveness of this move.

“From the standpoint of a current high school senior, I don’t think private tutoring will decrease just because killer questions are eliminated,” one user posted on Instagram.

Another wrote on Twitter: “I think the way to get rid of the private education craze is not to remove killer questions or lower the difficulty of the CSAT, but to improve the job market environment where regardless of your educational background, you can work at a safe place, receive a sufficient wage, and have human rights guaranteed.”

One is known as “General Armageddon,” the other as “Putin’s chef.” Both have a checkered past and a reputation for brutality. One launched the insurrection, the other reportedly knew about it in advance. And right now, both are nowhere to be found.

The commander of the Russian air force Sergey Surovikin and the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin have not been seen in public in days as questions swirl about the role Surovikin may have played in Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny.

Kremlin has remained silent on the topic, embarking instead on an aggressive campaign to reassert the authority of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here’s what we know about the two men in the spotlight.

What is happening?

A popular blogger going by the name Rybar noted on Wednesday that “Surovikin has not been seen since Saturday” and said nobody knew for certain where he was. “There is a version that he is under interrogation,” he added.

A well-known Russian journalist Alexey Venediktov – former editor of the now-shuttered Echo of Moscow radio station – also claimed Wednesday Surovikin had not been in contact with his family for three days.

But other Russian commentators suggested the general was not in custody. A former Russian member of Parliament Sergey Markov said on Telegram that Surovikin had attended a meeting in Rostov on Thursday, but did not say how he knew this.

“The rumors about the arrest of Surovikin are dispersing the topic of rebellion in order to promote political instability in Russia,” he said.

Why is everyone talking about Surovikin?

Surovikin has been the subject of intense speculation over his role in the mutiny after the New York Times reported on Wednesday that the general “had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership.” The paper cited US officials who it said were briefed on US intelligence.

Surovikin released a video Friday, just as the rebellion was starting, appealing to Prigozhin to halt the mutiny soon after it began. The video message made it clear he sided with Putin. But the footage raised more questions than answers about Surovikin’s whereabouts and his state of mind – he appeared unshaven and with a halting delivery, as if reading from a script.

Asked about the New York Times story, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “There will be now a lot of speculation and rumors surrounding these events. I believe this is just another example of it.”

“They might have known, and might have not told about it, [or] known about it and decided to help it succeed. There are some hints. There might have been prior knowledge,” the official said.

The documents, obtained by the Russian investigative Dossier Center, showed that Surovikin had a personal registration number with Wagner.

In the documents, “VIP” is written next to Surovikin’s number, and analysts at the Dossier Center say there are at least 30 other senior Russian military and intelligence officials also listed as VIP.

And what about Prigozhin?

Prigozhin meanwhile, played the central role in the short-lived insurrection – it was he who ordered Wagner troops to take over two military bases and then march on Moscow.

Why he did so depends on who you ask.

The Wagner chief himself claimed the whole thing was a protest, rather than a real attempt to topple the government. In a voice message released Monday, he explained the “purpose of the march was to prevent the destruction of PMC Wagner.” The comment seemed to be a reference to a statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense that it would employ Wagner’s contractors directly, essentially forcing Prigozhin’s lucrative operations to shutter.

He also said he wanted to “bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation,” referring to Russia’s war on Ukraine with the Kremlin-preferred term “special military operation.”

It is clear the Kremlin sees the events of last weekend differently. Putin assembled Russian security personnel in Moscow Tuesday, telling them they “virtually stopped a civil war” in responding to the insurrection.

Where are they now?

Nobody knows. Prigozhin was last spotted leaving the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday, after abruptly calling off his troops’ march on Moscow.

He released an audio message Monday, explaining his decision to turn his troops back. The Kremlin and the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Saturday that Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for Belarus.

Lukashenko said he brokered a deal that would see Prigozhin exiled in Belarus without facing criminal charges. According to Lukashenko, the Wagner chief arrived in Belarus Tuesday. While there are no videos or photos showing Prigozhin in Belarus, satellite imagery of an airbase outside Minsk showed two planes linked to Prigozhin landed there on Tuesday morning.

As for Surovikin, the commander of the Russian air force has not been seen in public since overnight on Friday when he issued the video.

What is the Kremlin saying?

When questioned whether Putin continued to trust Surovikin, Peskov said during his daily phone call with reporters: “He [Putin] is the supreme commander-in-chief and he works with the defense minister, [and] with the chief of the General Staff. As for the structural divisions within the ministry, I would ask you to contact the [Defense] Ministry.”

Peskov also told journalists that he did not have information about the whereabouts of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

One Russian official has said that Surovikin is not being held in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, as some independent media and blogs have suggested.

“He is not in Lefortovo or any other pre-trial detention facility. I don’t even want to comment on the nonsense about “an underground detention facility in Serebryany Bor,” Alexei Melnikov, executive secretary of the Public Monitoring Commission in Russia, said on his Telegram channel.

The Lefortovo facility is where suspects accused of espionage or other crimes against the state are often held.

What else is known about the pair?

Prigozhin was once a close ally of Putin. Both grew up in St. Petersburg and have known each other since the 1990s. Prigozhin made millions by winning lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin, earning him the moniker “Putin’s chef.”

He then cast his net wider, becoming a shadowy figure tasked with advancing Putin’s foreign policy goals. He bankrolled the notorious troll farm that the US government sanctioned for interference in the 2016 US presidential election; created a substantial mercenary force that played a key role in conflicts from Ukraine’s Donbas region to the Syrian civil war; and helped Moscow make a play for influence on the African continent.

He gained notoriety after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022. The private military chief seemingly built influence with Putin over the course of the conflict, with his Wagner forces taking a leading role in the labored but ultimately successful assault on Bakhmut earlier this year. The capture of that city was a rare Russian gain in Ukraine in recent months, boosting Prigozhin’s profile further.

Using his new-found fame, Prigozhin criticized Russia’s military leadership and its handling of the war in Ukraine – with few consequences. But he crossed numerous red lines with Putin over the weekend.

Surovikin is known in Russia as “General Armageddon,” a reference to his alleged brutality.

He first served in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War ​in 2004.

That year, according to Russian media accounts and at least two think tanks, he berated a subordinate so severely that the subordinate took his own life.

A book by the Washington DC-based Jamestown Foundation, a think tank, said that during the unsuccessful coup attempt against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, soldiers under Surovikin’s command killed three protesters, leading to Surovikin spending at least six months in prison.

As the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces during Russia’s operations in Syria, he oversaw Russian combat aircraft causing widespread devastation in rebel-held areas.

In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named him as “someone who may bear ​command responsibility” for the dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war​” during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive in Syria. ​

The attacks killed at least 1,600 ​civilians and forced the displacement of an estimated 1.4 million people, according to HRW​​, which cites UN figures.

Where does this leave Putin?

The general consensus among western officials and analysts is clear: in his entire 23 years in power, the Russian president has never looked weaker.

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs said the Wagner rebellion showed Putin was “not the only master in town” and “has lost the monopoly of force.”

Speaking to journalists in Brussels on Thursday, Josep Borrell cautioned that the global community has to be “very much aware of the consequences” adding that “a weaker Putin is a greater danger.”

As for his domestic image, Putin appears to have embarked on a charm offensive, trying to reassert his authority.

He has attended an unusually high number of meetings in the past few days and was even seen greeting members of public. That is a stark reversal of tactic. Putin has stayed in near-seclusion for the past three years.

On Wednesday though, he flew for an official visit to Dagestan, meeting local officials and supporters in the streets of the city of Derbent, according to video posted by the Kremlin. On Thursday, he attended – once again in person – a business event in Moscow.

Last year, the world watched closely as China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi of India and other world leaders within a Moscow-friendly group gathered in the Uzbek city of Samarkand for a high-profile, two-day summit.

The spotlight was on how each of the attending leaders interacted with Putin – who at the time was more than six months into a brutal invasion of Ukraine that had sparked a humanitarian disaster, roiled the global economy and triggered global food insecurity.

This time around, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit’s host country India appeared keen to avoid that kind of scrutiny, opting instead for a virtual summit – a muted arrangement that may have also suited the SCO’s two leading members, Putin and Xi.

India’s summit, which took place Tuesday afternoon, lasted roughly three hours and culminated with the release of a joint declaration some 5,000 words shorter than the one released in Samarkand.

Also missing were the typical group photos, chummy dinner and opportunities for sideline meetings between heads of state from the body of leaders from Eurasia that Russia and China have long seen as a critical means to counter so-called Western influence in the region.

New Delhi did not give a specific explanation when it announced last month it would hold the event online, and on Tuesday said the format “in no way signifies, hints, insinuates the dilution in the objectives that we are trying to see of the SCO summit.”

But observers say that Modi – who has been busy tightening India’s ties with the US, including during a state visit late last month – was likely keen to avoid the optics of welcoming Putin and Xi to the capital for an SCO summit.

The grouping, which also includes Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and – as of yesterday – Iran, was founded in 2001 to focus on regional security and cooperation and spearheaded by Russia and China, both of whom are now at significant odds with the US.

“Having just been feted in Washington, Modi had to walk a fine line in terms of perceptions,” said Manoj Joshi, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, adding that “given Western sensitivities,” India didn’t want Putin “strutting around” the capital.

And while Putin and Xi are ardent backers of the SCO and both keen to play up their strength and be perceived as global power brokers, especially by their domestic audiences – a toned-down summit may have also suited their purposes, experts say.

Playing safe

Putin’s attendance at the event was his first appearance, albeit virtual, on the world stage since what’s been widely considered the most significant threat to his power the autocrat has seen to date.

An armed rebellion launched by the Wagner mercenary group last late month was swiftly diffused but not without damaging Putin’s image of iron-fisted control.

It remains unknown how tight a grip Putin now has on power in Moscow, and although he attended last year’s SCO summit, he has rarely left Russia since his invasion of Ukraine.

Attending this year’s gathering in-person, while also managing the political fallout from such a systemic shock could potentially have presented a risk for the authoritarian leader.

Meanwhile, China has ramped up its diplomacy with Europe in recent months as it attempts to repair its image and relations there, which suffered a significant blow since early last year as Beijing refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued to back Putin economically and diplomatically.

“An online format avoided Xi having to stage-manage a meeting with Putin – or not,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

It’s “much easier” for Xi or China to engage with Europe without the optics of a face-to-face meeting with Putin, he said, while not meeting “would also raise awkward questions” for Beijing, which maintains a close partnership with Moscow.

Moritz Rudolf, a fellow and research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School in the US, agreed the “level of international scrutiny would have been much higher if another in-person meeting between Xi and Putin would have taken place.”

The “significant substance” of the summit, where Iran was granted full membership and key Moscow ally Belarus took a step in that direction, could have been another reason why Beijing may not have minded a more low-profile summit, amid its efforts to be seen as a potential peace facilitator between Russia and Ukraine and to improve relations with Europe, he said.

But none of this should suggest that these two countries are viewing the body – or their bilateral relations – as of lesser importance than before, experts caution.

The SCO has long been a means for Russia and China to manage their own balance of power in Central Asia and advance their shared vision to counter what they see as a looming threat of Western influence – a threat both Xi and Putin referenced in their addresses to the group on Tuesday.

“The SCO still matters to Putin, as the relative weakness of Russia juxtaposed against the relative strength of China can cause a shift in the balance of power and influence between the two (in the group),” said Tsang.

“Russia may be a junior partner to China overall, but it would not want to be so in those Central Asian countries that were formerly part of the (Soviet Union),” he said.

Missed opportunity?

Face-to-face meetings, however, can also provide opportunity for world leaders to talk out sensitive issues or push on points of contention that may be handled less delicately in a virtual setting.

Given their respective ties with Moscow, both China and India have received pressure from the West to limit their relations or even push Putin toward peace.

China in particular has tried to parlay what it claims is a “neutral” role in the conflict in Ukraine into a bid to broker peace talks – with Xi visiting Moscow in March on a trip Beijing painted with this veneer.

At last year’s SCO summit, Modi made what was his most direct, public rebuke of the war to date – telling Putin “today’s era is not an era of war.”

And Putin in Samarkand appeared to concede that Xi too had raised diverging views – noting in public remarks that Beijing had “questions and concerns” over the invasion.

That said, neither leader has appeared, at least publicly, to ramp up pressure on Putin – even as declarations from both years’ SCO summits supported “mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of states” and “non-use of force or threats to use force” – in apparent contrast to Putin’s actions against Ukraine.

This year, instead, as the world leaders took turns reading out statements during the summit’s online format, Putin used his time to decry Western sanctions against his war – and reassure his counterparts that he remained strong in the face of these challenges and the insurrection.

“Russia is withstanding all these sanctions and provocations and under the present circumstances, our country is steadily developing,” he said.

Torrential downpours and flooding have killed at least 15 people and four others remain missing in Chongqing, southwest China, state-run news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday, citing local authorities.

The deaths have been recorded since Monday as heavy rains have battered southwest China, prompting four counties in Chongqing to issue the highest level red alert warnings.

Videos from the sprawling megacity show residents being rescued, while authorities work to clear streets of floodwater.

China’s Ministry of Emergency Management also raised its emergency levels.

Neighboring Sichuan province has also been hard hit, with more than 460,000 residents affected by the heavy rain – but no casualties reported so far, according to the provincial government. More than 85,000 Sichuan residents have been displaced, state-run broadcaster CCTV reported Tuesday.

At least 400 emergency teams have been dispatched to help rescue and relief operations in the area, according to state media.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered authorities to “give top priority” to keeping residents safe and minimizing losses, according to Xinhua. He also told various government ministries, including flood control and emergency management authorities, to coordinate the response effort.

This summer has already seen heavy rain, with four people killed and three missing in Sichuan last week after landslides triggered by rainstorms and flash floods, Xinhua reported.

And videos emerged on Monday of the dramatic rescue of a couple trapped on their car roof after a riverbed flooded in central Henan province. Rescue workers used a drone to deliver rope and life jackets to the couple, who huddled on their car amid rushing brown water before being “dragged” to the river bank by a crane, according to CCTV.

The floods come as other parts of China battle intense heat waves in yet more examples of extreme and unpredictable weather that experts say is a sign of the climate crisis’ impact.

Earlier this week, the country registered the highest number of hot days over six months since records began, according to authorities.

China has already experienced four regional heat waves so far this summer, which arrived earlier and have been more widespread and extreme than in previous years, according to the National Climate Center.

Northern China, a heavily populated region with hundreds of millions of residents, has been particularly hard hit, with more heat waves expected in coming weeks.

As special as holes in one are, they almost always have one thing in common: they arrive on – typically short – par threes.

Once in a blue moon though, an even rarer type of ace occurs. On Monday, that blue moon rose over teenage golfer Aldrich Potgieter.

The 18-year-old South African went 345 yards from the par-four 17th tee to cup in just one stroke during a qualifying event for the John Deere Classic at Pinnacle Country Club in Milan, Illinois on Monday.

Only one par-four ace has ever been recorded in a competitive PGA Tour event. Andrew Magee shot into the record books with his albatross (three-under par on a single hole) at the 332-yard 17th hole of the 2001 Waste Management Phoenix Open and, given Potgieter’s didn’t come at an official Tour event, the American’s feat is yet to be matched.

Magee’s hole-out materialized in bizarre circumstances, the ball deflecting off the putter of fellow pro Tom Byrum – playing in the group ahead – and into the cup. As it did not hit his own equipment, the shot was deemed valid by rules officials.

Potgieter’s ace was less peculiar, not that he saw it.

“That was really exciting, and it was kind of a weird moment,” Potgieter told the PGA Tour.

“I didn’t see it go in, so I didn’t know. Kind of a blind tee shot, but … when I saw my caddie run out to the fairway, and was pumping up his arms and going wild, I thought it was probably like a foot or two.

“And he said no, it was in the hole. So it wasn’t like one you see on a par 3 and you go wild with the crowd. It was kind of a quiet moment to yourself where you’re like, ‘I still can’t believe that happened.’”

Hole-in-one on a 345-yard par 4!

18-year-old Aldrich Potgieter did the unthinkable at the @JDClassic Monday Qualifier. pic.twitter.com/WLZdxB4mW2

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 3, 2023

It ended up being a bittersweet day for Potgieter, who missed out on qualifying for Thursday’s tournament by a single stroke.

The South African’s six-under 66 saw him fall agonizingly short of securing one of the four spots available inthe 87-player field. American duo Reid Martin and Anders Larson stamped their tickets to their first ever PGA Tour event, while Japanese pair Yuto Katsuragawa and Kaito Onishi will be making their fifth and third starts respectively.

World No. 1275 Potgieter, who finished 65th at the US Open in June, will have to wait a little longer for his sixth PGA Tour appearance, but the future looks bright for the teenager.

In June 2022, he became the second youngest winner in the 127-year history of the Amateur Championship, defying his 140th amateur world ranking to become only the third South African to lift the title.

Senbere Teferi looked to be mere seconds away from defending her Peachtree Road Race title.

That is, until she took a wrong turn just before the finish line.

The first three competitors of the women’s elite division of the Peachtree Road Race, a 10-kilometer race held annually in Atlanta on July 4, were approaching the finish line when Teferi, the 2022 champion, had the lead.

But with just meters to go, Teferi, who was following a lead vehicle, took a right turn, running off course.

The mistake cost her the win as Fotyen Tesfay kept going straight ahead and went on to cross the finish line first. Tesfay’s time was 30 minutes, 43 seconds according to the online results. Teferi ended up in third, four seconds behind Tesfay.

The wrong turn also cost Teferi in prize money. The winner of the race earns $10,000, while second place receives $5,000 and third place gets $3,000.

Tesfay was asked through a translator about those final meters.

“I was really upset by Senbere’s mistake because she was in the front and she was leading, but she took that last turn,” she said.

“I saw the finish line. At first I thought they didn’t really show us that well yesterday where the finish was. But after I saw that car turn, I saw the finish sign in front of me, so I pushed ahead. But I was really upset because I really planned to stick with Senbere at the finish.”

Approximately 50,000 people participate in the Peachtree Road Race. This year was the 54th edition of the race.