Do you yearn for long days and short nights? Then this could be the best day of the year for you and fellow sunlight seekers.

The summer solstice is Wednesday, June 21. It’s the longest day and shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the first official day of summer.

Our ancient ancestors certainly took note of the yearly occasion.  Some of their monuments were aligned to precisely mark the summer solstice light (looking at you Stonehenge).

Pagan celebrations of the day carry on into modern times. Today’s events include gatherings at Stonehenge in England, the Midsummer Eve celebration in Sweden and Ivan Kupala Night in parts of Eastern Europe.

The solstice is historically linked to fertility – both the plant and human variety – in destinations worldwide.

The science of the solstice and its traditions have fascinated people for millennia.

Summer solstice science

Is summer solstice all over the world? No. It’s only in the Northern Hemisphere, where almost 90% of the world’s population lives. People south of equator in places such as Chile, South Africa and Australia are having their winter solstice and the shortest day of the year there.

When is the 2023 summer solstice exactly? It will fall at 14:58 UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) on June 21. Your time zone in relation to UTC determines the time and even the date that the solstice happens for you. For instance, that’s 7:58 a.m. in Los Angeles, 10:57 a.m. in New York City, 3:57 p.m. in London and 11:57 p.m. in Tokyo. Earthsky.org has a handy time zone conversion tool.

Who gets the most sunlight? The differences in how much daylight you get become very dramatic as you get closer to the poles and farther from the equator. In Ecuador’s capital of Quito, barely north of the equator, people barely notice the difference. They get a measly extra six and a half minutes of daylight.

But residents of northerly Helsinki, Finland, will get a 3:54 a.m. sunrise and almost 19 hours of daylight. Even the night doesn’t get that dark.  The denizens of Fairbanks in central interior Alaska can scoff at those 19 hours. They’ll get almost 22 hours of daylight, and blackout curtains might be in order.

Why don’t we just get 12 hours of daylight all year? Folks all over the planet actually did get nearly equal doses of day and night back during the spring equinox. But the amount of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere has been increasing daily ever since. That’s because the Earth is aligned on an axis, an imaginary pole going through the center of our planet. But this axis tilts – at an angle of 23.5 degrees.

“As Earth orbits the sun [once each year], its tilted axis always points in the same direction. So, throughout the year, different parts of Earth get the sun’s direct rays,” explains NASA. When the sun reaches its apex in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s the summer solstice.

“Temperatures essentially continue to rise after the summer solstice because the amount of energy coming in from the sun continues to be greater than the amount of energy lost at night – so it is basically an accumulation of warmth until the daylight gets short enough that this changes,” says Ward. “The only area of the country that actually sees their warmest temperatures in June, coinciding with the longest daylight of the year, is portions of the Southwest” because of the timing of the cloudy monsoon season there in July and August.

The same general temperature pattern holds true in places such as Japan and much of Europe.

How to celebrate summer solstice

What does Stonehenge have to do with the summer solstice? The ancient stones of the monument in Southwest England dating to around 2500 BC were aligned by its makers astronomically.

The central axis of Stonehenge was aligned with the sunrise at summer solstice and sunset at winter solstice so that the stones precisely frame the rising and setting sun when days were at their longest and shortest. And it still works like clockwork in modern times.

The English Heritage society organizes gatherings at Stonehenge for the summer solstice and produces a livestream of the sunrise.

What other cultural traditions surround the summer solstice? In Sweden, the Midsummer Eve celebration is tied to the solstice, always being held on the Friday that lands anywhere from June 19 to June 25. Maypoles, folk dancing and romantic rituals are the order of the day.

In Ukraine and some other places in Eastern Europe, the summer solstice is connected with Ivan Kupala Night – a holiday with romantic connotations for many Slavs. People dance, place flowered wreaths on the water and gather around bonfires.

In India, the birthplace of the ancient practice of yoga, the summer solstice is traditionally celebrated with mass yoga sessions throughout the nation. And the United Nations’ International Yoga Day falls each year on the summer solstice.

When four young indigenous children were found last week after 40 days in the Colombian Amazon jungle, their rescuers noticed that the oldest, 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, had something hidden between her teeth.

“We found she had a couple of seeds slowly chewed between her cheeks and her jawbone,” said Eliecer Muñoz, one of the four indigenous guards who made the very first contact with the children.

Its fruits are rich in fat and Amazon tribes use them to make a vegetable oil, but Leslie’s seeds were still unripe when she was found, Muñoz said.

“She was keeping them so that the warmth of her mouth would open up the seeds and she could feed the pulp to her younger siblings,” Muñoz says. “That’s how they stayed alive.”

Ever since the children were brought home, reporters and survival experts have been trying to answer this question: How did four children – the youngest just an infant – survive in the heart of the Amazon rainforest for so long?

It took a team of over 130 special force commandos and some of the most skilled indigenous guides in the country to find them.

The stretch of the jungle they were found in is one of the most remote and inhospitable in Colombia, where wild animals like jaguars, anacondas or poisonous bugs abound, rains can pour for over 15 hours a day and visibility is sometimes limited to 10 meters due to the thick vegetation.

Lesly and her siblings were dangerously emaciated when they were finally found. In more than a month without adults, they appear to have survived on wild fruits and three pounds of cassava flour, a high-protein traditional staple of the Amazon diet, that they retrieved from the wreckage of the plane crash that stranded them in the forest.

They had also found one of the hundreds of survival kits left in the jungle by the search and rescue operation, which included small rations of food, electrolytes, and lighters.

“We understand they only used one of the kits of the Army, for the rest just fruits, seeds and water,” says Henry Guerrero, an indigenous elder who was also part of the team that found them.

Indigenous pride

Only someone with deep knowledge of the forest and remarkable personal resilience could survive there for over a month – much less keep three other people alive too.

Weeks ago, most of the Colombian public following their story could not have known the extent to which Lesly and her siblings possessed those skills. But their great-uncle, Fidencio Valencia, did not despair: “They already know the jungle… they are children, but we hope they are alive and that they have access to water,” he told reporters on May 19.

His words have been vindicated.

The children have not yet spoken publicly and are recovering in Colombia’s central military hospital in Bogota. On Thursday, a statement from the hospital said the children are out of immediate danger but still considered at high risk due to infectious diseases they contracted and serious malnourishment.

The traces of their survival show impressive botanical knowledge and foresight.

During the search, rescuers found discarded fruits like avichure, a wild plant similar to the passion fruit that the children ate while alone in the forest. Seeds of milpesos were also found along their footprints, and Colombian authorities believe Lesly took some baby’s formula from the discarded plane to feed Cristin, 11 months old, for a few days.

When found, the children had bottles they used to collect water, either from streams or from the rain, which was plentiful during the month of the search.

The accomplishment feels like a moment of pride for the indigenous community of the Colombian Amazon. “Thanks to these kids we won over technology,” Guerrero gleamed at a recent press conference in Bogota. “Thanks to the kids we realized that we, the indigenous, we are important.”

While their survival remains a marvel, it was no doubt facilitated by traditional knowledge of the forest they embraced from a remarkably young age, and while Colombia deployed its army, it was four local indigenous guides who first spotted the little ones.

Lesly, in particular, is hailed for not only staying alive herself, but also making sure her younger siblings would survive following the loss of their mother in the plane crash.

One of the traditional tasks of indigenous women is to look after one’s siblings as if they were your own children. An older sister is basically a second mother, and I think that is exactly how Lesly was brought up with,” says Nelly Kuiru, an indigenous activist from the murui settlement of La Chorrera.

But Kuiru believes that that prowess goes far beyond botanical expertise: “Ancestral, traditional knowledge is not just that Lesly learnt to pick up fruits or so, but there’s something much deeper there, a spiritual connection with the forest surrounding us.”

When the father of two of the children, Manuel Ranoque, learned the plane carrying his wife and their four children crashed on the way to San Jose del Guaviare, he requested the help of traditional elders and sages in his community, like Guerrero and Muñoz, who joined forces with the Colombian military to locate the children.

The military brought GPS technology, advanced radio communications, and operated over four hundred flight-hours over the jungle.

The indigenous murui searchers taught soldiers how to read tracks and move around the jungle. Traditional elders like Guerrero attempted to bridge a spiritual link with the children using traditional plants like tobacco, coca, and yagé, the sacred, hallucinogen plant also known as ayahuasca.

In the end, it was a mix of the two worlds that saved the children: Muñoz and his team finally found them, all but starved to death, in an area clear of trees they had inspected in previous days. Within a few hours, they were taken out of the jungle on a Blackhawk military helicopter.

Taught by their mother

Magdalena Mucutuy was a woman of the chagra – a sacred space that acts both as a harvesting garden and community school for traditional knowledge – who often brought her children to the forest, according to her husband.

There, they likely learned the skills that allowed them to survive until rescuers came.

“Traditionally, (indigenous) children’s upbringing takes place in the natural environment, in the forest, especially when they are very young,” says Kuiru. But she warns that intimate familiarity with the wild that allowed Leslie and her siblings to survive is under threat, she says.

In recent years, indigenous populations have abandoned the forest, pushed towards urban areas by the presence of criminal groups in the countryside and by lack of work and education opportunities, according to a 2010 study by the Colombian Amazon Institute of Scientific Research.

Ranoque himself says he was forced to abandon their native settlement in Araracuara, Amazonas, due to threats from guerrilla groups. He said that his wife and her children had also been fleeing encroachment from armed groups when their plane crashed on May 1, killing Magdalena, the pilot, and an indigenous leader – and stranding the children.

Kuiru would like the Colombian state to support and protect indigenous lifestyles and knowledges, while also offering opportunities to enter the mainstream economy. In education, that could mean allowing children to spend only half of the day in state schools and then go to the chagras to receive traditional education, she says. Or it could mean supporting local entrepreneurship to create jobs in the region and encourage young people to stay in the Amazon.

In a way, just like the four children were saved by a mix of tradition and modernity, only the two sides together can bring real development to the region.

“We should not fear modernization, but we must go back to our roots, what defines us and makes us different as indigenous people of the Amazon. If not, we will end up empty, like eggshells without filling,” she said.

“Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigators to facilitate their investigations,” Firpo said.

“Several” sites were raided by police, including the Paris 2024 offices and the headquarters of SOLIDEO, the public body responsible for much of the construction and infrastructure around the Paris 2024 games, the financial prosecutor’s office said.

One of the preliminary investigations was opened in 2017 by a French police anti-corruption unit into “illegal conflict of interests, embezzlement of public funds, favouritism and concealment of favouritism targeting several contracts” awarded by the Paris 2024 committee.

The second preliminary investigation was opened in 2022 by a second specialized French police financial unit, examining the charges of “illegal conflict of interest, favouritism and concealment of favouritism relating to several contracts” awarded by the Paris 2024 Committee and SOLIDEO. This followed an inspection by the French anti-corruption agency, the financial prosecutor’s office said.

Next year’s Olympic Games are set to start on July 26 and run until August 11. The Paralympic Games will then take place from August 28 until September 8.

There’s a reason these maps are called spaghetti models. Just take a look. There are lines all over the place, like a plate of spaghetti.

The simple lines actually come from some of the fastest computers in the world, making billions of computations.

Also known as spaghetti plots, these models show where a tropical system, such as a hurricane, may go.

The more they are clustered together, the higher the confidence in the forecast. Lines are spread far apart can indicate uncertainty in the forecast.

Are all spaghetti models the same?

No. There are different kinds of spaghetti models: dynamical models, statistical models and ensemble models.

Dynamical models require hours on a supercomputer solving physical equations of motion to produce a forecast.

Statistical models, in contrast, are based on historical relationships between storm behavior and storm-specific details such as location and date.

Ensemble or consensus models are created by combining the forecasts from a collection of other models.

All models show the expected track of the storm and many also show how strong the storm will be.

Who makes them?

Models are run and operated by governments and private companies around the world. Some are public, while others are private.

Usually, the name of the model can give away who is responsible.

Take, for example, the “Navy Global Environmental Model” which is run by the United States Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center.

Some of the more familiar models are the American (GFS) and European (ECMWF) models run by the US government and a partnership of European countries respectively.

When is a good time to check the models?

The easy answer is all the time. These models run multiple times a day and can change very quickly.

The key is to look for trends. In other words, did all the models shift to the north or south – or do most of the models show the storm moving faster?

The other is consistency. Are the plots moving north, for instance, and have they done that the last three times you looked?

While no forecast is perfect, spaghetti models do a great job at giving us an idea where these powerful forces of nature will go.

This helps us better prepare for when a hurricane strikes.

Tropical Storm Bret could reach the Lesser Antilles islands in the Caribbean Sea by late Thursday.

But the storm is not expected to become a rare June hurricane as had been previously thought, the National Hurricane Center said Tuesday.

Bret, centered in the Atlantic hundreds of miles east of the Lesser Antilles, strengthened slightly on Tuesday afternoon, with maximum sustained winds at 45 mph, the hurricane center said Tuesday evening.

Bret is expected to impact the Lesser Antilles as a tropical storm – counter to previous forecasts predicting it could be at hurricane strength – with its center expected to move through the island group between Thursday afternoon and night, the hurricane center said.

A tropical storm watch is in effect for the island nation of Barbados.

Track Bret here

While Bret may no longer be forecast to become a hurricane, its impact will still be felt in the islands.

“Rainfall amounts of 4 to 6 inches with maximum amounts of 10 inches are possible across portions of the Lesser Antilles from Guadeloupe southward to St. Lucia,” the hurricane center said. “Rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches are possible across Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”

The heavy rain could mean flash flooding, especially across higher areas, while urban flooding is also possible, the hurricane center said.

There may still be some shifts in the forecast track, and the hurricane center is urging residents of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to monitor forecast updates.

How to prepare for the hurricane

Once Bret crosses over the Lesser Antilles, the storm is forecast to weaken further.

“Drier mid-level air should begin to get entrained into the system,” the hurricane center said. “This will likely cause a weakening trend to commence after Bret moves into the Caribbean.”

The storm currently is not expected to impact the US mainland.

The hurricane center first identified the storm as a tropical depression a little over 1,400 miles east of the Windward Islands in a Monday morning update.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a near average hurricane season when it comes to the number of storms. It’s forecasting 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and up to four major hurricanes – which is a Category 3 storm or higher.

If Bret had strengthened into a hurricane, it would have been considered a rarity. The first hurricane usually doesn’t form until early to mid-August, according to the hurricane center.

Following a weekend of devastating storms, hundreds of thousands of customers are without power in areas of the South and Southwest now facing scorching heat.

As of Tuesday, more than 38 million Americans are under active extreme heat advisories, watches, and warnings, according to the National Integrated Heat Health Information System, a platform created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scorching temperatures are concentrated across large swaths of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Daily records could be broken throughout the week, with the peak heat occurring Tuesday and Wednesday.

Louisiana has about 53,000 customers who are without power as of Tuesday afternoon and Texas has more than 51,000 customers without power, according to poweroutage.us.

In Oklahoma, as temperatures soar in the aftermath of the weekend storms, over 130,000 customers remained without power statewide, according to poweroutage.us.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa warned Tuesday morning that temperatures could feel like over 100 degrees for much of the area.

“Heat impacts will be a concern today for those without power. Be safe out there!” the agency said in a tweet.

In Tulsa, one person died because they were unable to power their respirator, according to Mayor G.T. Bynum, who signed a disaster declaration for the city on Sunday.

The Office of the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner Tuesday confirmed two additional fatalities caused by the storms but was unable to provide additional details.

Texas heat could keep breaking records

Temperatures across Texas will be running 10 to 15 degrees above normal for at least the next seven days.

“The highest heat indices are forecast across South Texas, where it could feel as hot as 120 degrees,” the Weather Prediction Center said.

With air conditioners running on full blast, the organization that operates much of the state’s electric grid, ERCOT, is expected to issue a Voluntary Conservation Notice Tuesday.

“ERCOT is asking Texans today to voluntarily reduce electric usage if it is safe to do so. This is a Voluntary Conservation Notice that has been requested today from 4pm until 8pm this evening,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said at a ERCOT board meeting.

“I want to be clear, ERCOT is not experiencing any emergency conditions right now. Voluntary conservation is a very widely used industry tool that can help lower demand for specific periods of time, which is typically in the late afternoon and early evening during the summer.”

Several daily heat records were broken across Texas Monday, including Laredo, which hit 115 degrees, San Angelo, which reached 111 degrees, and Del Rio, at 109 degrees.

Peru’s capital city – and undoubtedly its gastronomic capital – had a tremendous showing Tuesday at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, taking the No. 1 title and earning more slots in the top 50 than any other city.

Four Lima restaurants made the 50 Best list: Central at No. 1, Maido at No. 6, Kjolle at No. 28 and Mayta at No. 47. Kjolle is new to the top 50 this year.

Central, led by led by Virgilio Martinez and Pía Léon, has been delivering fine dining featuring Peruvian ingredients and techniques for 15 years. The restaurant “takes diners through 15 different Peruvian ecosystems, categorised by altitude – from 15 metres under the Pacific Ocean to 4,200 metres up in the Andes,” the 50 Best website says. Kjolle is Léon’s solo venture.

Central is the first South American restaurant to earn the “World’s Best” title.

The awards – an event considered the Oscars of global fine dining – were announced Tuesday evening from the City of Arts and Sciences, a collection of futuristic spaces designed by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, in the southern Spanish city of Valencia.

The rest of the list

The host country performed very well in this year’s awards with six entries from Spain in the top 50, including the world’s No. 2 restaurant, Disfrutar in Barcelona. Spain also scooped up No. 3 and No. 4 with Diverxo in Madrid and Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo in the Basque region.

Italy and France also performed well in Europe, with five restaurants in Italy and four in France placing in the top 50. In England, London earned an impressive three slots.

In Asia, the city to watch is Bangkok, where two restaurants appeared on the list for the first time, both breaking into the top 20: Le Du at No. 15 and Gaggan Anand at No. 17.

From the United States, two New York restaurants made it into the top 50. Atomix moved to No. 8 from last year’s No. 33 slot, earning the Highest Climber award as well as Best Restaurant in North America. Longtime favorite Le Bernardin, helmed by chef Éric Ripert, also made the top 50 at No. 44.

This year’s top 50 includes restaurants from 24 territories on five continents, with 12 restaurants entering the list for the first time.

Restaurants are permitted to scoop the awards’ top prize only once, after which they’re entered into a separate “Best of the Best” program. Members of that elite group include Geranium and Noma in Copenhagen, as well as New York’s Eleven Madison Park, The Fat Duck near London, Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, and Mirazur in Menton, France. Central moves into the Best of the Best next year.

The world’s 50 best restaurants 2023

1. Central (Lima, Peru) – Best Restaurant in South America

2. Disfrutar (Barcelona, Spain) – Best Restaurant in Europe

3. Diverxo (Madrid, Spain)

4. Asador Etxebarri (Atxondo, Spain)

5. Alchemist (Copenhagen, Denmark)

6. Maido (Lima, Peru)

7. Lido 84 (Gardone Riviera, Italy)

8. Atomix (New York City) – Highest Climber, Best Restaurant in North America

9. Quintonil (Mexico City, Mexico)

10. New: Table by Bruno Verjus (Paris, France) – Highest New Entry

11. New: Trèsind Studio (Dubai, UAE) – Best Restaurant in the Middle East and Africa

12. A Casa do Porco (São Paulo, Brazil)

13. Pujol (Mexico City, Mexico)

14. Odette (Singapore) – Best Restaurant in Asia and Chef’s Choice: Julien Royer

15. New: Le Du (Bangkok, Thailand)

16. Reale (Castel di Sangro, Italy)

17. New: Gaggan Anand (Bangkok, Thailand)

18. Steirereck (Vienna, Austria)

19. Don Julio (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

20. Quique Dacosta (Dénia, Spain)

21. Den (Tokyo, Japan)

22. Elkano (Getaria, Spain)

23. New: Kol (London, England)

24. Septime (Paris, France)

25. Belcanto (Lisbon, Portugal)

26. Schloss Schauenstein (Fürstenau, Switzerland)

27. Florilège (Tokyo, Japan)

28. New: Kjolle (Lima, Peru)

29. Boragó (Santiago, Chile)

30. Frantzén (Stockholm, Sweden)

31. Mugaritz (San Sebastian, Spain)

32. Hiša Franko (Kobarid, Slovenia)

33. New: El Chato (Bogotá, Colombia)

34. Uliassi (Senigallia, Italy)

35. Ikoyi (London, England)

36. New: Plénitude (Paris, France)

37. New: Sézanne (Tokyo, Japan)

38. The Clove Club (London, England)

39. The Jane (Antwerp, Belgium)

40. Restaurant Tim Raue (Berlin, Germany)

41. Le Calandre (Rubano, Italy)

42. Piazza Duomo (Alba, Italy)

43. Leo (Bogotá, Colombia)

44. Le Bernardin (New York City)

45. Nobelhart & Schmutzig (Berlin, Germany)

46. New: Orfali Bros (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

47. Mayta (Lima, Peru)

48. New: La Grenouillère (La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, France)

49. New: Rosetta (Mexico City)

50. The Chairman (Hong Kong)

The role of Britain’s monarch comes with quite a long list of perks – but perhaps one of the most enviable is the ability to celebrate your birthday not once, but twice a year.

King Charles enjoyed his first real birthday as monarch on November 14. But this weekend he’ll celebrate his big day all over again – the first time he’s enjoyed an “official” birthday since ascending to the throne.

Britain’s Kings and Queens have doubled up on their festivities since the 18th century, holding both a public celebration – the official birthday – and a more private event on the real date.

And the reason is fairly simple: No-one wants the rain to ruin their parade, so ever since the 1740s, monarchs have scheduled their pomp-filled parties for the summer.

The tradition is believed to have started with the party-mad King George II in 1748.

That is the year that Britain’s annual Trooping the Colour celebration was first associated with the sovereign’s birthday. Like Charles III, George was born in November, when British weather is often far from ideal.

Trooping the Colour – a military parade in London – previously existed as a standalone event. It was officially and permanently re-purposed as a birthday celebration after George III became King in 1760.

Edward VII, who succeeded Queen Victoria and reigned through the first decade of the 20th century, is believed to have been the first monarch to receive the salute in person.

The annual tradition returns on Saturday morning, and like every year, it’s expected to draw huge crowds to the Mall outside Buckingham Palace. And for his first trooping parade as sovereign, Charles will be making an appearance riding on horseback.

Charles will join 1,500 parading soldiers, as well as 300 horses, taking part in the ceremony in his honor. The Household Cavalry and and the five regiments of foot guards – Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards – are involved. It’s the first time a reigning monarch has joined the parade since Queen Elizabeth II in 1986.

He’ll be greeted at Horse Guards Parade with a royal salute, after which he’ll inspect the Welsh Guards in their famous bearskin hats.

Prince William, in his capacity as Colonel of the Welsh Guards, did a final review of preparations last Saturday to make sure everything was perfect for his father’s first big parade. The rehearsal saw the regiment carry out intricate battlefield drill maneuvers to music. Kensington Palace has said this year’s musical program will have “a distinctly Welsh theme,” with new compositions from the band specially for the occasion.

William praised troops after the practice session for “a really good job” in “difficult conditions,” after several guardsmen fainted amid the sweltering summer temperatures in London.

Queen Camilla will join her husband as they watch the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards troop their color. And after the performances, the King – like his late mother before him – will return to the palace and be joined by other royals on the balcony, to watch a flypast of the Royal Air Force.

It’s a different schedule to his real November birthday – though that wasn’t short on festivities last year, either.

On his first birthday as King, Charles enjoyed a special rendition of “Happy Birthday” by the band of the Household Cavalry at Buckingham Palace. That performance was followed at midday by a 41-gun royal salute in nearby Green Park, and a 62-gun salute over at the Tower of London.

But while the real party – and one of the most defining images of Britain’s monarchy – takes place on Saturday, the celebration is likely to feel poignant, marking the first Trooping for someone other than Queen Elizabeth II in seven decades.

Nine crew members have been arrested for people smuggling after a packed vessel sank in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, killing dozens of people, as human rights campaigners accused Greek authorities of neglecting those on board.

The Greek coastguard said nine Egyptian nationals aged between 20 and 40 were also arrested on suspicion of setting up a criminal organization, manslaughter by negligence, exposure to danger, and causing a shipwreck.

The boat was traveling from the coastal city of Tobruk in Libya to Italy when it capsized off the coast of Greece. At least 78 people have died and some reports said up to 750 were on board.

Authorities said they cross-referenced survivors’ testimonies to determine the exact role of the nine arrested. They are expected to appear before a local magistrate on Monday.

‘Horrible and systematic’ pushback campaign

Scenes of relatives descending on Kalamata in their desperate search for loved ones reignited the heated debate on Europe’s migrant crisis, a political lightning rod that NGOs say is exacerbated by the lack of safe and legal routes available for refugees.

The NGO Alarm Phone denounced the Greek response to the tragedy, alleging that authorities failed to acknowledge an earlier alert that the vessel was in danger. It characterized the “horrible and systematic pushback practices” carried out by Greek authorities, accusing them of “violently deterring people on the move.”

Pushbacks are state measures aimed at forcing refugees and migrants out of their territory, while impeding access to legal and procedural frameworks, according to the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

Alarm Phone has released emails showing it contacted Greek authorities on Tuesday late afternoon local time regarding the boat in distress.

The email appears to have been sent directly to Greek authorities, including the Hellenic Coast Guard, Hellenic Police Headquarters and Greece’s Ministry of Civil Protection.

The email also appears to have been sent to the United Nations Refugees Agency (UNHCR), NATO, the office of the Greek Ombudsman and the European border patrol agency Frontex, as well as the UNHCR country offices in both Greece and Turkey.

The Greek coast guard said in a press release it repeatedly asked the boat if it needed assistance and that the agency was told it did not.

Greek authorities also said they could not intervene with the boat without being asked for assistance, as the boat was in international waters.

A huge search-and-rescue operation continued on Friday but no survivors have been found since its initial phase early on Wednesday.

The people rescued include Egyptians, Syrians, Pakistanis and Palestinians. Eight are minors.

None of the survivors were women but witness accounts say there were many women and children on board, traveling in the ship’s hold.

‘Impossible life-threatening choices’

Questions are now being asked as to whether the tragic incident could have been avoided, with many international bodies saying the international community should collaborate on “more safe pathways” for migrants.

The Mediterranean region near Greece is a key route for migrants and refugees trying to escape political strife in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The number of undocumented people emerging on European shores has spiraled this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis.

The Central Mediterranean remains the main migratory route into the European Union, with the highest number of irregular border crossings recorded since 2017, according to recent figures from Frontex.

Irregular entries refer to the process of traveling across borders without adhering to the necessary requirements for legal entry, according to the European Commission.

In the first five months of this year, detections of irregular border crossings along the route more than doubled compared to the same period in 2022, Frontex said. National authorities reported more than 50,300 detections from January to May, accounting for nearly half of all irregular entries into the EU in 2023.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN’s refugee agency stressed that search and rescue at sea is a “legal and humanitarian imperative” and welcomed an investigation ordered in Greece into what happened.

Both agencies called Wednesday’s boat disaster “the worst in several years.”

“We need more safe pathways for people forced to flee,” the UNHCR office in Greece tweeted on Wednesday. “They should not be left with impossible life-threatening choices.”

On Thursday evening, groups pledging solidarity with migrants marched outside the port of Kalamata and in Greece’s two major cities, Athens and Thessaloniki.

The country’s caretaker government has called three days of national mourning and political leaders have temporarily suspended electoral campaigns, before fresh elections are held on June 25. A national vote in May was inconclusive.

Mitsotakis’ party won a resounding victory in the May election with 40% of the vote but did not secure a big enough majority to govern alone.

His main opponent, Alexis Tsipras, whose center-left party Syriza is trailing heavily in the polls, visited Kalamata Thursday criticizing the former government and EU migration policy. “It’s a policy that has turned the Mediterranean into a watery grave,” he said.

Estonia’s parliament passed on Tuesday a law legalizing same-sex marriage, becoming the first ex-Soviet country to do so.

Two adults will be able to marry “regardless of their gender,” after the parliament approved amendments to the country’s Family Law Act, according to a press statement.

The amended act will go into effect from January 1, 2024.

The amendments to the Family Law Act also mean that same-sex couples can now adopt children. In Estonia, only a married couple can adopt a child, although single gay, lesbian and bisexual people can also petition to adopt.

“Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love and want to commit to,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. “With this decision we are finally stepping among other Nordic countries as well as all the rest of the democratic countries in the world where marriage equality has been granted.

“This is a decision that does not take anything away from anyone but gives something important to many,” she continued. “It also shows that our society is caring and respectful towards each other. I am proud of Estonia.”

Same-sex relationships have been legally recognized in Estonia since 2016, when the Registered Partnership Act took effect. But while this act recognized couples regardless of their sex, marriage was only allowed to take place between members of the opposite sex.

A survey undertaken by the Estonian Human Rights Centre in April 2023 found that 53% of the Estonians believe that “same-sex partners should have the right to marry each other.”

This is the highest percentage recorded since the survey began in 2012. Then, 60% of people surveyed were against marriage equality.

“I am genuinely very grateful for the patience and understanding the LGBT+ community has shown for all these years,” said Signe Riisalo, Estonia’s Minister of Social Protection.

“I hope that, in time, those opposed to marriage equality come to see that we don’t lose anything from taking such steps, but rather that we all gain from them,” Riisalo added. “I am delighted that the decision has now been taken for a more forward-looking Estonia that cares for all.”