A British-Canadian couple who were attempting to sail across the Atlantic have been found dead on an island off the east coast of Canada.

Brett Clibbery, 70, and his wife, Sarah Packwood, 60, had been sailing on their 42-foot sailboat the SV Theros, but their bodies were found in a lifeboat that washed up on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), published July 12.

The couple left Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia on June 11 en route to the Azores, a group of Portuguese islands in the mid-Atlantic, around 2,000 miles away.

They were reported missing on June 18 and their bodies were found on July 10.

It is not clear why the couple abandoned the Theros and got into a lifeboat. An investigation is ongoing, the RCMP said.

Sable Island is a 27-mile long sandbar around 186 miles southeast of Halifax. It is known as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” and there have been more than 350 recorded shipwrecks there since 1583, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Clibbery’s son James paid tribute to his father and Packwood in a post on Facebook.

“They were amazing people, and there isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing,” he wrote.

“Living will not be the same without your wisdom, and your wife was quickly becoming a beacon of knowledge, and kindness. I miss your smiles. I miss your voices. You will be forever missed.”

Clibbery and Packwood described themselves as adventure travelers and documented their trips on a YouTube channel named Theros Adventures.

The ill-fated voyage was part of what the couple called their “Green Odyssey,” which Clibbery said was intended to show that it is possible to travel long distances without burning fossil fuels.

“We have an electric boat,” said Clibbery in a video posted on YouTube on May 13. “We charge the engine with solar panels.”

The couple met by chance at a bus stop in London in 2015 when Clibbery was in Britain to donate a kidney to his sister, they told The Guardian newspaper in an article published in 2020.

The pair met every day for the few weeks after their first encounter, before Clibbery helped Packwood to care for her dying mother and she then looked after him after his kidney operation.

They stayed in touch after Clibbery moved back to Canada and Packwood visited him in Salt Spring Island near Vancouver, where the Theros was docked, in spring 2016.

“He took me on my first ever yacht trip and I loved it,” Packwood told The Guardian. “Brett proposed to me in the main cabin of the boat.”

Five people were killed after a gunman entered a home for the elderly in Croatia on Monday and opened fire, according to the country’s public broadcaster.

A man with a firearm entered a private home for the elderly in the town of Daruvar, about 75 miles east of the capital Zagreb, and opened fire on the people who were present, Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) reported.

Five of the victims died immediately and the number of injured is still unknown, according to HRT. State news agency HINA has reported that some of those injured are still receiving medical assistance.

The gunman ran away but was later arrested near a cafe, according to HINA.

The investigation is ongoing and police have not provided additional details, HRT said.

“We are appalled by the murder of five people” in the home for the elderly, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in a post on social media.

“We express our condolences to the families of the victims and hope for the recovery of the wounded. I expect the competent authorities to determine all the circumstances of the terrible crime,” Plenković said.

Croatia’s Deputy Prime Minister Davor Božinović, Minister of Health Vili Beroš, and social policy minister Marin Piletić are travelling to Daruvar, the prime minister added.

This story has been updated.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will land in Washington on Monday to far less fanfare than he would have expected just a day earlier.

His highly-anticipated visit – chock-full of meetings with top US officials and a prized address to Congress – will now undoubtedly be overshadowed by US President Joe Biden’s stunning decision to drop out of the presidential race. But as detailed ceasefire negotiations aimed at turning a framework agreement into a final deal stretch into their third week, Netanyahu’s visit will still be critical to the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Senior US officials say a deal is within reach, but the prospects of a deal may hinge on the answer to one key question: Does Netanyahu actually want a deal?

The conventional wisdom in Israeli media, politics and on the streets of Tel Aviv would tell you that the answer to that question is no – that Netanyahu has much more to gain by prolonging the war and much more to lose by ending it.

The war has allowed Netanyahu to delay his share of accountability for the failures leading up to the October 7 attacks, rebuffing calls for new elections with stiff wartime resolve. His party’s prospects in the next election have actually improved in recent months. And the right-wing coalition partners keeping him in power have threatened to bolt if Netanyahu cuts a deal that ends the war.

Even Biden has said “there is every reason” for people to believe Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza in order to stay in power.

There are also indications that Netanyahu is throwing up eleventh-hour obstacles to reaching a deal. He reneged on a key Israeli concession regarding allowing Palestinians unrestricted access to northern Gaza that was included in Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal and now appears to be insisting on Israel maintaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14km strip of land that serves as a buffer zone on the border between Egypt and Gaza. And publicly, his rhetoric has undermined confidence in Israel’s commitment to reaching a deal that could end the war.

And yet, Netanyahu and his negotiating team have also steadily engaged in negotiations, exchanging proposals with Hamas and bringing the two sides closer than ever to a potential deal. A growing share of the Israeli public, led by hostage families, is demanding the government strike a deal. And Netanyahu’s allies insist he is earnest in his desire to strike a hostage release deal – just the right deal, one that could allow Israel to resume fighting in Gaza.

That tension will be inescapable as Netanyahu heads to Washington, where he has often sought to bolster Israel’s standing in the US as well as his own political standing at home.

While Netanyahu will look to showcase the support he still has in Washington (and a standing ovation from a majority of lawmakers in Congress should do the trick), his visit will also be an opportunity for top US officials and lawmakers to push, prod, nudge and cajole him toward a deal – in both public and private.

Chief among those eager to make that case will be the US president, who will meet face-to-face with Netanyahu this week for the first time since Biden flew to Israel in October in a dramatic show of wartime support.

The warmth and sympathy that filled the air during that October visit is likely to be replaced by something much frostier.

Biden has grown steadily more critical of Israel’s war in Gaza – where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health – and Netanyahu has resisted US pressure, often publicly thumbing his nose at the White House.

Even as he has maintained strong support for Israel, Biden became the first president since Ronald Reagan to withhold some US munitions to Israel – suspending shipments of 2,000-pound bombs in May amid concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has not only resisted US calls to rein in Israeli military operations in Gaza, but has used his defiance of the White House’s calls for restraint to bolster his political standing in Israel – including in a speech just days before his trip to the US in which he talked up his refusal to bow to Biden’s pressure to wind down the war and abandon a planned offensive in Rafah.

Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race just two days before he sits down with Netanyahu will unquestionably shift the dynamic between the two men even further – exactly how remains to be seen.

Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to sit down with the now effectively lame duck president – albeit one who still has six months in office during which he will continue to steer US foreign policy.

Loosened from the constraints of electoral politics and with a keener eye on his legacy, how will Biden now approach Netanyahu, the future of the war in Gaza and US policy toward Israel? And to what extent will Netanyahu feel compelled to heed Biden’s pressure?

As the Israeli prime minister weighs that new dynamic, Netanyahu – a keen observer of US politics – may be looking to someone else as he decides whether to take a leap toward a ceasefire: former US President Donald Trump.

Trump has a track record of unflinching support for Israel and has been critical of Biden’s efforts to rein in Israel’s conduct in Gaza. During his speech at the Republican National Convention, he warned that the hostages “better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.”

But Trump in April also urged Israel to get its war in Gaza “over with, and get it over with fast.”

And Netanyahu no longer enjoys the cozy relationship he once had with Trump.

Netanyahu will have plenty of opportunities to assess whether that sentiment still stands as he meets with Trump allies in Washington this week. There are currently no known plans for him to meet with Trump.

Eight activists were participating as part of a Palestinian grassroots campaign called Defend Palestine, which calls on international volunteers to travel to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to protect Palestinians from Israeli settler attacks.

Two Americans and a German national were taken to hospital with suspected fractures after the attack, their campaign said, adding that another American volunteer suffered minor injuries. One of the Palestinian farmers was hospitalized.

They said they were accompanying Palestinian farmers to their olive fields, which they haven’t been able to access since October because of attacks by Israeli settlers. At some point, the group was approached by several young settlers on a hill.

“They sort of stood there for a while and then they came up to our group of international volunteers and they started hitting us with these thick wooden sticks almost like baseball bats,” Chen said.

Videos recorded by the activists show them trying to retreat as they were attacked. One of them immediately falls to the ground, another tries to shield himself with his arms as he is struck, and at least one is kicked in the leg and hit with a rock hurled by an attacker.

“We were doing nothing,” the Hummel said. “Our hands were up and we were backing up and trying to protect each other. So eventually, we tried to keep moving back because we had been hit so many times.”

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and soon started settling Jews on the land. There are currently more than 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The international community however considers the area to be occupied and Israeli settlements there illegal. The Palestinians want the territory for a future independent state.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, said Friday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, in an unprecedented opinion that called on Israel to end its occupation. It called on Israel to cease new settlement activity, evacuate settlers and make reparations for the damage caused.

‘Dire need’ for international protection

The IDF said it condemns any acts of violence, adding that its soldiers were sent to the scene and that it will operate to maintain security in what it considers its jurisdiction. It added that soldiers were dispatched to the scene and fired warning shots into the air, causing the attackers to flee.

But the activists said that when the soldiers arrived, they immediately pointed their guns at a Palestinian man who was accompanying the volunteers and fired shots in his direction.

The injured activists were taken for treatment by the Palestinian Red Crescent to a hospital in Nablus.

Pictures taken at the hospital showed the victims with multiple cuts and bruises across their bodies. The face of Hummel, the German activist, was severely swollen on the right side.

Mohammed Khatib, an organizer with the Defend Palestine campaign, said: “The attack today, not even 24 hours after the ICJ ruled that Israeli occupation is illegal and that settlers enjoy impunity when exercising violence, serves as further proof for the dire need for international civil protection in Palestine.”

Chen said the group didn’t expect to encounter violence but was “aware of settler violence” against Palestinians.

“Our injuries are very minor compared to what the Palestinians face every day,” she said.

Uganda’s hardline President Yoweri Museveni has warned citizens planning anti-corruption protests Tuesday that they are “playing with fire.”

The upcoming protests come after a wave of deadly anti-government demonstrations that rattled neighboring country Kenya where at least 50 people were killed in clashes with security forces, according to figures released by the National Commission on Human Rights.

Museveni, 79, who has ruled the East African nation with an iron fist for nearly four decades, said in a televised address on Saturday that the anti-corruption march will not be allowed.

“What right… do you have to seek to generate chaotic behavior? … We are busy producing … cheap food, other people in other parts of the world are starving… you here want to disturb us. You are playing with fire because we cannot allow you to disturb us…”, Museveni said in the three-hour-long wide-ranging address.

Many young Ugandans say on social media they plan to go ahead with the march to the country’s parliament despite the country’s police refusing to grant a permit for the protest.

The Uganda Police Force described the planned protests as “potentially anarchic” in a statement on Monday, warning it “shall not tolerate disorderly conduct.”

Some defiant youth protesters who plan to join the march on Tuesday have begun sharing their photos on social media, urging fellow citizens to remember them if they don’t make it home alive.

“Just in case I get abducted or I die in the march, you can use this (photo) for creating awareness. Otherwise, tell mum I played a fundamental role in saving my country! I know she will be happy!”, said one activist Ashiraf Hector on X.

Another wrote: “Tomorrow, very early in the morning, I will join my fellow young people as we march to parliament against escalating corruption in Uganda. We will come face to face with murderers and in case things go south for me, this is my official portrait.”

A group of lawyers and activists said in a letter on Sunday that the police could not, by law, stop peaceful protests.

“The police cannot prohibit a demonstration from proceeding but have powers to regulate it to ensure it takes place within confines of the law,” the letter said while urging President Museveni to “ensure that the constitutional right to assemble, demonstrate peacefully … is not violated with impunity by security agencies.”

Crackdown ahead of protests

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine said on Monday he supported the protest which he clarified was “organized by the young people of Uganda” and not his NUP party.

Wine raised the alarm that his party’s secretariat had been cordoned off by security forces and some party leaders had been “violently arrested” ahead of the Tuesday march.

“The effort by the regime to clamp down and make it (the planned protest) look like an NUP initiative is meant to weaken it because they want to make it appear like a partisan matter,” he said in a statement on X.

Uganda grapples with widespread government corruption with an estimated Sh. 10 trillion ($2.7 billion) in public funding diverted each year, according to its anti-graft body, the Inspectorate of Government (IGG).

Last year, it scored 26 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index which ranks countries on a scale of zero to 100, with zero meaning “highly corrupt” and 100 signifying that a country is “very clean.”

“The thieves are parasites that must be stamped out,” Museveni said about his administration’s fight against graft last month, adding that his ruling NRM party “does not victimize anybody without proof (of corruption).”

“That is why some people think that the NRM is soft on corruption,” he said, stating that some corruption cases against public officials were being decided in court.

However, those agitating for a protest are unimpressed with the government’s handling of corruption, urging Ugandans to “#March2Parliament” on July 23 to “#StopCorruption.”’.

Some have also called for the speaker of the parliament, Anita Annet Among, to resign. She was among high-profile Ugandan politicians sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom for corruption earlier this year.

“Among is designated due to involvement in significant corruption tied to her leadership of Uganda’s Parliament,” according to the US State Department.

Among has pushed back against the sanctions, calling them “politically motivated” and claiming they were triggered by Uganda’s defiance of international pressure after passing a strict anti-LGBTQ law last year.

The European Union’s next meetings of foreign and defense ministers scheduled in August will be moved from Budapest to Brussels, the bloc’s top diplomat announced Monday, in the latest escalation of a spat between the union and Hungary over its prime minister’s stance on the war in Ukraine.

Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has ruffled feathers among EU leaders by claiming recently that the union has a “pro-war policy.”

Borrell responded to Orban’s comment during a press conference in Brussels, saying, “I understood that we have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal, that being against the foreign policy of the European Union and disqualifying the policy of the European Union as the ‘party of war’ has to have some consequences.”

“We analyzed the statements and the actions implemented” by the Hungarian prime minister and foreign minister, the chief diplomat of the EU said. “I can say that all member states, with one single exception, were very much critical about this behavior,” he added.

“European Union policy is not a pro-war policy. We strongly rejected that,” Borrel said, adding, “the only one who is pro-war is Putin.”

The informal EU Council meetings of foreign and defense ministers were due to take place in Budapest from August 28 to 30, according to the EU council website, with Hungary currently holding the rotating European Union presidency.

Borrell’s decision comes after European Council President Charles Michel firmly hit back at Orbán’s claim that the EU has led a “pro-war policy” in a letter published last week.

“Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim exercising its legitimate right to self-defense. Russia is leading a war of aggression in blatant violation of international law, Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in accordance with the UN Charter,” Michel wrote.

Orbán further upset EU lawmakers with his recent so-called “peace missions” at the beginning of July – meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, and most recently former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The authoritarian Hungarian leader has sought to cast himself as a peacemaker in the Ukraine conflict, but his stance is at odds with most EU leaders, who have pledged unequivocal support for Ukraine as it attempts to repel Russia’s military effort.

In his letter to those leaders, Orban said that during the meetings there was a “general observation” that “the intensity of the military conflict” in Ukraine “will radically escalate in the near future.”

A letter signed by over 63 European lawmakers, addressed to the three EU chiefs, said Orban had “caused significant damage” through his meetings. They called on the bloc’s leaders to suspend Hungary’s voting rights in the European Council, arguing that “mere verbal condemnation” of Hungary has “no effect.”

With additional reporting from Niamh Kennedy, James Frater, Amy Cassidy and Jennifer Hansler