In many ways, Shahad Darwish’s life in Michigan is just like anyone else’s. The 23-year-old is studying for a master’s degree in psychology at a local university and helps out at her family’s jewelry business.

But in other ways, it’s very different: Darwish is one of about 3,000 Michigan-based Sabean Mandaeans, followers of John the Baptist – and one of the oldest surviving gnostic religions in the world.

Every July for 36 hours, Darwish and her family observe the Mandaean new year holiday – karsa – where followers stay indoors at home and are forbidden from using running water. She prays daily and once a week goes to the mandi, the Mandaean place of worship where she volunteers. She’s learning to read, write and speak the Mandaean language.

“It’s an important part of our upbringing,” she said.

Mandaeans – who do not consider themselves Christians despite John the Baptist’s reverence for Jesus – lived mostly in towns and cities of southern Iraq, their important religious and cultural customs centering on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

But wars in Iraq, including the US-led invasion there in 2003, changed that. About 85% of the community’s estimated population of 70,000 Mandaeans have fled the country, with many moving to neighboring Syria.

“Four guys came to my store [in Baghdad] and stole everything and told me I have to pay [them] otherwise my family and I would be kidnapped,” said Shahad’s father, Bashar Harbi Darwish, who fled Iraq with his family in 2006.

A civil war in Syria that followed a popular uprising in 2011 forced many to move again. This time, they went to Australia, Europe and North America.

Today, Darwish runs a jewelry store in Warren, a suburb of Detroit, where he’s a leading member of one of the largest US-based Mandaean communities.

Despite the traumas it has endured, for him the community is in the midst of a revival.

“After we fled Iraq, we established more than 80 associations all over the world,” Darwish recounted recently. “The number of baptisms we do in Europe every year is maybe 10 times what we did in Iraq before 2003.

“There are five or six Mandaean schools teaching the new generations in Australia, the US and Europe.”

A festival held in Michigan in the summer of 2023 attracted more than 500 Mandaeans from across the US and Canada, and about 150 baptisms were held. The Mandaean community’s religious head, Sattar Jabbar Hilo, flew in from Baghdad to oversee a host of important ceremonies.

That fuels further involvement, according to Bashar. “They want to be baptized and married by the top sheikh,” he said. “It’s a big thing for your reputation.”

He said that to ensure the long-term viability of the community, the Mandaean Association of Michigan had taken measures to involve the community’s younger members.

“Our board of directors is mostly made up of young people, most of them have degrees – they have the ability to do more for our community,” he said.

But while getting out of Iraq and Syria has saved lives, others argue the resettlement strategies adopted by countries receiving Mandaeans has created new problems for the community.

About 15,000 Mandaeans are now thought to live in Australia and Sweden, respectively, with about 12,000 to 15,000 in the US. Several thousand more have been resettled across the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada and elsewhere.

For many now in the US, a new life has oftentimes meant being relocated hundreds of miles from the nearest community members.

“[The US government] saved us from the Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq, but you distributed us to 35 different states,” Suhaib Nashi, the president of the Mandaean Society of America, said. “The families are safe, but how can they maintain their traditions when there are three families in Ohio or Oklahoma?”

He added that the community had been cleansed having survived invasions, wars and forced conversions in Iraq for more than 2,000 years, all the while keeping alive the theology of the Sumerians – the earliest known literate society – with whom they identified long before John the Baptist became their central prophet. He said he had asked US immigration officials: “Don’t distribute us like sand in the air.”

These and other threats to the community’s future, such as forbidding Mandaeans from marrying outside the religion, have roiled fierce internal debate.

“There are the conservative and reform sides conflicting now, and there’s no clear vision of what comes next because this is a fundamental issue,” Nashi said.

Despite the relative calm in Iraq, the Mandaean community, which is thought to number about 7,000 to 10,000 people mostly in the southern regions of the country, continues to be targeted for violence. In March, an attack injured two Mandaeans and damaged a house of worship in Maysan province.

Back in the US, Mandaeans have recorded some measure of success in altering resettlement policies. About 1,500 individuals have been able to move together to the city of Worcester in Massachusetts.

And in Michigan, baptisms are now regularly held in the Clinton River, north of Detroit.

Michigan’s community is preparing for another major gathering in July that is expected to attract Mandaeans from as far away as Sweden, with the number of planned weddings expected to nearly double from six last year.

The change in the air is palpable, Shahad Darwish said.

“In the past two years I’ve noticed the younger generation becoming more involved; they’re showing up to events more, creating new events,” she said. “People hang out at the bowling alley or meet at each other’s houses.

“Before, it wasn’t really like that.”

Greek authorities have confirmed that the body of a man believed to be the missing British TV presenter Michael Mosley has been found on the island of Symi.

Mosley, 67, went missing after going for a coastal walk on the island.

“He has been found in the area of Ayia Marina,” the island’s deputy mayor Nikitas Grillas told the Guardian. “I can confirm that it is him.”

On the fifth day of what had become an increasingly frantic search, Mosley, 67, was reportedly discovered by a camera operator working with the state broadcaster ERT.

The body was discovered on rocky terrain close to a fence around 50 metres from a small resort which is accessible only by boat or by foot, on the opposite side of the bay where he had left his wife and friends earlier in the day. It is understood that the baseball cap he was wearing, and an umbrella he had been carrying to protect himself from the sun were found with him.

“It is clear from his watch and clothes that it is Dr Mosley,” a police spokesperson Konstantina Dimoglou said. It was unclear how long he had been dead. “We don’t know that yet but what we do know is that he had walked a very long way, he was very close to his destination.”

A news camera crew said they had spotted the body of the missing doctor lying on rocky terrain from a boat in the bay of Ayia Marina, having zoomed in on an image they had captured.

“We located him [from a boat] when we went into the bay of Ayia Marina,” said the ERT journalist Aristiedis Miaoulis, who described how when the team’s camera operator looked back at his footage he noticed “something strange”.

“Looking back at the material he had got, he saw something strange near a fence, about 50 metres from the sea, and then we could see, once we zoomed in, that it was this man because his watch was glinting [in the sun].”

The island’s mayor, who was with the media team, said previously 200 people had searched the site and, yet, he had not been found. The Hellenic coastguard was immediately called to the area, and it was taped off.

The discovery was made on the day that search teams had turned their focus to a set of caves belonging to a rocky outcrop close to Ayia Marina beach. Images, which had been intentionally blurred, showed the remains were found on rocky land by a chain link fence close to the beach resort.

The father of four is thought to have been hiking from St Nikolas beach to the port of Symi Town where his holiday villa is located.

Extreme weather warnings have been in place this week in Symi, where temperatures have reached above 40C in the afternoon.

The discovery of the body came amid a massive air, land and sea operation to find the TV presenter and health guru, who popularised intermittent fasting and designed the 5:2 diet.

Mosley set off hiking from St Nikolas beach at 1.30pm local time on Wednesday, bound for the port town of Symi when he vanished outside the seaside village of Pedi.

His wife, Dr Clare Bailey, raised the alarm after he failed to return by 7.30pm. A search and rescue operation was launched to locate Mosley, who is best known for his appearances on The One Show and This Morning. Bailey was later joined by the couple’s adult children on the island.

The search included police, firefighters, specially trained dogs and volunteers.

Mosley, a columnist for the Daily Mail, made a number of documentaries about diet and exercise, including the Channel 4 show Michael Mosley: Who Made Britain Fat? He was also part of the BBC series Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.

He lived with tapeworms in his guts for six weeks for the documentary Infested! Living With Parasites on BBC Four.

Mosley was also credited for the rising popularity of the 5:2 diet, which involves fasting for two days a week to lose weight. He was named medical journalist of the year by the British Medical Association in 1995.

Yet another opinion poll was published last week, focusing on British people’s attitudes towards new arrivals on our shores.

They didn’t get here on small boats, and they won’t feature in the TV election debates. They’re not human beings, but birds: ring-necked parakeets.

Nevertheless, they are highly divisive, with the poll revealing that the colourful creatures prompt reactions from downright hostility, through grudging acceptance, to a warm welcome.

Almost 4,000 UK residents were interviewed for the online survey, published in the open-access journal NeoBiota. Researchers from Imperial College London, the Universities of Exeter and Brighton and the British Trust for Ornithology discovered that 90% were aware of the gaudy birds, and just over half knew the name of the species, which is also known as the rose-ringed parakeet, after its pink and grey neck ring.

The vast majority of people – roughly five out of six – consider parakeets aesthetically pleasing, yet at the same time almost half have negative opinions about them. In rural areas, this rises to almost two-thirds, with some suggesting that these noisy, screeching birds disturb the bucolic peace – hence the title of the research paper, Not in the countryside please!

Age also makes a difference: older respondents are far more hostile to the birds than younger ones, who mostly accept their presence, especially in London, their main stronghold. Comments varied from “very colourful and interesting to see”, to “a pain in the backside – so intrusively noisy”, which can’t really be argued with. Newspaper columnist Hugo Rifkind once likened them to young men on a stag do.

Others welcome them as a splash of colour in what they see as nature-depleted urban environments.

I’ve been aware of these exotic birds for almost half a century. In the late 1970s, only a decade after they first began to colonise Britain, I caught sight of one near my childhood home, on the outskirts of west London. To say it stood out among the drab suburban birdlife would be an understatement.

Ring-necked parakeets remained fairly scarce for decades, but from the late 1990s onwards numbers began to rise exponentially. Twenty years ago, when my youngest offspring were born, we lived in a small house in the London suburbs, with a tiny garden. The parakeets soon discovered our bird feeders, and would happily stay put even as the children played only feet away from them.

Today I see – or more often hear – them almost anywhere I go in London. They are also found in cities elsewhere in the UK, but their preference for gathering each evening in large communal roosts has limited their spread – I’ve yet to see one in my adopted home of Somerset.

Over the years, I’ve heard many myths about how they got here in the first place. “They were released by a stoned Jimi Hendrix, who let them out in London’s Carnaby Street…”; “They escaped from the film set of The African Queen…”; “They made a bid for freedom when their cage broke during the Great Storm of 1987…”

But as Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell point out in their entertaining and informative book The Parakeeting of London: An Adventure in Gonzo Ornithology, all these apparently convincing stories are urban myths. Hunt and Mitchell were actually the first to investigate people’s response to these exotic new arrivals, speaking to those who were surprised to come across them in their local neighbourhood.

The truth about the parakeets’ presence here is rather a letdown: as popular cagebirds, it was inevitable some would escape. And because they live in the foothills of the Himalayas, they are easily able to cope with the worst of the British winter, and not just survive, but thrive.

There are genuine concerns about the birds’ ecological impact, including the devastation that a flock can wreak on fruit crops. They could also harm native species, by competing for nest-holes with jackdaws, stock doves and starlings. Conversely, London’s growing population of peregrines are delighted by the arrival of the parakeets, whose slow, direct flight makes them far easier to catch than the faster and more manoeuvrable pigeons.

Numbers are rising, too. The latest population estimate, from the British Trust for Ornithology, suggests a UK breeding population of 12,000 pairs, a 10-fold increase in the past 30 years. If this exponential rise continued, then by the end of this century parakeets would rival the wren as our commonest bird. Fortunately, perhaps, the signs are that their numbers have finally begun to level out. Nevertheless, conservationists are keeping a close eye on the expansion of the species.

Although I appreciate the ecological arguments against these birds, and have some sympathy with the suggestion that they should be culled to avoid problems in the future, I also have a real soft spot for them. And on a winter’s evening, when a hundred-strong flock streaks across the darkening sky like a green meteor, I can’t help admiring their sheer chutzpah, and be thankful for the way they brighten up our dull city lives.

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has savaged the Coalition after a frontbencher insisted the opposition was “absolutely committed” to the Paris climate agreement a day after leader Peter Dutton foreshadowed he would scrap Labor’s target to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030.

Dutton told the Weekend Australian he would oppose the legislated 2030 target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election, declaring there was “no sense in ­signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”.

On Sunday, the shadow communications minister, David Coleman, said the Coalition would release its full climate policy “well in advance of the election” but warned it was “not going to just blindly accept a [2030] forecast that’s obviously wrong”.

“We are absolutely committed to the net zero target by 2050,” Coleman told ABC TV on Sunday. “We are absolutely committed to the Paris agreement but we’re not going to maintain a [climate change minister] Chris Bowen fantasy when it’s plainly not going to happen.”

Bowen said on Sunday afternoon that Coleman had done a “valiant job” trying to say “white is black” after his leader’s comments were reported.

“The fact of the matter is, the Paris accord is crystal clear. There can be no backsliding,” Bowen said. “If you reduce your target, then you’re in breach of the Paris accord.”

Climate diplomacy experts agree Dutton’s position could break Australia’s 2015 commitment to the Paris agreement, under which nearly 200 countries said they would aim to limit global heating to well below 2C and attempt to limit it to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

Departmental projections last year suggested Australia was likely to achieve a 42% emissions cut by 2030 based on an assessment of existing and announced policies.

“Very clearly, 42% puts us within striking distance of 43%, and here’s the key difference – Peter Dutton is giving up on it. We’re saying we’re still working to achieve it,” Bowen said on Sunday, adding Dutton was “obsessed ideologically with a nuclear fantasy”.

Australia’s net zero emissions by 2050 commitment was made by the former Morrison government after weeks of crisis meetings between the Liberals and the Nationals ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021.

The legally binding international treaty requires countries to offer increasingly ambitious emissions reduction targets in an effort to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. To do so, it notes, “greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030”.

Under the agreement, Australia has committed to announce a new emissions reduction target for 2035 by February.

The move by Dutton to ditch a 2030 target at the next federal election was labelled a “big mistake” by Labor frontbencher Jason Clare on Sky News on Sunday. Clare said it made Tony Abbott – who is sceptical of human-induced climate change – “look like Al Gore”.

“Any Australian who thinks climate change is real would think now that Peter Dutton is a real risk – [not just a] risk to investment or a risk to jobs but just a risk that Australia will do nothing to tackle climate change,” Clare said.

“You know, even Tony Abbott didn’t pull out of a global agreement on climate change and he thinks it’s crap.”

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan described the scrapping of a 2030 target while committing to a net zero by 2050 target as “nonsense”.

“They’re just trying to keep the door open for as long as possible for coal and gas and they’ll say anything in the meantime,” Ryan told Guardian Australia. “But it’s obfuscation and it’s insincere.”

The Coalition is expected to soon release its nuclear power plan as part of its pathway to net zero by the middle of the century.

Dutton, in the Weekend Australian interview, reportedly conceded a nuclear power plant would not be built before 2040 under the Coalition’s plan – a point made by experts and critics who have accused the opposition of planning to delay action to address the climate crisis.

In the meantime, the opposition leader planned to unveil a new gas strategy before Australians go to the polls before May 2025 – noting there had “never been any doubt in my mind that gas is ­absolutely essential”.

Clare said nuclear “costs a bomb” and wouldn’t rate well with the general Australian public.

“It costs a fortune wherever it’s been rolled out, or attempted to be rolled out. Around the world costs have blown out. So it costs a bomb. It takes too long.”

Italians cast their ballots on Saturday as Italy became the first key player to vote in the European parliamentary elections, which could lead to far-right leader, Giorgia Meloni, acting as kingmaker.

Far-right parties are expected to make gains in the elections, as most countries, including EU heavyweights France and Germany, go to the polls on Sunday. Projected results are expected late on Sunday evening.

While an increase in support for the far right is expected, with such parties expected to win a quarter of seats, the centrist mainstream is still forecast to emerge as the main force in the EU parliament.

Meloni, who was elected on a platform largely focused on immigration, shared a social media video message on Saturday in which she said her priorities were to “defend Europe’s borders against illegal immigration (and) protect the real economy and jobs”.

Italy, which will hold 76 of the 720 seats in the new parliament, could play a crucial role deciding the balance of power in the bloc. With polls suggesting Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party may gain 27% of the vote – up from just 6.4% in the 2019 EU elections – Italy’s prime minister could decide the political fate of the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, and whether she receives sufficient backing to secure a second term.

The question of whether von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) will agree to work with the far right is likely to prove decisive after the vote: von der Leyen has suggested she is willing for the EPP to collaborate with far-right lawmakers, provided they are pro-EU and not what she describes as “puppets” of Vladimir Putin.

The EU Commission chief has explicitly ruled out working with the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally (RN) party is also topping the polls in the EU race, or with Germany’s AfD, over this issue. Hungary’s ruling populist Fidesz party is opposed to aiding Kyiv, with the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, widely regarded as the EU’s most pro-Russian leader.

But von der Leyen appears to be more relaxed about working with Meloni and some fellow members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. “I’ve been working very well with Giorgia Meloni”, who is “clearly pro-European”, she has said.

Underlining the pivotal role Meloni may come to play in the bloc’s arrangement of power, the Italian leader has been courted by Le Pen, who aims to form a rightwing supergroup in the parliament, but also the centre-right von der Leyen.

Socialists, liberals and greens, who are concerned that Meloni could demand a dilution of EU climate measures in exchange for support for the EU Commission president, have threatened to oppose von der Leyen’s reappointment if she makes any deals with the far right.

Slovakia also went to the polls on Saturday, following an assassination attempt last month on its premier, Robert Fico. Fico’s leftwing populist Smer-SD party, which opposes sending EU arms to Ukraine, appears to have drawn support after the incident.

A dog ran four miles to get help for his owner who crashed his car into a ravine in Oregon – and was ultimately rescued because of the animal’s heroics, according to authorities.

The case unfolded as Brandon Garrett was driving with his four dogs north on US Forest Service Road 39 in Baker county, near where his family was camping.

During the trip, Garrett failed to navigate a curve in the road and crashed over an embankment, according to a statement from the Baker county sheriff’s office.

Garrett survived the crash, but the accident left him stranded and forced him to wait – and hope – for help.

Thankfully for him, one of his dogs ran back to the campsite, and the animal’s appearance led the Garrett’s family to realize something had gone wrong. The dog ended up running nearly four miles through the wilderness before tracking down the other campers on 3 June at 9.30am.

The family quickly began searching for Garrett and eventually spotted his car. But they were unable to reach him because of the difficult terrain, prompting them to call emergency rescuers for help.

“The reporting party explained that his brother, Brandon Garrett, had not made it to his camp yesterday afternoon. Family members located his vehicle this morning but were unable to reach it due to the terrain,” the statement from the sheriff’s office said.

First responders managed to reach Garrett by using chainsaws to make a path. They then used a rescue blanket and rope to retrieve Garrett from the ravine.

Garrett was found about 100 yards from where the accident occurred with his three other dogs, who were also alive.

Authorities provided Garrett first aid on the scene. He was later driven in an ambulance to a helicopter that flew him to a hospital in the area.

Details about the extent of Garrett’s injuries or his medical condition were not immediately released.

Together, the collective age of the bride and groom was nearly 200. But second world war veteran Harold Terens and his sweetheart, Jeanne Swerlin, proved that love is eternal as they tied the knot Saturday inland of the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France.

Their respective ages – he’s 100, she’s 96 – made their nuptials an almost double-century celebration.

Terens called it “the best day of my life”.

On her way into the nuptials, the bubbly bride-to-be said: “It’s not just for young people, love, you know? We get butterflies. And we get a little action, also.”

The location was the elegant stone-worked town hall of Carentan, a key initial D-Day objective that saw ferocious fighting after the 6 June 1944, Allied landings that helped rid Europe of Adolf Hitler’s tyranny.

Like other towns and villages across the Normandy coast where nearly 160,000 Allied troops came ashore under fire on five code-named beaches, it’s an effervescent hub of remembrance and celebration on the 80th anniversary of that day, festooned with flags and bunting and with veterans feted like rockstars.

As the swing of Glenn Miller and other period tunes rang out on the streets, well-wishers – some in second world war-period clothes – were lined up a good hour before the wedding, behind barriers outside the town hall, with a rousing pipe-and-drum band on hand to serenade the happy couple.

After both declaring “oui” to vows read by Carentan’s mayor in English, the couple exchanged rings.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Terens said.

She giggled and gasped: “Really?”

With champagne flutes in hand, they waved through an open window to the adoring crowds outside.

“To everybody’s good health. And to peace in the world and the preservation of democracy all over the world and the end of the war in Ukraine and Gaza,” Terens said as he and his bride clinked glasses and drank.

The crowd yelled “La mariée!” – “The bride!” – to Swerlin, who wore a long flowing dress of vibrant pink. Terens looked dapper in a light-blue suit and matching pink kerchief in his breast pocket.

They enjoyed a very special wedding-night party: they were invited to the state dinner at the Elysee Palace on Saturday night with President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden.

“Congratulations to the newlyweds,” Macron said, prompting cheers and a standing ovation from other guests during the toast praising French-American friendship. “[The town of] Carentan was happy to host your wedding, and us, your wedding dinner,” he told the couple.

The wedding was symbolic, not binding in law. Mayor Jean-Pierre L’Honneur’s office said he wasn’t empowered to wed foreigners who aren’t residents of Carentan, and that the couple, who are both American, hadn’t requested legally binding vows. However, they could always complete those formalities back in Florida if they wished.

L’Honneur likes to say that Normandy is practically the 51st state of the US, given its reverence and gratitude for Allied soldiers and the sacrifices of tens of thousands who never made it home from the Battle of Normandy.

“Love is eternal, yes, maybe,” the mayor said, referring to the newlyweds, although his comments also fittingly described the feelings of many Normandy veterans.

“I hope for them the best happiness together.”

Dressed in a 1940s dress that belonged to her mother, Louise, and a red beret, 73-year-old Jane Ollier was among spectators who waited for a glimpse of the lovebirds..

“It’s so touching to get married at that age,” Ollier said. “If it can bring them happiness in the last years of their lives, that’s fantastic.”

The couple, both widowed, grew up in New York City: she in Brooklyn, he in the Bronx. Terens first visited France as a 20-year-old US army air forces corporal shortly after D-Day. He enlisted in 1942 and, after shipping to Britain, was attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter unit as their radio repair technician.

On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle. He said half his company’s pilots died that day. Terens himself went to France 12 days later, helping transport German prisoners of war and former American prisoners of war to England. Following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Terens again helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England before he shipped back to the US a month later.

Swerlin made it abundantly clear that her new centenarian husband doesn’t lack for rizz.

“He’s the greatest kisser ever, you know?” she proudly declared before they embraced enthusiastically for TV cameras.

“All right ! That’s it for now !” Terens said as he came up for air.

To which she quickly quipped: “You mean there’s more later?”

We met through Sydney share houses in the early 80s when I was in my mid-20s and Tanner, a clever and sweet country boy, was a couple of years older. I first laid eyes on him as he was reaching into a hot oven; he looked up and his gaze met mine. I thought: “Wow, he is gorgeous!”

Typical of that time, there were many complicated relationships between housemates and friends. Tanner was in a long-term relationship and it was three years before our feelings for each other spilled over. At a house party we danced to Cold Chisel’s My Baby over and over; another time, at a dinner party at his place, we shared a furtive kiss at the front door as I left.

Over the next few months, we pretended to be just friends in front of others. It was tiresome, confusing and wrong. I told him he needed to make a choice: I would not be “the other woman”. To the shock of friends and especially his partner, we began seeing each other publicly and exclusively. Cast out from our social circle and in the heady throes of new love, we began spending nearly every day and night together.

We’d spend hours talking and writing ridiculous stories and poetry. At sunset we’d sit on the beach and wonder how molluscs knew when the moon and tides were changing. These conversations made my heart sing but Tanner was not one for sharing his feelings. Besides, Tanner, who had been working as a hang-gliding instructor since finishing a PhD in bioscience, was desperate to start his career in scientific research. He was scouring the globe for jobs, and if one came knocking he could leave Sydney at a moment’s notice.

Throughout this hedonistic interlude, I was living in a share house in Clovelly full of alternative, free-spirited types, and swimming every day. I had quit work as an economist to recover from a serious brain injury from a few years earlier.

The brain event had left me with weakness and spasticity on my left side. It also led to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. After visiting my neurologist with me, Tanner said he thought the MS was not a problem. But I thought it was – life would get messy, I would be a burden and he wouldn’t get to live his best life.

So despite my intense feelings, I didn’t dare talk with Tanner about our future.

After six months together, he was offered a position at the University of Queensland and left almost immediately. His tiny car was packed to capacity, the hang-glider riding precariously on the roof, as we said goodbye and mumbled vague plans about how I’d follow him to Brisbane.

Alone in Sydney, I contemplated moving to Brisbane. I was worried about leaving my family and friends, and of course, the ocean. If I was going to make the jump, he needed to know how I felt.

So I wrote a long letter. As I wrote, it dawned on me that what I really wanted was marriage: an old-fashioned, no-holds-barred commitment to permanence and love made in front of friends and family. Fearing I might have misread his feelings and still scared about my health, I came to the big question hesitantly: could I suggest, if I could be so bold, that maybe we could get married?

A couple of days later, I came home to find a letter from Tanner on the hall table. From the postmark, I could tell he had written it before receiving mine: our letters had crossed paths in transit. The door to our lounge room was closed, and inside were a dozen followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (or Orange People as they were known then). Bhagwan had just announced that, in light of the growing Aids epidemic, his disciples should forgo their newfound sexual freedom and adopt conservative sexual practices. From my spot in the hallway, I could hear the group were not happy about this.

I opened the letter, and while Tanner’s words were as hesitant and coy as mine, he said he too was in love and proposing marriage.

Overwhelmed with joy I burst into the living room. Holding his letter high, I screeched: “I’m getting married!” The room turned to silence, and then a collective groan, followed by “Why?” and “Are you crazy?”

But my joyful, gay Orange housemate appeared beside me and screeched back: “Oh please can I make the cake?!”

Tanner and I married three weeks later in the church in Bondi where I had been baptised, and it was the best farewell to Sydney ever.

Now, after 40 years of marriage, Tanner still makes my heart sing when I look at his face (especially if he’s getting something out of the oven). We are lucky to have two terrific adult children. My health has been terrible at times and my recoveries remarkable.

The intensity of our early days has been replaced by a calm, knowing we are together no matter what.

Thousands of people rallied in Budapest on Saturday as a political newcomer led a push to mobilise voters against Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, ahead of European elections on Sunday.

“We defeated apathy,” declared Péter Magyar, a former government insider who switched sides and launched an opposition movement, as he stood in front of a vast crowd which filled the capital’s Heroes’ Square.

“We give hope to each other,” he said, underscoring that “we are building a country where there is no right, no left – only Hungarian”.

Since coming back to power 14 years ago, Orbán has consolidated power at home. He has cultivated relationships with Russia and China, as well as far-right parties across the globe. And he has described Brussels and Washington as his adversaries, despite Hungary’s continued membership of both the EU and Nato.

At the same time, some of the prime minister’s closest friends and family members are now among the country’s wealthiest people, amid allegations of widespread cronyism.

Magyar, who used to be married to Orbán’s former justice minister, became a sensation in Hungary earlier this year when he broke ranks and began criticising the government, stressing concerns about alleged corruption.

The Hungarian government has repeatedly rejected accusations of corruption.

But gathered on a hot afternoon, many in the crowd expressed admiration for both Magyar’s message and personal journey.

“He took responsibility for his sins and stood up,” said Zoltán, an activist supporting Magyar’s Tisza party.

Lena, a 17-year-old Hungarian who lives in Austria but wants to move home, said she will vote for Magyar once she is old enough. “I believe we need to take back our homeland,” she said.

While Hungarians will be voting in local elections and on who to send to represent them in the European parliament, many see these elections as a de facto referendum on both Orbán and the opposition parties that have struggled to challenge his position over the past years.

Orbán, who is the EU’s most Kremlin-friendly leader, has focused his election campaign on what he has described as a “peace” platform.

Ahead of the elections, the ruling Fidesz party has run an intense disinformation campaign claiming – without providing proof – that there is a global conspiracy to force Hungary into a direct war with Russia and that Hungary’s opposition is being directed by the west to undermine the national interest.

“Now we are again receiving demands to take part in a new war,” Orbán told supporters at a recent rally.

Addressing the crowd, Magyar pushed back against this narrative and accused the government of intentionally dividing Hungarian society.

“The Tisza party is the party of peace – the real party of peace” he said.

Magyar is an unusual figure in the Hungarian political scene. His language sometimes echoes conservative and nationalist rhetoric, but he also criticises Orbán’s government in a way that appeals to liberal voters.

In an interview with the Guardian earlier in the campaign, Magyar said his aim was to be in the centre. “I have a vision about Hungary,” he said.

The political newcomer’s informal style, social media savvy, and willingness to criticise both right-wing and left-wing politicians has resonated with many voters.

However, critics have raised concerns that he has weakened other opposition forces and questioned how different some of his policies would be from the current ruling party.

“What is completely new is that he can speak essentially to the whole left-liberal side and also a significant segment of Fidesz voters,” said Róbert László, an election expert at the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute.

Magyar “comes from the inside, he speaks in a way that appeals to everybody, he has work ethic. And the fourth factor is that he is not open to compromise,” he added.

But he stressed that despite an initial decline, Fidesz has performed strongly in opinion polls over the past weeks.

The ruling party enjoys the support of 50% of decided voters, according to a study published last week by pollster Medián. Magyar’s Tisza party, meanwhile, stood at 27%.

“Magyar’s appearance means a serious threat for everyone: obviously now much more for the opposition parties than for Fidesz,” László said, adding: “We don’t expect that Orbán will be packing his bags on 10 June.”

Two separate shark attacks at Florida beaches wounded three swimmers, including two teenagers, prompting some popular vacation spots to temporarily close, according to authorities.

A shark bit a 45-year-old woman at about 1.20pm on Friday while she swam at Watersound beach, along the coast of Walton county, Florida, in the eastern part of the state.

First responders airlifted the woman to a hospital after she sustained “significant trauma” to her midsection, according to Walton county sheriff’s office spokesperson Corey Dobridnia, USA Today reported. Part of her left arm had to be amputated as a result of the attack.

In a second attack about 90 minutes later, two more people were injured by a shark at Inlet beach, just four miles (6.4km) from Watersound, WVTM 13 reported.

A 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl were swimming with a group of friends in waist-deep water when a shark bit both of them.

One of the girls had serious injuries, and first responders airlifted her to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola hospital in Pensacola, Florida, ABC News reported.

The Walton county beaches where both attacks took place were closed on Friday afternoon after the spate of shark-related injuries.

“Double red flags are now flying on the beaches in the surrounding area,” the Walton county sheriff’s office posted on Facebook on Friday. “The gulf is now closed to the public in Walton county in the localized area of the incident.

“We are encouraging beachgoers to be cognizant that lifeguards and beach deputies may be trying keep people out of the water in the immediate area.”

During a Friday press conference, the Walton county sheriff, Michael A Adkinson Jr, said that shark attacks in that community were rare, with the last one taking place in 2021, ABC reported.

“This is an anomaly … everything from it being three victims, to where it’s at,” he said. “All we can do is respond, control and mitigate what we can.”

The latest shark attacks come days after a 46-year-old man was bitten by one of the marine animals at Del Mar City beach in southern California on Sunday. The man emerged from the encounter with significant injuries that nonetheless were not considered life-threatening.

Despite the relative rarity of shark attacks, each one attracts a disproportionate amount of news media attention.

Globally, there were fewer than 70 unprovoked shark bites in 2023, according to the International Shark Attack File curated by the Florida Museum.

Florida is the world leader for the number of shark attacks.