
She flew to Tonga for a weekend, 18 months later she's still stuck there
CNN
Nearly 18 months after she flew in for the weekend, Zoe Stephens is still stuck on the tiny archipelago, which happens to be one of the few places in the world that has remained entirely Covid-free.
(CNN) — When British traveler Zoe Stephens flew into the South Pacific island nation of Tonga last March, she was only planning to stay for the weekend. Originally from Crosby, Merseyside in the UK, the 27-year-old had been living in China for two and a half years, before taking some time out to travel around the Asia and onto Fiji. Keen to escape talk of the virus, which had been dominating news reporting wherever she went, she booked a flight to Tonga, a Polynesian country made up of over 170 South Pacific islands.
The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”

Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.