The other big news this month is Saturn and Neptune both stationing retrograde in your seventh house of relationships in the first half of July. So you’re starting to see the writing on the wall about a significant other, or maybe the hard thing you’re trying to do together is even harder than you anticipated. Maybe it’s your current lack of partnership that’s causing you to rethink some things about your life. This might be connected to your family or where you live, and the July 10 full moon in Capricorn will probably bring these issues into focus. Whether you’re considering where to put down roots or where to visit, it seems like location can really make or break your experience right now.

Scorpio Rising

Things are pretty up in the air this month workwise, so your advice for July is to avoid committing to anything prematurely and to be patient with the process as you gather intel from your beta launch. Saturn and Neptune both station retrograde in your sixth house of work and health in the first half of July, and Mercury will go retrograde in your tenth house of career and status on July 18. There are some top-level logistical bugs to fix—some messaging that needs to be tweaked, or conversations to be revisited with your boss—as well as deeper issues to confront around your current capacity to handle everything that’s on your plate. Certain aspects of your job have probably felt harder recently, and maybe your health isn’t exactly running smoothly in the background, where you don’t have to pay attention to it. Maybe you’re struggling to manage more than your own workload because you’re understaffed, or you’re coming to terms with the fact that something about your project isn’t going to work in its current form. Whatever the problem is, now is a really good time to be honest about what moving forward is going to require, to prioritize the needs of your body, and to take it all in stride if your deadlines are getting pushed back.

Your ruling planet, Mars, also spends much of the month approaching a conjunction to the South Node on July 20. This is another sign that you’re probably feeling pretty burned out right now, or that you’ll have to surrender your plans and your need to have it all micromanaged efficiently. Indeed, wherever you’ve been going with your team, it seems as though you’ll have to spend halftime erasing the whiteboard in the locker room and doing a tactical adjustment. It’s entirely possible people won’t be in the most peaceful or cooperative mood. If grievances need to be aired, hopefully it’ll help everyone let off steam and move forward, but look out for some tempers and general combativeness between July 20 and 23 in particular.

If all of this sounds exhausting, you’re probably right! This is the kind of thing that could easily eat up time on your trip as you log on at the hotel room to answer urgent emails, or require that you ask for more help. Fortunately, Saturn’s retrograde could be the perfect opportunity to take work off your plate, to have more flexibility around your job, and to walk back any commitments that may have been a bit premature in hindsight. Additionally, Venus and Uranus taking up co-residence in your eighth house could throw some unexpected support or funding your way in July. Take the help where you can get it, remain flexible, and don’t mourn the plan that didn’t come to pass too much.

Sagittarius Rising

In case no one told you lately, you’re allowed to rethink everything. So much of what this current moment amounts to is that you’re outgrowing the dream an older version of you had for your own life. You’re also getting super honest with yourself about what it’s going to take to bring your future into fruition. As Saturn and Neptune both station retrograde in the first half of July, happening in tandem with a Mars-South Node conjunction in your tenth house of career on July 20, you might put one of your more ambitious creative projects on ice for the time being as you run out of steam or reckon with how hard it’s actually going to be to accomplish. If you’re a parent (or thinking about becoming one), this could just as easily be about realizing that your kids need more attention from you right now, and that probably means something about how much energy you can afford to give to your work right now. The full moon in Capricorn on July 10 brings these things into sharp relief, and it might come with a price tag or a realization around how your financial reality might be affected if you change up the game plan.

How to Travel With Kids, According to Globetrotting Parents Toddlers, teens, and everything in between.

To be clear, “putting things on ice” doesn’t mean “killing the project entirely.” Maybe you just need more time for things to bake. Mercury will also retrograde through your ninth house of travel, perspective, and knowledge beginning on July 18, so assuming you’re not on a very literal journey of taking the scenic route, there’s a lot of philosophical ferment happening for you through July and part of August — perhaps because you’re rethinking what you believe and know about the world, or because you’re literally going back through the notes you took in school. This could also be a meaningful time to go on a trip or visit places you’ve been before, but don’t expect your travels to go entirely as planned. There’s a higher-than-average chance of mysteriously vanished reservations, scrambled itineraries, and missed flight connections. But if you can embrace the chaos, there’s a good chance you’ll end up making meaningful connections along the way.

‘He made me eat cheaper brands than him and said I’d die in a car crash – but this is why I couldn’t leave’

Amy* knew her husband could kill her – he made sure of that.

She’d known for 25 years of violence and sexual abuse, but when a doctor warned her children were in danger, she was finally ready to leave.

Yet Amy, once the director of a large company earning six figures, had no money. He’d made sure of that, too.

“What he did financially was to make sure that I became powerless,” says Amy.

“I was totally beholden to him.”

Amy is one of potentially millions of victims, mainly women, who have experienced economic abuse – when someone restricts or exploits their partner’s access to money and resources like food, clothing and transportation.

A survey of 3,000 women by charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) found 15% had been impacted in the year to November 2024, which would be equivalent to 4.1 million across the UK.

Keir Starmer has called it a “national emergency” as the government gears up to announce a new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy within the next few weeks.

Its aim is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, after the last VAWG strategy initiated by the Conservatives in 2021 made “little progress”, according to the National Audit Office.

SEA, which advocates for people like Amy, has watched on as successive governments have failed to tackle the issue despite launching strategy after strategy.

It is hoping this time will be different and that economic abuse is a key focus for the government.

“It’s the only way to help survivors and their children escape and safely rebuild their lives,” says chief executive Sam Smethers.

“To break the cycle of domestic abuse once and for all, the government must put tackling economic abuse at the heart of its strategy.”

Most perpetrators do not economically abuse in isolation, combining it with physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Some 56% of women who experienced economic abuse from a current or ex-partner also faced other abusive behaviour.

‘He was terrifying’

Amy was trying to break a cycle of escalating bullying, violence and sexual assault.

“He had become so confident that he could act with impunity,” she says.

“He was saying to me, ‘I’m really comfortable with the idea of your death now. I think when you die it will be in a car crash’.”

She continues: “He was terrifying. He meant it. And I know he meant it because he’d done a number of things in the marriage where I nearly died at his hands.

“So I know he was more than capable of killing me.”

Almost a quarter (23%) of victims of economic abuse say it prevented them from leaving the relationship, according to SEA.

‘It’s all about control’

When Amy first met her ex-husband at work in the mid-90s, he “seemed like a normal bloke”.

After the pair married a year later and had children, he encouraged her to leave her job, move to a new, socially isolated area and become a stay-at-home mum.

“It was much more subtle and much cleverer than demanding to see bills,” she says.

Once the sole earner, he kept the family accounts private, giving Amy a monthly allowance with which she was expected to pay all the household bills bar the mortgage, which he kept in his name.

He monitored her food to ensure she ate cheaper brands than him and controlled the clothes she bought to the point she had no outfits suitable for anything other than the school run.

“It’s all about control,” says Amy.

“It’s like a drug. He needs a supply of control to keep him going. The more control he has, the better he feels about himself. He uses money as a control tool.”

‘National emergency’

It didn’t stop with the end of the relationship.

Amy says he drained her finances by prolonging divorce proceedings and raising a court dispute.

He inconsistently paid maintenance payments she depended on to look after their children, for whom she had full custody. He offered them money to make contact.

“It’s more than just economic control – it’s a weapon used by abusers to trap victims/survivors, leaving them powerless, drowning in debt and often forced to choose between staying trapped with a dangerous abuser or destitution,” says SEA’s Smethers.

“This national emergency demands action.”

Jess Phillips, safeguarding and violence against women and girls minister, told Sky News she understood the “devastating impact” that economic abuse has on thousands of women each year.

“No woman should ever be trapped in an abusive relationship because of the suffering they will face if they try to leave, whether that is the threat of physical violence or the prospect of being plunged into poverty and homelessness.”

Phillips said the government had allocated £160m for local authorities to give victims safe accommodation and access to social housing without having to prove a local connection to an area.

“We have also continued to fund Surviving Economic Abuse, to raise awareness of this devastating crime, and support its many victims,” she added.

“We will set out more detail in our upcoming strategy.”

You can find out how to recognise the signs of domestic abuse and where to get help on the NHS website here.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed can also call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

*Amy is a pseudonym

Strengthened by a growing middle class, additional route capacity and a strong desire to travel, 2024 marks the year when more Indians are traveling than any time in history. Official data indicates that the first three months of the year, between January and March 2024, have registered 97 million passengers traveling through Indian airports for both domestic and international trips. Roughly 10 years ago, achieving numbers like these would have taken a full year rather than three months.⁸

A growing number of Indian travelers with improving incomes bodes well for the travel industry. India is likely to add more than 20 million middle-class people (earning more than US$15,000 annually) and nearly 2 million high-income people (earning more than US$80k annually) in the next five years.⁹ Air traffic data suggests that, like with the rest of Asia Pacific, domestic traffic has started the year with the most momentum. However, international passenger traffic has grown meaningfully, too, with country-wide domestic passenger traffic 21% above 2019 levels and international passenger traffic up 4% as of March 2024.

India’s travel sector has grown rapidly through March 2024 – especially the outbound Indian traveler segment – propelled by an expanding affluent consumer base seeking luxury experiences. There has been a growing desire for jewelry and lavish clothing options. Evolving spending patterns reflect the nation’s growing disposable incomes and aspirational lifestyles.

We analyzed market-wide Indian passenger arrival data for three travel destinations: the United States, Japan, and Vietnam. In the U.S., a strong dollar may have influenced tourists who typically would want to visit the U.S. but instead may be choosing to go elsewhere.

However, India is clearly an exception. As of March 2024, Indian passenger arrivals into the U.S. were 59% above 2019. By comparison, the aggregate recovery of all overseas visitors into the U.S. is still 6% below 2019 in the same period.

Meanwhile, the number of Indians traveling to Japan surged in March 2024, 53% above 2019 levels. So far this year, about 50,000 Indian travelers have visited Japan. For reference, just 10 years ago, it would have taken closer to a full year to reach this level of Indian travelers to Japan.

Flights into Vietnam from India are even more incredible. By March 2024, the number of passengers relative to the same month in 2019 was up a jaw-dropping 248%.¹⁰

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It was the summer of 2023, and Katie Piercefield-Holmes from Suffolk travelled to the Greek island of Rhodes with her husband and two children for a 10-day holiday.

They’d booked a room with air conditioning at a resort, intending to spend the time relaxing in the swimming pool and sightseeing – but this wasn’t possible because of the searing heat. “Even after breakfast, a five-minute walk would be unbearable,” she recalls.

Then came the wildfires, which swept across the island. “With the heat from the wildfires, it felt over 40C,” she adds.

In all, some 19,000 people were evacuated from their homes or holiday accommodation in Rhodes that July. Pictures of tourists fleeing the island were splashed across newspaper front pages and one newlywed couple from Glasgow described it as like “being thrown into a disaster film”. Katie’s family was advised to evacuate their villa, but chose to stay, believing it would be safer.

The experience has, she says, changed the way she and her family have holidayed for good.

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UK passport holders will soon be able to use e-gates at more EU airports, the UK government has announced.

It comes as part a “breakthrough” post-Brexit reset deal between the UK government and the European Union.

The UK government said the move would end “the dreaded queues at border control” with Brits being allowed to use fast-track e-gates usually reserved for EU or European Economic Area citizens at more airports.

EU Relations Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said this would give British travellers “more time to spend on holiday or work trips […] doing what you want, not being stuck in queues.”

But details have emerged which suggest British tourists will still have to endure queues this summer as the deal won’t be implemented until October at the earliest.

UK travellers have to join ‘other nations’ queue at EU airports

Following Brexit, UK citizens forfeited their privileged status when travelling to EU countries.

They now fall into the ‘visa-exempt third-country nationals’ category – the same classification as travellers from dozens of countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.

This has meant British travellers must join the ‘other nations’ queue at border control rather than using the expedited EU lanes. The requirement to check that British travellers meet entry conditions is a significant obstacle to allowing them to use the fast-track lanes.

EU border control has to verify that UK travellers are not in breach of the 90-day stay limit in 180 days and that they have the means to return to their country of origin, i.e. a flight ticket out of the EU.

Frontier officials must also stamp the passenger’s passport.

This change often translates to extended waiting times, especially at busy European airports like Amsterdam Schiphol, Milan Malpensa, and Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Waits exceeding an hour have become commonplace, especially when arriving shortly after large international flights.

These delays affect not only entry into EU countries but also departure, as British travellers must undergo exit checks that sometimes result in missed flights due to lengthy queues.

UK travellers will be able to use e-gates at many European airports

Under the new deal, British travellers will be able to take advantage of the faster e-gate passport checks at many EU airports.

No details have yet been released on when this will be introduced and where, although the BBC reported that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “has called on all EU members to co-operate without delay.”

Some EU airports will likely allow UK travellers to use existing e-gates reserved for EU citizens, while others may install dedicated ‘third-country national’ e-gates.

The latter are already in place across Italy, including Venice Marco Polo and Rome Fiumicino, as well as at Amsterdam Schiphol and Lisbon.

With this system, once the traveller passes through the gate, there is a brief check by border officials who will also stamp passports.

When will Brits be able to use e-gates at European airports?

The UK government underlined that there will be “no legal barriers to e-gate use for British Nationals travelling to and from European Union Member States after the introduction of the European Union Entry/Exit System [EES].”

The EES is scheduled to come into force in October this year and will be gradually phased in over six months. The system will register non-EU visitors who don’t need a visa digitally, removing the need for physical stamps.

Cabinet office minister Pat McFadden told the BBC that “nothing is going to happen” before this new scheme is in place.

“They’ve put the date back for that a few times, the latest date is the autumn, let’s see if that’s stuck to.”

The Association of British Travel Agents has said the change “won’t impact this summer”. It added that EU member states will have to decide indvidually when the current passport stamping will end.

New pet passports will make it easier for Brits to bring pets into EU

The UK government also announced that new pet passports will be introduced as part of the deal.

This means UK cats and dogs will be able to travel “more easily” from the UK into the EU by “eliminating the need for animal health certificates for every trip.”