Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly magazine is a round-up of the world news, opinion and long reads that have shaped the week. Inside, the past seven days' most memorable stories are reframed with striking photography and insightful companion pieces, all handpicked from The Guardian and The Observer.

Editor’s notes

Global report • Headlines from the last seven days

United Kingdom

Reader’s eyewitness

SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT

How a tragedy was twisted into a far-right rallying cry • The student Henry Nowak’s harrowing death revealed the ease with which such events can be appropriated for political ends, both in the UK and beyond

Vance, Musk and the UK • The US has linked this tragedy to ‘civilisational decline’. Why?

Stand firm, fight back • Murder should not be exploited to spread lies about race and privilege

Power and glory World Cup 2026, the greatest show on earth, has kicked off and is set for a six-week sprint through Trump’s America • This is the end, of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end. It seems fitting that football’s latest stopping point on its voyage upriver into the blank parts of the map, a mission so choice that when it’s over you may never want another one, should be a World Cup overseen by a haunted-looking man with a messiah complex, out there operating beyond the pale of acceptable sporting governance, the warrior-poet Swiss lawyer football never knew it needed.

Populist but pro-western Pashinyan gets to heart of the matter

In limbo Middle East pays the price for impasse of leaders’ making • The complex relationship between Trump and Netanyahu continues to undermine a ceasefire

Did one man plan attacks on Jewish communities? • Legal documents, expert investigations and social media posts show how a 32-year-old Iraqi appeared to run ‘proxy’ campaigns

Sew fine

Happy talk Does utopian plan of fer a realistic route to a fairer world? • Some will question its credibility – but alternative future to the one imagined in report is far bleaker

Wee-working startup turns urine into fertiliser

Brutal and emboldened How bandit crisis spun out of control • Conflicts over resources and land have grown due to the climate crisis, deforestation and population growth

Families tied after deputy role raises dynasty fears

‘Bring your own plastic’ call as Iran conflict hits supplies

Heart works The labour of digitising 60,000 love letters

Moral mission • Can autonomous killer drones powered by AI take morality onboard? While the technology is set to play a growing role in modern warfare, there remains an unresolved ethical challenge

Endless blackouts breed fear of coming US showdown

Status symbols Should Trump raise statues without public consultation?

‘I had an epiphany: my birth mother didn’t want the adult me. She wanted the baby she’d been forced to give up’ • Thirty years after my parents were pressured into placing me with an adoption agency, I finally reconnected with them. But it was nothing like the neat stories you see on TV

Hello, goodbye • By the mid-1960s, the Beatles were ready to quit touring for good. A new collection of pictures by rock photographer Jim Marshall captures their last gigs

Simon Tisdall • The failure to bring peace lies at the door of Trump’s meddling

Nadia Khomami • Hey! You in the stalls! Put that phone away and surrender to the art

Jonathan Freedland • Britain is now a swamp of lies – and we got here on the Brexit bus

The Guardian View • Hopes for cancer treatment come in small victories that extend life, not in giant leaps

Opinion Letters

‘Brash, pushy, lethal’ • That’s how actor Rupert Everett describes his younger self....