Innehållsförteckning för 9 May 2025 från Guardian Weekly

Flower power A beefeater guard at the Tower of London examines a new display called The Tower Remembers. Nearly 30,000 ceramic poppies have been installed in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of VE Day and the end of the second world war in Europe. Opinion Page 47 → The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol212 | Issue№ 19 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The weekly magazine has an international focus and four editions: global, Europe, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in 1919. We exist to hold power to account in the name…

A full deck ‘My wife and I were in a bar on Brighton beach last week, and I suddenly realised the artwork on the pier mirrored the people in deckchairs on the beach. I’m always on the lookout for an amusing shot and got two or three that day, but this was the best.’ Do you have a recently taken picture you’d like to share with Guardian Weekly? Scan the QR code or visit theguardian.com/pictures-guardian-weekly and we’ll print your best submissions…

There are few entities that embody the close, fraternal ties between the US and Canada quite like the Saginaw Spirit junior ice hockey team. In a place whose fortunes have been more down than up in recent decades, the Dow Event Center hockey arena in Saginaw, Michigan, comes alive with more than 5,000 fans once these young stars take to the ice. A huge banner depicting the players adorns the main street into the city. Nearly all the players, aged 16 to 20, come from Canada, and stay with local Saginaw families during the regular playing season, which runs from September to April. “They are family, almost literally,” said Jimmy Greene, the Spirit’s vice-president of marketing and community relations, “because players come over here and stay with American families.…

In a week of difficult local elections, there was a special guest in No 10 to give a pep talk to staff: Arsène Wenger, the former manager of Arsenal, beloved of the prime minister. He and Keir Starmer have faced some common challenges, rebuilding their clubs and parties from low ebbs to extraordinary success. Now Starmer may face a similar challenge to Wenger in his later years: whether he can adapt his tactical rigidity when results start to suffer. A successful strategy has been to win back Conservative switchers and working-class voters whom the party was felt to have abandoned. That has morphed into deep concern about the threat of Reform UK. In the Runcorn and Helsby by-election last week, lost by an agonising six votes having been one of…

Kyle believed God was looking out for him when he survived a violent farm robbery in South Africa eight years ago with only a black eye and broken ribs. The robbers failed to get the kettle and iron working, so were unable to burn anyone. Then the gun trigger jammed when they tried to shoot Kyle. “They specifically said they were coming back for this farm … [that] it was their land,” said the 43-year-old, who did not want to use his full name. Kyle, a divorced father of three, is one of thousands of white South Africans hoping to take up Donald Trump’s offer of refugee status, to escape crime and what they allege is discrimination against white people. The Trump administration’s support for these claims, while stopping other…

‘Don’t stop,” said the local in the backseat. “Just slow down and you’ll see it.” Soldiers watched the vehicle as it passed the turn-off and the checkpoint. Then a white building flashed through a gap in the trees, a few kilometres from the road. Without permission from the government, that is as close as anyone can get to the Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot), the prison at the core of relations between El Salvador and the US. President Nayib Bukele bills the prison as the biggest in the Americas, capable of holding 40,000 people, and specifically members of MS-13 and Barrio 18, the two gangs that brutalised Salvadorian society for decades. It is also where the Trump administration has paid to send 238 Venezuelan migrants, and is a black hole from…

A few weeks before Germany’s federal election in late February, Friedrich Merz was forced to backpedal after a daring gambit went awry. His attempt to win votes by forcing through a hardline crackdown on migration had caused a rebellion in his own Christian Democratic party (CDU). Instead of positioning himself as a strong leader, he undermined the entire German political establishment. Merz’s strategy involved breaking a taboo by relying on far-right nationalists to pass legislation for the first time in Germany’s postwar history. The move fractured the normally consensus-driven centrist parties in the Bundestag, sparked protests and led to a rebuke from the former chancellor and CDU leader Angela Merkel. Despite the backlash, Merz stuck to his trademark swagger and refused to back down from setting a disturbing precedent. His…

What does a landscape sound like when it’s not being listened to? This philosophical question was a catalyst for film-maker and artist Joshua Bonnetta, who has distilled a year of recordings from a single tree in upstate New York – that’s 8,760 hours – into a four-hour album, The Pines. As Robert Macfarlane writes in his accompanying essay, The Pines is a reminder of the natural world’s “sheer, miraculous busyness”, its “froth of signals and noise”. It is rich with poetic meaning, and resonant amid the climate emergency. “It started as a personal thing,” Bonnetta explains from his studio in Munich, where he relocated from the US in 2022. For over 20 years he has made sonic records of places as private mementos, but recent experiments with long-form field recording…

Right now, most big AI labs have a team figuring out ways that rogue AIs might escape supervision, or secretly collude with each other against humans. But there’s a more mundane way we could lose control of civilisation: we might become obsolete. This wouldn’t require any plots – if AI and robotics keep improving, it’s what happens by default. How so? Well, AI developers are on track to build better replacements for humans in almost every role we play: not just economically as workers and decision-makers, but culturally as artists and creators, and even socially as friends and romantic companions. What place will humans have when AI can do everything we do, only better? Talk of AI’s potential might sound like marketing hype, and some of it definitely is. I’ve…

1 UNITED STATES ‘I will be a two-term president’, Trump confirms Donald Trump ruled out running for a third presidential term, a move widely seen as unconstitutional, in a wide-ranging TV interview last Sunday in which he also said he did not know if he needed to uphold constitutional due process on immigration. The US president said he saw himself leaving office at the end of his current term – something he has not been consistent on in the past. “I’ll be an eight-year president, I’ll be a two-term president,” he said. “I always thought that was very important.” He acknowledged that some people wanted him to serve a third term, which is prohibited by a constitutional amendment passed in 1947. Previously Trump has said he was “not joking” about wanting…

In the summer months in Puglia, southern Italy, the battle for the beaches begins before dawn. Armed with tractors, beach owners flatten every imperfection from the sand. As the sun rises, tourists flood the coastline, often unaware of what lies hidden beneath their feet. Around 60cm below the surface, delicate eggs laid by loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are waiting to hatch. For the turtles, the beach is not a beauty spot but a habitat. As sand groomers have been transforming beaches from vital habitats into backdrops for photoshoots, their work has had an enormous impact on the turtle population. “Occupation of the beach by private owners reduces a vital living space for the turtle,” said Salvatore Urso, a naturalist and co-founder of Caretta Calabria Conservation, who has been monitoring…

We all find it hard, at times, to fit in self-care. But if there’s one thing I’ve noticed since becoming a mum of two small children, it’s that even the most basic level of personal care requires military-level planning. Often, I pour from an empty cup because I haven’t had time – or, more likely, I’ve simply forgotten – to refill it. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. Lots, in fact. The global self-care apps market was valued at $3bn in 2024 and is forecast to reach $14bn by 2033. Many of these apps turn self-care into a game to help users look after themselves. Gamification expert Kimba Cooper-Martin says of the trend: “Gamification taps into psychological motivators like achievements, competition (even with yourself) and rewards. It makes tasks more…

Joel Souza never liked guns. “I didn’t grow up around them and I don’t like the culture,” says the 51-year-old film-maker at his home in Pleasanton, California. “Guns make me recoil. ” In October 2021 he was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the set of his sixth feature, the western Rust, when a gun being held by the film’s star, Alec Baldwin, was discharged accidentally during rehearsals. The weapon should have been loaded with blanks but a live round had found its way into the chamber. The movie’s Ukrainian cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was fatally wounded. Souza was hit in the shoulder by the same bullet that killed her. Did he think he might die? “I don’t remember what was going through my head … it felt like I was…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 9 Reward announced for each returned book (9) 10 Cause embarrassment to a party (5) 11 Tory in 4 brief (7) 12 Gadgets work before turning almost dark (7) 13 Feel G-string (5) 14 Voice disapproval of said dessert that comes back (9) 16 Anyone’s kid can externally hold sway in planning nuptials (3,4,3,5) 19 Johnny went out to eat hamburger, essentially as a snack (6,3) 21 African native’s joint work rejected (5)  22 Pants for artists (7) 23 Creator accepting Hamlet’s option to retire (2,2,3)  24/25 Do it nicer? Let’s not go there! (5,9) Down 1 Police got a criminal to be repentant (10) 2 Depict content on film finale following the author of the Raven and Beowulf? (4,4) 3 For appellation…

Across 1 Taste (4) 3 Almost certain loser – served with orange sauce? (4,4)  8 Cross (4) 9 Chinese dish (4,4) 11 1990s phrase for a film for a female? (5,5) 14 Acquisitive (6) 15 High or low spirits (6) 17 Iridescent sphere (4,6) 20 Silvery-white metal (8)  21 Hindu philosophy (4)  22 Angled gun, used in the trenches (8)  23 Doing nowt (4) Down 1 Domesticated parrot’s home? (8) 2 Controversial (3-5) 4 Let out a breath (6) 5 Songs of early birds (4,6) 6 Ruse (anag) (4) 7 Charles – or chesspiece? (4) 10 That’s no joke! (1,3,3,3) 12 Ill-feeling (3,5) 13 Love song (8)  16 Tidy (6) 18 Inscribe deeply (4) 19 Keep (4) Solution No 17,148…

POLITICS Jubilant Farage claims end of two-party system Nigel Farage claimed he had broken the grip of Britain’s two main political parties as Reform UK gained an MP and swept to a string of victories in England’s local elections, making deep inroads into Labour and Conservative heartlands. In a sobering outcome for Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch that brought immediate recriminations, Reform took hundreds of councillors from the struggling Tories and won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection by just six votes ahead of Labour. In further signs of fracturing political loyalties, a BBC projection of how the voting would have looked in a UK-wide election put Reform first on 30%, Labour on 20%, the Liberal Democrats on 17%, the Conservatives fourth with 15% and the Greens on 11%. A jubilant…

‘Not just courageous” but “actually fearless”, said Doug Burgum. The “first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever”, said Pam Bondi. “Most” of the presidents whose portraits adorn the Oval Office – which include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan – were mere “placeholders” who were not “men of action”, mused JD Vance. Before the TV cameras last Wednesday, top cabinet officials took turns drenching Donald Trump with praise that some critics found evocative of politics in North Korea. Yet beyond the walls of the White House, the mood was shifting. New data showed the economy is shrinking. The national security adviser was about to be ousted. Opinion polls told of a president whose unpopularity is historic. After a hundred days in…

Like many others in Gaza, Khalil al-Hakimi felt a weight lift from his shoulders for the first time in over a year when Israel and Hamas agreed a long-delayed ceasefire in January. He cried and hugged his five children. “I slept deeply, free from the sound of bombing, destruction and death,” he said. The 44-year-old engineer was out on Gaza City’s dark streets looking for food when he was shot by a sniper last December. Three months later, he had his right leg amputated, and made it back home to Jabaliya on crutches. In the rubble, the family began to think about how to rebuild their lives, but the relief was short-lived. Israel unilaterally pulled out of the agreement two months later, imposing a total blockade on the Palestinian territory…

The day that Saigon fell, Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent, could only hear shouting and commotion. It was 30 April 1975, and helicopters were frantically lifting personnel and civilians from the US embassy. Phuong, who had travelled down from the north, was initially held back by troops who said fighting was still continuing. When she was finally able to reach the centre of the city the following day, she found chaos. Clothes and luggage were scattered and discarded along the streets. Buildings were being looted. It felt like a dream, Phuong, now 96, said. She stood inside the Presidential Palace on 2 May, watching as the president of South Vietnam, Duong Van Minh, surrendered. “He left through the palace’s back door, because at the front there were all the tanks…

For most of his adult life, Mark Carney has thrived in a world where facts matter and logical arguments can suffice. But Canada’s prime minister, who until last month had never held elected office, now enters a domain in which personal slights, ambition and ego often hold more sway than truth or reason. And Carney, who dealt with politicians, some hostile, as a central banker, has now become one, occupying a role in which he’s all but guaranteed to disappoint someone. On 28 April, Carney led Canada’s Liberal party to a victory that only months ago few would have thought possible. Running as the candidate best equipped to defend Canada’s sovereignty against Donald Trump, he emerged with a minority government. After a congratulatory phone call last week, Donald Trump predicted…

I HAVE LONG FELT THAT KITCHEN OBJECTS can have a life of their own. Even so, I found this eerie. One August day in 2020, I was going to fetch clothes out of the washing machine when suddenly a cake tin fell at my feet with a loud clang. It wasn’t just any cake tin. It was the heart-shaped tin I had used to bake my own wedding cake. I wouldn’t have thought much of it except that it was only two months since my husband had left me, out of the blue. Nearly 23 years ago, this giant metal heart had been brand new. My husband-to-be had told me he liked fruit cake but hated glace cherries. For our wedding, I decided to bake him a rich, dark fruit…

In more than 10 years working in the aid sector, I have seen extraordinary innovations, from childhood education programmes for refugee children, to AI-driven flood warnings that alert farmers in some of the most vulnerable places on earth. Many of the initiatives I’ve seen are remarkably impactful and deliver serious value for money: it costs the International Rescue Committee (IRC) just £3 ($4) to administer a life-saving vaccine dose in the midst of a conflict in east Africa, for example. The politics surrounding international aid, however, are increasingly toxic. The UK’s Department for International Development and now the US equivalent, USAID, have been dismantled, despite the British public being more than twice as likely to say aid has a positive rather than negative impact. Denmark has stuck to the UN…

What unexpected things can I make with asparagus? “The goal is to do as little as possible to it,” says Ben Lippett, author of How I Cook (published in September). “If you start dressing up asparagus with fancy cooking techniques, you lose its magic.” That’s not to say you should just boil the spears and be done with it, mind: “Try pairing them with relatively high-impact flavours, but nothing that will steal the show,” Lippett says. “ You want something with richness, fragrance, acidity and salinity.” Instead of a gribiche-style sauce, for example, sub in Kewpie (Japanese mayo), pickled ginger, chives, sesame seeds and frozen peas “to make a spoonable condiment”. Or cook asparagus chunks with lots of butter and a shot of water, then “finish with lemon and grapefruit…