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Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 30, 2026

October 28, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘KEEP LEFT’ – How Lula won a historic fourth term; Serbia celebrates defeat of Vučić; Competitive yoga – A stretch too far?

How many grinning faces, jubilant crowds and celebrating politicians can you fit into a single issue of the Guardian Weekly? That’s not a question that often troubles us, but the spectacular triumph of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, winning a historic second-round vote after losing the first to rightwing opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, and the victory of the student-led campaign against autocrat Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia gave me a happy problem to solve this week. In an era when the right seems to be riding high in the world, popular pushbacks against strongmen politicians is something to celebrate.

For our Brazil cover story, Tom Phillips and Tiago Rogero report on the reaction to Lula’s victory and how he pulled eventual success from the jaws of what, until the first results came on Sunday evening, seemed a probable defeat. As government health minister Alexandre Padilha said that evening: “It’s a massive victory – not just for Brazil. It’s also an important signal to the rest of Latin America and to the world.” But, as commentator Jordana Timerman cautions, Brazil has been an exception in Latin America in successfully resisting Donald Trump’s attempt to achieve hegemony over the region.

Spotlight | ‘Pure arrogance’
Google has been in the dock in Finland over the illegal felling of hectares of woodland for its datacentres, reports Miranda Bryant

Science | Out of the blue
Why are more planes encountering invisible air turbulence, what can they do about it and what effect will more frequent incidents have on travellers, asks Patrick Keneally

Feature | Bent out of shape?
Competitive yoga may sound like anathema to some devotees of the ancient practice but, as Anita Chaudhuri discovers, there is a movement among some yogis to make it an Olympic sport

Opinion | Lame duck presidents can be dangerous beasts
If Democratic midterm gains hamper Donald Trump at home, we should be very worried about what he might do abroad when foreign policy is his last bastion of power, says Steve Bloomfield

Culture | Stay faithful
As the second series of Celebrity Traitors draws to its conclusion, Michael Hogan meets the people who made it the world’s biggest TV show and finds out why Claudia Winkleman never wants to leave the castle

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 23, 2026

October 21, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘FAULT LINES’ – Will Israel’s election swing it further to the right?…

Israel is holding national elections next week, giving its citizens their first chance to pass judgment on Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.

For our big story this week, chief Middle East correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison says that whether or not the prime minister can hold on to power, a more rightwing Knesset is expected to be voted in. More than half a million Israelis have reached voting age since the last election in 2022 and, according to polls, three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters define themselves as right or centre-right.

Peter Beaumont profiles opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot. The former general contrasts with Netanyahu when it comes to style and character, he writes, yet on key policy points retains a studied ambiguity.

Then Israeli pollster and political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin argues that after three disastrous years, Israel needs to rethink itself, but only a clear opposition victory would let the country begin to heal, strengthen democracy and establish Palestinian rights.

Spotlight | ‘We are suffocating’
As protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks spill over to Italy and Portugal, Sam Jones reports on the rising wave of anger over the housing crisis and cost of living

Science | Taking a shot
Could a drug to prevent shingles also protect our brains against dementia? The possibility, writes Ian Sample, is driving a boom in vaccinations

Feature | The Havana syndrome mystery
Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of “mass hysteria” or are they from attacks with an energy weapon, asks Shaun Walker

Opinion | Another EU referendum? Not just yet
The omertà on the UK rejoining has now been broken, but it would be folly to move too soon, says Polly Toynbee

Culture | Shygirl’s slog to the top
She has opened for Beyoncé, writhed in a cubicle for Madonna – and is poised to take over the mainstream with her new rock sound. The pop auteur talks to Simran Hans about cash, class – and finding true love

Essays, History, Intellicurean.com, Science

OTHER THAN LIFE ITSELF

October 19, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

Your nose can tell a molecule from its mirror image, and life builds its proteins and genes from one form alone. No one knows why. This year’s chemistry prize went in part for a sealed flask that does much the same, and the Academy wrote: “Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat.”

Other Than Life Itself — a clear, lopsided crystal on black glass, lit amber by a thin yellow beam, above its own cooler mirror image, with a robotic lab blurred in the darkness behind — One hand lit, its mirror twin left cold, made for the essay.

Why we’re pointing you there

On October 7 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the chemistry prize to Henri Kagan, 95, and Kenso Soai, 76, for work on how a slight preference for one mirror image can grow. Intellicurean takes the Academy’s most generous sentence at its word and follows the flask back to where the story starts: wine diamonds under a cork, stray crystals in the vats of an acid works in Alsace, and Louis Pasteur in 1848 sorting crystals into left and right by eye, then repeating it for the old physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot in Biot’s own rooms. From there it moves through Kagan’s “marriage,” in which a deliberately flawed catalyst does better than anyone expected because mismatched pairs sit out; a flask that existed only on paper in 1953; Soai’s thirty-seven sealed flasks, started with nothing one-handed, that came out eighteen one way and nineteen the other; and a stone that fell near Murchison, in Victoria, in 1969, carrying amino acids that lean.

What we liked most is how the essay resists both temptations of its subject. It never lets the flask stand in for how life did it, which the committee itself is careful to say it isn’t, and it never lets the mystery go soft: it says plainly that an amplifier “makes a cause indistinguishable from an accident.” It is also a story full of people, from Biot taking the young Pasteur by the arm to a laureate who heard the news while out shopping and spoke first of Pasteur. Where the essay turns the Academy’s compliment around, and what it makes of the stone, we’ll leave to the essay.

A still life on a worn oak table: green grapes and an autumn vine leaf on a pewter plate; a sealed round glass flask of clear liquid that shows the grapes upside down; a black meteorite fragment on a nest of hay. A cork, a sprig of mint and caraway seeds lie in front. — Grapes, a sealed flask, and a stone that arrived leaning, made for the essay.

Read the full essay at Intellicurean →

Essays & Reviews for the Intellectually Curious

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 16, 2026

October 14, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘CLASS ACTION’ – Why French students have taken to the streets…

France has been rocked by huge youth protests in recent weeks over the state of high school education, bringing tens of thousands of people on to the streets.

The movement began with outrage over shoddy school conditions in a Paris banlieue, but has spread across the country as pupils voice their anger about a system they say is failing them.

For this week’s big story, Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis hears from protesters who feel abandoned by the French state. Angelique also looks at the evidence on students’ complaints of dilapidated buildings, teacher shortages, inequality and low investment.

Then, Alexander Hurst says fixing the broken education system should be just the start for an aloof political class if it is to finally pay attention to a generation who feel neglected.

Spotlight | The future of the death penalty
Donald Trump has used the full might of the presidency to supercharge executions but, writes Ed Pilkington, an avalanche of mishaps has put the system’s flaws in the spotlight

Science | Sweet time
A flurry of recent studies suggests that spending the first 1,000 days of life under sugar rationing may have left traces on people’s health more than seven decades later. Linda Geddes reports

Feature | The art of dismantling a second world war bomb
British bomb disposal squads are being called to more unexploded devices than ever – and they risk their lives each time. Samira Shackle recounts the challenge they faced when two bombs were discovered on the same day

Opinion | A new era of instability
The latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia may prove to be more calamitous for the region than the world imagines, says Nesrine Malik

Culture | Hungry like the werewolf
Duran Duran talk to Alexis Petridis about 80s excess, tabloid scrutiny and their Halloween glow-up

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 9, 2026

October 7, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘NOT HIS CIRCUS?’ – Why Republicans fear Trump’s rallies could harm not help their midterm chances….

With fewer than 30 days until the US midterm elections, Donald Trump seems determined to still be centre stage despite poll fears that after 3 November he may end up a lame-duck president as a Democratic blue wave sweeps the country. Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has been watching how the president is playing to Republican voters at the start of a blitz of cross-country rallies. It’s, at best, a mixed picture.

As David reports, Trump’s self-belief and message to voters to “pretend” his name is on the ballot reveal a man out of touch with ordinary Americans’ worries about the cost of living and whose promises that the war with Iran will soon be over ring ever more hollow. And then there are the candidates, more of whom are shying away from their earlier allegiances to a president whose approval ratings continue to slide.

Spotlight | An education crisis in France
As school and university protests intensify, Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis finds out why students feel the government is ignoring their complaints about the state of education

Spotlight | Green division and diversion
Peter Walker reports on the English and Welsh Green party’s annual conference in which a motion equating Zionism with racism was passed, and analyses how this reveals weaknesses in the way the party is run

Feature | The big business of porn
Why not analyse the porn industry just like any journalist would the oil business? That was the premise behind Patricia Nilsson’s new book. An approach that, as Amelia Gentleman finds out, yields new insights into how pornography’s imperatives have seeped into all our online lives

Opinion | Putin won’t bomb Ukraine into submission
Kyiv may now be under almost constant attack but, says Rajan Menon, history shows that bombing doesn’t crush morale

Culture | There’s beauty in bits and pieces
A novel exhibition in Florence puts broken sculptures on display and, as Philip Oltermann discovers, reveals their profound allure

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 2, 2026

September 30, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘NOT IN MY BACKYARD’ – The growing global rebellion against datacenters.

As the alarm bells sound ever louder about the potentially existential threat of breakneck AI development, people far removed from Silicon Valley debates about the future of the artificial intelligence revolution are voicing other more immediately tangible worries about the building of the vast datacentres that power these entities.

For this week’s cover story, economics and political writer Eduardo Porter, analyses why communities are pushing back against AI and the future that the big tech plutocrats want to create. These fears, based around environmental concerns over resource use and rapid societal change, are, he argues, far more complex than luddite attitudes or nimbyism.

It’s a position exemplified by reporting from two rural communities in India and the UK where vast datacentres are already under construction or being planned. As Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan find out, the villagers of Tarluvada, in Andhra Pradesh, feel that government promises of a “golden age” that a hyperscale Google datacentre would bring them have been broken. Meanwhile, Sandra Laville meets protesters in Great Torrington, Devon, who sense that they are being kept in the dark about plans for an AI campus, one of Europe’s largest, in a Unesco-designated nature reserve.

Spotlight | Kyiv’s cold front is approaching
Charlotte Higgins reports on how residents are preparing for winter, stocking up on food and determination, as Russia increases its attacks on energy infrastructure

Environment | What Nepal has taught Argentina
What can the Patagonian town of El Chaltén at the foot of the Torre glacier do to avoid an event similar to the disaster in Nepal? María de los Ángeles Orfila finds out

Feature | Andy Burnham: a man with a plan
As the first Labour conference with Andy Burnham as prime minister takes place, Hettie O’Brien finds out just how radical his policies could be

Opinion | Macron’s brave swansong
In his final speech to the UN, Emmanuel Macron told the world how to stand up to Trump, says Steve Bloomfield

Culture | A minimalist at 90
As he prepares to celebrate a milestone birthday, Steve Reich tells Flora Willson how he developed his musical ideas and why he wants others to take up the baton of performing his works

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – SEPTEMBER 25, 2026

September 23, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘A NEW LEAF’ – What does the Canada-EU alliance mean?

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last week extended an unprecedented offer to Canada, inviting it to become the EU’s first “associate member”.

For our big story this week, Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin explores what the proposed alliance might mean. While there is a lot of common ground for the two parties, she writes, their agreement raises many questions and is clouded in uncertainty.

Meanwhile, senior correspondent Lisa O’Carroll examines the possible implications for the UK – asking whether it offers a blueprint for Britain, or a reminder it is out in the cold.

Then, former White House speechwriter Ted Widmer says Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s remarks before the European parliament set out what a new west might look like, without its most powerful member – the US.

Spotlight | Yemeni families’ flight
Fierce fighting has forced people to abandon their homes, leaving everything behind to seek shelter in refugee camps. Nasser Al-Sakkaf reports from Taiz

Science | ‘A map is never neutral’
The cartographers who took on centuries of western bias with the new Equal Earth projection speak to Oliver Holmes, Ana Lucía González Paz and Pablo Gutiérrez about their alternative to the 16th-century Mercator display

Feature | How to fight end times fascism
An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them, say Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Opinion | This Israeli election could be the country’s last
Spend time on the ground and you see how high the stakes are for next month’s contest – for Israelis and Palestinians alike, writes Jonathan Freedland

Culture | Present and correct
Author Jonathan Franzen talks to Sophie McBain about a new TV adaptation of his bestseller The Corrections, the future of reading and why creating new work is “horrible”

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – SEPTEMBER 18, 2026

September 17, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Germany’s Nightmare’ – Can Merz Save His Country Or Himself?

Friedrich Merz is a man with few choices and little popular support as he faces the end of Germany’s postwar settlement and the collapse of all the checks and balances to maintain democratic norms after the second world war and reunification. While Alternative für Deutschland’s success in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt saw the party win 44% of the vote, they are three seats short of a governing majority and, so far, no other party has said they are prepared to work with them, which means that for the moment, at least, the threat of Germany’s first rightwing extremist state government since the Nazi period has not yet come to pass.

As Berlin correspondent Deborah Cole explains, Merz is seen as the wrong man to present and sell a political counterpoint to the AfD’s populist policies. Seen as lacking in empathy and political dexterity, his demeanour is in sharp contrast to Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt. But as Deborah’s Berlin colleague, Kate Connolly, reports, some of Siegmund’s prospective new MPs have questionable backgrounds, including criminal records, Stasi pasts and connections to far-right networks.

Spotlight | Stop, slow down and swerve the apocalypse
Can the world heave a collective sigh of relief after fellow tech bosses heeded a proposal by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s to put the brakes on AI’s headlong rush to over take human intelligence? Nick Robins-Early weighs up our chances

Science | Can I borrow your coyote?
Guardian US reporter Lois Beckett visits a one-of-a-kind California lending library where you can check out taxidermied animals and fossilised dinosaur bones.

Feature | Slime is not as simple as it seems
Scientists are battling to determine whether supposedly simple organisms demonstrate a form of intelligence. If they do, what does it mean for our understanding of brain power, asks Samanth Subramanian

Opinion | Ethics make a return to UK foreign policy
The evidence is Ed Miliband’s bold decision to label settler violence in the West Bank as “ethnic cleansing” and institute a boycott, argues Steve Bloomfield

Culture | Shear fun
Catherine Shoard is rounded up for a trip down to Mossy Bottom farm to get a behind-the-scenes preview of the latest Shaun the Sheep film

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – SEPTEMBER 11, 2026

September 9, 2026 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘A Season In Hell’ – Tourism on a heating planet.

California’s Big Sur coastline is often called a slice of heaven. But this year – beset by wildfires, road closures and disruptions to tourist amenities – it has endured a long summer of hell. Now questions are being asked about how many visitors it can sustain in the face of the climate crisis.

For our big story this week, Andrew Gumbel visits Big Sur, where the tourist industry accounts for about 90% of the local economy, to hear why the community fears its ethos is under threat.

The UN has warned that the El Niño climate phenomenon is “supersizing before our eyes”. Environment editor Damien Carrington reports on the latest forecasts, which predict the event is near certain to shatter temperature records.

Then, the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix write about how their cities are learning from each other on responding to the heat crisis. “How do you protect millions of people,” they ask, “when extreme heat is no longer an exceptional event, but an increasingly familiar part of summer?”

Spotlight | ‘It breaks my heart’
Kate Connolly reports from Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, where voters are digesting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland’s state election triumph

Science | Forbidden planet
Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting the decision – and they’re only getting more passionate, writes Tim Dowling

Feature | Your lying AIs
LLMs have an alarming tendency to deceive and manipulate their users. As they become ever more embedded in society, the race is on to find out why – and stop them doing it. Snigdha Poonam explains

Opinion | The route to a brighter future
The world is being driven to the brink by thugs and dictators, says Simon Tisdall, but ordinary people have more power than we think

Culture | A stitch up
As the Bayeux tapestry goes on show in London, cartoonist Edith Pritchett offers an alternative 21st century take, capturing today’s battles, while art critic Jonathan Jones reviews the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition of the original masterpiece