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Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 30, 2026

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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

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Opinion, Reviews

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS – NOVEMBER 5, 2026 PREVIEW

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LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features  Fanny Howe’s Disobedience by Maureen N. McLane; Democrats in Detroit by James Meek; and Rosa Lyster rides to Bayreuth….

Democrats in Detroit

‘To win the Senate, the Democrats need to hold on to the one Michigan seat (out of two) that is up for grabs, and have chosen a new candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, a moderate leftist in European terms, a “communist loser who hates Jews and Israel” according to Trump, “very, very evil”, per J.D. Vance.’ By James Meek

Is curiosity good for us?

‘The superego – and its precursor, conscience – refers to the part of us that has no curiosity about ourselves. It’s the saboteur of curiosity about ourselves. And that part of us, like a narrow-minded fascist, has only one project: to destroy our pleasures in being alive by trying to kill our curiosity (or by making us frightened of our curiosity, which amounts to the same thing).’ By Adam Phillips

Death by Algorithm

Eyal Weizman on NAZA

‘Israel’s automated targeting system allows for the responsibility for “industrialised annihilation” to be shared between coders, operators, legal officers who pre-set the level of collateral damage, officers who approve the strike, officers who choose the bomb and the pilots or drone operators who launch it. “I am just a small screw in the system,” one of the interviewees says, quoting Eichmann’s defence during his trial in Jerusalem. The system that begins with a phone number being put into a computer system ends with an entire family crushed under the rubble.’

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 23, 2026

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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

Culture, Essays, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

HARPER’S MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 2026

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HARPER’S MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘WHY SOCIAL MEDIA BANS FAIL’, contemporary regulatory, ideological, and cultural shifts by featuring Oscar Schwartz’s investigative report on the making of Australia’s social-media restrictions, Jackson Lears’s historical essay advocating for a return to the nation’s foundational anti-imperialist principles, Sam Kestenbaum’s miscellany piece examining the intersection of artificial intelligence and spirituality at the dawn of a large language model New Age, a retrospective commemorating seventy years of bad taste at the Eurovision Song Contest, and a critical evaluation of Cormac McCarthy’s furious eloquence.

Save the Children

The making of Australia’s social-­media ban by Oscar Schwartz

When I arrived last September at Northcote High, a public school perched on the grassy banks of Melbourne’s Merri Creek, I was surprised by how little had changed in the twenty years since I’d graduated from a high school nearby. The scene was intensely familiar: The girls with their long ponytails, hunched together in tight semicircles of avid conversation. The boys with their pimply faces, kicking balls or slouching against redbrick walls, their hands thrust deep into their pockets. The occasional shrieks, the awkward glances, the sexual frustration, the dim threat of violence—it was all the same.

The Founders’ Nightmare

Recovering America’s anti-imperialist roots by Jackson Lears

For many of the Founders of the American republic, the worst fate imaginable for the state they were envisioning was for it to become an empire. Republics and empires were fundamentally incompatible, they believed. Opposition to empire, in fact, was the keystone of their thought—but one would never know that from the hoopla surrounding America’s two-hundred-fiftieth birthday. The occasion provides an opportunity to celebrate the Founders’ ingenuity in fashioning a system of checks and balances and their audacity in claiming a universal right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in 1776—as well as to condemn their hypocrisy, especially with regard to racial equality. But in all the tumult of commemoration, rarely, if at all, have we heard of the Founders’ anti-imperialism.

Communion of Saints

The dawn of an LLM New Age by Sam Kestenbaum

Onstage before us is a man dressed in baggy raver pants, his blond hair slicked back. He has just sauntered in, waving, smiling, greeting the crowd of several hundred, and now stands in front of a dark-purple curtain that undulates in the air-conditioning. He settles into his seat and prepares to address the topic of today’s panel: artificial intelligence and the future of humanity.

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 16, 2026

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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

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Opinion, Reviews

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS – OCTOBER 22, 2026 PREVIEW

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LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features  Fredric the Great by Toril Moi; Trump’s Consigliere by Deborah Friedell; Prediction Markets by Geoff Mann; Prynne’s People by Iain Sinclair; and Theibaud’s Sweet Tooth by Paul Keegan….

Fredric the Great

Toril Moi

Fredric Jameson seemed to me to have read absolutely everything. He was the very antithesis of the intellectual type I think of as an empty theoriser, by which I mean someone who endlessly conjectures without having a genuine command of any relevant archive. To look at Fred as a reader of literature is not to reduce the scope of his work, but rather to try to understand its origins.

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 9, 2026

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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

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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

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Opinion, Reviews

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS – OCTOBER 8, 2026 PREVIEW

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LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features major critical reviews and essays spanning Soviet history, geopolitical war gaming, 20th-century literary figures, and avant-garde art.

History & Geopolitics

  • Sheila Fitzpatrick on Stalinism: Fitzpatrick examines Irina Paperno’s Always under Siege: Olga Freidenberg’s Diary-Theory and the Everyday Terror of Stalinism, analyzing how classicist Olga Freidenberg’s secret writings framed the Siege of Leningrad and Soviet surveillance as a totalizing domestic regime.
  • Tom Stevenson on NATO and Russia: Stevenson reviews Carlo Masala’s If Russia Wins: A Scenario and Thomas Newman and John Pierson’s Atlantic Resolve: The War for Estonia, analyzing contemporary Western military simulations and anxieties regarding Baltic security.

Literary Studies & Biography

  • Edmund Gordon on William Golding: Reviewing William Golding: The Faber Letters edited by Tim Kendall, Gordon details the editorial tensions between Golding and Charles Monteith, focusing on substantial cuts to the original draft of Lord of the Flies.
  • Freya Johnston on Alexander Pope: Johnston explores Henry Power’s edition of Alexander Pope: The Major Works, charting the Augustan poet’s biting satire, anxieties, and self-fashioning.
  • Ian Penman on Anthony Burgess: Penman re-evaluates Burgess’s 1966 espionage satire Tremor of Intent, dissecting its baroque style and its uneasy relationship with James Bond.

Art & Culture

Columns and Short Cuts: Additional pieces include Peter Geoghegan on democratic funding reform and Blake Morrison on Luke Kennard’s poetry collection Black Bag.

Em Hogan on Hujar and Thek: Hogan reviews Andrew Durbin’s dual biography The Wonderful World that Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, profiling the turbulent lives of the photographer and artist against 1960s–1980s New York and the onset of the AIDS crisis.

Dexter Dalwood on Jasper Johns: Dalwood contributes a review of Johns’s exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao, evaluating his enduring postwar artistic motifs and printmaking legacy.

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – SEPTEMBER 25, 2026

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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”