Think what you will about Donald Trump; no one can deny his flair. Take, for example, a segment of his State of the Union speech earlier this year. “I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle,” Trump said. “If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
At the end of 2025, Patrick Wintour wrote a compelling essay for Guardian Weekly in which he described an interregnum in global history, where the rules-based order had been eroded and great powers once again jostled for control and influence.
This week’s edition sees Patrick return to a key aspect of that theme, the deteriorating global standing of the United States after a period of high-stakes brinkmanship with Iran. Donald Trump’s aborted threat that Iranian civilisation would “die … never to be brought back” unless it ceded to his demands exposed the limits of his apocalyptic foreign policy. It also pointed to the wider decline of American influence in a world where the US appears untrustworthy and strategically isolated.
Spotlight | Hungary’s new dawn After 16 years, Viktor Orbán’s populist grip on the country’s politics is over. But will his successor Péter Magyar be much different? Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi report amid jubilant scenes in Budapest
Science | The man who was bitten by snakes 200 times – on purpose Tim Friede put his “ass on the line” to help stop snakebite deaths – whose numbers appear to be rising amid the climate crisis. Oliver Milman met him
Feature | The brutal reality of life as a foreign student in the UK Universities in Britain rely on overseas applicants paying full fees, which has given rise to some unscrupulous recruiters and left many hopefuls and their families deep in debt. Samira Shackle investigates
Opinion | Netanyahu-ism has achieved nothing for Israelis It is the voting public in Israel that will settle their PM’s fate later this year. But, argues Jonathan Freedland, all they have heard are promises of “total victory” that prove to be hollow
Culture | Jim Jarmusch, the darling of indie cinema The 73-year-old has been at the cutting edge of US independent movies since the 1980s. As Father Mother Sister Brother opens in the UK, he tells Amy Raphael about grief, greed and “doing crazy shit” with Steve Coogan
An irony of Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power in Hungary is that his Fidesz movement was originally founded by pro-democracy, change-seeking young voters, even initially requiring members to be below the age of 35.
Now, in a crossroads election on 12 April, a new generation of Hungarians may be on the cusp of removing the rightwing populist prime minister, much to the dismay of his admirers in Moscow, Washington and Europe’s populist movements.
Orbán may have once described Hungary as “a petri dish for illiberalism” – as reflected by Harry Haysom’s cover art for us this week – but polls suggest his opponent Péter Magyar, a former top member of Fidesz who favours a closer relationship with the EU, could be the new change agent.
Spotlight | Was Trump conned by Netanyahu’s promise of an easy war? Senior US officials now consider the Israel PM’s pitch to have been overblown, creating potentially far-reaching consequences for both countries, writes Peter Beaumont
Science | The 21st-century moon prospectors Helium-3 is so rare that a palm-sized amount could be worth millions. As Artemis II flies by the moon and businesses look to the skies, is mining Earth’s satellite ethical? Oliver Holmes investigates
Feature | Can the UK’s cargo theft crisis be stopped? It costs the UK economy £700m ($920m) a year, and criminal gangs are operating with near impunity. Every time a lorry gets robbed, raided or hijacked, it’s Mike Dawber who investigates. ByStuart McGurk
Opinion | Ten years after Brexit, Trump is pushing Britain back towards the EU It’s the silver lining from this terrible age of Donald Trump, argues Gaby Hinsliff: his disdain and insults are fuelling the belief that the UK should renew ties with Europe
Culture | James McAvoy, froma Glasgow council estate to Hollywood stardom In his directorial debut, the X-Men actor is challenging stereotypes about his Scottish homeland via the remarkable tale of a real-life hip-hop hoax. Libby Brooks met him
As US troops flock to danger, Donald Trump seeks ways to disentangle himself from the war on Iran. “We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” he said in a 19-minute address at the start of the month. “It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective.”
The West’s technology brains and universities are arming China. A few of them are potentially breaking the law to do it, but most of them don’t need to. The front door has been open for years, and nobody in London or Washington has thought to close it.
It was, on the surface, a fairly routine proposal. Officials from the BRICS nations, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have decided to discuss, at a summit in New Delhi later this year, how to deepen trade and collaboration. No one was paying very much attention when the decision was made. And yet, according to a report in the well-informed newspaper Berliner Zeitung, a resolution was quietly suggested that might turn the global monetary system upside down. It was the start of what might be termed the “plot against the dollar.” America’s currency is likely to face its most serious challenge of the post-World War Two era.
Nasa’s moon mission has captured a view immortalised by Apollo astronauts in 1968, but its quest to beat China to the lunar surface is now under threat from Trump By Giles Whittell
White House chaos intensifies after Iran downs two US warplanes
Desperate search for missing US pilot caps a week of confusion for the president as he loses his grip on the conflict
‘Forty-eight hours before all hell will rain down’: Trump warns Iran over Hormuz
As the US president ups the ante, allies discuss using minesweepers to clear the strait and Tehran imposes new transit fees on shipping
In a landmark case, a California jury last week found social media companies Meta and YouTube liable for deliberately designing addictive products. The ruling came the day after Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was ordered to pay $375m after a jury in a separate trial in New Mexico found it misled consumers about the safety of its platforms.
Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, while governments around the world are starting to introduce measures to curb social media’s grip on children’s attention.
Guardian technology editors Dan Milmo and Robert Booth assess whether what has been called a “big tobacco” moment for the industry will lead to significant change. And in our opinion section, Jonathan Freedland argues that the court verdicts must be just the start of a global fightback.
The big story | A war of regression Weeks into a war that was going to take days and has cost billions, Donald Trump has bombed the US into a worse position with Iran, writes Patrick Wintour
Science | ‘On the shoulders of giants’ Plant specimens and teaching materials that inspired Charles Darwin have been unearthed and will be used for the first time to teach contemporary students about botany, Donna Ferguson reports
Feature | Circuit training After touring 11 Chinese companies making humanoid robots, Chang Che asks: just how close are we to a robotic future?
Opinion | Labour needs a thinker Ed Miliband’s stock is rising in a party in need of an old-style intellectual heavyweight, argues Gaby Hinsliff
Culture | Gimme shelter Catherine Slessor visits Henry Moore’s former countryside home Hoglands, now home to studios and a vast sculpture garden, to learn about a new exhibition of the drawings he made as a war artist, capturing people as they took sanctuary from the blitz
Brinkmanship, the ability to take countries to the edge of conflict, was a staple of cold war diplomacy. The remnants of that finely balanced standoff, bound by a rules-based order and spheres of influence, has given way to a world in freefall; to an ever-widening war in the Gulf where the aims are as unclear as the endpoint.
It is approaching a month since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, arguing they were acting to remove the country’s nuclear threat, destroy its ballistic missile capability and free the populace of a tyrannical theocratic regime. Yet it seems it is these civilians and neighbouring Gulf countries who are bearing the brunt of the campaign while the Iranian regime’s willingness to escalate the war seems undimmed.
Spotlight | The ‘anyone but’ election Pippa Crerar looks ahead to local elections in the UK, where voters seem more concerned with who they want to keep out of political office than who they vote in
Science | Not-so silent nights Can a “vacuum cleaner turned the other way” become a popular solution to snoring disorders? Natasha May explores the rise of Cpap machines
Feature | Gamifying government Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture, Elon Musk’s Doge team set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people, write Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian
Opinion | Collateral damage Attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops in the UK, Europe and the US don’t hurt Benjamin Netanyahu, says Jonathan Freedland, they just hurt ordinary Jews
Culture | Rock return “Validation was an insatiable monster”: Dave Grohl talks to Ben Beaumont-Thomas about Foo Fighters, life after his infidelity and grief for bandmate Taylor Hawkins
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
