Guardian Weekly 24 June 2022

Zoe Poulis, of Australia, competes in the artistic women’s solo free preliminaries at the swimming world championships in Budapest. The competition took place amid a row about the sport’s governing body, Fina, having voted to bar transgender women from elite female competition. Spotlight, Page 20 → The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 206 | Issue Nº26 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian and Observer newspapers in the UK and the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia. The weekly magazine has an international focus and three editions: global, 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 of the public…

In Delhi, temperatures have reached 42C or higher on 25 separate days since summer began. Spain had its hottest May in 58 years, with temperatures of 43C. And in Phoenix, US, the temperature didn’t drop below 27C for two weeks. Around the world, climate change is making heatwaves hotter and last for longer – and not just in places where you’d traditionally expect high temperatures. In early March, Vostok research station in Antarctica recorded a reading 15C higher than its previous all-time record. For our big story this week, the Guardian and Observer’s environment team report on global heating trends that are beginning to verge on the calamitous. The big story Page 10 → The dreadful news was confirmed last week of the deaths in Brazil of the Guardian contributor Dom Phillips and…

1 COLOMBIA Former guerrilla fighter wins presidential election A former guerrilla fighter, Gustavo Petro, was elected as president, making him Colombia’s first leftist head of state. Petro beat Rodolfo Hernández, a gaffe-prone former mayor of Bucaramanga and business mogul, with 50.47% of the vote in a runoff election last Sunday and will take office in July amid a host of challenges, not least of which is the deepening discontent over inequality and rising cost of living. Hernández gained 47.27%, with almost all ballots counted, according to results released by election authorities. Petro’s election marks a tidal shift for Colombia, the South American country that has never before had a leftist president, and follows similar victories for the left in Peru, Chile and Honduras. “Today is a party for the people,” tweeted the victorious candidate last…

Jean Louis Trintignant Veteran of the French new wave starred in a series of auteur-driven films, before appearing in Michael Haneke’s Amour. He died on 17 June, aged 91. Phil Bennett One of the great Welsh rugby fly-halfs who played for Llanelli and the British Lions. He died on 12 June, aged 73. AB Yehoshua Acclaimed Israeli writer who was a leading member of the activist group Peace Now. He died on 14 June, aged 85. George Lamming Novelist and essayist who made a huge contribution to post-war Caribbean culture. He died on 4 June, aged 94.…

MICRO-BIOLOGY Origin of bubonic plague revealed in graveyards Researchers believe they have solved the nearly 700-year-old mystery of the origins of the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic in recorded history, which swept through Europe, Asia and north Africa in the mid-14th century. “We found the ancestor of the majority of the plague strains that are circulating in the world today,” said Prof Johannes Krause at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. An international team worked on the puzzle after Dr Philip Slavin, a historian at the University of Stirling, discovered evidence for a sudden surge in deaths in the late 1330s at two cemeteries in the north of modern-day Kyrgyzstan. Analysis found that the bacterium responsible was a direct ancestor of the strain that caused the Black Death in Europe eight…

TRANSPORT Biggest rail strike in decades brings disruption Train passengers faced widespread disruption and cancellations as Britain’s biggest nationwide rail strike for 30 years began. Workers responsible for train lines and infrastructure across the UK walked out on Tuesday – with further action on Thursday and Saturday – leaving thousands of services cancelled and passengers forced to seek alternative means of transport. Only about 4,500 of the usual 20,000 daily services were expected to run due to the walkout by 40,000 RMT union members at Network Rail – the organisation that maintains the system – and 13 train operators. Much of Britain was without any passenger trains on the affected days. London Underground workers were also on strike on Tuesday, bringing the capital’s transport system to a halt. Last-ditch talks on Monday failed to…