Guardian Weekly 20 May 2022

Abortion rights supporters hold up images of conservative US supreme court justices at a rally in New York City. Pro-choice supporters held marches around the country urging lawmakers to affirm abortion rights into law after a leaked draft from the US supreme court exposed a potential decision to overturn Roe v Wade. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 206 | Issue № 21 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…

At last year’s Cop26 conference, when nations grappled with closing the gap between emissions and targets to limit global heating to 1.5C, one key variable was unclear. Major oil and gas firms had numerous large-scale extraction projects planned or under way, but measurable data on the problem was not available. So, with several other journalists, the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, set about finding it. There simply wasn’t room to fit all of his remarkably detailed investigation into this week’s magazine but you can find much more from the carbon bombs series on our website, detailing the impacts from Australia to the US. The big story Page 10 → Another mass shooting shook the US this week, made all the more shocking by the gunman’s openly racist motives. Edward Helmore finds grief…

1 UNITED STATES Covid deaths hit 1m, making it highest toll in the world More than 1 million people have died in the Covid pandemic in the US, according to Johns Hopkins, far and away the most deaths of any country. While the sheer number of deaths from the coronavirus sets the US apart, the country’s large population of 332.5 million people does not explain the staggering mortality rate. For every 100,000 residents, 291 have died from Covid, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. Among the 20 worst affected nations, only two other countries – Brazil and Poland – have higher mortality rates per 100,000 people. Deaths directly attributable to Covid are only one measure of the pandemic’s toll. Deaths from drug overdoses hit a record high in 2021, killing at…

Leonid Kravchuk First president of Ukraine from 1991-94 who relinquished his country’s Soviet nuclear arsenal, the third-largest in the world. He died on 10 May, aged 88. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan President of the United Arab Emirates who oversaw the country’s rapid economic growth and whose name was immortalised on the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. He died on 13 May, aged 73. Andrew Symonds Former Australian Test cricketer and two-time World Cup winner. He died in a car crash on 14 May, aged 46. Shivkumar Sharma Virtuoso instrumentalist and composer who introduced the santoor to Indian classical music. He died on 10 May, aged 84. Midge Decter Pioneer of the US neoconservative movement from the 1970s onwards. She died on 9 May, aged 94.…

SPACE Supermassive black hole at heart of Milky Way captured An image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way has been captured, giving the first direct glimpse of the turbulent heart of our galaxy. The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, cannot be seen because no light or matter can escape its gravitational grip. But its shadow is traced out by a ring of light and matter swirling on the precipice at close to the speed of light The image was captured by the Event Horizon telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes sited from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, which produced the first image of a black hole in 2019. Prof Sera Markoff, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam and co-chair of the EHT Science Council, said:…

NORTHERN IRELAND Plan to shed parts of protocol is insurance – PM Boris Johnson said a legal move to ditch parts of the Northern Ireland protocol was only an “insurance” policy, as it emerged that the controversial legislation has been delayed for some weeks. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, was this week expected to threaten to bring forward the draft legislation. She has prepared a bill giving the government the right to suspend elements of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland, a move which the EU has warned could spark a trade war. Measures are expected to include a new “green lane” for goods for sale only in Northern Ireland and stronger penalties for those smuggling into the EU via the Republic. However, the timetable for the draft laws has slipped, with the…