Table of contents for 27 March 2026 in Guardian Weekly

1 UNITED STATES Trump’s productive talks claim denied by Tehran Donald Trump claimed on Monday that talks between the US and Iran had seen “major points of agreement”. However, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said no talks had been held with the US since the bombing campaign began on 28 February. Trump played up the chances of a deal, saying: “We’re giving it five days and then we’re going to see where that takes us. And I would say at the end of this period, I think it could very well end up being a very good deal for everybody.” Oman, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan have all been reported to have been involved in efforts to broker an end to hostilities. Trump declined to say with whom the US was speaking in…

Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel and injured many more, including about 200 in strikes near a nuclear facility, but they have not touched public support for the war. An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls. Undaunted by the regular wail of air raid sirens, more than half also wanted the US and Israel to keep bombing Iran until its government falls. Opposition politicians set aside campaigning for parliamentary elections due this autumn, backing the decision to attack Iran in an almost unanimous display of national unity. Enthusiasm for the war sparked speculation inside Israel that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might dissolve parliament…

Local elections are often regarded as a referendum on the sitting government – with many previous administrations taking a bloody nose from the electorate but then successfully fighting back by the next general election. Senior Labour figures have taken to reeling off a list of mid-term results – 1999, 2003, 2012 – to prove that point. “As we get closer to the general election, it will be less about people’s view of the parties generally and more about the choice in front of them,” one said. But even against that backdrop, this May’s local and devolved elections look likely to be a uniquely negative series of contests – in part because Nigel Farage now generates just as much ill feeling across the country as Keir Starmer. While some voters are…

The sound of the scythes wielded by brothers Jorge and Ubirajara Cardia breaks the silence in the hills of Vargem Grande, in the south-west zone of Rio de Janeiro city. Members of the quilombola population from the Cafundá Astrogilda community, they harvest bananas the same way their ancestors used to. Every week, they select the bunches of prata, maçã, and Cavendish bananas, cut them down and, on the back of their mules, go down the hillside with the newly harvested crop. They travel about 5km along paths first opened by the Indigenous Tupinambá people and enslaved workers of African descent. The abundant banana groves cultivated by quilombola communities and traditional farmers are part of the designated Pedra Branca state park conservation area. There, the banana-growing tradition guarantees more than financial…

In the north of Kolkata, near Dum Dum Junction, Subimal Das and his staff of 80 work from an old factory-warehouse. Using clay, fibreglass and silicone, they construct extraordinary lifesize replicas of religious icons, cultural figures, cricketers and Bollywood stars. But the workshop also has a popular new line: custom-made 30kg replicas of the dead, commissioned by family and loved ones. Widows or widowers are the most common customers at Subi Creative House. They order their dead wife or husband by handing over a photograph to Das and his team. Several months later, they take the replica home. Among the replicas in the workshop is Mr S Roy of Ranaghat, the city famous for its flowers, in West Bengal. He sits in a chair, dressed in checked shirt and slacks,…

It was a gift to conspiracy theorists. Last week, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency registered the alien.gov and aliens.gov web domains, adding both to the official government website registry. But the move also comes at a time when official US government interest in UFOs – or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – has never been higher and is firmly rooted in fears over national security in the age of drones, terrorism and international conflict. The registrations were logged just a month after Donald Trump pledged to release UFO-related files in the US government’s possession. They also follow multiple congressional hearings and reports on the issue of UAPs in the past few years, most of which have dismissed evidence of alien activity – but which have also tantalisingly left some…

Let us begin with a brief exchange on GB News, confirmed last week as the TV arm of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. After an attack on a synagogue this month in Michigan, in which a gunman drove a car packed with explosives through the entrance to the building before opening fire, a pundit on the channel sought to clarify what the attacker actually meant by his actions. “ This was an Israeli temple, ” she explained. “ It was aligned with Israel. ” By way of evidence, she cited the name of the synagogue – Temple Israel – apparently unaware that Jews have referred to themselves as “the people of Israel” for millennia, long before there was a state of that name, and that there are countless synagogues in the…

The Greek name for this southernmost tip of the Peloponnese is linked to a Byzantine fort at Cape Tigani (called Megali Maina), but it may well also draw on the region’s desolate, rocky country that persists throughout the entire peninsula. The fierce Maniot people were well described by Patrick Leigh Fermor in his book Mani (1958), but the region has been more recently celebrated in Charles Foster’s brilliant The Edges of the World, published in January. In history the Mani was known for the relentless vendettas between its clans, as a fertile recruiting ground for piracy and as an early outpost for Greek liberation from Ottoman rule. What a reputation for violence and heat cannot easily conjure is the Mani’s spring flowers of astonishing richness. The ancient field system of…

UK NEWS Security agencies probe London ambulance arson Security agencies were investigating whether a group linked to Iran is behind an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in north London. The Metropolitan police said efforts to authenticate a claim of responsibility made by a group known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) were a priority as they sought to track three hooded people caught on CCTV at the scene. Officers were called to Highfield Road, in Golders Green, at about 1.45am on Monday after reports of ambulances on fire near the Machzike Hadath synagogue. A member of the synagogue’s leadership team said CCTV footage showed three people placing rags at “strategic points on the ambulances”. The attack took place in an area of London that has…

Lebanese healthcare workers and officials say Israeli bombings have deliberately targeted medical workers and facilities in south Lebanon, including through the use of double-tap strikes, in what they describe as a systematic effort to make the area unlivable. Since the war began on 2 March, Israel has struck at least 128 medical facilities and ambulances across south Lebanon, killing 40 healthcare workers and wounding 107, according to the Lebanese ministry of health. The war started when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel, triggering an Israeli military campaign. Most of the strikes on medics happened while they were sitting in ambulances or at first aid centres, several of which have been destroyed in south Lebanon. Israel has also carried out at least five double-tap strikes, a tactic in which an initial strike…

France’s local elections, closely watched for clues to next year’s presidential vote, have given parties of the centre a welcome and unexpected lift as the far right and radical left fell some way short of their ambitions. The 35,000 municipal ballots do not always reflect national voting patterns, but they do show trends in popularity and suggest what kind of alliances can be struck. The far-right National Rally (RN), either of whose likely candidates in 2027 – Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen – is seen as clear favourite to succeed Emmanuel Macron, multiplied its number of councillors by 13 in the second-round vote. The party held on to Perpignan and captured other southern towns including Carcassonne, Menton and Cannes. It also claimed victory in France’s resolutely conservative fifth city,…

When Nick went camping in the summer with friends, he would set up his tent 100 metres away from the group. “It became a bit that I did,” he said. As early as his teenage years, he learned to use humour to cope with what was immediately a social problem: the “cacophony” of his snoring. It wasn’t until 2019, at 37 years of age, that he learned it was also a medical problem. When a visit to the doctor revealed an “alarming” blood pressure number, despite his active life and healthy diet, Nick began to connect the dots with other symptoms he had been experiencing including frequent “uncontrollable” daytime tiredness, which led to microsleeps in meetings and on public transport. When Nick, who requested his first name only be used,…

IN 2025, WHEN ELON MUSK JOINED THE GOVERNMENT AS THE DE FACTO HEAD of something called the “department of government efficiency”, he declared that governments were poorly configured “big dumb machines”. To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that “the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers”. Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding…

Some things are easy to talk about; infertility is not one of them. I speak from experience – of miscarriage and unsuccessful rounds of IVF – and I’ve heard some clangers along the way. I forgive you all. Well, most of you. But I also come at it as the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Three decades into live talk radio, I listen for a living. I’m adept at noticing micro-expressions, the pauses, the shifts in tone, the feelings that sit between the words on and off air. And I keep wondering: why are we so bad at talking about infertility? This is even something that, until now, I haven’t spoken publicly about. Perhaps it’s because we still live in a society in which motherhood is, for many,…

Think the unthinkable and pull out of World Cup Now, with unthinkable atrocities in Iran and the Middle East, it is time to think the unthinkable: let’s boycott the 2026 Fifa World Cup (Beyond the strait, Big story, 20 March). The US, the main host nation, flagrantly broke international law to bomb another participant country and will not guarantee the safety of Iran’s players. The US leadership crows about indiscriminate bombing, and deliberately killing the Ayatollah. Carrying out planned killing is murder. Fifa debarred Russia from participating in world football for much less. In the US’s case, there is much more. It recently kidnapped Venezuela’s president (another violation of international law), carries out extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean (violating international and common law) and actively supported genocide in Gaza (I…

I saw an influencer advocating for titanium chopping boards. Are they really the way to go? If not, which material is best? My wooden one has some black mould. Lenka, by email “From the off, no!” says Itamar Srulovich, whose latest cookbook, Honey & Co Daily, co-authored with Sarit Packer, is published in May. “The technology of chopping boards works, it’s bulletproof – this is a crime against humanity.” Sam Clark, co-founder of London’s Moro and Morito, couldn’t agree more: “The idea of chopping on a titanium board, with metal against metal, sends shivers down my spine.” Of course, the surface on which you choose to chop will impact your knife, and Milli Taylor, who is behind the When in Rome Substack, “couldn’t imagine anything worse than titanium”. As Hugo…

* All solutions published next week Across 7 Promise of place with slight advantage (6)  8 Recital changed to incorporate new instrument (8)  9 Stable about to take on one horse (8) 10 Group of houses close to off-licence, say (6) 11 Act more recklessly and act in a perplexing manner (8) 12 A selfish desire? No argument there! (6) 13 Clear reorganisation of field events (4-7) 18 Little kid suppresses surprising cry as well (2,4) 20 Backlash concerning director’s call? (8) 22 Weightlifting move is strenuous to begin with, of course! (6) 23 Reserve money for summer treat (3,5) 24 Final destination of reconstructed tramline (8) 25 On regular occasions, situations lead to sticky spots (6) Down 1 Disorderly mess left inside sailing boat (7) 2 British singer accepting…

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Israel’s decision to authorise its military to kill any senior Iranian official on its assassination list has raised significant new questions about its so-called decapitation strategy and what it is intended to achieve. Privately, Israeli officials have briefed their US counterparts that in the event of an uprising, Iran’s opposition would be “slaughtered”. That appears to be at odds with Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy to pursue regime change by targeting senior figures in Iran’s political and security apparatus. Even before the outbreak of full-scale war, however, Iran experts and analysts – and some former Israeli officials – were sceptical that Iran’s clerical regime could be toppled by such strikes, which have killed the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the security chief Ali Larijani and the intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, among others. Unfortunately…

The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate. Analysis of the cost of the first 14 days of the conflict found it led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined. “Every missile strike is another downpayment on a hotter, more unstable planet, and none of it makes anyone safer,” said Patrick Bigger, a research director at the Climate and Community Institute and a co-author of the analysis, shared exclusively with the Guardian. Destroyed buildings constitute the largest element of the estimated carbon cost. Based on reports by the Iranian Red Crescent humanitarian organisation that about 20,000 civilian buildings have been damaged, the analysis estimates the total emissions from this sector to be 2.4m tonnes of CO2 equivalent…

For years, Ilya Remeslo was a reliable pro-Kremlin operator, going after critics of the regime and smearing independent journalists, bloggers and opposition politicians. Then the 42-year-old lawyer abruptly turned on the country’s most powerful man. Late last Tuesday, Remeslo posted a manifesto to his 90,000 Telegram followers titled: “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” In it, he accused the “illegitimate” Russian president of waging a “failing war” in Ukraine that had caused millions of casualties and wrecked the economy, and argued that Putin’s more than two decades in power illustrated how “absolute power corrupts”, calling on him to step aside. Doubling down on his earlier remarks, Remeslo told the Guardian last Wednesday from his flat in St Petersburg: “Vladimir Putin should resign and be put on trial as…

A decommissioned coalmine near the north pole is the last place you’d expect to find Indigenous stories from rural Nigeria, but deep below the Arctic permafrost of Svalbard a storage unit contains cultural and literary records from the West African country. The Arctic World Archive (AWA) is a data storage unit where organisations and individuals can deposit records kept on specialist digitised film called Piql that lasts up to 2,000 years. Late last month, Nigeria became the first African country to place archives at the facility 300 metres beneath a mountain where the cold, dark, dry conditions are perfect for preservation. Inspired by the Svalbard global seed vault, a collection of more than a million seed samples stored as an insurance policy against catastrophe, AWA was established to hold the…

After decades of underinvestment, the Canadian government is turning its attention to its Arctic region. The territory, almost entirely lacking roads, ports and power sources, is rich in mining potential but suddenly feeling vulnerable following provocations by the Trump administration. In June, Ottawa passed a “nation building” bill meant to cushion the effects of Donald Trump’s tariffs by drumming up jobs and investment with fast-tracked construction projects. “We can give ourselves far more than any foreign government can take away,” said the then newly elected prime minister, Mark Carney. The hard part is knowing how to build strategically. The region is about six times the size of Texas, yet is home to only about 150,000 people. “The hope is that [the Arctic territories] will be brought into Canada … just…

AS NIGHT DESCENDS ON THE GRAND OFFICES OF LINCOLNSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL, everything appears calm. Paintings of long-forgotten councillors stare out into an empty drawing room. The council chamber is silent and dark. Bored receptionists glance at their phones while a handful of admin staff hunch over glowing screens. But a rebellion is brewing in the office of the council leader, Sean Matthews, who took charge last May, when Reform replaced the Conservative old guard. The affable former royal protection officer is plotting an apparently radical campaign of civil disobedience against a series of giant solar farms planned for Lincolnshire. Despite a quarter of a century in the Metropolitan police, Matthews is willing to break the law to stop solar developers. He is planning to lie down in front of the…

The war on Iran, even as it spreads and destabilises the Middle East and the global economy, is not real. This is how it is being portrayed by the Trump administration. The war is a video game, a spectator sport, a social media festival of dunking. The architects of this war have made a virtue out of stupidity, and have been supported in that by a stupefying information ecosystem. The conflict waged by the US feels like the first of its kind in the modern age: distinctly remote and profoundly ignorant. A week into the war, the White House uploaded a clip on its social media channels featuring montages of Top Gun, Braveheart and Breaking Bad, with the caption “J ustice the American way” – itself a repurposing of a…

When was the last time you raced against an unforgiving clock? Perhaps you skipped breakfast, broke a sweat, shelled out for a taxi or missed time with your family. Many of us have become slaves to time, with huge portions of our day spent chasing appointments and deadlines. But what is this thing we’re trying to beat? We tend to imagine time as incessant and non-negotiable, ticking by somewhere out in the world, impossible to slow or stop. Yet an emerging scientific picture is that such “clock time” isn’t a standalone, physical phenomenon at all. It’s a mathematical tool or bookkeeping device – useful for coordinating our interactions, but with no independent existence of its own. As with other key innovations, such as money, we can no longer get by…

Across 1 Jersey (6)  4 Hatter (anag.) (6) 8 Gut part – mark (5)  9 Bit of gravy (7) 10 Blocking from sun (7)  11 Panache (5) 12 Dry solute (anag.) – erratic – hasty (9) 17 From a Midwest state (5) 19 Illuminated from behind (7)  21 Bird rising again after destruction (7) 22 Corridor – passageway (5) 23 Government (6)  24 Computer shooter? (6) Down 1 Humorous (6) 2 Duck (7) 3 Boredom (5)  5 Eviction (5-2) 6 Match (5) 7 XX (6) 9 TV (6-3) 13 Thesaurus word (7) 14 Yellow bag (4,3) 15 Toothed device in N America (6) 16 Master (anag.) (6) 18 Misdeed (5) 20 Abrade (5) Solution No 17,423…