Table of contents for 17 April 2026 in Guardian Weekly

A resonating reminder Imad Mursi, a Syrian musician, performs a cello rendition of the popular Arab song Mawtini (My Homeland) in the ruins of his friend’s bombed-out home in Damascus, to raise global awareness of the destruction left by the Assad regime and the urgent needs of orphaned children. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 214 | Issue № 16 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The weekly magazine has an international focus and four editions: global, Europe, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in 1919. We exist to hold power to account…

In the public high point of his state visit, Charles III will mount the rostrum in the House of Representatives on 28 April to address a joint session of Congress. Of all the British monarchs in the 250 years since American independence, only Elizabeth II was afforded this rare honour – and her accomplished 1991 performance brought the house down. This time could be more tricky. Times have changed and the biggest change is Donald Trump. He will not be present on Capitol Hill when the king speaks, but his shadow lurks everywhere. Trump will doubtless portray Charles’s attendance at a separate White House state banquet as a royal endorsement of his person and policies. And it is precisely this prospect that has led most people in Britain to oppose…

The astronauts on board Artemis II were “almost poets”, Nasa’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, declared. They were, he said, “ambassadors for humanity” as they became the first humans to travel to the moon and return safely to Earth since 1972 on a mission that broke a distance record. The mood was jubilant as the Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after its 10-day lunar voyage, marking the conclusion of the US space agency’s first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years. Yet even as Integrity, the mission name for the Orion capsule of Artemis II, ascended on 1 April, Donald Trump was announcing his intention to reduce Nasa’s budget by 23%, including a 46% cut for space science initiatives. The crew of four arrived at Ellington…

The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction. Emperor penguins rely on “fast” ice – sea ice that is firmly attached to the coast – for nine months of the year. It is where their fluffy chicks are hatched and grow until they have their waterproof feathers. Adults moult every year and also need a safe haven while their swimming feathers regrow. However, global heating has led to record lows in Antarctic sea ice since 2016. When sea ice breaks up early, entire colonies can fall into the ocean, leaving the chicks to drown. Four of the five known emperor penguin breeding sites…

‘In spite of all we’ve learned about Trump and Musk, Döpfner and others are still true believers’ Matthew Karnitschnig Journalist The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) is surely hoping that Donald Trump will take a more diplomatic tone later this month when he makes his first appearance as president at its glitzy dinner in Washington DC, an annual event meant to honour and celebrate journalists and press freedom. Last week, Trump threatened to imprison a journalist if they refused to reveal the source of information that a second US airman was missing after being shot down by Iran, which he claimed put the service member at risk. The comment shocked watchdogs even at a time when the White House has become increasingly hostile to the media. Some journalists and news organisations…

As we overheat and degrade our planet, more people are set to come into contact, sometimes fatally, with venomous snakes. One man hopes to provide an unusual solution to this, after subjecting himself to 200 intentional snakebites to his body. For nearly 20 years, Tim Friede, 58, allowed some of the most lethal snakes in the world to bite him so he could build up an immunity that could one day be developed into a universal antivenom. This extraordinary and painful quest, undertaken by a window cleaner with no formal scientific training in the basement of his Wisconsin home, nearly killed Friede, almost cost him his leg and his fingers and at one point put him into a coma. “People said I was crazy, of course. Some people tried to…

WHEN SAM STARTED LOOKING INTO STUDYING ABROAD, it didn’t take long for his phone to start ringing. At 24, he was living with his parents in a small city in the eastern Indian state of Odisha and he’d been stuck in an entry-level job for four years. He hoped a master’s degree in the UK might lead to a high-flying finance job in London, or at least give him an edge when he came back home. After filling in a few forms on study abroad websites, Sam soon started receiving calls from unknown numbers. Eventually, he answered one. The person on the phone was an education agent – a recruiter who helps students apply to foreign universities – pitching his services. The offer sounded appealing. The agency would help Sam…

It was the free croissants that gave it away. And the Scandinavian-style furniture. It was different from other nurseries I’d viewed. I was eight months pregnant, on a tour of nurseries in south-east London for my daughter. I didn’t realise that this wasn’t just a nursery, but a prototype for an immense experiment that is quietly playing out across Britain. The nursery is backed by private equity, a surreptitious and very powerful realm of finance that now has its hands on just about everything. Private equity funds and related asset managers own water companies, apartment blocks, student accommodation, care homes, funeral parlours and more. The titans of this industry have perfected a cradle-to-grave model of investment focused on the places we live, work, grow old and die, capturing these core…

As they struggled through the decades of cold war gloom and repression, Warsaw’s neon signs became symbols of light, colour and hope of brighter days. What had started as a form of Soviet propaganda sparked a wave of creativity in the Polish capital that even the Communist authorities could not crush. But after communism ended in the late 1980s, many of the signs lost their purpose and began to disappear, left to rust or scrapped. Several decades later, neon is enjoying a renaissance in the city. Many historic signs have been restored as new ones are custom-made for bars and restaurants as a nod to the past. Meanwhile, Warsaw’s Neon Museum, created in 2012 by Ilona Karwińska, a Polish-British photographer, and her partner David Hill, a graphic designer, attracts more…

Across 5 What an alchemist sought to turn to gold (4,5) 8 Church fixture – typeface (4) 9 ‘Sin City’ (3,5) 10 Waldorf salad ingredient (6) 11 Scientific journal since 1869 (6) 13 Cat who’ll catch vermin (6) 15 Eucalyptus munchers (6) 16 Mare / stag (anag.) (8) 18 Vichyssoise vegetable (4) 19 14 Feb figure (9) Down 1 Sleep on it! (8) 2 Multiple songs in one (6) 3 Battle of the Nile Rear-Admiral (6) 4 I Got You, ___ or It Ain’t Me, ___ (4) 6 One to emulate (4,5) 7 One performs part of the service but is not ordained (3,6) 12 Bangkok’s country (8) 14 Apple, borough or luck (6) 15 Pogues pal MacColl, e.g. (6)  17 Moby-Dick captain (4) Solution No 17,441…

1 US/IRAN US move to curb shipping in Gulf raises economic stakes A US blockade of ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf came into effect on Monday, turning the six-week-old conflict between the US-Israeli coalition and Iran into a test of economic endurance. US Central Command (Centcom) said it would apply to any ships entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, while ships using non-Iranian ports would not be impeded. Donald Trump claimed that 34 ships had passed through the strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Gulf, on Sunday, but there was no supporting evidence for this. Iran warned that ordinary Americans would pay the cost for Trump’s latest move in higher petrol prices. For his part, Trump said any Iranian attack boats approaching the US flotilla…

PLUS A critical test for King Charles The 21-hour peace talks DONALD TRUMP’S ADDICTION to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking the US with him into a steep decline into the unknown. Trump likes to portray Europe as being under civilisational threat from immigration, but last week he threatened that a 7,000-year-old civilisation would “die … never to be brought back”, if it did not comply with his demands. He swiftly discovered it was not a threat on which he could follow through, and had to be extricated from it in a rescue…

In a small plaza facing Budapest’s Nyugati railway station, Gabor, 40, confessed that he was very, very hungover. “I partied all night,” he said, laughing. “It was crazy, I thought Fidesz was going to win. Now I’m really hopeful.” It was a hint of the mix of excitement, disbelief and hope that has gripped much of Hungary. After 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s efforts to transform the country into a “petri dish for illiberalism”, Hungarians cast their ballots to oust Orbán and his Fidesz party from power in Sunday’s election. Instead, the record turnout translated into a landslide victory for the opposition Tisza party in a result that sent thousands of jubilant supporters pouring into the streets of Budapest on Sunday night. Led by Péter Magyar, the centre-right party won…

The fallout over Wireless announcing Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) as its 2026 headliner was both swift and considerable. On 5 April, major sponsors of the three-day festival, including Pepsi and Diageo, began to pull out after a huge backlash over Ye’s antisemitic comments about the Jewish community and the Holocaust. Jewish groups threatened to protest if the shows went ahead. Keir Starmer called the decision to book the rapper who wrote a song titled Heil Hitler “deeply concerning”. By last Tuesday, the event, which was scheduled to take place at Finsbury Park, north London, on 10-12 July, had been cancelled after the government refused him entry to the country. Wireless issued a statement saying: “The Home Office has withdrawn Ye’s ETA [visa], denying him entry into the UK.…

At the very least, the three men and three women calming their nerves at a venue in Tokyo know they have one thing in common. “Let’s start with a nice ‘hello’ and a big smile,” the emcee said. When they meet they will only need to use their first names – because they all share the same surname. The event is the first in a series that aims to skirt Japan’s controversial ban on married couples having separate surnames by getting people with the same surname together. Round one over, the men are asked to move to the next table. Laughter is heard from one of the tables – surely a good sign. At another, the couple get to their feet and help themselves to cakes and biscuits provided by…

Collateral damage is a universally acknowledged hazard of war – more commonly known for its impact on truth and non-combatant civilians. Its consequences are much less frequently visited upon military alliances. The United States’ Nato allies are fearful that it may change as a result of Washington’s decision to team up with Israel in waging war against Iran. Donald Trump has attacked the pact with a vehemence rarely heard on what he regards as disloyalty and failure to help in reopening the strait of Hormuz. Tehran closed the waterway in response to the military onslaught it faced in the conflict, which was paused thanks to a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan. Trump’s criticisms of the 77-year-old alliance have escalated, triggering fears that he could abandon Nato – an act that…

It is a record of abject failure. I am not speaking of Donald Trump, though I could be. Instead, I am talking about his partner in this terrible war. Naturally, Trump has been the star of the show. He has been the face of the war on Iran, whether dialling up the threats against the country in bloodthirsty language – “a whole civilisation will die tonight” – or announcing on his own social media platform a two-week ceasefire. But Trump has had an ally at his side, who only now is entering the spotlight. That ally is Benjamin Netanyahu. He is the focus of global attention because, if the guns were meant to have been stilled across the Middle East, the Israeli prime minister did not get the memo. Israel’s…

SGÒR GAOITH Cairngorms, Scotland, UK The weather app shows wallto-wall spiky yellow suns. We haven’t had a day like this in over a month, so I abandon the desk and, with a friend and a dog, head for the hills. We choose Sgòr Gaoith, the high point of the ridge above the River Feshie, which forms the western edge of the Cairngorms. Our path starts in Scots Pine forest, where we can hear the soft chuckle of Allt Ruadh, the Red Burn. The trees thin as we gain height, but new saplings are appearing across this once bare landscape. Our rucksacks are heavy with crampons and ice axe – just in case – but the air is fresh and spangling as the sun pours down. We pause for coffee and…

POLITICS Starmer says time to ‘look forward’ 10 years after vote Keir Starmer defended plans for the UK to align more closely with some EU rules without parliamentary votes, saying a closer relationship with Europe “is in the UK’s best interest”. Speaking to the BBC after the Guardian revealed that ministers were planning to use so-called Henry VIII powers to dynamically align with EU rules by default, Starmer argued that, nearly 10 years after the Brexit referendum, it was time to “look forward”. A new bill on a food and drink trade deal with the EU will contain powers enabling the government to dynamically align with Europe where it has already made agreements. But it will also allow the UK to quickly implement evolving single market rules if it determines…

The Good Friday agreement appeared over Northern Ireland like a sunburst, a miracle of political leadership that consigned the Troubles to history. Its signing on 10 April 1998 ushered in an era of peace that endures. Yet the agreement’s 28th anniversary last week was marked with gloom. There is gratitude that the shootings and bombings are no more – but disenchantment with politics. The Stormont estate outside Belfast that hosts the region’s executive and assembly has become synonymous with dysfunction. The power-sharing coalition’s principal parties, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), are locked in a feud that has crippled legislation and governance. An opinion poll in January found just one in four people thought the devolved government had improved their lives. We’ve got a political system that is…

In Mathias Döpfner’s 2023 book Dealings with Dictators, the chief executive of the German media company Axel Springer SE proposed a fix for western democracy: states that respect the rule of law should stick together and prioritise trading with each other. Better that than indulging the illusion that doing business will tame “self-styled strongman leaders”. So it came as quite the surprise when last month Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was given a prominent opinion article in Welt am Sonntag, less than four weeks before the riskiest election of the rightwing populist’s career. “It caused a lot of strong irritation,” said a former editor at the Springer-owned broadsheet. Long a powerful and polarising force in Germany’s postwar media landscape, Axel Springer is now aiming to become a major player in…

As the warm sun rises over the Dallas skyline, SUVs and pickup trucks whiz past an unassuming construction site that is helping cement the city’s Texas-sized financial ambitions. Nestled between towers claimed by Bank of America and JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs has cordoned off 75,000 sq metres for a new Dallas campus able to host more than 5,000 staff. But the $700m project is more than a regional expansion plan by one of America’s largest banks. It is another win for the lobbyists behind Dallas’s “Y’all Street” – the Texan city’s aggressive push to steal New York’s financial crown. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, once a fly-in, fly-out stopover for bankers, has seen its financial sector boom over the past decade, surging 40% to 386,000 staff. Banks and investment houses…

The forces of darkness rolled back on Sunday. The mighty combined power of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump’s America were defeated in Hungary, as European liberal democratic values triumphed. The populist-nativist right put their all into keeping Viktor Orbán in power. The US vice-president, JD Vance, mid-war in Iran, took time out to parade his patronage in Budapest, one month after the hard-right US Conservative Political Action Conference took place there. In January, Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in a video endorsing Orbán, with salvoes of support from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen. Herbert Kickl of Austria’s Freedom party declared that “a patriotic wind is blowing across Europe”. Maybe, but not in their direction. Patriotism does not belong to them. Orbán’s defeat at the hands of the conservative…

Jaw-dropping, dark-siding exploration aside, it’s the mundane details of the Artemis II mission that connect us with the four astronauts who last week journeyed their way around the moon and back. The zero-gravity hair, the playing with the microphone on a call with the president, and the wake-up music that Nasa piped into their module every orbital morning: a cookie-cutter selection of feelgood choons from Chappell Roan to CeeLo Green. There were no reports of Artemis hearing anything like the strange whistling and “outerspace type things” that the dark-siders of the Apollo 10 mission in 1969 documented during the hour that they were out of communication with Earth. Those three men heard an unsettling and unforeseen sound around the other side of the moon that resisted explanation – and inspired…

FURTHER READING Three books for a deeper dive • Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech By Brian Merchant • Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It By Cory Doctorow • Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism By Yanis Varoufakis In 2026, it’s easy to see why generative AI is bad. The internet has nicknamed its excretions “slop”. The CEOs of AI companies prance about on stage like supervillains, bragging that their products will eliminate vast swathes of work. Who could have predicted this? Artists, that’s who. I am an artist, and 2022 was the year when I first started to see knock-offs of my work. It was not my work exactly. I quickly learned the reason. AI image generators had scraped my entire body…

* All solutions published next week Across 1 A girl turning over in a dream when disturbed in city (3,2,6) 9 This writer’s quiet, a holy person revealed by old painting (7) 10 Pioneering conceptual artist in short trade event (7) 11 Expert not to have enough money, it’s said, as milk producer’s helper (9) 12 US state in the role of wild animal (5) 13 Bit of cash made by heartless opponent (4) 14 Supply a cup please for stewed fruit (5,5) 16 Group capturing apparatus, taking time plundering (10) 19 Go away and make no noise with love over (4) 21 One drink and second drink that’s different (5) 22 Son sent to prison, one ultimately angry-looking, expressed a little amusement (9) 24 Discipline soldiers sunk in alcoholic…