TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Forcing our hand?’ – Edward Chancellor on nudge economics….
M. John Harrison’s anti-philosophy of the sublime By Nick Holdstock
Mourning a marriage and a creative partnership By Lily Herd
Cults and the longing for community By Harrison Hill
When behavioural economics meets politics By Edward Chancellor
THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘How the World Cup beacame an $80bn behemoth’
It’s long been a golden rule of sport that football World Cups get bigger and badder every four years. The latest edition of the tournament, however, may put that universal law to the test after a six-week journey through Trump’s America, which is expected to generate $80bn of global economic output through its full timeline.
As the world’s biggest sporting event meets the world’s biggest market, it’s hard to see how even the World Cup can get much more bloated than this. But if anyone can make it happen it’s Gianni Infantino, the opportunist Fifa overlord who has schmoozed with the planet’s most divisive leaders to extract maximum gains from his travelling global roadshow. As Barney Ronay says in his tournament scenesetter for our cover story this week, welcome to the heart of darkness.
The big story | How the murder of Henry Nowak shook Britain
The aftermath of a tragedy revealed a country grappling with how easily such events can be co‑opted into a far-right rallying cry. Libby Brooks reports
Technology | Can autonomous AI killer drones be taught morality?
While the technology is set to play a growing role in modern warfare, there remains an unresolved ethical challenge. Dan Milmo and Aisha Down size up the terrain
Feature | Hello, goodbye: inside the final Beatles tour
By the mid-1960s, the Beatles were ready to quit touring for good. A new collection of pictures by rock photographer Jim Marshall captures their last gigs. With a foreword by Ian Leslie
Opinion | Trump’s failure to maintain ceasefires is part of the new world disorder
The US president brags about ending wars but look at Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Lebanon to see what his casual disregard for diplomacy and obsession with instant results have achieved, argues Simon Tisdall
Culture | The ruthlessness and redemption of Rupert Everett
The 67-year-old actor lied to his partners, disrespected his audiences and betrayed his friends. But has this indiscreet, unreliable heartbreaker finally grown up and settled down? Simon Hattenstone went to find out
George Washington’s announcement that he wouldn’t seek a third presidential term helped define modern statesmanship: The Republic had no need for a king, even an American one. Writing from Europe, John Quincy Adams prayed the president’s retirement might “serve as the foundation upon which the whole system of [America’s] future policy may rise.” Washington’s decision set an informal precedent that largely held until term limits were codified by the 22nd Constitutional Amendment, ratified in 1951. Still, at the time of his farewell address, Washington’s opponents had serious complaints. Though Washington belonged to no party, he was associated with the Federalists—and many Anti-Federalist thinkers chastised the outgoing president for disparaging his ideological rivals while claiming neutrality. This dispute played out in newspapers and pamphlets—back when publishers always chose a side.
Silence Dogood. Richard Saunders. Benevolus. Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim. All were pen names that allowed Franklin to say things he couldn’t have otherwise said
To fight against slavery, the author collected true stories then picked up a pen and distilled them into “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
Last week, as the war in Iran continued to choke global oil supplies, the UK government announced a 13% increase in the cap on energy prices. But it was another related story on the other side of the world that caught my eye.
In Australia, the energy minister announced a fall of up to 10% in the benchmark electricity price in parts of the country, driven by record levels of renewables and batteries in the power grid.
Australia was already a world leader in domestic solar power. But with little fanfare, it is also pioneering a revolution in home renewables and battery usage, proving that with the right policy initiatives, profound changes can be made to the ways energy markets work.
The big story | Is the Iran war Trump’s Vietnam moment?
The current Middle East conflict has been far shorter than the war that defined the 1960s and early 1970s, but it has rapidly revealed the strategic weakness of US firepower in an interconnected world, argues Patrick Wintour
Health | Cancer breakthroughs from the world’s largest oncology conference
From groundbreaking genomic tests to tumour-shrinking injections, health editor Andrew Gregory reports from the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago
Feature | The people fighting back against pothole-riddled roads
The dire state of roads has provoked pothole vigilantes and become a political flashpoint from Manchester to Manhattan. How did we get here? Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports
Opinion | If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why?
Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Jonathan Liew
Culture | Children’s illustrators on the art of storytelling
From The Twits to The Gruffalo and an angry bear in search of his hat … famous illustrators talk to Stuart Heritage about how they bring children’s books to life
COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Constable Country’ – The places the painter loved….
Taking the scenic route
History, hauntings and high-jinx figured in Britain’s first motoring guides, finds Jack Watkins
What a Derby day
Epsom hosts one of racing’s most thrilling spectacles. Jack Watkins picks 10 of the best winners
Monaco
Adam Hay-Nicholls explores the changing face of Monaco, Steven King treads the Prince Rainier III sculpture trail, Arabella Youens seeks out the best properties for sale in the Principality and Mark Hedges cruises serenely into town
His green and pleasant land
John Constable painted places he knew and loved the best. Susan Owens examines how insight influenced his landscapes
Outstanding in their fields
From ‘shoy hoys’ to Worzel Gummidge, Aeneas Dennison traces the story of scarecrows
Andy Wilman’s favourite painting
The television producer chooses a work that reveals a human response to the brutality of war
Country-house treasure
A godfatherly gift ensures that Sir Edwin Lutyens and Shilstone House in Devon are happy bed-fellows, discovers John Goodall
Building on the past
In the second of two articles, John Goodall reveals how Elizabethan Doddington Hall is thriving into the 21st century
The legacy
Octavia Pollock profiles Percy Shaw, the inventor of cat’s eyes, the 20th century’s top design
Winging it
The feral pigeon’s modern-day scavenging masks a more valiant history, suggests Mark Cocker
Drawn to the land
Katharine Freeland meets artists who are mapping estates in an echo of traditional landowners
Jack Watkins strolls the streets that became an artist’s muse, our writers have all you need to know this month, Will Hosie shares seven of the best homes on the market and Rupert Clague charts the rise of the capital’s coffee houses
Death, taxes and Tests with New Zealand
What next for England’s Bazball approach, asks James Fisher
Luxury
Amie Elizabeth White is on red alert — and gives pearl a whirl
Interiors
Arabella Youens admires an extended Cotswolds cottage and Giles Kime ponders going it alone
Dreaming of roses
Charles Quest-Ritson shares 1,000 reasons to fall in love with the restored walled garden at Dummer House, Hampshire
Arts & antiques
Rebecca Salter, president of the Royal Academy, outlines her ambitions to Carla Passino
Travel
A mountain-top encounter rings a bell with Pamela Goodman
And much more
Like Gulliver in Lilliput, “greatness” in the political realm depends on the existence of a group deemed puny or weak.
APOLLO MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Hare Style’ – Vienna’s Albertina at 250…
By Andrea Wulf
An exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment might go something like this. You’d begin in the streets of 1760s London to feel the pulse of Georgian commerce. You’d then hop aboard one of Captain Cook’s colliers and cruise through the Pacific, having encounters every day. Returning to Europe you might watch Benjamin Franklin in diplomatic action at Passy and dine with Casanova in Vienna, before sailing up the Rhine with Humboldt. Having inspected the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham and admired the picturesque scenery of the Peak District, you’d cross the Channel just in time for the grand and bloody finale in Paris.
By Colin Kidd
Arriving as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1961, Terry Eagleton was both overawed and underwhelmed by his supervisor, a man he calls Greenway in his memoir. ‘Greenway was the first truly civilised man I had ever encountered,’ Eagleton recalls.
By Deborah Lutz
We know so little about Emily Brontë. There are just a few snapshots, like the vivid recollection of her sister Charlotte’s great friend Ellen Nussey: ‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable … one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling..
THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘The Big Chill’ – Is the mood in Russia turning against Putin?’
Like the majority of western news organisations, the Guardian has had no correspondent or reporter in Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine. But the Kremlin’s efforts to shut down outside media coverage has not stopped us from taking the political temperature of Russia. Indeed, as Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker report, attempts to close off the country have lost Vladimir Putin support among both the elites and ordinary citizens.
Talking to contacts made from many years working inside Russia, Pjotr and Shaun detail a shifting mood as the invasion drags on into its fourth summer with the economic and personal costs being increasingly felt at home. As one insider explains, “there is profound disappointment in Putin”, accompanied by “a growing sense that some kind of catastrophe is looming”.
The narrative of a bunkered ruler surrounded by underlings too scared to tell them the truth historically leads to putsch or revolution but our analysis shows that at present, though the winds may be chilling at home, Putin is far from being frozen out of power.
Spotlight | Ebola: ‘Out of control’
A new strain of virus, aid cuts and conflict in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have hampered efforts to halt the spread of the virus, report Prosper Heri Ngorora in Goma and Carlos Mureithi
Science | Here be monsters
An exhibition, Jurassic Oceans, at London’s Natural History Museum, showcases the fearsome creatures that once lurked below the surface – and offers a stark warning about the impact of warming waters on marine ecosystems today. Matthew Pearce dives in
Feature | When the lights went out in Berlin
Earlier this year power was cut to a swathe of the German capital. A shadowy organisation, Volcano Group, claimed responsibility. But in the absence of any leads, theories of eco-terrorism, Russian meddling and far-right activity have flourished, discovers Ben Knight
Opinion | Victory doesn’t happen overnight
Arsenal’s careful planning to regain the Premier League title is a lesson in long-term thinking that the Labour party, and Arsenal fan Keir Starmer, should pay attention to, argues Jonathan Freedland
Culture | Back to black with Whistler
What does restoring Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1, or Whistler’s Mother, teach you about the artist who heralded a century of great American artists and about the craft of painting colour? Sarah Walden uncovers it all
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Is DNA destiny?’ – Matthew Cobb on engineering humanity.
J. H. Prynne and Geoffrey Hill’s clash over ‘hazards in rubric’ By Gabriel Rolfe
‘Aside from writing, what is your chief distraction, obsession or side-hustle?’ Writers at the Hay Festival reveal their private passions
Cold War double agents, their lives and motives By Richard Davenport-Hines
Addictive anthologies of letters and diaries By Dinah Birch
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