Some weeks I head out of the office on a Friday afternoon with an uneasy feeling that our best-laid plans for next week’s Guardian Weekly might not look quite the same by Monday. This was one of those weeks.
While the scope and power of the US-Israel attack on Iran – not least the successful targeting of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior leaders – took many by surprise, the drums of war had been building for a while. With hindsight, last week’s failed nuclear talks may simply have been cover for what was to come.
As war unfurled dramatically across the Middle East, it was impossible to predict the consequences on a range of fronts, from the likelihood of regime change in Iran to the impact on America’s regional allies under attack, or the ripple effect on global energy prices and disruption to international travel.
Spotlight | Can the Louvre rediscover its joie de vivre? After a heist and the departure of its boss, the famous Paris museum is wrestling with repairs, strikes and a criticised renovation plan, reports Jon Henley
Science | Do lizards hold the key to how nature works? The emergence of a new group of common wall lizards offers an insight into how variety within nature can help conserve species, writes Roberto García-Roa
Interview | The world according to Gavin Newsom He’s the Democratic politician with movie-star looks, dogged by accusations of being a smooth‑talking elitist. But Gavin Newsom may just win the most powerful office in the world.Jonathan Freedlandfinds out why
Opinion | Labour needs to wake up to the dawning of a new political era After last week’s disastrous showing in a byelection, the government must accept voters no longer want two-party politics, argues John Harris
Culture | The wild and witty paintings of Rose Wylie Roaring into her 90s, the rebellious artistis now sought after by galleries worldwide and her works fetch huge sums. Melissa Denes visited her studio
The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor last week, after allegations he had shared confidential information with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sent shock waves around the world.
What happens next is unclear, but the ramifications will go far beyond the former prince, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. It was one of the most consequential days for Britain’s monarchy in generations, shattering the traditional aura of royal mystique and raising questions of accountability, deference and whether the royal family should have acted sooner.
In a powerful essay for our big story this week, Stephen Bates asks whether the royal family can survive the unfolding scandal.
Spotlight | The limits to the supreme court’s assent Last week’s declaration by the conservative-heavy court that Trump’s sweeping tariffs are unlawful is a major setback for the president, writes Ed Pilkington
Health | Why big pharma stands to gain from weight-loss pills Oral tablets could bring obesity treatment into the mainstream, with the sector predicted to be worth $200bn by the end of the decade. Julia Kollewe reports
Special report | The road to war in Ukraine In a remarkably detailed piece drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders, Shaun Walker explains how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans – and why nobody believed them
Opinion | A degree? A trade? Every rung for young people is a trap Is it to be a degree and heavy debt when graduate jobs are shrinking? Or forgoing a degree, knowing society still worships them? Confused, angry: who wouldn’t be, asks Jason Okundaye
Culture | Big in Beijing (but less so in Blackpool) James Balmont’s band, Swim Deep, plays to crowds of hundreds across the UK – but in China, they perform in front of tens of thousands. And they’re not the only ones
The first shots of an infamous day were fired in Rio’s Complexo da Penha favela at 4.30am. It was 28 October 2025 and the deadliest police raid in Brazil’s history had just begun. By the end of the day, 122 people, including five police, were dead.
The raid, nicknamed Operation Containment, was intended to apprehend members of one of the country’s most powerful organised crime groups, the Red Command – and in particular its kingpin, Edgar Alves de Andrade, who is also known as “the Bear”.
But the list of 100 arrest warrants justifying the operation featured none of the 117 people killed, and at least one of the dead was not involved in organised crime at all. The Bear, meanwhile, remains at large. Activists, security experts and even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have described the operation as a futile massacre.
Now, in a forensic investigation encompassing interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian’s South America correspondents Tom Phillips and Thiago Rogero have pieced together the full, previously untold story of what happened.
The big story | Continental drift in Munich Europe’s leaders met to discuss the continent’s future safety at the Munich Security Conference, a gathering characterised by mistrust of the US Trump administration and divisions over Ukraine. Patrick Wintour was there
Spotlight | Pressure mounts for Andrew to talk to police As calls for the former prince to cooperate with the investigation become deafening, this may be the reckoning the British king’s brother cannot escape. Caroline DaviesandAlexandra Topping investigate
Interview | Tracey Emin on reputation and radical honesty She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now Tracey Emin is as frank as ever, as Charlotte Higgins discovered
Opinion | Iran’s 1979 revolution offers some present-day pointers The similarities between Iran’s current crisis and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then – but, asks Jason Burke, who would prevail this time?
Culture | Thundercat on funk, lost friends and being fired by Snoop Dogg The genre-hopping bass virtuoso has backed Ariana Grande and Herbie Hancock, appeared in Star Wars and become a boxer. Stephen Bruner explains his polymath mindset to Alexis Petridis
The latest tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files have been in the public domain for less than two weeks, but already their contents have sent shock waves around the world.
Nowhere is this more true than in Britain, where the fallout has come to the door of Keir Starmer over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, amid questions about how much the prime minister knew of his former envoy’s links to Epstein.
Starmer looks to have weathered the immediate pressure to resign this week, despite having lost his influential chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the scandal. But the vultures are still circling and it seems a matter of when, rather than if, the prime minister will go. Kiran Stacey weighs up the possible challengers from within the Labour party, while Oliver Holmes and Chris Michael consider why the scandal hit home so hard in the UK.
Spotlight | The last post for press freedom in the US? Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the Washington Post has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks. Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr report
Technology | The continuing risks and rewards of AI As policymakers and tech executives prepare for the next global AI summit in India, an annual safety report highlights the issues that will be at stake, writes Dan Milmo
Interview | Can Zack Polanski pull off a green revolution in the UK? With polls and membership at an all-time high, the UK Green party is having a moment – and it’s largely down to the party’s charismatic (if slightly cheesy) new leader. Simon Hattenstone went on the road with him
Opinion | What links UK politics and Epstein? A thick seam of contempt We’re often told the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is a ‘decent’ man. But in appointing Peter Mandelson he chose political convenience over doing right, argues Nesrine Malik
Culture | The sign language of Margaret Calvert Airports, road signs, typefaces … the design legend revolutionised how Britain looked and her brilliantly clear designs are still used today. Catherine Slessor met her
Have Donald Trump’s hard talk and the arrival of a strike-ready flotilla finally made Tehran blink? It certainly seemed so by Monday evening, when Iran said it was willing to talk. A week of trading threats turned to strong indications that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, and Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s minister for foreign affairs, were readying to meet in Istanbul on Friday. In this week’s big story, Ashifa Kassam and Andrew Roth chart how momentum to war slowed and fears of a wider regional conflict eased, albeit marginally.
The background to Trump’s war of words against Tehran was the huge protests that rocked Iran last month, until they were brutally repressed by the regime. Analysts suggest a fragile domestic security situation prompted the Iranian government’s softening towards US demands. Our diplomatic editor and longtime Iran watcher, Patrick Wintour, explains that while the streets are now quiet, a shift in the balance of power between the people and the government has emboldened domestic demands for a full investigation of the killing and imprisonment of protesters.
Spotlight | The Epstein files, part two Daniel Boffey details the biggest bombshell among the 3m newly released documents: disgraced former minister Peter Mandelson’s deep and compromising relationship with the convicted paedophile
Environment | Nature runs wild in Fukushima Free of human habitation after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, Fukushima is now teeming with wildlife. But this haven could vanish if people come back, finds Justin McCurry
Features | From hope to despair The postwar new town of Newton Aycliffe with its boarded up shops is a symbol of the Britain’s economic gloom – and a warning for Labour as it battles the rise of Reform UK, reports Josh Halliday
Opinion | Art, groceries, Greenland – thieves are everywhere Jonathan Liew reflects on how we all seem to live in a world defined by petty theft and no one, whether it’s the pickpocket or the big AI company, seems to get punished
Culture | Small acts of magic Mackenzie Crook tells Zoe Williams how his approach to comedy has mellowed with age. Gone is the nervous, awkward energy of Gareth from The Office, to be replaced by the gentle curiosity that animates his new series Small Prophets
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