Time and again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to defeat Hamas by force. The decision to capture Gaza City repeats a strategy that has failed in the past.
President Trump’s demand for college admissions data enters a debate over how grades and test scores should be weighed against less quantitative measures.
Images of starving Palestinians have appeared with increasing insistency across the world’s media over the past few weeks. Deciding whose child and which picture best illustrates the territory’s slide into famine is a grim task. Five-year-old Lana Salih Juha, on this week’s cover, weighed just 8kg when this photograph was taken in Gaza City on 28 July.
As Malak A Tantesh reports from Gaza for this week’s big story, Lana’s parents are among many inside the territory forced to watch children waste away as deliberate aid restrictions from Israel mean hunger is becoming a killer. It was, as Malak reports, a week when two milestones were reached: a Palestinian official record of 60,000 deaths and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a group of UN and aid organisations, stating that the whole population of 2.2 people were now living in a state of famine.
Five essential reads in this week’s edition
Spotlight | Transatlantic barbs traded over social media safety The UK’s new law restricting under-18s’ internet access has only just come into force but already US tech giants and rightwing commentators are bolstering Nigel Farage’s efforts to turn restriction into a free speech issue, reports Dan Milmo
Environment | The best job in the world Matthew Jefferyexplains to Donna Ferguson how he became Cambridge University’s first expedition botanist since Darwin and how he prepared for his new post
Feature | Has nature writing strayed off the path of success? In the footsteps of the controversy over The Salt Path, Alex Clark explores how, despite public appetite, memoirs of redemption through the natural world may have reached journey’s end
Opinion | A good jigsaw is simply champion Why did the Lionesses bring Lego, sourdough starters and a puzzle or two to the Women’s Euro 2025? Because they are perfect ways to build mental resilience, explainsAmy Izycky
Culture | AI rescues Woody Guthrie’s basement tapes The legendary folk singer’s daughter and granddaughter tell Dave Simpson how they became custodians of his vast archive, including tracks that have now been released
Few major trading partners have been spared the import taxes, which have already disrupted supply chains and are expected to drive up prices for Americans.
The census, which is mandated by the Constitution, is next due in 2030. President Trump tried a similar move during his first term, but was unsuccessful.
Trump’s Deals With Top Colleges May Give Rich Applicants a Bigger Edge
Demanded by President Trump, the public release of data on test scores and race could wind up making wealth even more influential in admissions.
The vaccines, first used for Covid-19, can be developed quickly and altered as a virus changes. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been critical of the technology.
The university was open to President Trump’s demand of $500 million, but a $50 million settlement with Brown has prompted new debates in Cambridge, Mass.
After securing a victory over Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is pushing for an “all or nothing” deal with Hamas without offering compromises.
President Trump fired the official who compiled jobs data, underscoring his tendency to suppress facts he doesn’t like and promote his version of reality.
Erika McEntarfer led the agency that produced data on jobs and inflation. President Trump accused her of “rigging” the numbers, without offering evidence.
Trump’s Tariffs Are Making Money. That May Make Them Hard to Quit.
The tariffs imposed by President Trump are a substantial new source of revenue for the federal government, and the budget may start to depend on them.
President Trump had been on a winning streak. But when faced with facts and foes that wouldn’t bend to his will, he responded with disproportionate intensity.
Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, is the first evangelical to serve as American ambassador to Israel. Christian conservatives and Israel’s government are pleased.
Claudia Sheinbaum, battling U.S. accusations that the cartels have gripped her government, is facing a scandal in which two former officials are on the run.
As this week’s issue of the Guardian Weekly went to press, a UN-backed monitor said famine was now unfolding in Gaza. That statement came less than 24 hours after Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time that there was “real starvation” and told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza. This week’s big story, led by on-the-ground reporting by Gaza-based journalist Malak A Tantash, focuses on the limited pause in fighting by Israel to allow aid deliveries.
Spotlight | Russia’s kamikaze attacks Luke Harding reports from the frontline in Dnipropetrovsk as once-safe Ukrainian villages are abandoned and the last inhabitants leave their animals and vegetable gardens behind
Environment | Nature fakes Photographer and author of The Anthropocene Illusion, Zed Nelson reflects on the how humans seek to recreate versions of the environments and creatures they have destroyed to satisfy their cravings to be in nature
Science | Life of plastics The journey of a single thread is traced by Phoebe Weston and Tess McClure, from garment to field and onwards, to illustrate how ubiquitous microplastic pollution has become
Opinion | Queens of England As we celebrate the Lionesses’ historic win, isn’t it time English football fans stopped chasing glory through their men’s teams when the women are the ones delivering, asks Ava Vidal
Culture | In the cradle of country music As the Grand Ole Opry turns 100, Jewly Hight visits the Nashville institution to find out how it has kept reinventing itself while honouring tradition over the decades
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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