Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem looked in depth at plans laid out by the Israeli defence minister to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, a scheme that legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity. Jason Burke in Jerusalem and Malak A Tantesh in Gaza continued to report powerfully on the almost daily massacres of Palestinians seeking food, as talks over a possible ceasefire ground on.
Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour studied the apparent unravelling of the Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin bromance, in no small part thanks to other Nato leaders, who have patiently helped the scales to fall from the US president’s eyes about the Russian leader’s true intentions. One European diplomat told Patrick that, when it came to Trump, “there is a line between flattery and self abasement, and we happily crossed it”.
Guardian Australia reporters Nino Bucci, Adeshola Ore and Benita Kolovos covered the jury’s verdict in the trial of Erin Patterson, who was found guilty of murdering relatives with a beef wellington lunch laced with death cap mushrooms. We looked at the key moments as well as the intense media interest in the trial.
Across the world, workers on the frontline of the transition to a low-carbon future are fighting to secure a “just transition” – and nowhere more so than in Shanxi, China’s coal heartland. Amy Hawkins travelled there to find out how a community that produces more coal than India can survive in China’s clean energy future.
In England, Kiran Stacey and Richard Adams were the first to report on growing concern over government plans to reform the system of report for children with special educational needs, as we published a letter signed by dozens of experts calling on ministers to reassure parents that their children’s rights were not in jeopardy. Columnist John Harris wrote powerfully about the plans and his involvement in the campaign by leading figures from charities and lobby groups seeking an urgent reappraisal.
Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot revealed the government would ban bosses in the UK from using non-disclosure agreements to silence employees who have suffered harassment, a move hailed as “a huge milestone” by campaigners. Haroon Siddique looked at the #MeToo cases that brought us to this point, and Alexandra Topping spoke to Zelda Perkins, who broke her NDA to speak out about Harvey Weinstein.
Hannah Devlin spoke exclusively to leading developmental geneticist Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, who said rapid progress is being made towards transforming adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, and that viable lab-grown human sex cells are just a few years away.
We launched a new series, Against the tide, which will – over the next 12 months – interrogate why life prospects for young people in England’s coastal towns are diminished. The series – which features great photos from Polly Braden – has already spoken to young people in Weston-super-Mare, Southend, Grimsby and our most famous seaside town, Blackpool, where young people told Annie Kelly that there’s a world of creativity bubbling under the surface of a place that has sadly become a byword for coastal deprivation.
Our excellent opinion series on housing throughout Europe has provoked a great deal of discussion. This week, housing expert Tim White wrote about the extent to which the financial system can be blamed for the current crisis, while Cambridge academic Justin Kadi pointed to Vienna as a place others could learn from in terms of a plentiful and equitable rental system.
On publication of the first report into the UK’s Post Office scandal, Marina Hyde, who has followed the process throughout, voiced her anger at its findings and the revelations that 13 subpostmasters facing accusation of dishonesty took their own lives. Elsewhere, George Monbiot wrote a searing column about how the right’s methods for tearing down progressive societies often begin with a joke and, as if graduating weren’t daunting enough, wrote Connor Moyers, now students like him face a jobs market devastated by AI.
In business, we asked how worried Labour should be about the super-rich leaving the UK, Nils Pratley argued it is time for some straight talking on the cost of clean energy and Rob Davies investigated the sudden demise of Prax Group, the owner of one of Britain’s last remaining petrol refineries: “a house of cards” built on a thirst for debt-fuelled growth.
It was a busy week at the Women’s Euros in Switzerland, where Suzanne Wrack, Tom Garry and Nick Ames watched England struggle against France and thrive against the Netherlands. For our Moving the Goalposts newsletter Sophie Downey asked if there was a way for anyone to beat a seemingly unstoppable Spain.
Our exclusive extract from The Tesla Files exposed some chilling details about the company’s refusal to share data on fatal crashes, and revealed that the cars are designed to turn off self-driving mode less than a second before a crash. Readers loved Tuesday’s Long read about the seemingly very attainable fantasy of swapping high rents in a cold climate for la dolce vita in an Italian town where houses can be bought for €1. Emma Loffhagen’s engaging piece about the ITA alphabet – a radical experiment in schools in the 1960s that left thousands of kids unable to spell (including her mother) – also reached an enormous audience including many commenters who remembered being taught it in schools (with mixed results).
One more thing … Amid the reams of writing about AI and its potential for good and ill that I consume every week, it’s rare to find a piece as clear and insightful about the technology and the motivations behind those racing to lionise or minimise it as this piece in the Atlantic by Matteo Wong. In describing the extent to which both the zealots and the naysayers are missing the point, he makes some smart ones of his own about AI and its impact in the here and now. As our own AI guru and head of editorial innovation Chris Moran has said: “The ‘jagged intelligence’ of these models is exactly what leads to these never-ending wars. Watch it code an interactive and then watch it fail to count the ‘r’s in strawberry. Then argue about whether it’s an idiot or a genius.”
