It’s been hard to make sense of events in Britain this week. On Monday morning, a roomful of excited young children attended a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport, Merseyside; fun-filled summer holidays stretched out ahead of them. By noon, two small girls had been murdered, and another died the following day. Several other children were critically injured, along with two adults. It was the worst attack on children in the UK since the Dunblane massacre in 1996. The person accused of the knife attack is a 17-year-old who, until a judge intervened on Thursday, couldn’t legally be named because of his age. It was a deeply disturbing act of violence that shocked the country.

The community held a moving vigil on Tuesday to grieve together, but then there was another grim development. Almost immediately after the attack, far right groups began to spread misinformation, including a false name for the suspect and racist AI-generated images to weaponise the event against Muslims as well those seeking asylum in Britain. Two miles away from the vigil, a far-right mob, many of whom were drunk, gathered outside a mosque. They attacked the building and 53 police officers were injured. While the mother of one of the victims called for calm, Nigel Farage, now an elected MP for the Reform party, was accused of helping to incite violence by making remarks suggesting the truth about the incident was being withheld.

On Wednesday unrest broke out in other areas across England, including the targeting of accommodation used by asylum seekers. Dan Milmo and Ben Quinn looked at how the false claims about the attack managed to spread so quickly and how TikTok bots and AI have powered a far-right resurgence.

Our reporters in Southport, Josh Halliday and Hannah Al-Othman, have had an extremely difficult week. I’d urge you to listen to this episode of Today in Focus with Josh speaking to Helen Pidd to get a sense of what a desperate moment it’s been for the town, and how the tragedy was hijacked by opportunistic far-right groups. Gaby Hinsliff wrote powerfully on the topic: “If you really care about the victims of an unspeakable tragedy, you don’t use their suffering as an excuse to loot corner shops”.

Misinformation in the wake of major news events is becoming endemic around the world, with social media companies unwilling or unable to act. Events in Southport were reminiscent of the riots in Dublin last year after another case of young children being stabbed by a man rumoured to be from abroad. Similarly, in the wake of the Trump shooting, George Chidi looked at how it was seized upon by those on the fringes and highlighted the media’s crucial role in tackling the instant spiral of false news. As we’ve witnessed this week, online misinformation does real damage.
But it’s important this unrest doesn’t overshadow the thing that matters most: three children were killed. It will be hard to forget their lovely, hopeful, unjaded faces, their gap-toothed smiles.

On Thursday, the biggest east-west prisoner swap since the Cold War took place freeing the journalist Evan Gershkovich and several others. Andrew Roth, until recently our Moscow correspondent, was at Andrews air force base in Maryland to witness his colleague and friend return to American soil, greeted by Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and his family.
It was another perilous week in the Middle East, with the dual assassinations by Israel of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran, and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut ending hopes of an imminent ceasefire in Gaza and fuelling fears of further escalation. Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem and William Christou in Beirut covered the long term implications of the assassinations, while Patrick Wintour looked at how Haniyeh’s assassination is humiliating for Tehran.

UK political editor Pippa Crerar revealed that Kemi Badenoch, one of the favourites to be the next Conservative leader, has been accused of “bullying and traumatising” staff when she was in charge of the Department for Business and Trade.

Wildfires are tearing across huge parts of the western United States and California has been hit by its largest fire this year. Dani Anguiano profiled a student storm chaser, Michael Steinberg, who has built up a large following documenting the state’s extreme weather. Meanwhile, Katharine Gammon wrote an important explainer on what wildfire smoke does to our bodies, with a staggering map of how far the smoke spreads by Andrew Witherspoon. And, in Antartica, Damien Gayle and Dharna Noor reported on scary figures, where temperatures during a winter heatwave reached 28C above expectations on some days in July.

Former UK prime minister – and phone-hacking scandal victim – Gordon Brown wrote about astonishing evidence that he says shows the Washington Post publisher and CEO Will Lewis falsely implicated him in a phone-hacking “coverup” in 2011. The Met is now looking at Lewis’s role in the deletion of emails at News International.

In Australia, an investigation by Caitlin Cassidy revealed how universities were pressuring academics to pass students, despite suspected plagiarism and cheating, in order to maintain revenue.

Vicky Foster’s abusive ex-partner was murdered by a man who, years later, would be lauded as a hero after a 2019 terror attack on London Bridge. She spoke to Anna Moore in a fascinating and unusual look at the reality of villainy, heroism and bravery.

Charlotte Higgins painstakingly pieced together the story of how a motley group of intrepid friends risked their lives to rescue art works from museums all over Ukraine, often under fire. The piece is filled with scenes of incredible bravery and adventure, and accompanied by stunning photos by Julia Kochetova.

How wonderful are the Paris Olympic Games? The team captured all of the first week’s biggest moments including Simone Biles’s golden return. After a damp opening ceremony, Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis wrote about how the mood in France quickly turned jubilant following a series of French victories, including Léon Marchand dominating in the pool. My favourite moment so far was Alex Yee’s stunning last-minute victory in the triathlon — perhaps not a surprise, when he was a faster runner than Mo Farah as a teenager. And I loved Barney Ronay’s piece on how the race made Paris look glorious, as well as Tobi Thomas’s interview with the great Allyson Felix. Felix became the US track and field team’s most decorated star of all time despite nearly dying while giving birth two years before her final gold, and she has become a powerful advocate for maternal health.
Guardian photographers Tom Jenkins, David Levene and Ed Alcock have been dashing all over Paris capturing incredible scenes at events including mountain biking, gymnastics and equestrian team eventing. In Tahiti, Jérôme Brouillet captured an instantly famous image of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina seemingly floating in mid-air with his board. Brouillet told Carly Earl and Graham Russell how he got the shot.

One more thing …The death of the magnificent Edna O’Brien prompts me to recommend my favourite novel of hers, The Little Red Chairs. An imagined Balkan war criminal settles in a west of Ireland village, presenting as a mystic and causing trouble with the locals. It is utterly brilliant — and it was published when O’Brien was aged 85. Philip Roth called it her masterpiece, and it’s hard to disagree.

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