Table of contents for 20 June 2025 in Guardian Weekly

Many hands make light work People carry buckets full of mud on their heads during the annual replastering of the Great Mosque of Djenné, an event attended by thousands of Malians. First built in the 13th century and later destroyed, the mosque was completely rebuilt in 1907 and is the largest earthen monument in the world, according to Unesco. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol212 | Issue№ 25 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The weekly magazine has an international focus and four editions: global, Europe, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in…

In justifying Israel’s attack on Iran, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had acted to pre-empt a secret Iranian programme to build a nuclear bomb, claiming Tehran already had the capacity to build nine nuclear bombs. Israeli officials also claimed to have presented information to the US that Iran had recently made the necessary technical breakthroughs. Netanyahu’s critics are saying he acted to pre-empt something else: a diplomatic agreement between the US and Iran on its civil nuclear programme, or even the demise of his own government. They point out that Israel has been saying for 20 years that Iran is on the brink of building a bomb. Either way, his claim largely depends on Israel’s formidable intelligence community possessing a greater state of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear programme…

As tanks and soldiers paraded through the streets of Washington last Saturday, several million people turned out under the “No Kings” banner in about 2,100 sites around the US, from big cities to small towns, to protest against the excesses of Donald Trump’s administration. A coalition of more than 100 groups joined together to plan the protests, which were committed to a principle of nonviolence and took place as Trump watched a parade of tanks and soldiers in Washington DC. Earlier this month the US president deployed national guard and US marine troops to Los Angeles to crack down on people demonstrating against his ramped-up deportations, defying state and local authorities in a show of military force that has not been seen in the US since the civil rights era.…

Decades after Jacques Cousteau, the pioneering French oceanographer and film-maker, called the sea “man’s only hope” and moved from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm for its future, another much loved naturalist is following in his wake. In his acclaimed new film, Ocean, David Attenborough highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling. The broadcaster says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”. His voice is one of many calling for seas to have more governance and protection, citing undeniable indicators of poor ocean health. The mood at last week’s UN ocean summit suggested a defining moment: that the wider world was at last seeing the importance of something that makes up more than…

In the era of overtourism, every popular holiday destination has its tipping point. For Sirmione, a sliver of land lapped by the waters of Lake Garda, that watershed moment came during Italy’s long May Day holiday weekend. The medieval Italian village has now introduced “street tutors” to try to manage visitor flow and ensure good behaviour. The village, considered a pearl in Lombardy’s lake district, was caught off guard last month when a crowd of people became jammed as they tried to walk over its tiny stone bridge and into its warren of narrow lanes. What should have been a pleasant visit to Sirmione’s 14th-century castle or the villa where the opera singer Maria Callas once lived spiralled into sheer torment for the tourists and 200 or so year-round inhabitants.…

When Donald Trump landed in Los Angeles to tour the ruins left by January’s devastating wildfires, just days after being sworn in for a second term, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was waiting on the tarmac to greet him. The surprisingly warm exchange between two longtime political rivals seemed to reflect a new reality: with a vengeful Trump back in the White House, fire-ravaged California – and its Democratic governor – had a great deal at stake. In the weeks that followed, Newsom met with Trump at the White House to lobby for federal disaster relief. He invited Maga-world fixtures on to his podcast, including Steve Bannon. All the while, his state was suing the Trump administration – over executive actions on immigration, federal funding and tariffs. Their fragile detente, already…

We are relearning the meaning of “solidarity”. Last week, across the US, people came together. We may disagree on immigration policy, but we don’t want a president deploying federal troops in our cities when governors and mayors say they’re not needed. We may disagree on how laws should be enforced, but we don’t want federal agents to arbitrarily abduct people off our streets or at places of business or in courthouses and detain them without any process to determine if such detention is justified. Or target hardworking members of our community. Or arrest judges. Or ship people off to brutal prisons in foreign lands. We may disagree on questions of freedom of speech, but we don’t think people should be penalised for peacefully expressing their views. We may disagree on…

“No one seemed to notice the Beach Boys themselves bore no similarity to the teen Adonises they sang about IT’S FAIR TO SAY THAT NO ONE WHO BOUGHT THE BEACH BOYS DEBUT SINGLE in 1961 would have realised they were in the presence of genius. Surfin’ sounded exactly like what it was: one of dozens of cheap, hastily recorded singles released on a tiny independent label to cash in on the burgeoning craze for surf music, albeit a regionally successful example of type. You might easily have expected to never hear of the band who made it again. But the 19-year-old Brian Wilson was determined – he was the taskmaster who had relentlessly drilled his unwilling younger brothers Carl and Dennis into learning to harmonise – and a quick learner.…

I want to like tofu, but I don’t because of its rubbery texture. How do I make it nice and crisp? “Moisture is the enemy of crisp tofu,” says Emma Chung, author of Easy Chinese Food Anyone Can Make, so the quest for cubes of bean curd that are crisp on the outside and soft inside starts by getting rid of as much excess water as possible (and using a tofu labelled “firm” or “extra-firm”). “I usually do this by wrapping the tofu in tea towels, placing it between two large plates and putting a heavy pot or pan on top,” Chung says. After 10 minutes, you “should have a nice and firm tofu that will have a lovely texture, and it will be a lot easier to crisp up”.…

Across 1 Speak harshly (4) 3 Type of porcelain or paint (8) 8 Surplus (4) 9 Signed call for action (8) 11 Discussed old times (10) 14 Trifling matter (6) 15 Familiar with (4,2) 17 Tall and graceful (10) 20 Copycat (8) 21 Shoe fastener – decorative material (4) 22 Became more intense (8) 23 Service charges (4) Down 1 Fashion industry (3,5) 2 Person with whom one has a profound connection – to Samuel (anag) (4,4) 4 Axle or elbow? (6) 5 Fly trap (7,3) 6 Point of departure (4) 7 Secure – property (4) 10 Secretly enter (an organisation) (10) 12 (Good) enough (8) 13 Despairing (8) 16 Not out (2,4) 18 Meek companion? (4)  19 Information record – or 1ac (4) Solution No 17,184…

1 UNITED STATES Man charged over murders of Minnesota legislators The man suspected of opening fire on two Minnesota legislators and their spouses on 14 June, killing one legislator and her husband, was charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder, the state’s governor, Tim Walz, said at a news conference. Vance Boelter, 57, is suspected of fatally shooting the Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence. Boelter is also suspected of shooting the state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home, seriously injuring them. “One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” Walz said. Boelter was arrested in a rural area southwest of Minneapolis, according to police, who added that he was armed when he was taken…

The Iranian missile blew the door off the White City museum celebrating Bauhaus Tel Aviv, and shattered the windows of the nearby Quick coffee shop, where cinnamon buns and salads were on display, ready for a relaxed summer day that would never come. In the ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of Bnei Barak, another missile collapsed a school, killing an 80-year-old man. A third hit partway up a high-rise tower in manicured, suburban Petah Tikva, destroying a reinforced safe room and killing the family inside. After Israel launched the war with attacks on Iranian military commanders and the assassinations of top nuclear scientists early last Friday, Iran vowed revenge. Since then dozens of missiles have evaded sophisticated defences to cause devastation unprecedented in contemporary Israel. While some appear to have targeted strategic sites,…

Last Saturday, as a crowd of thousands of people near the Washington Monument listened, a loudspeaker dramatically announced the names of the US secretary of defence, vice-president and president. The final name received a modest roar that surely flushed the watching commander-in-chief with validation. With that, and with the boom of a 21-gun salute, the military parade that Donald Trump had coveted for years finally began. A protester, Nicky Sundt, kept a lonely and mostly silent vigil at the side of the road. She held a sign depicting a cartoon Trump brushing back his comb-over to reveal a swastika emblazoned on his forehead. The placard said “Save our democracy”. Standing near her – as a “counterprotest to the counterprotest to the protest, or something”, as one of them put it…

First came the shouts as the crowd worked its way through narrow terraced streets, proclaiming its mission to rid the town of “scum”. Then came the shattered glass as rocks exploded through windows. Then the flames, licking up curtains and spreading to sofas, carpets and books until smoke billowed into the night. They might have been scenes from another century, another country, but they played out in Northern Ireland last week in the glare of rolling news and social media, which recorded a soundtrack of glee and hate. “Where are the foreigners?” the mob shouted. The targets were families that were different – different nationality, different ethnicity, different skin tone, different language. The goal was expulsion – or immolation. “There’s someone in that room inside,” said a voice caught on…

Hunched over the pass in the open restaurant kitchen, a team of chefs are dusting ceviche with a powder made from lime skins that would, in most cases, have been thrown away. The Mexico City restaurant where they work looks like most restaurant kitchens but it lacks one key element: there is no bin. Baldío was co-founded by brothers Lucio and Pablo Usobiaga and chef Doug McMaster, best known for his zero-waste spot Silo London. “In my eyes, bins are coffins for things that have been badly designed,” said McMaster. “If there was a trophy for negligence, it would be bin-shaped.” The food, which recently earned a Michelin green star, is creative but still quintessentially Mexican: squash tostada with guaca-broccoli, maguey flower, maguey worm, or grass-fed pork from Veracruz with…

It’s cheap, filling and a time-honoured way for office workers to calm their hunger pangs. Lunchtime diners at fast-food restaurants in central Tokyo are here for one thing: gyudon – thinly sliced beef and onions on rice. The topping is rich and moreish, but it’s the stickiness of the plump japonica grains beneath that make this one of Japan’s best-loved comfort foods. Rice cultivation in Japan stretches back thousands of years, but the Japanese staple is in trouble, buffeted by soaring prices, a fumbled political response, and the spectre of competition from “inferior” foreign imports. Successive governments have protected farmers by tightly controlling supply, ensuring that all but a tiny quantity of rice sold in stores and restaurants is homegrown. Protectionism keeps prices high – an arrangement that has suited…

Outside the emergency room of the St Thomas Elgin general hospital, about 200km south-west of Toronto, a large sign in bright yellow block letters reads: “NO MEASLES VAX & FEVER COUGH RASH – STOP – DO NOT ENTER!” To see such an imperative in the 21st century might have been previously unimaginable for Canada, which in 1998 achieved “elimination status” for measles, meaning the virus is no longer circulating regularly. But now Canada is at risk of losing that status – due to an explosive outbreak of the highly infectious and sometimes deadly disease in south-western Ontario, where the hospital is located. Since October, the province has reported 2,009 cases of measles associated with the current outbreak – more than all of those in the United States combined in 2025,…

I have been saying this a lot recently: “At last!” At last, a mainstream film bluntly revealing the plunder of our seas. At last, a proposed ban on bottom trawling in so-called “ marine protected areas” (MPAs). At last, some solid research on seabed carbon and the vast releases caused by the trawlers ploughing it up. But still I feel that almost everyone is missing the point. David Attenborough’s Ocean film, made for National Geographic, is the one I’ve been waiting for all my working life. An epoch ago, when I worked in the BBC’s Natural History Unit in the mid-1980s, some of us lobbied repeatedly for films like this, without success. Since then, even programmes that purport to discuss marine destruction have carefully avoided the principal cause: the fishing…

Ancient Greek dramas have long thrived on the West End stage. Recent times have seen Sophie Okonedo’s electrifying Medea; Brie Larson’s high-wire Elektra; and Mark Strong’s smoothly political Oedipus. But the likes of Hades and Eurydice are less often found belting out big numbers alongside a dancing ensemble. Until now, it would seem. Mythological musicals are on the rise: Disney’s Hercules opened last week and Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown is in its second year at the Lyric, while The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is going on tour this summer. “Greek theatre has influenced every facet of our lives, from athletics to religion,” says Cedric Neal, who plays Hermes in Hadestown. “What better than for it to be translated to the stage with music, choreography and dance?” Neal has a…

In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia tasked people with sitting alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times – even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study’s authors concluded that “ people prefer doing to thinking”, even if the only thing available to do is painful – perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions. Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking…

CRIME Grooming gang report exposes ‘damning failures’ Yvette Cooper condemned damning failures by the authorities to protect children from grooming gangs, as she announced there would be a formal requirement on police for the first time to collect ethnicity and nationality data for all cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation. The home secretary confirmed the government would accept all 12 recommendations of Louise Casey’s rapid review, including setting up a statutory inquiry into institutional failures, marking a significant reversal after months of pressure on Labour to act. In her rapid review, Lady Casey, a crossbench peer, found evidence of “over-representation” of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects in local data – collected in Greater Manchester, West and South Yorkshire – and criticised a continued failure to gather robust…

There are two ways of looking at events in the Middle East over the past year and a half. One is that the response to 7 October 2023 was a break from the past. The attack by Hamas triggered an Israeli response so vengeful that it has been impossible to fit within the boundaries set by international laws or contain geographically – the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of southern Lebanon, the occupation of the buffer zone in south-western Syria and airstrikes across that country, and now its attacks against Iran. Then there is the explanation that these events are part of a historical continuum. Regional peace was the result of a volatile status quo. This fine balance has been tipped by an Israeli government that is now fixated on…

In the cramped lanes of Ambika Nagar, everyone spoke of Pooja and Harshit Patel with pride. The couple had done what none of their relatives or neighbours had managed: they had moved abroad, settling among the thriving Gujarati diaspora community in the city of Leicester. Their lives in England, where the couple had relocated so Pooja, 28, could complete her business master’s degree – later getting a job at Amazon alongside Harshit, 33 – seemed unimaginably glamorous to their relatives and close-knit community back in India. Pooja would call her mother, Chandra Mate, 58, at least three times a day with tales of British life. Mate, who had never left India and had spent most of her life in this small house in Ahmedabad, lived for these calls. Collectively Pooja…

‘ When Donald Trump came in the laws just changed and it’s hard for immigrants now … you’ve got a lot of people being deported, people who have been in the United States for two decades. It’s not nice, it’s not right when someone who hasn’t committed a crime has to go back somewhere. “I just don’t respect somebody like [Trump] that deports so many people and hurts so many families … this country was built on immigrants. Nobody’s from here.” It seems unlikely this is the kind of hard political messaging Gianni Infantino was hoping to associate himself with when Fifa booked the New York rapper French Montana as its headline act at last Saturday’s Club World Cup opening ceremony, a global spectacular that took place against a background…

As Europeans reawoke to the joy of travel post-Covid restrictions, it looked as though we were in store for a resurgence of continent-crossing night trains. Sleeper train fans hailed a “ night train renaissance” and a “ rail revolution”, combining some of the nostalgia for a traditional form of travel with modern climate and sustainability concerns. The long-distance European train journey may be slower than a short-haul flight, but it is surely better in terms of the environment and the traveller experience. For those on a budget, the prospect of saving on a night in a hotel appeals, too. But as anyone who has tried to plan a holiday train trip for this summer is likely to have found, night trains are still few and far between, especially in western…

When is gastronomy about more than just recipes? When it is New Nordic cuisine: to its advocates, the most influential culinary movement of the 21st century; to its detractors, a school of foodie puritans who have spent the past two decades sucking the joy out of dining. If a decade of breathy Netflix food programming is to be believed, you could delicately tweezer some edible petals and micro-herbs on to locally foraged mushrooms and a bed of ancient grains, serve it with a naturally fermented lemonade, and you’ve got yourself a cracking (if not hugely substantive) New Nordic meal. In fact, what the movement tried to bring to the table was more than that: a wider philosophy that linked your lunch with the natural world, local culture and tradition, while…

A brilliant, golden-green day by the River Horner, sunlight flaring between alder leaves, fast-flowing water sliding through a series of clear, shallow pools. Minnows (Phoxinus phoxinus) are leaping for mayflies, their sides mirror-flashing as they fall back into the river with a soft plop. There are five or six of them working a sunny patch near the bank. White bellies below a dark-olive stripe show them to be females; the males’ undersides turn rosy in summer. Their restless grace is interrupted by a blundering insect, crash-landing on a twig in the stream. It’s a stonefly the size of a pencil stub, long wings folded cloak-wise against its elongated body. It makes agitated attempts to reach the bank. Having spent its larval stage underwater among rocks and crannies, it doesn’t seem…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 5 Cry as one is eaten by ogre (6) 6 Balls ascend randomly (6) 9 Equips 2, 3 and 5 perhaps (6) 10 Adorn gold books containing star (8) 11 Accomplishment of bases broadcast (4) 12 Defiant about promises involving ring (10) 13 With increasing speed oleander spread by a cricket club (11) 18 Fly paper that’s attached to car (4,6) 21 Seize end of big flipping obstacle (4) 22 Server with first class hair (8) 23 Staple moulded artist’s material (6) 24 Small fish producing unpleasant smell (6) 25 Note in religious sermon (6) Down 1 Small drink a jerk finds exciting (8) 2 Drinks beer regularly in advert (6) 3 Old lady with returning desire to have one adult plant (8)…