Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly magazine is a round-up of the world news, opinion and long reads that have shaped the week. Inside, the past seven days' most memorable stories are reframed with striking photography and insightful companion pieces, all handpicked from The Guardian and The Observer.

Global report

The river has taken everything • Devastated by floods and overwhelmed by bodies, Nepalis weep for what they have lost as search and rescue operations continued in hellish conditions

Disaster foretold More flash floods inevitable as planet heats, say experts • Rising temperatures may have melted ice and thawed bonds that hold glaciers in place - leading to catastrophe

Climate breakdown • The floods may seem a world away - but global heating will affect us all

How Carney gained the mettle to face down Trump

EU referendum Definitely no was a clearer vision than maybe yes

'Butcher of Bosnia' is dead but grim legacy endures

Spotlight Middle East

Why don't more cities prioritise clean air? • London's low emission zone is working, but similar initiatives across the world are running into misinformation-led opposition

Does Canada have the solution to rising rodent populations? • Robert Corrigan has been dealing with 'smart' rodents all his life - and he believes there are better solutions than poison to deal with the world's increasing rat infestations

AI-proof Why young creatives are taking a crafty turn

Movement aims to take back the power of local food

The robots are coming! • Or are they? As entrants at the World Humanoid Games lurched from triumph to farce, experts say a robotics revolution may be a little more distant than it appears

Bessent struggles to clean up the mess left by Trump

Held to account Meta case raises hopes across other countries • In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in the northern city of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, was shot at close range and died in front of his family home seven hours later. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war. For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting his lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address. Meareg filed the lawsuit in 2022. He said he repeatedly asked Facebook to remove the posts, and the company did nothing. Nearly four years later, the case has still not been heard. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has “fought tooth and nail to avoid responsibility”, said Foxglove. “It’s a matter of numbers to them, a matter of statistics,” Meareg said. “It has been proven multiple times that our lives do not matter to them.” Last week Meta settled a lawsuit brought by 29 US states that argued it designed addictive products that hook young people. The company agreed to pay $18bn and to change certain features in the US. It was a victory that would make “a world of difference for children and their families”, said California’s attorney general. But elsewhere in the world, in jurisdictions from Amsterdam to Nairobi, other claims have yet to be heard. Questions about the power of a single US company to shape politics and democracy everywhere on earth are still to be answered. For the US, the settlement is a victory. A jury has done what the US Congress could not – put controls on a powerful tech company. For Meta, the settlement is also a victory. Its share price rose in the hours after the deal was announced; its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, was not forced to testify. The sum it is to pay is far less than the states had sought – $200bn – or the amount Meta itself had suggested in a court filing it might have to pay, up to $1.4tn. For the rest of the world, however, the picture is more...