Thursday marked a year since the Guardian’s owner, the Scott Trust, apologised for the findings of independent research that uncovered links between the newspaper’s founder, his backers and transatlantic slavery. We subsequently embarked on a decade-long Legacies of Enslavement programme of restorative justice and responded journalistically with our Cotton Capital series. This week we published a long read by Harvard historian Vincent Brown about Tacky, the leader of a slave rebellion in Jamaica, and how a campaign to make him a national hero raises questions about the best way to commemorate a common history. Meanwhile Ella Sinclair took issue with those who exaggerate Britain’s role in the ending of slavery.
We reported extensively on the catastrophic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge. Dharna Noor captured the shocked response from the city and a visual guide helped explain how the disaster happened.
The fallout from Friday’s night’s grim Islamic State attack on the Crocus concert hall in Moscow was forensically covered by our team of Russia and terrorism experts. Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer heard harrowing accounts from eyewitnesses, and analysed Vladimir Putin’s bogus efforts to link Ukraine to the attack.
This week the UN security council voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Julian Borger, Lorenzo Tondo and Patrick Wintour covered the news and what it means. But with the Israeli assault on Gaza continuing, Jason Burke, Aseel Moussa and Malak A Tantesh looked at the dire and dangerous conditions in one of the areas designated a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli military.
Guardian Australia launched a special five-part podcast series called Who Screwed Millennials?, in which Full Story co-host Jane Lee, social media reporter Matilda Boseley and series producer Miles Herbert investigate how rising house prices, a decade of wage stagnation and ballooning student debt left millennials the first generation to be worse off than their parents.
Maternity wards are miraculous places – but, across England, many are in crisis, leaving some parents who should be experiencing the happiest days of their lives instead going through the very worst. Sirin Kale’s investigation told the devastating story of the short life of Norah Bassett and the failings it revealed in the English health system.
More than 4m hours’ worth of raw sewage discharges were poured into England’s rivers and seas last year, a 129% increase on the previous 12 months. Environment reporters Sandra Laville and Helena Horton were the first to report this disgusting fact and our interactive team’s Alex Clark responded with a smart interactive which allows you, if you live in England, to see just how dirty your local river is.
For years Shazia Mirza was the only Muslim woman on the UK comedy circuit. She wrote about how she has finally found strength in numbers with an all-female Muslim comedy supergroup who play alcohol-free halal gigs.
Nick Cave, one of the great songwriters of the age, has lost two of his children in the past nine years. He spoke in detail to Simon Hattenstone about how he has coped and about how leaning into art – particularly a shocking, deeply personal, ceramics project – has helped him deal with his grief.
It was a magical night in the Polish city of Wrocław on Tuesday as Ukraine’s men’s football team – still playing in exile – beat Iceland to qualify for the summer’s European Championships and for a further chance to bring cheer to a nation battered by war. “These players – and thousands of fans – recognised that something more was at stake,” wrote Jonathan Liew.
