The deadly failures that led to the loss of 72 lives in Grenfell Tower

In 2017, 72 people, including 18 children, were killed in Grenfell Tower in London, in the worst fire in British peacetime history. It was a truly terrible night, and the horrifying stories of victims desperately trying to escape their tower block will stay with me forever. On Wednesday, a seven-year inquiry into the disaster published its final verdict: a devastating indictment of endless government negligence and corporate malpractice.

The report made clear that the companies providing the flammable cladding and insulation that engulfed the tower had deliberately manipulated safety testing processes. They were able to do so as a result of decades of failures of oversight by the UK government and the construction industry. As Robert Booth, who has covered Grenfell since the fire, put it in a magisterial 2022 long read, what happened was the result of “a 21st-century economy obsessed with outsourcing risk”. No one ever took responsibility for anything. In Friday’s gripping Today in Focus podcast he explained why it is taking so long for criminal prosecutions to be brought, and what is being done to prevent another tragedy.

Ahead of the verdict, Rob spoke to relatives such as Shah Aghlani about their hopes for what it might say. The inquiry heard how Aghlani was on the phone to his 65-year-old mother, Sakina Afrasehabi, when she died with her sister Fatima in her 18th-floor flat and “heard every last breath my mother and auntie took”. As the report was published Rob quickly broke down the key points from the 1,700 pages, while Susanna Rustin, our social affairs leader writer and a neighbour of Grenfell, appeared on our Politics Weekly UK podcast to talk through the findings. Reporter Emine Sinmaz, who was there on the night of the fire, recounted how many of those who survived felt abandoned by the authorities and were left to fend for themselves. In opinion, housing writer Peter Apps was uncompromising in his condemnation of those whose negligence led to a completely avoidable disaster, while Observer architecture critic Rowan Moore wrote how the inquiry provided yet more evidence of a culture of contempt that runs through UK business and politics.

Britain clearly has a lot to learn from what happened at Grenfell, and not just regarding the use of flammable cladding, which is used widely across the globe. But this tragedy should offer clear warnings to the rest of the world too: about what happens when profits are put before people’s safety, about how society treats its poorest, about what happens when you dramatically cut regulations and about what happens when you ignore people trying to raise concerns. Because Grenfell was a disaster foretold and still, today, thousands of people are stuck living in unsellable flats in buildings covered in flammable cladding.

Now the facts of Grenfell are laid out so clearly and so devastatingly, the focus turns to what the government – and the police – do next. The kind of society we want to be depends on it.

Shaun Walker filed a fascinating report on the audacious incursion by Ukrainian troops into Kursk, as told by some of the soldiers recently returned from Russia. The surprise attack has provided Ukrainian troops with a morale boost.

“The elections were like a punch to the country,” Germany’s Central Council of Jews said after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a state election in Germany for the first time since the second world war, an extraordinary outcome. People of colour feel “abandoned and scared” too, one academic told our European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam. Reporting from Berlin, Deborah Cole looked at AfD’s demand to not be excluded from state coalition talks, while Kate Connolly examined the potential for another populist party, the third-placed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, to further upend German politics. It appears to be set for a kingmaker role in coalition talks and espouses a complex mix of left-leaning economics, anti-immigration rhetoric and a foreign policy grounded in suspicion of the US and support for Russia.

Partially fuelling this rise of nationalism in Germany is a grim economic climate. This week Volkswagen announced it might close down factories in the country for the first time. Larry Elliott explained how Germany, once seen as an economic model to emulate, was unwisely relying on industries past their sell-by date and Jasper Jolly examined how VW has fallen so far behind Chinese rivals in the race to decarbonise.

Can 0.03% of votes really swing the US presidential election? Ana Lucía González Paz, Garry Blight and Sam Levine produced a brilliant explainer that visualised the workings of the US electoral college, showing how only a fraction of votes could swing November’s vote. Our US democracy team continued its important reporting on the push by the Trump campaign and its allies to sow doubt on election processes and insert supporters into key electoral positions. This week, Alice Herman revealed a recruitment drive by the Christian group The Lion of Judah to enrol its followers as poll workers in swing states. Meanwhile Nesrine Malik reflected on rightwing figures such as JD Vance’s obsession with childless women, a political tendency that persists and endures even in supposedly progressive societies.

Felicity Lawrence continued her exclusive reporting on questions over the safety of Lucy Letby’s convictions for killing babies at a hospital in the north-west of England. Notes scribbled by the neonatal nurse were portrayed by prosecutors as tantamount to a confession, but Felicity discovered they were produced on the advice of counsellors as a way of Letby dealing with extreme stress. Experts are now questioning their admissibility as evidence.

Australia has just come out of its hottest August on record (it is usually a noticeably chilly month). In our Full Story podcast, climate and environment reporter Graham Readfearn explored why Australia has been experiencing crazy weather — not just the heat, but also Tasmania being hit by flooding and Victoria battling severe winds.

Guardian environment writer Jonathan Watts’s new book on the revolutionary scientist James Lovelock reveals that the famous Gaia theory was in fact devised in collaboration with his secret lover, Dian Hitchcock. Like many women in science, Hitchcock has been written out of history.

In South Korea, children have won a landmark ruling on climate change, forcing their government to protect future generations against the negative impact of an overheating planet.

Rachel Clarke’s extraordinary piece on a boy and a girl and the precious heart they share is one of the most upsetting things I’ve read for a long time.

The Paralympics continues to deliver high sporting drama, embraced by large crowds cheering the likes of the incredible Italian women’s fencing champion Bebe Vio, who, as Tanya Aldred reported, lit up the Grand Palais and delighted fans, even when she lost. The shame is that the Games are only served up once every four years and that’s not enough. As Ade Adepitan argued: “Disability sport is for life, not just for the Paralympics.”

I loved Phil Hoad’s compelling story of Alexander Grothendieck, a reclusive French mathematician who descended into mania, but whose theories may hold the answer to the future of AI, and Emine Saner’s interview with Tasha Marks, a self-described “scent designer, historian and artist” who shared the secrets of her trade ahead of an exhibition at the British Library, where she hopes to evoke the smell of heaven and hell. Also delightful was musician Paloma Faith’s thoughtful piece about dating as a single mother.

One more thing …I often go on holiday to Croatia – this summer was no exception – and try to read a relevant book on every trip. This year I read Girl at War, a novel by Sara Nović which really took me by surprise. It’s about a girl in Zagreb who is aged 10 as Yugoslavia is collapsing into war, and her reflections as a young adult. It’s beautifully written and deeply satisfying.

Cook this | Vegan falafel with harissa mayo and pickled cabbage

Meera Sodha’s new approach to falafel are pan-fried, so a bit lighter, and made with tinned chickpeas and sweet potato, so moister than your average patty.

Listen to this | Why Oasis tickets are ‘definitely maybe’ too expensive

A scandal over dynamic pricing for tickets to see a re-formed Oasis has led to even UK prime minister Keir Starmer to weigh in. For Today in Focus, Rob Davies, Helen Pidd and a much-lighter-of-wallet Josh Halliday looked back (in anger) at what happened.

Sign up to this | The Stakes: US Election Edition

Next week sees the crucial presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump – could it provoke another pivotal shift in the polls? Keep up with all the big developments with The Stakes our brilliant newsletter from Adam Gabbatt. Sign up here.

The Guardian’s crosswords and Wordiply are here to keep you entertained throughout the weekend.