In the early hours of New Year’s Day, Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a crowd on the famous Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and opened fire on police, killing 15 people and injuring 35 others. This explainer from Ramon Antonio Vargas captured the key details of the attack. Oliver Laughland reported from an eerily quiet French Quarter, hearing from residents and tourists about the unimaginable scenes as families celebrated the new year.
Sunday’s Jeju Air crash in South Korea killed all but two of the 181 people on board. Luca Ittimani spoke to experts about the role the runway design and concrete barriers may have played in the disaster. Raphael Rashid described the scenes inside the airport in Seoul as the tragedy unfolded: “Is there absolutely no chance of survival?” one family member asked. Jasper Jolly unpicked what we know about the Boeing 737-800 that crashed.
We marked the death of Jimmy Carter at the age of 100. Chris McGreal reflected on Carter’s immense legacy. From resolving conflicts, exposing fraudulent elections, combating disease and poverty, to winning a Nobel peace prize, Carter’s influence stretched way beyond his single term as US president. David Smith contrasted the life and work and marriages of Carter and Donald Trump to illustrate just how dramatically American politics and values have shifted.
Syria continues to adjust to a post-Assad world. William Christou, reporting from Damascus, wrote a fascinating piece about the journalists who worked for state media under the regime, a role that risked severe punishment for making mistakes and a newsroom unable to write the truth for fear of retaliation.
A Guardian investigation found hundreds of English hospitals, schools and courts are in such a bad condition they are endangering the lives of those who visit and work in them. Kiran Stacey and Michael Goodier revealed 1.5 million children in England are studying in unfit buildings due to years of underinvestment. Also shocking was Josh Halliday’s report from a Cumbrian school where children have spent two years in temporary classrooms, and Rachel Keenan’s visit to St Helier hospital where a window fell off in a nurse’s hand. Meanwhile, the Observer’s Michael Savage revealed that NHS urgent repair costs have tripled over the last decade, putting patients and staff at “high risk”.
Also in England, our series on the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities (Send) education exposed a system at breaking point. Richard Adams found more than £100m was spent last year by local authorities on failed tribunals over providing support to children. Jessica Murray spoke to parents about the extraordinary lengths they have gone to to get help for their kids. John Harris, who has long been vigilant in his writing on this subject, warned the Labour government not to see Send spending as a source for easy savings.
Over the course of 2024, the Guardian reported on every example of a woman allegedly killed by a man in the UK. This week we concluded our Killed women count project, telling the stories and marking the lives of 80 women who died in 2024, with tributes and pictures.
Pjotr Sauer reported how Russian medics thought rumours that North Korean soldiers would be fighting in the war against Ukraine was fake news, until the foreign fighters were brought in to hospital for treatment. He described in fascinating detail the great lengths Moscow and Seoul have gone to, to disguise the presence of North Korean soldiers in Kursk.
In another eye-opening exclusive, Anna Isaac revealed how the UK’s biggest water company, Thames Water, diverted millions of pounds pledged for environmental clean-ups towards other costs including bonuses and dividends.
Damian Carrington revealed how the climate crisis exposed people to an additional six weeks of dangerous heat in 2024. Damian’s interview with academic Danilo Brozović on the likelihood of total societal collapse and whether it can be avoided was also fascinating.
In Australia 20 joeys sheltered in a Victoria resident’s living room to escape a lethal wildfire, as the baby kangaroos were too large to be evacuated and too young to successfully fend for themselves. Climate reporter Petra Stock told the story.
Among many sporting retrospectives of 2024, David Hills’s alternative sports awards for the Observer were a delight and Emma John’s review of the year in women’s sport showed how smartly social media is being harnessed by female athletes to build their brands.
Our excellent series The overwhelm featured dozens of inspirational stories from writers who found small ways to cope with modern life, including making shorter to-do lists and saving your anxiety for a set period of “constructive worry”. (If you missed the pieces, sign up here to receive them as a weekly newsletter series.) Meanwhile, this bumper feature, 101 ways to get healthier and happier in just five minutes was packed full of small, joyful tips to make things just a bit easier throughout 2025.
One more thing …Some of the biggest draws of the festive period such as the finale of Gavin and Stacey in the UK and Beyoncé’s live NFL half-time show in the US were reminders that in an atomised world of filter bubbles, we still crave collective experiences. It was a point well made by Frances Ryan in this column and also brought to mind Alexis Petridis’s excellent round up of 2024’s defining musical trends, which were big on shared moments. With all that in mind, it was comforting to settle down for the return in the UK of The Traitors, Claudia Winkleman’s wardrobe of chunky knits and all. As our five-star review made clear, it is a show that is best enjoyed in real time so it can be suitably dissected later with friends or family. Let the amateur psychoanalysis and misguided misdirection (a fake Welsh accent? Really?) commence …
