Guardian Digest

The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task. The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one of the defining images of the US-Israeli war on Iran, bluntly capturing the devastating civilian toll. But is it real? Ask Gemini, the AI service powered by Google, and the answer you receive is no –…

The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey. “Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country,” says Staffan Lindberg, founder of the institute. Since 2012, Lindberg has led his small group of researchers in Sweden…

In its 160-year history, Somers Forge’s furnaces in the Black Country have cast steel columns for the Bank of England, part of the anchor for the Titanic and – more recently – propeller shafts for Britain’s nuclear submarines. The economic fallout from the Iran conflict is the latest of many geopolitical headaches the family-owned forge has endured, but it is already “very damaging”, said Tammy Inglis, the Somers finance director. Energy was about a fifth of manufacturing costs at the forge, which employs 140 people in Halesowen, before the conflict began, but that proportion is now rising.…

A federal judge ruled on Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker who has been unlawfully detained for 50 days. The man, identified as Elvis Joel TE in court filings, was arrested on 22 January at the height of ICE’s aggressive raids in Minneapolis. The case sparked widespread outrage as Elvis TE was detained with his two-year-old daughter while they were returning home from the store, and ICE quickly flew both of them to Texas despite a court order barring their transfer out of Minnesota. His toddler was released to her mother the…

Key US allies in Europe and beyond have ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz, despite threats from Donald Trump that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway. The UK, Germany, France and Italy, along with Australia and Japan, have said they had no plans to send warships. The US president wants countries to help police the strait after Iran responded to US-Israeli attacks by using drones, missiles and mines to in effect close the channel for tankers that usually transport a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas. At a press…

The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data. The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station. The researchers said it was “maddening” that such easy action to fight the climate crisis was not being taken, and said people should be angry. Stopping the leaks can even be free, given…