Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images
Cars v public transport, surviving the information crisis, and newly unearthed recordings from Arthur Miller. Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days.
1. ‘It’s super weird, super odd, super rare’: meet the twins who have different dads
Illustration: Alice Mann/The Guardian. When DNA test results shattered everything Lavinia and Michelle thought they knew about their family history, they also revealed something never before documented in the UK. Jenny Kleeman interviewed the twins who are also half-sisters.
2. How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake’
Illustration: Guardian Design. In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart. At its best, journalism can bring us together again, wrote Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner.
3. How car-loving American cities fell so far behind their global peers on public transit
Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images. For this series on how cars rather than public transit came to dominate our cities, Oliver Milman looked at the situation in the US. With most major European cities well served by trains and buses, bringing US transit up to par would cost $4.6tn. Other articles in the series looked at whether Europe will put the brakes on SUV culture, and how Sydney has been making public transport work.
4. Arthur Miller opens up about marriage to Marilyn Monroe in newly discovered recordings
Monroe and Miller arriving at Idlewild airport, New York, returning from Kingston, Jamaica. Photograph: New York Daily News Archive/NY Daily News/Getty Images. “We were all going slightly crazy trying to be honest, trying to see straight and trying to stay safe.” Donna Ferguson wrote about freshly emerged taped conversations with the great American playwright that cover his marriage to Monroe and his relationship with fame, self-doubt and the political climate in which he wrote The Crucible.
5. ‘Now the village is dead. It’s awful’: why was one of Britain’s best pubs forced to close?
Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian. For 400 years, the Hare and Hounds in Bowland Bridge, near Windermere, offered a warm welcome to locals and travellers. Then the rent doubled. With two pubs a day closing in England and Wales, can the community save this 17th-century gem? Sam Wollaston continued his series on empty buildings that tell the story of Britain.
6. ‘The greatest ambassador for life on Earth’: tributes paid to David Attenborough on his 100th birthday
Photograph: BBC/Passion Planet Ltd/Joe Loncraine/PA. Jonathan Watts and Ajit Niranjan wrote about the tributes that have rolled in from the worlds of science, politics and popular culture for the naturalist, who says he has been “overwhelmed by greetings”.
Explore more on these topics: Six great reads, news.
