Alysa Liu at the Winter Olympics; Gisèle Pelicot photographed last June. Composite: Wu Hao; Pascal Ito/EPA; Pascal ItoView image in fullscreenAlysa Liu at the Winter Olympics; Gisèle Pelicot photographed last June. Composite: Wu Hao; Pascal Ito/EPA; Pascal ItoSix great reads: Gisèle Pelicot, Olympic politics and European dating tips Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days
View image in fullscreen Illustration: Ryan Chapman/The GuardianIn this timely featured essay, Eduardo Porter examined the disintegration of the world order, as the US crushes the system of cooperation and shared values it helped to create after the second world war, concluding: “History seems pretty clear that a world of roaming great powers is not particularly safe nor prosperous.”
View image in fullscreenGold medalist Alysa Liu poses with her medal at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Photograph: Wu Hao/EPAFrom the US men’s hockey team’s chummy phone call with Trump to the backlash against Hunter Hess and others who criticised the US president, Milan-Cortina was an unusually political Winter Olympics. As Bryan Armen Graham reminded us, just wait for Los Angeles in the summer of 2028.
View image in fullscreenSarah Ferguson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Photograph: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesZoe Williams wrote a fascinating interview with Andrew Lownie, the author of Entitled, a book about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor that documents, as Zoe put it, “a priapic, exploitative and money-grubbing life in which nothing was ever refused him”. Elsewhere, the art writer Eddy Frankel considered the already famous photograph of Mountbatten-Windsor after his arrest on 19 February, comparing it to Goya and Munch’s The Scream.
View image in fullscreenGisèle Pelicot. Composite: Guardian Design; Pascal ItoAngelique Chrisafis’s interview with Gisèle Pelicot was a moving portrait of a woman whose story shocked the world. They discussed shame, resilience, how her husband hid his depravity behind the guise of the perfect husband and why, despite everything, she believes “hope is allowed”.
View image in fullscreenNew York on 11 September 2001. Photograph: Brad Rickerby/ReutersFor some New Yorkers, the composer William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops seemed to sum up the mood after the seismic shock of 9/11. He and his friend Anohni discussed the making of this avant garde masterpiece to Tim Jonze – and hundreds of thousands of Guardian readers.
View image in fullscreen Illustration: Javi AznarezAfter a breakup, Kitty Drake threw herself into internet dating before becoming increasingly disillusioned. Could daters in Europe give her insight into a different way of meeting people?
