These graphics explain what the Democrats would need to do to flip the Senate and House of Representatives

A turning point in Donald Trump’s second term will soon arrive. On 3 November, voters across the US will decide whether to keep the president’s Republican allies in control of Congress, or return Democrats to the majority.

Many indicators of voter sentiment suggest the Democrats are favored to take back control of the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate. Winning either would be a significant victory for the party and give it the power to block Trump’s legislative agenda and more aggressively investigate his administration.

These visualisations from exclusive polling modelling show how the UK parliament could change under different voting systems

New analysis produced exclusively for the Guardian reveals how different voting systems would return significantly different seat totals in the UK parliament, based on recent polling.

While the current first past the post (FPTP) system could leave Labour short of a majority with 250 seats, the modelling shows how proportional systems would be likely to reduce the number of seats given to the leading party – and give the UK a more finely balanced parliament that better represents the votes people cast.

As experts fear for future of UK capital’s bus network, some commuters are giving up entirely. London is not alone – with worrying implications for the poorest in society

Experts warn that slower buses risk driving passengers away: research cited by Transport for London (TfL) suggests a 10% fall in speed leads to a 6% drop in demand.

Passenger journeys in London have already fallen by more than 300m a year, or 16%, since 2013, despite the city’s population growing by almost a million people.

Thousands of miles of new power lines are needed to deliver climate targets and energy security, but bills will rise in the short term and opponents are mobilising

Britain is embarking on one of the largest overhauls of its electricity grid in generations – a megaproject in which five times more infrastructure will be built by 2030 than was constructed during the previous three decades.

Tens of billions of pounds are being spent on new pylons, subsea cables and converter stations to connect a growing fleet of wind and solar farms and carry clean power to where it is needed.

From the first US and Israeli strikes six months ago to the battle for Hormuz, this timeline plots how Trump’s war on Iran quickly became a regional conflict with global economic consequences

On 28 February 2026, the US and Israel began large-scale strikes on Iran. Tehran responded by attacking Israeli and US allies across the Gulf.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of strikes, and the strait of Hormuz – a crucial waterway for transporting oil – was effectively closed soon after. The conflict quickly became a regional war with global economic consequences.

Donald Trump: EPA/Trump Vance transition team

US CENTCOM: AP

Abbas Araghchi: AP

Esmail Baqaei: Getty/Anadolu

Masoud Pezeshkian: AP

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: Getty/NurPhoto

Iran flag: Alamy

Labour has approved a wave of renewable energy projects, but turning plans into power remains slow. Why is that?

Labour has a race on its hands if it is to lock in its promise to achieve a virtually zero-carbon electricity system by 2030.

Britain’s next prime minister will have to move fast: the climate emergency is raging, high energy bills are driving up the cost of living and the reactionary right is threatening a fossil fuel push if it wins power.

Data lays bare the extent and geographical spread of attacks in Africa’s most populous country

Data from Acled and the Global Terrorism Index shows that after a few years of improvement, insecurity in Nigeria has worsened. With general elections less than a year away, the crisis has come under increasing scrutiny – both abroad and at home.

Experts say the primary long-term driver of insecurity is a governance vacuum across much of the country. On paper Nigeria is a federation comprising 36 states and 774 local government council areas, but in practice power is heavily centralised at the federal level. Resources trickle down to states in limited quantities and are distributed in far smaller amounts to local government councils, largely at the discretion of governors.

Keir Starmer’s party lost out to Reform and the Greens, with no respite in Scotland, Wales or England. These maps show the scale of the historic results

• Full results from England, Scotland and Wales

Labour has suffered heavy losses across England, Scotland and Wales, losing ground to opponents on the left and the right in a fragmented political system.

The graphics below show where Labour’s losses were most severe, and how the electoral landscape has changed as a result.

From devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales to councils and mayoralties in England, find out what happened in your area

• Elections mapped: how Labour lost ground in different directions

Today, the space around Earth can no longer be considered empty. More than 30,000 objects are in orbit, and that figure is rising exponentially

Some reports suggest that by the end of this decade there could more than 60,000 active satellites in space. Launch by launch, what began with a handful of scientific and military spacecraft has accelerated into a constant flow of objects, publicly and privately owned, placed into different orbital lanes, each serving a variety of purposes.

There is now a diverse collection of satellites spinning around the globe, ​including communication​ and weather ​satellites​, navigation satellites and Earth observation technology that takes images of the surface.

Analysis has found more than 3,000 mining operations within the most naturally precious areas of the planet, a much bigger footprint than previously thought

Weda Bay is just one example of a global trend that could see the mining industry expand into some of Earth’s last areas of wilderness in search of minerals and materials to feed the global economy.

Analysis produced for the Guardian by a group of academic researchers found more than 3,267 mining operations within key biodiversity areas (KBAs), accounting for nearly 5% of the mining sector’s global footprint. China, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico top the rankings for total surface mining area within key biodiversity areas, the most naturally precious areas of the planet.

How the US-Israeli war against Iran exploded into a regional conflict, as Tehran retaliated with strikes across the Middle East

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

A US-Israeli war against Iran that began on Saturday with bombing and missile attacks that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has exploded into a regional conflict, with Tehran retaliating by launching strikes across the Middle East.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, where it has been carrying out intense strikes after Iran’s ally, Hezbollah, fired rockets across the frontier.

Missiles and bombs landed across Iran, hitting political and security targets in Tehran, including supreme leader’s residence

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran – what we know so far

The US-Israeli war against Iran entered its second day on Sunday, as news of the assassination of the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, shook the Islamic Republic and the wider region.

Donald Trump announced Khamenei’s death while Israel claimed to have killed at least 40 senior Iranian commanders in the first day of attacks. Both countries continued to pound Iran, conducting hundreds of airstrikes across the country overnight and on Sunday.

Despite the apparent loss of a significant portion of its senior military and political leadership, Iran did not slow its retaliation on Sunday, bombing targets in the Gulf and unleashing waves of ballistic missiles towards Israel.

Analysis shows that the world is moving closer to China, as Trump’s isolationism rears its head at the United Nations

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has accelerated a profound shift in the global order, according to new analysis.

A report from Focaldata, which analyses UN voting records, reveals how Washington’s “America First” agenda has started to redraw the geopolitical map in favour of China.

Warning: this video contains footage that may be distressing to some viewers.

In October 2025, 122 people were killed in what would become Rio’s deadliest police operation. ‘Operation Containment’ was designed to arrest members of one of Brazil's most powerful organised crime groups, the Red Command.

Three months after the police raid many questions still remain, but the Guardian's investigation found that at least one person killed was not a gang member. Police chiefs and conservative politicians have hailed it as a historic blow to organised crime but activists, security experts, the families of the dead, and even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have called a disastrous and futile massacre.

A team of journalists across the Guardian has pieced together police body-camera footage, satellite imagery and pictures and video posted to social media to get the clearest picture to date of what happened that day.

• Rio’s bloodiest day: the untold story of Brazil’s most deadly police raid

In interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieces together how an operation targeting a criminal gang left 122 people dead last October

• Warning: contains graphic images

• Visual investigation: how Rio’s deadliest police raid unfolded

• The Long Wave newsletter: ‘It doesn’t shock that it’s Black people getting killed’

Juliana Conceição startled awake as the first shots of an infamous day were fired in the Complexo da Penha, the labyrinthine Rio favela where she was born and raised.

It was 4.30am on 28 October. Thousands of police had surrounded the community’s barricaded entrances and were preparing to swarm up its streets on foot and in black armoured personnel carriers with firing ports and bullet-cracked ballistic windows.

Key maps show the growing strategic importance of Greenland as Arctic ice melts under global heating

Lying between the US and Russia, Greenland has become a critical frontline as the Arctic opens up because of global heating.

Its importance has been underscored by Donald Trump openly considering the US taking the island from its Nato partner Denmark, either by buying it, or by force.

Wildfires now destroy twice as much tree cover per year as two decades ago – a crisis fuelled by climate change

The world is losing forests to fire at an unsustainable rate, experts have warned.

Wildfires have always been part of nature’s cycle, but in recent decades their scale, frequency and intensity in carbon-rich forests have surged.

From floods to droughts, erratic weather patterns are affecting food security, with crop yields projected to fall if changes are not made

Experts have warned that the world’s ability to feed itself is under threat from the “chaos” of extreme weather caused by climate change.

Crop yields have increased enormously over the past few decades. But early warning signs have arrived as crop yield rates flatline, prompting warnings of efficiency hitting its limits and the impacts of climate change taking effect.

Nour AbuShammala has returned to her partly destroyed apartment in Gaza City. This is her story of multiple displacements, injury and devastation over the last two years

When 26-year-old Nour AbuShammala stepped back into her family’s apartment in Gaza City in October the rooms were gutted, the walls were damaged by bombing, and there was no water or electricity, but it was still home.

Since the outbreak of war in October 2023 she has been forced to flee six times. This is her story of relentless displacement, survival and loss, told using photography and videos provided by AbuShammala and satellite imagery of a ruined Gaza.