The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last week extended an unprecedented offer to Canada, inviting it to become the EU’s first “associate member”.
For our big story this week, Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin explores what the proposed alliance might mean. While there is a lot of common ground for the two parties, she writes, their agreement raises many questions and is clouded in uncertainty.
Meanwhile, senior correspondent Lisa O’Carroll examines the possible implications for the UK – asking whether it offers a blueprint for Britain, or a reminder it is out in the cold.
Then, former White House speechwriter Ted Widmer says Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s remarks before the European parliament set out what a new west might look like, without its most powerful member – the US.
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Five essential reads in this week’s edition
Spotlight | Yemeni families’ flight
Fierce fighting has forced people to abandon their homes, leaving everything behind to seek shelter in refugee camps. Nasser Al-Sakkaf reports from Taiz
Science | ‘A map is never neutral’
The cartographers who took on centuries of western bias with the new Equal Earth projection speak to Oliver Holmes, Ana Lucía González Paz and Pablo Gutiérrez about their alternative to the 16th-century Mercator display
Feature | How to fight end times fascism
An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them, say Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
Opinion | This Israeli election could be the country’s last
Spend time on the ground and you see how high the stakes are for next month’s contest – for Israelis and Palestinians alike, writes Jonathan Freedland
Culture | Present and correct
Author Jonathan Franzen talks to Sophie McBain about a new TV adaptation of his bestseller The Corrections, the future of reading and why creating new work is “horrible”
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What else we’ve been reading
Next month sees the rerelease of Take It or Leave It, a 1981 music documentary about the British ska/pop band Madness. The film was made with the band’s earnings from their recently found chart success, but traces their roots from self-financing days and modest upbringings in north London. I have a particular bit of nostalgia around their 1982 single Our House, which a four-year-old me became convinced was about my own abode. Neil Willis, production editor
I particularly enjoyed reading about how one of the world’s oldest cheddar producers is turning warm milk into a way to cut its carbon emissions. Alison F Takemura explores yet another use for heat pumps – this time one that may help make your cheese board a bit more environmentally friendly. Lewis Fendick, retention and base management executive
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Other highlights from the Guardian website
• Audio | From paleo to intermittent fasting: are any diets actually good for us?
• Video | Rise of the far right in Germany: how worried should we be?
• Gallery | Portrait power: photojournalist Lorrie Graham’s five-decade career
• Interactive | ‘I lost my children, and I’m afraid of losing my baby again’: a day in the life of a pregnant woman in Gaza
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