The Observer Daily: The man in seat 11A

The best of The Observer, from across our newsroom View in browser The man in seat 11A The best of The Observer, from across our newsroom Tom Gatti • Thursday 3 July 2025 Dear friend, On 12 June, Vishwashkumar Ramesh walked away from the Air India crash in Ahmedabad. He had been sitting in 11A – his brother Ajay, in 11J, was killed along with everyone else on board. Soon, Ramesh's image was everywhere. Conspiracy theorists speculated about the reasons behind his survival, travellers rushed to book seat 11A for their next flight, and the rest of us were driven by morbid curiosity to read everything we could about the case. In a compelling long read, Sophie McBain explores what our fascination with the stories of sole survivors reveals about us: our need to believe in miracles, our desire to cheat death, and our quest to make sense of the randomness of fate. Click here to read more → "The enemy of nonsense" – George Orwell Also in The Observer The government has not learned from the horror of 7/7 In July 2005 four suicide bombers detonated explosive devices in three London underground trains and on one London bus. 52 people died; hundreds more were injured. Two weeks later, copycat would-be bombers attempted a similar attack on the city's transport network, but their devices failed to detonate. 20 years later, argues Sara Khan, the counter-extremism commissioner from 2018 to 2021, the UK has not learned from the horror of that month. "The UK is behind the curve," she writes. "We lack the preparedness, strategy and resilience needed to withstand the rapidly changing extremism landscape."     Click here to read more → The great regression by Fred Harter       Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" is working its way through the US legislature, and could be signed into law as soon as today. As Fred Harter reports, it's essentially a tax break that redistributes money from the poorest Americans to the richest. Only 30% of Americans support the bill but Trump may still come out smelling of roses, even if the US economy doesn't. This piece is part of The Sensemaker. It features calm and clear analysis on what's driving the news across tech, geopolitics, finance and culture. To get the full newsletter sent to your inbox every morning, sign up here. Click here to read more → The prince and the potholes by Rachel Stevenson      Mousehole AFC – a small, lower-league football club in Cornwall – faced a pothole problem. The road to Mousehole's ground was so damaged that coaches and cars were getting stuck, the village was clogged up by match day traffic and, crucially, the campsite that provides the club with its main source of funding couldn't accept bookings from lucrative campervans. The Observer wrote about their plight last October, and one reader was so moved by the piece that they got in touch with the team to work out a solution. The reader? Prince William. Click here to read the full update → Pride and Orbán by Phoebe Davis      Last weekend, an estimated 200,000 people descended on Budapest, attending the city's Pride event, even though the prime minister Viktor Orbán threatened legal consequences for anyone who attended. It was the largest protest in Budapest since the fall of communism, writes Phoebe Davis, and leaves Orbán on perilous ground. This weekend The Observer will be running a series of articles about the impact of Pride protests the world over, as regimes and democracies threaten the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Click here to read more → Listen Daily Sensemaker Why did so many Labour MPs oppose the welfare reform bill? This week the government passed its planned welfare reforms in the House of Commons, despite a sizeable backbench rebellion Click here to listen → Thanks for reading. We'll be back tomorrow.   Tom Gatti Literary editor The Observer Brad Gray Production editor, newsletters The Observer   My Account To manage your newsletters, track tickets and more, go to the 'My account' page on the Observer website: Manage my newsletters Follow Follow The Observer on social media on your preferred platform:   The Observer     The Observer Food Monthly The Observer Magazine The Observer New Review   Listen Listen for free in the Tortoise app or wherever you get your podcasts: Want to change how you receive these emails? Update email preferences Copyright © 2025 Tortoise Media. All rights reserved. Did this email get caught in your spam filter? Add editor@newsroom.tortoisemedia.com to your address book to never miss an email again. No longer want to receive this newsletter? Unsubscribe here.