MP for Warrington North shares her experience as a complainant in a rape trial where the man she accused was acquitted

Standing up in parliament last week, Charlotte Nichols MP waived her right to anonymity as a complainant of sexual offences.

“I care profoundly about rape victims facing intolerable delays for their day in court,” she said, in a debate about jury trials.

The Oscar-winning star of Bullets Over Broadway and Hannah and Her Sisters has three major movies coming up. To mark her 78th birthday, we cast an eye over an (almost) immaculate back catalogue

Every great performer should have at least one baffling movie on their CV, and this curio, produced by Ismail Merchant, is Dianne Wiest’s. The plot is bananas: she plays an opera singer leading her gay teenage son to believe that his father (Simon Callow) is dead, by taking the boy to visit a fake grave each year. Guess what? He’s alive! Not for long, though: he’s soon murdered by his own gay pickup, with his son witnessing it all from inside a wardrobe. Wiest flails around Paris in a turban and a tizzy, while Jane Birkin is a fake therapist under the illusion that she is Vanessa Redgrave. The real Redgrave pops up briefly, as does Jerry Hall, because why not?

Taking money from just about anyone is just the latest example of Reform’s leader following the Trump school of self-enrichment

Nigel Farage will say pretty much anything for money. Write him a script, stuff a coin in the slot and off he goes: the man who would be prime minister could be your personal mouthpiece for less than £100.

Or at least, that’s the obvious explanation for why – until he was exposed by the Guardian – the Reform UK leader has been churning out written-to-order video messages on request for (among others) Canadian white supremacists, a man jailed for throwing a bottle during the 2024 summer riots, and someone apparently keen to hear him talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “big naturals”, pornified slang describing the breasts of a woman who could be running for US president before long.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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A happiness researcher called prolonged eye contact ‘the best thing ever’, claiming it can bring couples closer. Does it really work?

In January, business professor and happiness researcher Arthur C Brooks appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast to offer advice on optimizing morning and evening routines. His tips seemed reasonable – think exercising early and no alcohol before bed. Then, for couples, he made a kookier suggestion: every night before going to sleep, spend five minutes holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.

“This is the best thing ever,” he enthuses, explaining that it can help with mood management and to strengthen your relationship.

A chatbot won’t fix your family drama, but it might help you hear what someone’s really trying to say

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Last autumn, I was pacing my living room with my phone on speaker, trapped inside one of those looping conversations with my mother, the kind that starts politely and ends in static.

We were talking about land and legacy – what gets passed down, and what doesn’t – that familiar terrain where ideals and inheritance collide.

Josh Toussaint-Strauss discovers that great restaurants are disappearing on Google Maps, despite having lots of reviews and high ratings, so he sets out to get to the bottom of it and finds out that what Google Maps shows us isn't necessarily what we want to see. Josh discusses the issue with Lauren Leek, a social data scientist, who grew so frustrated with Google's results that she decided to build her own map of London's restaurants. You can check out Lauren's alternative map here

Foreign minister issues warning after Israeli attack on South Pars gasfield and as Qatar reels from retaliatory strike

• ‘Doomsday scenario’: a visual guide to the oil and gas site attacks in the Middle East

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran said on Thursday it would show “zero restraint” if its energy infrastructure was targeted again as Qatar revealed that almost a fifth of its liquefied natural gas export capacity had been knocked out in an Iranian strike that is likely to have a years-long impact.

The warning, delivered by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, followed Israel’s attack on Iran’s massive South Pars gasfield – which it shares with Qatar – which triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex and other Gulf neighbours, sending stock markets tumbling globally and triggering sharp increases in gas prices.

Attacks on facilities by both sides in the conflict this week threaten grave consequences for the global economy

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The escalating attacks on key oil and gas projects in the Middle East are expected to fuel a new phase of the ongoing conflict, with profound consequences for the world’s energy supplies and the global economy.

The Iran regime has vowed to target a string of key energy infrastructure across the region after warning that an Israeli strike on a production facility for its largest gasfield at South Pars on Wednesday had ignited a “full-scale economic war”.

US defense secretary suggests Thursday will be ‘largest strike package yet … death and destruction from above’

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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Thursday there is no “timeframe” for ending the US war against Iran and did not deny reports that the Pentagon could seek an extra $200bn in taxpayer funding.

The military US-Israeli offensive began three weeks ago and continues to widen. Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to “massively blow up” the world’s biggest gasfield after Israeli strikes on the Iranian site prompted Tehran to escalate strikes on oil and gas facilities around the Gulf.

Now, the total is likely to have exceeded $18bn and counting. Where are America’s war dollars going, in a war that was never declared in the first place?