KPop Demon Hunters fans screamed with glee, Adrien Brody grossed out the audience and Timothée Chalamet broke all the rules. The Guardian’s film critic on a gobsmackingly glamorous ceremony

• Key takeaways from Oscars 2026: horror wins, tech loses and politics is hard to ignore

These were the Oscars for a life during wartime. President Trump’s still-to-be-explained attack on Iran meant warnings of a possible retaliatory drone attack from Tehran on the target-rich environment of downtown Los Angeles. The glittering Dolby Theatre was reportedly in the crosshairs.

It didn’t happen. But this was a ceremony aware of the distant politics of threat, and the politics of a nation that is rich enough to afford war and peace at the same time.

Whistleblowers who once worked at Meta and X (until the guilt got too much) reveal the truth about the companies that increasingly rule our free time – and it’s even worse than you may have feared. Prep those bunkers now

Sometimes it’s a real problem not being able to swear unreservedly in a national newspaper. I mean, I understand social convention and propriety ’n’ all that should be preserved and that, generally, as our parents and teachers told us, swearing is nothing but a sign of a poor vocabulary. But not always. Sometimes – and increasingly so, I think, as I look at the burning world around us – swearing might represent the mots justes. It might be the only fair response. Under certain circumstances, anything else begins to look like obfuscation – a veil being drawn over unpleasantness. We would be in a much better position if, to retool Mrs Patrick Campbell’s notes to George Bernard Shaw for this more brutal age, someone early on had told Trump, for example, to eff off, just once.

But rules is rules and so I must shape with care my response to Inside the Rage Machine, a documentary about how social media is run. The shortest, most honest, most accurate review I could provide would read: “We’re doomed. We’re all doomed,” before advising you to start prepping a bunker now – use your last moments before pulling the plug on the internet to order supplies or buy an isolated homestead in Montana, then gather a go bag and … just go, people. Go.

The PM’s natural instinct to stay out of the Iran war has been a good one, but he is left speaking in code about US relations

It was a message that could just as easily have been given via a ministerial statement in the Commons. But Keir Starmer needs every break he can get at the moment and he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to look like a world leader at a press conference in Downing Street. The advantages were obvious. No need to have to listen to Kemi Badenoch drone on for five minutes with her revisionist fantasies in reply. Avoid the danger of loads of backbench MPs observing that President Trump is a deranged halfwit who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But best of all a press conference was ideal because the American war with Iran is one of the few occasions when the prime minister’s judgment has been right all along. Just over two weeks in and it’s increasingly looking like the The Donald is only in the war for its entertainment value. Just last weekend, he was saying he might continue bombing Kharg Island for fun. For the lols and social media hits. There has never been a plan or a goal in mind. Not so long ago he was saying the Brits were late to the party and he didn’t need them anyway. Now he is begging for help in keeping the strait of Hormuz open.

The spectacular stage version of Studio Ghibli’s much-loved film has spent a year at the Gillian Lynne theatre in London. To celebrate, photographer Tristram Kenton was granted backstage access

My therapist told me that anxiety is a bully and, like all bullies, it needs to be put in its place. To my relief, she knew exactly how to do it

The second half of 2011 was not a good time for me. Work was very stressful, and what had been gearing up to be the Great Summer Romance had slowly and painfully fizzled out. My mother was unwell, and I was going through a phase of really missing my father, who had died a few years before. It was the perfect, uninvited storm.

Before, when I’d gone through bad patches, I’d been able to dig myself out fairly quickly. Not this time. Suddenly, I was living in a state of high anxiety. I was still getting on with my life – going to work, going out – but anxiety was running the show. Having to make even the smallest decision would send me into a panic.

Bibby Boys photo exhibition documents experiences of the men who lived on the former asylum seeker vessel in Dorset and the local community that rallied around them

The Bibby Stockholm barge, which was moored off Portland, Dorset to accommodate asylum seekers, attracted many negative headlines – from evacuation after the discovery of legionella bacteria, to the suicide of Albanian asylum seeker Leonard Farruku and angry far-right protests.

But an exhibition launching this week reveals a less reported side of life on the barge, where enduring connections between asylum seekers and members of the local community were forged and continue long after the last group of asylum seekers left the vessel in November 2024.

PM refuses to be drawn into wider conflict as Germany and Italy defy Trump’s call to help reopen strait of Hormuz

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Keir Starmer has insisted that the UK will not be drawn into the wider war in the Middle East as European leaders ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz.

In his clearest signal yet of the UK’s divergence from Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, the prime minister said he would stand firm in the face of US pressure despite the decision being “difficult, there’s no hiding that”.

US president lashes out at UK and others as European countries reject calls for assistance to reopen crucial shipping lane

• European countries reject Trump’s call for help to reopen strait of Hormuz

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

• Are fuel price increases making you cut back?

Continued from previous post:

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has said she has no immediate plans to send her country’s maritime self-defence forces to help protect tanker traffic in the strait of Homuz.

We have not made any decisions whatsoever about dispatching escort ships. We are continuing to examine what Japan can do independently and what can be done ⁠within the legal framework.

I would like to ⁠engage in solid discussions based on Japan’s views and position regarding the need for early de-escalation.

White House seems to have failed to anticipate that Tehran would fight back by trying to impose costs on the west

• Middle East crisis – live updates

If there was a moment when the absence of a US strategy on Iran was exposed, then this was it. Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that the UK, China, France, Japan and others participate in a naval escort for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz.

Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow. Iran had few good military options for fighting back, but attacking US bases, US allies and merchant shipping in the Gulf was the most obvious response – to try to impose costs on the west.

Abbas Araghchi demands clarification on reports Saudi crown prince urged Donald Trump to ‘hit the Iranians hard’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Some Gulf states hosting US forces may be covertly encouraging the slaughter of Iranians, Iran’s foreign minister has claimed in a thinly-veiled attack on Saudi Arabia.

Abbas Araghchi demanded clarification on reports that Mohammed bin Salman was in regular private conversations with Donald Trump, urging the US president “to continue hitting the Iranians hard”.