If POTUS can really bomb peace, stability and women’s rights into the Middle East, I’ll take my hat off to him. Judging by his role in Gaza, I won’t hold my breath

Donald Trump says Keir Starmer has damaged the special relationship by not helping him more in the US-Israel war on Iran. But you have to remember that when you do help, Trump pretends you didn’t anyway, and also pisses on your war dead. Still, what could be more enticing than the Americans trying to sell you a timeshare on a war in the Middle East?

And so to Iran. “War is the realm of uncertainty,” said Carl von Clausewitz, who – and not to be a bitch – I still think of as a more impressive military theorist than Pete Hegseth. Certainly, Carl had fewer Crusades tattoos than the US defence secretary. Hegseth is 100% certain about all his nailed-down positions, even the ones in apparent conflict with each other. And it feels like a great sign that he, Marco Rubio and JD Vance already seem to have different rationales for why this war was launched. This is an administration that came to power on an explicit “no more wars” ticket – but look, as Pete keeps saying, this isn’t a regime-change war. If that seems confusing, given he first said it about 10 minutes after US-Israeli strikes had just cratered the ayatollah’s compound, Hegseth has since been on hand to scoff that what’s going down in Iran is “no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise”.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Organizing your home doesn’t have to use up all your retirement savings, time or peace of mind

Overcurated home organization content has flourished on social media for the past decade: well-lit photos of pantries, closets and bathrooms with contents arranged in clear acrylic bins. Usually, everything is color coordinated.

I love a tidy, organized space, but these images stress me out. My mouth gets dry when I imagine the upkeep necessary to keep those spaces looking pristine. How much does it cost to acquire hundreds of identical storage bins? How long did it take to aesthetically arrange Khloé Kardashian’s cookies like that? Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my one wild and precious life?

With no spending or fiscal commitments to offer, the chancellor kept it short, sweet and just a little tin-eared

When your luck is out, your luck is out. Time to accept what the fates have to throw at you. It was always going to be a bit of a stretch for Rachel Reeves to maintain she had a brilliant plan and the economy had never been in better health when the figures show a fall in growth and a rise in unemployment. Unless you happen to think those things aren’t so bad after all.

To do so three days after the beginning of Donald Trump’s Awfully Big Iranian Adventure when oil and gas prices are rising, the bond markets are in turmoil and stock markets around the world are falling, begins to look a bit previous. Almost tin-eared.

Getting your garden ready for spring? We asked the experts for their go-to kit, from secateurs and soil knives to trousers with enough pockets for twine

• How to make your garden tools last longer

In my garden, the celandines are popping, the blackthorn buds are breaking, and the bees are beginning to bumble. These, to my mind, are all solid seasonal omens, and I for one can feel my sap beginning to rise: time to venture outside.

Though undoubtedly there are cold, damp and dreary days still to come, the spring starting pistol has been fired and months of good gardening now lie ahead. There are seeds to sow, shrubs to prune and perennials to chop back and divide. In all tasks, however, being well equipped makes every bit of difference to the experience, so here are some dependable, tried and tested – and in many cases beloved – tools recommended by professionals, from head gardeners and growers to producers of vegetables and cut flowers.

Some may balk at Netherlanders’ ‘nothing to hide’ approach, but there is evidence their curtain customs could come with health benefits

Name: The Dutch method.

Age: Possibly in place since the Reformation, making it about 500 years old.

As Angela Rippon’s Let’s Dance campaign aims to get the nation moving this week, older dancers share how they overcame nerves to relish the benefits

In retirement, Suzanne Tarlin heard herself saying: “I need to move.” The former solicitor, then 71, learned from a friend about senior ballet and contemporary dance classes at a community centre and decided to give it a try. “Terrifying,” the Londoner remembers, 10 years on. “But the teachers who do this stuff are incredibly patient and good-humoured. People come with all sorts of backgrounds and levels of expertise. The classes are clearly important because some people go week after week, sometimes twice a week.”

Tarlin went on to do senior contemporary classes at Rambert, then added over-60s classes at the Place, home to London Contemporary Dance School, and sessions in German tanztheater at Morley College for adult education. She also signed up for creative workshops and performance groups, especially enjoying the intergenerational projects – even performing in a large-scale public event with dancers from Rambert and the Ballet National de Marseille at the Southbank Centre (she commandeered an industrial road cleaner in one scene and slid off the roof of a beat-up limousine at the finale). At the Place, she crawled around the stage in a costume made of cables. Growing old gracefully has clearly not been a dance goal. “I suppose the dreaded word is ‘wafting’,” she says. “You know, being a bit pretty, drifting around waving a scarf or something.”

Israeli military says the compound is aimed at developing ‘necessarily capabilities’ for nuclear weapons without providing evidence

• US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says

• Anger with Hezbollah boils as war returns to weary Beirut

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has claimed the US attacked Iran after learning that Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces.

“We knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he told reporters

The Air Force is now attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously

The Air Force has now begun a wave of extensive strikes against the Iranian terror regime and the Hezbollah terror organization.

US president appears to contradict Marco Rubio remarks that Israel planned to strike Iran first, claiming ‘If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand’

• People in the US: share your views of the Iran conflict

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In a late night post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that the US munition stockpiles “at the medium and upper medium grade” have “never been higher or better”.

He added that the US has a “virtually unlimited supply of these weapons”, meaning that “wars can be fought ‘forever’”.

Keir Starmer says vessel, which will arrive in about a week, will help defend bases on island after RAF Akrotiri was targeted by drones

• UK politics live – latest updates

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A Royal Navy destroyer is expected in Cyprus next week after Keir Starmer announced it would be sent to defend the country and British bases there after hostile drones targeted RAF Akrotiri on Monday.

The prime minister said that HMS Dragon, currently in the Channel, would be deployed alongside two Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities, after a phone call to the country’s president, Nikos Christodoulides.

Ahmad Ali, 12, from Wiltshire, spent three nights in the airport while travelling back from Pakistan

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

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A British boy who spent three nights stranded in Dubai airport is among the latest tourists to arrive back in the UK since conflict engulfed the Middle East.

Ahmad Ali, 12, from Swindon in Wiltshire, spent three nights in the airport while travelling back from Pakistan.