Who should win? Who’s been snubbed? Guardian film editor Catherine Shoard answers your Oscars questions

Guardian writers have been making their pitches for best picture winner at the 98th Academy Awards in our Oscars hustings series.

Has Chase Infiniti been snubbed? Should Train Dreams win for best cinematography? Who’s the bigger monster, Frankenstein’s or Marty Mauser? Guardian film editor Catherine Shoard answers your 2026 Oscars questions.

Thanks very much for all these really well-informed and thoughtful questions! I’ll try to get through as many as possible

1. Vicious circle of looming industry collapse fueling industry timidity.

2. Talent exodus to TV and streaming.

Parasite (2020) and Moonlight (2016) were good – but not the year’s best films. So perhaps 12 Years a Slave (2014).

The Oscar campaign trail is today a very precise, well-monitored and potentially lucrative business – which is why slip-ups such as the failure to police the social media of Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón are so surprising/glaring/dramatic.

Red carpet is important for this, but not the most critical part of the campaign by any means, unless something really unusual happens on the carpet. Interviews are far more important – note the Chalamet ballet slip, which occurred in the softest of spaces – as well as general glad-handing.

Hemmed in by the sea and poor transport links, many young people from the Yorkshire town feel trapped, but there is also a pride in the area

It’s the morning after a wet and stormy day in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough. The waves, which the previous day had been crashing dramatically on the harbour walls, have calmed and a few brave souls have entered the water with surfboards. There is a man throwing a ball for his dog on the beach and a kayaker bobbing on the waves.

Just up from the seafront in the centre of town, Jack and Charlie, both 17, are leaning forward listening to a story from 19-year-old Keane about his recent visit to a drama school in London, where he is hoping to apply for a place on an actor training course once he has saved enough money.

Scarborough, on the North Yorkshire coast, was one of England’s first seaside resorts

Content creators claim they’ve escaped the 9 to 5, yet as Louis Theroux’s new show reveals, they are mere serfs to algorithms and audiences

Who wouldn’t want to be an influencer? You’re famous and maybe even rich, just for doing what you’d be doing anyway: working out at the gym, hanging out with your mates and mucking about on the internet. You get paid to say what you think (or are at least sent free stuff), and no one’s telling you what to do. Surely only a sucker would do anything else.

At least that is the influencing dream, and many young men are buying into it. “Content creator” has for years been cited as the most desirable career by generation Z and now gen Alpha. The preferred platforms might have changed over time, with streaming on Twitch and Kick now supplanting posting on Instagram and YouTube, but the aspiration remains the same: to escape the drudgery of a desk job.

Displayed in a redesigned space, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert’s expansive collection of decorative items is not only gorgeous, at last it boldly tackles the question of where these valuables came from

We periodically hear when a masterpiece is “saved for the nation”, usually when a museum is obliged to raise eye-watering sums to prevent the export or sale of an artwork deemed of national significance. Museums also occasionally purchase at auction for the same purpose. They are, however, swimming in a pool among the superwealthy, with many news-making record sales subsequently disappearing into someone’s private yacht or bathroom.

It is this marketplace that makes it a momentous occasion when an entire private collection is bequeathed to the nation, usually upon the benefactors’ death. From the Wallace Collection in the 19th century to the 2025 acquisition of the Schroder treasure by the Holburne museum in Bath, museums are willing custodians of collections of such quality as can only be acquired through capital vastly exceeding their own. How they choose to present that gift is a curatorial issue in itself.

Coach says his club are always favourites as he prepares to cross swords with Manchester City in the Champions League knockout stages for fifth year in a row

This is Real Madrid. We know this because Álvaro Arbeloa keeps saying so. At the start of another press conference, his 25th since being promoted from the B team two months ago and the last before facing Manchester City, the club man who became the club manager was reminded of something he had said after beating Monaco. That night, he was told, you claimed that Madrid are always favourites. So, came the inevitable follow-up, the “even” left unsaid but hanging heavy: “Now are you favourites?”

There was a familiar look, the hint of a smirk, and a familiar answer too. “If I said Madrid are always favourites, that’s what I think,” Arbeloa replied. “We are Real Madrid. We never feel less than anyone, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of who we have in front of us. We’re Real Madrid, we shouldn’t feel inferior. We know our opponents, how good City are – champions two years ago – and how difficult it will be, but we go into it with enthusiasm, looking them in the eyes.”

Analysis has found more than 3,000 mining operations within the most naturally precious areas of the planet, a much bigger footprint than previously thought

Weda Bay is just one example of a global trend that could see the mining industry expand into some of Earth’s last areas of wilderness in search of minerals and materials to feed the global economy.

Analysis produced for the Guardian by a group of academic researchers found more than 3,267 mining operations within key biodiversity areas (KBAs), accounting for nearly 5% of the mining sector’s global footprint. China, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico top the rankings for total surface mining area within key biodiversity areas, the most naturally precious areas of the planet.

Thai navy responds to attack on bulk carrier; sources say Iran has deployed a dozen mines in the strait

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

Over in Senate question time, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has confirmed embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and the consulate in Dubai all physically closed in the last week.

Wong said the government’s number one priority is to “keep Australians safe at home and abroad”.

She continued:

“The dangerous and destabilising attacks by Iran put civilian lives at risk, including Australian lives.”

More than 3,200 Australians over 23 commercial flights have returned to Australia since the US and Israel attacked Iran, setting off a regional conflict and grounding thousands of international flights.

Wong criticised Nationals senators for “winding up people and stoking fear” to panic buy fuel.

The senator said:

“Petrol companies are telling us that fuel stock continues to arrive as expected and on time but there has been a large change in the pattern of demand and that is having an effect on the supply, particularly in regional communities. We have seen jerry cans coming off the shelves at Bunnings and lines at the pump.”

One of the two members of the Iranian women’s football teams provided with a humanitarian visa to stay in Australia has changed her mind and contacted the Iranian embassy, according to the country’s home affairs minister.

In Australia, people are able to change their mind, people are able to travel. So, we respect the context in which she has made that decision.

Unfortunately, in making that decision, she had been advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy and get collected … As a result of that, it meant that the Iranian embassy now knew the location of where everybody was.

Alireza Salarian says Iran’s new supreme leader was lucky to survive strike that killed six of his family members

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was injured in the 28 February attack that killed six of his family members, including his father, Tehran’s ambassador to Cyprus has confirmed.

In an interview conducted at his embassy compound in Nicosia, Alireza Salarian elaborated on the circumstances in which Khamenei, 56, was injured, saying he was lucky to survive the strike, which levelled the late ayatollah’s residence.

Members agree unanimously to release about 400m barrels amid market volatility caused by Iran war

• Business live – latest updates

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

The International Energy Agency has ordered the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

The world’s energy watchdog said its 32 members had agreed unanimously to release about 400m barrels of emergency crude, a third of the group’s total government stockpiles and more than double the IEA’s previous biggest release.

Recent attack on plants led to fears of escalating strikes, but Iran knows drought has left it equally vulnerable

• Middle East crisis – live updates

In 1983, the CIA determined that the most crucial commodity in the Gulf was its desalinated potable water.

Although the loss of a single plant could be handled, “successful attacks on several plants in the most dependent countries could generate a national crisis that could lead to panic flights from the country and civil unrest”. And the greatest threat to the region’s water supply? “Iran.”