He is not a programme-maker or a politician, but he must rapidly develop a feel for both disciplines – and the stakes could not be higher

This panel comprises extracts from Letters to Matt Brittin: The New Director-General of the BBC, edited by John Mair and Andrew Beck, and original material

From cooking at too high temperatures to consuming too little fat, what and how we eat can have a big impact on the way we age. Here’s what you might be doing wrong – and how to fix it

One of the challenges with the sheer availability of food in today’s world is that lots of us end up spending many of our waking hours eating. Whether it’s full meals, snacks or desserts, scientists have found that it’s not uncommon for us to be mindlessly grazing at some point during all of our 16 or so waking hours.

She’s already taken Paris and Venice – now, with husband Jeff Bezos, she’s stormed New York’s Met Gala. And for a mere $75,000, you can be there with her

We live in an age when the most successful revolutionaries are not the peasants but the Silicon Valley billionaires. They are the true disrupters, the victorious radicals and the people who have successfully ripped up legacy systems and replaced them with themselves. Revolutionaries used to rebel against governments, but the techlords are now so powerful that meaningful revolt against them could really only come from governments. Governments are the new peasants. The erstwhile peasants, meanwhile, are in endless thrall to the technologies of their overlords, each one carrying in their hands a device pretty much guaranteed to distract them from doing anything other than clicking impotently – and only when they remember – on “change”. Never mind televised; their revolution will be narcotised.

Anyhow: I can’t believe Lauren Sánchez hasn’t gone with the above paragraph as the theme for the Met Ball that her husband, Jeff, bought her. Maybe it was too long for the invitations. Either way, we are just over a week away from the biggest event in the fashion calendar, which, like his own fairy godfather, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has purchased the honorary chairmanship of for himself and his wife. Cinderella and her Cinderfella shall go to the ball. You cannot imagine how much Silicon there’s going to be at the event.

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Wiltshire town councillor Andrew Edwards, who has large collection of neckwear, is a regular at committee hearings

It was blockbuster viewing for politicos across the country: the livestreamed grilling of Olly Robbins. While the sacked Foreign Office civil servant was billed as the star of the show, for many he was upstaged by a well-dressed man wearing a cravat.

“I’ve got a big collection,” said Andrew Edwards, the scene stealer in question.

He is one of the most chilling actors around. Yet Matthew Rhys is now playing a Basil Fawlty type in comedy horror Widow’s Bay. He talks about fluffing his James Bond audition, unzipping in Girls – and why he almost jacked in acting to join the army

‘What an absolute twat!” cries Matthew Rhys, clutching his face in both hands. He has just been reminded of a remark he made in 2000, when he was playing the Dustin Hoffman role in the West End stage version of The Graduate. He was 25, not long out of Rada, and was asked if he could imagine being middle-aged like his Mrs Robinson, Kathleen Turner, who was 45 at the time. His response? “Yes – and it’s frightening. I wonder – will I still be acting?”

Perhaps the “frightening” part merits derision. But acting is a precarious business, so no wonder he questioned his career’s potential longevity. “It is precarious,” he says, grateful for the off-ramp. He is wearing a black T-shirt and speaking over video call from the Brooklyn home he shares with the actor Keri Russell, their 10-year-old son and her two teenage children from a previous marriage. “It was after The Graduate that I had my longest stretch out of work. I thought I’d made it, and then I was like, ‘Nope’.” His prospects were so dire back then that he applied to join the army, only to be rejected by a recruiting officer convinced that he was merely researching a role. “I remember him looking down my CV at the list of acting jobs and saying: ‘I’m very confused …’”

Before the war on Gaza, the seed of Israel’s strategy of wholesale destruction was planted in a 2006 war on Lebanon. Today, the playbook repeats itself

Shortly after 2pm on 8 April, it seemed that Beirut was hit by an earthquake. Within 10 minutes, multiple apartment buildings were obliterated, leaving in their wake mounds of rubble and shattered glass, pulverized concrete and twisted metal – and hundreds of dead and wounded bodies.

In those minutes, Israel had carried out one of the worst mass killings in Lebanon’s history. Dozens of Israeli warplanes dropped bombs and missiles on 100 targets across a country roughly the size of Connecticut, striking Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon. By the time rescue crews finished digging out mangled remains from the rubble two days later, the Lebanese health ministry’s toll stood at 357 dead and more than 1,200 injured. But even that is not a final accounting of the day’s casualties because health officials were still struggling to identify remains and conduct DNA tests.

Internal email proposes US should reassess support for UK claim to islands because of lack of support for Iran war

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The UK’s position on the Falklands is resolute and unchanging, Downing Street has insisted, after a leaked Pentagon internal email proposed the US should reassess its support for Britain’s claim to the islands because of a lack of support over Iran.

Keir Starmer’s spokesperson did not push back against the likely veracity of the email but insisted that the UK’s defence and security relationship with the US remained extremely strong.

John Ashby, who subjected woman to prolonged assault in her home, a ‘deeply unpleasant racist’, says judge

A white man “filled with hatred” has been jailed for life for racially abusing a Sikh woman as he raped her.

John Ashby, 32, followed the woman home after spotting her on a bus in Walsall in the West Midlands in October last year, and subjected her to a 24-minute ordeal after breaking in armed with a metre-long stick.

Former Scottish Labour leader says she understands that expressing respect for author caused ‘worry, anger and upset’

The incoming chair of the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, says she is “truly sorry” after she expressed “huge respect” for JK Rowling in an interview with the Guardian.

Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, said she understood that her words had caused “worry, anger and upset and I am truly sorry about that”.

Iranian state media says Abbas Araqchi due to begin a trip today that includes visiting Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow

The EU’s foreign chief has said that talks with Iran should include nuclear experts otherwise “we will end up with a more dangerous Iran.”

Speaking on Friday ahead of an informal summit of EU leaders in Cyprus, EU’s foreign chief Kaja Kallas said: “If the talks are only about the nuclear and there are no nuclear experts around the table, then we will end up with an agreement that is weaker than the JCPOA was.”