Who needs critics when the Reform man is so adept at patting his own back – and that’s easy to do in publishing: there’s a sales list for everyone

‘She’s produced a bestseller!” panted the Spectator. “Liz Truss’s new book has been out for less than 72 hours and it’s already sold out on Amazon.” Thus began the fairly widespread British media hallucination that the 45-day PM was once more igniting the nation with her 2024 book Ten Years to Save the West. In the end, Truss’s book sold 2,228 copies in the UK in its first week, which placed it at No 70 in the “bestseller” charts . The next week it had fallen back to 223, comfortably obliterated by any number of cookbooks, novels, self-help titles and sticker books, none of which had enjoyed anything like its level of publicity. You hear a lot about AI hallucinations, but rather less about the hallucinations suffered by journalists all on their own.

So, then, to the furore over the academic/recent Reform candidate Matt Goodwin’s new book, which I find at least as high-stakes for our culture as that courtroom battle between Gwyneth Paltrow and the – I think? – retired optometrist who accidentally skied into her.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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A woman’s confession on the eve of her nuptials causes uproar in this insouciantly offensive provocation from the director of Dream Scenario

• This review contains spoilers

How much of your past should you reveal to your adorable fiance before the big day? Very tricky issues are probably best avoided in the run-up to the ceremony, but can still be recklessly raised by attractively naive young people who assume the worms surely can’t be that big or plentiful – or difficult to get back into the can.

Such a situation is the centre of this contrived but amusing high-concept, high-anxiety movie from Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli; a Euro-satire of American bourgeois aspiration that sets out to discomfit and excruciate in the spirit of Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure or Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen.

In Cheetham Hill, Manchester, there are more than 50 shops specialising in vapes and vaping paraphernalia. Why did they open here? And how long can they last?

I meet Ali outside his tiny wholesale business, Fly Vape – the store name combined with the image of a vape bookended by angel wings appears on the shopfront. In place of a halo is a cloud of vapour. The softly spoken 40-year-old says that working in the vape trade is “OK, better than nothing”. He opened Fly Vape just over two years ago, selling vaping products to small retailers such as convenience stores. Candy-coloured boxes bursting with fruity flavours line the shelves, although body sprays, soft drinks and a plentiful selection of bongs are available too. His customers come “from all around the UK”, he says, although he names only “Leeds, Bradford, Hull”. He shrugs at the fact that, compared with his neighbours, his sales are modest. He is not one of the “big men” here, he grins.

Ali’s store is in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where two adjoining litter-strewn back streets near Manchester prison (formerly Strangeways) have emerged as a surprising industry hub in recent years. Ali’s is one of more than 50 outlets specialising in vapes and their accompanying products in an area that has been dubbed Britain’s “vape capital”. Most appear to be wholesalers; there are few passersby and some doors bear signs stating “trade only”, “not open to the public”.

Today, the space around Earth can no longer be considered empty. More than 30,000 objects are in orbit, and that figure is rising exponentially

Some reports suggest that by the end of this decade there could more than 60,000 active satellites in space. Launch by launch, what began with a handful of scientific and military spacecraft has accelerated into a constant flow of objects, publicly and privately owned, placed into different orbital lanes, each serving a variety of purposes.

There is now a diverse collection of satellites spinning around the globe, ​including communication​ and weather ​satellites​, navigation satellites and Earth observation technology that takes images of the surface.

For some, it’s a meat thermometer or a knife, for others a roasting tin, a reliable peeler or, yes, a teapot (gravy, anyone?). Let the cooking perfection begin

Crispy roast potatoes, golden yorkshire puddings and perfectly cooked meat (or a vegetarian centrepiece) – there’s nothing like a good roast dinner. But making a roast can be quite a balancing act in the kitchen. There’s a fine art to juggling all the elements: you want to make sure nothing is over- or under-cooked, and that everything is still warm when you come to serve it.

To refine your techniques and help you feel like a pro in the kitchen, we asked top chefs from around the UK about the cooking equipment they rely on to make the perfect roast. Featuring life-changing peelers, roasting tins that make the crispiest potatoes and a temperature probe to help you cook to perfection, these are their recommendations.

It costs the UK economy £700m a year, and criminal gangs are operating with near impunity. Every time a lorry gets robbed, raided or hijacked, it’s Mike Dawber who investigates

In August 2021, Mike Dawber, the UK’s leading detective in cargo crime, got a call from officers in Bradford CID. They were planning to search two warehouses that contained, in their words, an awful lot of suspicious goods. This was a job that required Dawber’s expert eye. He drove an hour from his home, in the unmarked police car that doubles as his office, and arrived to discover the description barely did it justice.

As soon as he walked in to the first warehouse, he noticed 17 pallets of golfing equipment. They had, he knew, been stolen three weeks before from a truck at Lymm motorway services, just outside Manchester. He reckoned they were worth about £1m. As Dawber continued his survey, he came across 18 pallets of Asics trainers, stolen three years before, at Warwick services. Then 14 pallets of lawnmowers: five years before, from a truck on the A1 at Colsterworth. He came across IT equipment, sportswear, high-end fashion, electrical goods, toasters, microwaves, beauty products. One pallet was simply labelled “Eyelash technology”. Dawber didn’t know what eyelash technology was, exactly, but he later learned that a pallet of it was worth more than £500,000.

The US president made the remarks on social media and said other countries, ‘like the UK’, need to learn how to fight for themselves

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry has said it has intercepted and destroyed ten drones over the past hours, and eight missiles launched towards the Riyadh area and the country’s eastern region.

Early this morning Kuwait said its air defences were responding to hostile missile and drone attacks. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Kuwait said where the drones or missiles came from.

Iran attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker off Dubai. Local authorities later said response teams contained the incident with no oil leakage and that no injuries had been reported

Donald Trump warned that the US would obliterate Iran’s energy plants and oil wells if it did not open the strait of Hormuz.

The Israeli military said four soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, where its forces are clashing with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Two giant Chinese container ships have sailed through the strait of Hormuz on their second attempt to leave the Gulf after turning back on Friday, ship-tracking data shows. The transit signals a diplomatic breakthrough between Beijing and Tehran as Iran widens its list of approved nations for transiting the vital route, Lloyd’s List reported.

Indonesia’s foreign minister called for an emergency UN security council meeting and a thorough investigation” into a “heinous attack” after three UN peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in southern Lebanon.

Blasts were heard in Tehran and power cuts hit some areas of the capital, Iranian media reported on Tuesday. Israel earlier carried out missile strikes on what it called military infrastructure in Tehran and infrastructure used by Hezbollah in Beirut.

Japan and Indonesia agreed to step up coordination on energy security, Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi said on Tuesday.

Two Iranian missile launches targeted central Israel, Israeli media reported, with the emergency service saying it had not received reports of any injuries.

Turkey reported a ballistic missile launched from Iran had entered Turkish airspace before being shot down by Nato air and missile defences.

An earlier summary of key developments is here.

John Healey says extra deployment is response to ‘expanding threat’ from Iran

• Middle East crisis – live updates

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK is sending more military support to the Gulf taking the total deployment to 1,000 troops, amid more jibes from Donald Trump about Britain’s refusal to get involved in offensive operations against Iran.

Speaking from Qatar where he met UK troops, the defence secretary, John Healey, said the extra deployment was in response to an “expanding threat” from Iran.

Plans would prevent the return of hundreds of thousands of residents

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Israel said on Tuesday that it will occupy wide swathes of south Lebanon and destroy the homes along the border to prevent the return of some 600,000 residents, prompting concerns of long-term forced displacement.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said that it will occupy the area under the Litani River, some 19 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, as part of its so-called buffer zone inside southern Lebanon when fighting with Hezbollah ends.

Visit with Camilla to go ahead in late April despite calls for delay over conflict and Trump-Starmer tensions

• UK politics live – latest updates

King Charles will go ahead with a state visit to the US in April, Buckingham Palace has confirmed, despite some politicians saying the trip will be a “humiliation” while Donald Trump’s war with Iran is ongoing.

MPs have privately expressed concerns there is potential to embarrass the king if the US president continues his criticisms of the UK’s armed forces before or during the trip.