The Scandal star made history as the first Black woman to lead a TV show in 40 years. Now, she’s back in the hot seat with starry thriller Imperfect Women, and she’s determined to keep shaking up the industry

As double entendres go, to say Kerry Washington acts with teeth isn’t a bad one. There’s the literal meaning: Washington’s dramatic facial expressions have become internet canon, immortalised as various reaction gifs and as a favourite of online impressionists. But there’s also the roles themselves. The characters Washington plays have bite – they’re complex women that defy neat categorisation. Her role as Olivia Pope, the sleek political fixer in ABC’s Scandal, became a global sensation – and was the first time a Black woman led a network show in nearly 40 years.

Now Washington is back with a new project offering not just one complicated leading lady but three. Imperfect Women, Apple TV’s adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel, brings Washington together with Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara in a glossy murder mystery that puts female friendship – its love, loyalty, secrets and rivalry – at the heart.

As the public consultation on the BBC nears its end, the right will be out in force to undermine it. But its supporters can do their bit – with this guidance

The BBC may have more than one and a half years before its charter expires in December 2027, but the public consultation on its renewal closes next week. All those who care about the BBC’s future should hurry and send in their response before 10 March. Despite strong public support for the national broadcaster, you can bet battalions of enemies driven by the right will be out in force to undermine it.

The timing turns out to be accidentally apt. As chaos is unleashed across the Middle East, the BBC and its array of experienced correspondents has never been more visibly needed. Nightly reports from Jeremy Bowen, Sarah Smith, Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin, Clive Myrie and all the rest give the country – and the world – trusted updates, as few others can do. The secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lisa Nandy, a strong defender of the BBC, called its World Service “the light on the hill” in a world of flexible fictitious facts.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Forget sombrero lids and student nights, the agave-derived Mexican spirit has become the sophisticated drink choice. Here’s why – plus five of the best tequila cocktails

Cracking open the tequila at the end of a long night rarely leads to good decisions. But for Tom Bishop, reaching for a bottle that had been gathering dust on his shelf proved life-changing. Having run out of beers while drinking with friends in 2017, Bishop dug out a bottle of premium Añejo tequila that his brother had given him after a business trip to Mexico. His expectations were low, informed by the throat-burning experiences of his youth. “But it completely blew me away,” Bishop remembers. “I just hadn’t associated tequila with that level of quality or flavour.”

Having stumbled upon the spirit as it was meant to be enjoyed “by accident”, Bishop saw an opportunity. Two years later, he and Jack Vereker, a friend with whom he had been drinking in south-east London that night, sold their first bottle of their brand El Rayo, now stocked across the UK and part of tequila’s new wave.

In 1995, the bands tussled for No 1 – and the Britpop crown. Our writer was on the inside of the mad-for-it contest. Does The Battle accurately capture this divisive moment? And what was Noel’s problem with risotto?

“At this point, it’s Israel/Palestine. Rangers/Celtic. No one remembers how it got started. All they know is, ‘I like this team and I don’t like that team.’ The whole country’s gone fucking mad. It’s what happens in a civil war – everyone starts thinking with the blood.”

Amy Wallace spent years helping Giuffre write her life story. Now she reflects on what the survivor would have thought of the release of the Epstein files

There are many reasons why Amy Wallace wishes Virginia Roberts Giuffre was still alive. Some are personal. Some are practical. But at its heart pulse the reverberations of a child sex trafficking scandal that reaches into palaces and courtrooms across the globe.

Wallace is the now very visible ghostwriter behind the posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl, by Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accuser.

The bombing of Iran is deeply unpopular. Despite the Tories’ urgings, Keir Starmer must not further embroil the UK in this disaster

Keir Starmer’s immediate response to the Israeli-US attack on Iran last weekend was sensible and correct. Donald Trump had lied that the US was at risk of imminent attack, and had presented no coherent reason for going to war. Even after Starmer weakened and allowed the US to use British bases, although it did not really need them, Trump was furious. He accused Starmer of being “no Winston Churchill”. Starmer should have been equally furious and said Trump was no Franklin Roosevelt – more George W Bush.

Britain is now contending with an unreliable, mendacious and warmongering ally across the Atlantic. It surely must hold itself consistent and principled at a deeply uncertain time. But does its Tory opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, agree? She goes to her spring party conference this week having hurled abuse at Starmer in parliament, supporting Trump on the dubious grounds that: “We’re in this war, whether they like it or not.” This appeared to be a confession of weakness, that other states can order Britons to go to war. As it was, Starmer found he had a navy left him by Badenoch’s party with hardly any seaworthy destroyers. It was surely a moment for a joint stance, not dispatch box point-scoring.

Israel launched huge attacks on Iran and Lebanon overnight

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Iran and Lebanon were hit with a wave of intense Israeli strikes overnight.

Israel’s military said Friday morning it had begun “a broad-scale wave of strikes” on Tehran, Iran’s capital.

US leader’s remarks come hours after Iranian president claims some mediation efforts are under way

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, only hours after the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, claimed some mediation efforts to end the war were under way.

The US president’s remarks on Friday hit European stock markets, which were already suffering after a warning from Qatar that a prolonged shutdown of gas production could drive oil to more than $150 a barrel. It was $90 on Friday.

With one text message, Israel made half a million people homeless, leaving the city’s southern suburbs a ghost town

The ding of half a million phones, a pause and a collective gasp: in an instant, more than 500,000 people had just been declared homeless.

Shooting in the air, panicked phone calls and honking filled the streets of Beirut as people began to flee. Thousands abandoned their cars and began the slow march to the sea, desperate to escape the Israeli bombs which they knew would soon fall on their homes – whether they were in them or not.

People tell of scenes of panic during airstrikes on Iran’s capital, with several saying they feared they would die

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Sleeplessness, fear and exhaustion gripped residents of Tehran as successive waves of strikes struck the Iranian capital, judging from messages sent by people in the city after the latest overnight onslaught, which several described as the worst bombardment in six days of war.

With the Iran imposing a near-total internet blackout, information emerging from inside the country is fragmentary and difficult to verify. But in a series of accounts sent through proxy connections, and calls with friends abroad, Tehranis described a night of intense explosions.