After 18 months of policy U-turns and political turmoil we are told not to expect any last-minute policy rabbits

Politicians tend to hate being boring but Rachel Reeves will be delighted if Tuesday’s spring forecast is judged by voters and financial markets to be reassuringly dull.

After Labour’s catastrophic Gorton and Denton byelection result, the chancellor’s future, along with that of the prime minister, is on the line, as backbench MPs fret about the party’s electoral prospects.

With the rise of influencer Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxers’, sexist language from niche memes has infiltrated official government accounts and NYT headlines

A recent tweet from the US Department of Defense boasts about the killing capabilities of the US military as follows: “Low cortisol. Locked in. Lethalitymaxxing”. To many, that will sound as indecipherable as the teenagers that discuss “high-tier Beckys” or the New York Times warning of “Tate-pilled” boys.

Many will have now seen the 6 February tweet that went globally viral, viewed more than 24m times and since discussed in endless analyses and explainers:

Clavicular was mid jestergooning when a group of Foids came and spiked his Cortisol levels. Is Ignoring the Foids while munting and mogging Moids more useful then SMV chadfishing in the club?

From live audio descriptions to fabric swatch booklets, designers including Chet Lo are rethinking the catwalk experience for blind and low-vision clothes-lovers

‘If you put your hands out and run your fingers along this skirt, you’ll feel that there are soft feathers appliquéd on to it,” says the fashion designer Chet Lo. “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.

Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week

We may cringe at influencers and friends who let it all hang out, but research shows that keeping quiet might be worse

Do you recoil at oversharers on social media, or joke among your friends about “TMI”? I know I do. But while mocking public confession comes easy, it’s harder to appreciate the risks of normalising silence: withheld anxieties, unspoken family histories, and the little omissions that make workplaces and relationships brittle. The instinct to pour scorn on “attention seekers” may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment.

For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don’t put your passwords in a document, don’t take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don’t broadcast things you can’t take back. I was a walking contradiction, though. Privately, I did online quizzes for fun. I kept a notepad of passwords on my desktop. I knew the rules and, like many of us, I broke them.

The regime may now have to meet Trump’s demands merely to save itself. And he needs a coherent plan to deal with what he has unleashed

The coordinated strikes on Iran launched by the United States and Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning formally reignited a conflict that had been simmering since last summer’s 12-day war. They targeted key command structures and killed senior figures, most notably Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had been in power since 1989. Donald Trump marked his demise with a post saying “one of the most evil people in history” was dead, adding: “This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans.”

Israel has published reports claiming that Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the defence council, have also been killed. In response, Iranian forces have fired missiles and drones at Israel, at US bases in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan, and at some civilian targets across the Gulf. Events are moving quickly, but far from predictably.

Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House

After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation

Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.

Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.

Alireza Arafi joins Iran’s president and chief justice on temporary leadership council to fulfil supreme leader’s role until successor is chosen

• Tell us: how have you been affected by events in the Middle East?

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran

• How the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP reported. Thick black smoke was rising from the airport area.

On Saturday, US-led coalition forces downed several missiles and explosive-laden drones over Erbil.

Strike on girls’ elementary school in south of Iran has killed 148 people and injured 95 others, according to Iran state media

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

The death toll from a missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran has risen to almost 150, according to Iranian state media.

Mizan News Agency, the official news outlet of Iran’s judiciary, has reported that the number killed in Saturday’s strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab in southern Iran has risen to 148 killed, with 95 others wounded. The news agency cited Ebrahim Taheri, a prosecutor in Minab.

British forces in Bahrain and Iraq being drawn into Iran conflict in defence of ‘civilian sites and military assets’

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

Three hundred British personnel were within 200 metres (650ft) of an Iranian missile and drone strike on the US naval base in Bahrain on Saturday – one of several incidents where UK forces have been drawn into the war in the Middle East.

No casualties were reported in the incident, one of more than 25 waves of retaliatory attacks in response to the massive US-Israeli joint bombing campaign launched against Iran on Saturday.

John Healey says there is ‘real and rising threat’ from Iran as US and Israeli military action divides political opinion

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

The UK defence secretary has said few will mourn Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, whose death was announced after US and Israeli airstrikes.

John Healey, a senior cabinet minister, described the Iranian regime as “evil” and said it had menaced the west by sponsoring at least 20 terrorist plots to attack the UK as well as involvement in proxy wars.