As rainy season fails to bring relief, authorities try cloud seeding – while others across the country pray for a miracle

Water, and its absence, has become Iran’s national obsession. In the mosques of northern Tehran the imams have been praying for rain, while the meteorologists count down the hours until the weather is forecast to break and rain is finally due to fall from the sky.

Forecasts of “rain-producing clouds” are front-page news. More than 50 days have passed since the start of Iran’s rainy season and more than 20 provinces have not yet had a drop. The number of dams that have less than 5% of their reservoir capacity had increased from eight to 32, and the crisis has spread from the central plains right across the country.

Andrew Snowden MP says government ‘must immediate take action’ on failures of anti-fraud benefits crackdown

Calls are being made for an urgent independent inquiry after thousands of families were stripped of child benefit due to flawed Home Office travel data that claimed to show parents going on holidays and not returning.

Andrew Snowden, the Conservative MP for Fylde and the party’s assistant whip, said the government “must take immediate and transparent action” to address the failures of the anti-fraud benefits crackdown.

In the context of spirituality, trauma is a hand grenade. But it can lead to deeper understandings of the world

“Why me?” “Why evil?” and “Why God?”

According to theologian and psychologist Karen McClintock, these are the three key questions that a person will ask of their faith in the aftermath of trauma.

Long after his conviction for sexual abuse, people in royalty, academia, business, journalism and politics sought his ear

He got by with a little help from his friends. From British royalty to White House alumni, from a Silicon Valley investor to a leftwing academic, connections and influence were the ultimate currency for Jeffrey Epstein.

Yet none appeared to challenge Epstein over his horrific crimes. If silence is complicity, the casual disdain of the elite circles he moved in spoke volumes.

I was sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed when she stepped in and took charge

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

As a twin mum the work is constant. It is double the love and double the laughs, but also double the illness. Of course, my twins would never get sick at the same time. As one recovered, the other would start showing symptoms.

One day, when my girls were three, one had a vomiting bug. She hadn’t thrown up for 24 hours so I took my chance to do a quick run to the chemist to stock up on supplies. My husband worked away during the week, so I had to manage on my own. I was exhausted, carrying the sick kid in my arms, while walking the healthy one along next to me as quickly as I could.

The comedians on their Bafta-winning sketch show, the reason they split up – and why she reminds him of Diane Keaton

Born in Louth, Lincolnshire in 1969, and raised in Troon, Ayrshire, Ronni Ancona is an actor, writer and impressionist. She studied at Edinburgh College of Art and trained as a teacher before turning to comedy. Born in Evesham, Worcestershire, in 1964, Alistair McGowan studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before becoming an impressionist. The pair met on the London comedy circuit in the 1990s. They co-created the Bafta-winning Big Impression, which aired between 1999 and 2003 and became one of the BBC’s most popular sketch shows. Ancona’s new podcast with Hal Cruttenden – Hal & Ronni in Pieces – is available now.

We’re taught from infancy that perseverance is a moral virtue and persistence pays. But what if quitters are happier and healthier?

Have you ever heard yourself saying “I’m going to do this if it kills me”? As the pensioners at my gym can attest, it’s what I hiss every time I’m there, attempting slowly and laboriously to get myself a millimetre closer to doing the splits.

But what if it actually is killing me? Not the groin strain, problematic as that is, but because I’ve just read in New Scientist that giving up is good for you, while grinding on isn’t. One study showed that people who “struggled to disengage from unfulfilling goals” had higher levels of cortisol and inflammatory molecules. “The result,” the article explained, “could be a heightened susceptibility to all kinds of conditions, including cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s.” In addition, “goal disengagement” – giving up – correlated with a lower risk of headaches, constipation and eczema; it may even protect against infection. Of 131 older adults, those who scored highly on a giving up scale (asking how easily they stopped fixating on unfulfilling goals and pivoted to others) got fewer colds.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

They say “good fences make good neighbours”, presumably meaning that the stronger the boundary between you and people you need to deal with, the more robust the relationship. Is this really true? Jamila, via email

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Why do we feel nostalgia? And why do some things trigger it more than others? Jules, Fife

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

I always used to dream of the past
But like they say yesterday never comes
Sometimes there’s a song in my brain
And I feel that my heart knows the refrain
I guess it’s just the music that brings on nostalgia for an age yet to come
Ah nostalgia for an age yet to come
Nostalgia for an age yet to come
About the future I only can reminisce
For what I’ve had is what I’ll never get
And although this may sound strange
My future and my past are presently disarranged
And I’m surfing on a wave of nostalgia for an age yet to come

Minister from islands facing extinction is one of few delegates directly calling out Trump’s climate policies

Of all the representatives from 193 countries present at the crucial UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, only one has summoned the courage to take the stage and publicly denounce the absent and hostile Trump administration: the climate minister of tiny Tuvalu.

On Monday, Maina Vakafua Talia told leaders and diplomats at the Cop30 summit that Donald Trump had shown a “shameful disregard for the rest of the world” by withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement.

Zelenskyy says Nataliia Khodemchuk is victim of ‘new tragedy caused by Kremlin’, four decades after disaster

The widow of the first Soviet engineer to die in the Chornobyl nuclear power plant explosion was killed on Friday in Russia’s massive drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Nataliia Khodemchuk as the victim of a “new tragedy caused by the Kremlin”, nearly four decades after her husband, Valerii, was killed inside Chornobyl’s nuclear reactor number four.

• Andersen, Højland and staff member ill before showdown

• Danes need draw and Scotland must win to reach finals

A sickness bug has disrupted Denmark’s plans for their make-or-break World Cup qualifier with Scotland in Glasgow on Tuesday. Brian Riemer, the Danish head coach, has admitted he is concerned over the situation amid fears the ailment will spread further before kick-off.

Joachim Andersen and Rasmus Højland missed Denmark’s surprising draw with Belarus on Saturday evening due to illness. The result in Copenhagen meant Scotland’s 3-2 loss to Greece was immaterial for Steve Clarke’s side. Scotland trail Denmark by a point in Group C as the teams prepare to meet in the final fixture. A draw will be sufficient for Denmark but the backdrop is fraught.

‘Less expensive and time consuming’ model helps with fast and accurate predictions, possibly saving lives and property

When then Tropical Storm Melissa was churning south of Haiti, Philippe Papin, a National Hurricane Center (NHC) meteorologist, had confidence it was about to grow into a monster hurricane.

As the lead forecaster on duty, he predicted that in just 24 hours the storm would become a category 4 hurricane and begin a turn towards the coast of Jamaica. No NHC forecaster had ever issued such a bold forecast for rapid strengthening.

Just like Italy’s fashion capital, this saffron-hued dish is elegantly simple and very rich

Risotto alla milanese is, like the city it calls home, elegantly simple, but very rich. The saffron that gives the dish its striking colour is rightly expensive (it takes about 150 flowers to produce a mere gram), but you don’t need much and, though it’s often served alongside osso buco, I think it makes a fine meal on its own with a bitter-leaf salad.

Prep 5 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Marketing or celebrity-led treatments for toddlers and upwards described as ‘ridiculous’ and lacking in skin benefit

Dermatologists have criticised an actor’s new skincare brand, calling it “dystopian” for creating face masks for four-year-olds, warning that the beauty industry is now expanding its reach from teenagers to toddlers.

It comes as a growing number of brands are moving into the children’s, teenage and young adult skincare market. In October, the first skincare brand developed for under-14s, Ever-eden, launched in the US. Superdrug has just created a range for those aged between 13 and 28.

Desert kingdom depends on oil dollars but its people already face a climate ‘at the verge of livability’. What’s going on?

Navigation aid from 16th century was on seabed for centuries before being bought and sold in US and Australia

It spent hundreds of years languishing on the seabed off the Isles of Scilly in the far south-west of Britain before being hauled back to the surface by divers and setting off a circumnavigation of the world.

Finally the Pednathise Head astrolabe – a rare example of a 16th-century navigational instrument once used by sailors to determine latitude – is back on Scilly after being rediscovered on the other side of the Atlantic.

• George gave Pollock starring role in reaction to All Blacks

• England moved into V-shape during traditional dance

Henry Pollock’s starring role in England’s response to the haka was designed by Jamie George, who revealed he took inspiration from the 2019 World Cup semi-final win and admitted they risked poking the bear before clinching a first home win over the All Blacks in 13 years.

George admitted he was the brains behind England’s decision to initially line up as usual while the All Blacks performed their traditional war dance before breaking out into a V-shape. As the eldest player in the squad, George was intentionally on one end with Pollock, the youngest, on the other. The captain Maro Itoje stood at the point of the V, which, in truth, looked more like a C-shaped formation.

The White House has made it a top priority to return the rare-earth industry to US shores. But is it really feasible?

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, returned from South Carolina last week brandishing a small piece of metal, proclaiming that it was the first rare-earth magnet made in the US in a quarter of a century.

It was, he indicated to Fox Business, proof that the US is ending “China’s chokehold on our supply chain”. Thanks to the South Carolina company eVAC’s new rare-earth mineral processing center, Bessent added: “We’re finally becoming independent again.”

The Vienna-based ‘father of neurodiversity’ was ahead of his time in his work but was also implicated in the Third Reich’s crimes. My novel set out to explore these contradictions

In 2015, I decided to write a novel about Dr Hans Asperger, who worked at the University Children’s Hospital in Vienna during the second world war. My interest was sparked by two nonfiction books: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman and In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Caren Zucker.

Reading these stories told about Asperger, you would have thought they were talking about two different people. To Silberman, Asperger was a compassionate and original thinker, whereas Donvan and Zucker depict him as an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler. For a historical novelist, widely differing accounts of the same person are gold dust, and I began to dig deeper.

In a clear pattern, a machine designed to generate law and order morphs into an organization operating under lawlessness

We have entered the openly repressive phase of the Trump presidency. The administration has moved beyond verbal attacks on civil society. It is now deploying coercive force against civic organizations and their leaders. While the attacks may seem contained for now, they are likely to grow. Research on other cases of democratic backsliding suggests that once coercion begins, regardless of how limited at first, escalation follows.

In the months ahead, we should thus expect more, not less, government repression. To meet it, pro-democracy organizations, universities and law firms must bravely speak up against abuses of power while building the broadest possible coalition to stand up for fundamental rights. Community, labor and advocacy groups must also train their ranks in strategic nonviolence to resist provocations from the state and make repression backfire.

Javier Corrales is Dwight W Morrow 1895 professor of political science at Amherst College. Daniel Altschuler is the managing director of the Freedom Together Foundation and holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford.

More and more people are turning to egg freezing to increase their chances of becoming a parent. Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering it – from the hidden costs to the chances of success

When I first told my mother I was freezing my eggs, she asked: “So my grandchildren are going to be stored next to some Häagen-Dazs?” (Very funny, Mum.) I’m one of an increasing number of women in the UK who have chosen to put their eggs on ice in order to preserve their fertility, although this does – as discussed later – have clear limitations.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s regulator for the fertility industry, there was a 170% increase in the number of egg freezing cycles between 2019 and 2023. The technology has been around since the 80s, but became more accessible in the 00s with vitrification, a flash-freezing technique. Now, celebrities such as Florence Pugh and Michaela Coel openly discuss their experiences of it, and companies such as Meta, Spotify and Goldman Sachs subsidise the procedure for employees.

They both liked the Greens’ Zack Polanski and disliked the tech oligarchs. But could they find common cause over the power of the unions?

Andrew, 70, near Nottingham

Occupation Retired acupuncturist and herbalist