US president says war is ‘very complete’ and threatens worse strikes if passage of oil via strait of Hormuz is blocked; IRGC says it will not let out ‘one litre of oil’

• Oil prices drop sharply after Trump moves to reassure markets

• Trump says Iran war is ‘very complete, pretty much’ as economic toll rises

Iran’s foreign minister has said his country is prepared to continue attacks for as long as necessary and has ruled out talks with the US after Donald Trump said the war with Iran would be over “very soon”.

Abbas Araghchi also told US broadcaster PBS News on Tuesday that Iran was prepared to continue missile attacks and that negotiations with the US were no longer on the agenda, AFP reports.

First he came for Berlin’s film festival. Now it’s books. Wolfram Weimer seems to be on a mission to curb progressive thinking

There is a particular kind of danger that smells like paper and dust. You find it in independent bookshops. Those with uneven wooden floors and handwritten staff recommendations, where someone has shelved Audre Lorde next to Karl Marx and a debut novelist from Neukölln. Places where no algorithm is trying to guess who you are before you have the chance to change your mind.

I walk in for a novel and walk out with a theory of the state, a pamphlet on housing struggles, a Palestinian poet I had never heard of. No “for you” page in an online store would have suggested it. The bookseller did. Independent bookshops are dangerous because they interrupt us. They do not optimise our curiosity. They derail it. Is that the reason why Germany’s culture commissioner, Wolfram Weimer, is now consulting the domestic intelligence agency before approving funds to bookshops?

Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist

The Milk and Good Will Hunting director’s new film is about ‘a little guy’ taking violent revenge against the system. He talks about the parallels between Dead Man’s Wire and the homicide case currently dividing Gen Z and boomers

In February 1977, a middle-aged Indianapolis businessman named Tony Kiritsis took hostage an employee at his local mortgage brokers, who he was convinced had cheated him out of the profits of a piece of real estate. The system was weighted against the little guy, Kiritsis decided, and he was going to be the one to make it pay. He attached one end of a wire to the trigger of a shotgun, the other to the hostage’s head, and demanded $5m and an admission of guilt from the brokers’ boss. The final moments of the standoff, which lasted 63 hours, were broadcast live on TV.

It has already been the subject of a 2018 documentary (Dead Man’s Line) and a 2022 thriller podcast (American Hostage) which starred Jon Hamm as the DJ who broadcast an interview with Kiritsis live from the crime scene. Now Gus Van Sant, whose 40-year-plus career incorporates queer landmarks (My Own Private Idaho, Milk), mainstream crowdpleasers (Good Will Hunting) and arthouse award-winners (the Columbine-inspired Elephant), is dramatising the events in Dead Man’s Wire. This wry thriller cuts between the volatile captor (Bill Skarsgård) and the media circus swirling around him, which includes the DJ, played here by Colman Domingo, and a female TV journalist (Myha’la) fed up with being fobbed off. Al Pacino has a cameo as the boss of the mortgage company, sunning himself in Malibu and unconvinced he has anything much to apologise for.

Psychologist Leanne ten Brinke has spent decades studying toxic personality traits. What are the red flags to look out for among workmates, politicians and potential partners?

Coming face to face with a probable psychopath was enough to make Dr Leanne ten Brinke rethink her career choices. Early in her 20s, while studying forensic psychology in Halifax, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, Ten Brinke was volunteering at a parole office, which would hold weekly group meetings for released sex offenders. “Most of the men showed contrition,” says Ten Brinke. “They really seemed to recognise the damage that they had done.” Except for one. The treatment programme seemed “like a game to him”, she says. One week, in a discussion about the impact their crimes had on victims, this rapist stared at Ten Brinke and, smiling slightly, started to say how much his victim looked like her, “and how I was ‘his type’. Clearly he was trying to scare me, and he did.”

It put her off a career working with convicted criminals, but she remained fascinated with “dark personalities” – psychopathy, mainly, but also narcissism, machiavellianism (manipulating and exploiting others) and sadism. From politics to business to the media, it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of people to study. There were selfish, callous, impulsive and manipulative people everywhere, often presenting as gregarious and charming. “It started to occur to me that these traits aren’t just confined to an underworld. These traits appear in all aspects of our lives,” she says.

When Trump granted white South Africans refugee status, he was echoing a falsehood about Black people taking revenge for years of brutality. But no one flourishes in a repressive police state

There’s a little town in the scrub in South Africa – a full day’s drive from the country’s big cities – that has become perhaps the most scrutinised place on earth, given its size. It is 9 sq km (3.5 sq miles) of suburban-style houses harbouring about 3,000 people, with a main drag, a municipal swimming pool, one gas station and some pecan farms. Nothing of consequence ever really happens there, a fact the townspeople take as a point of pride. And yet over the past three decades, dozens of English-language news outlets have made a pilgrimage to it, often more than once. The New York Times alone has run four dedicated profiles. The essays have kept pace year after year, quoting the same people over and over, even as nothing of note occurred. There’s been no war, no disaster.

That changelessness is the point. No people of colour are allowed to live in the town, called Orania. The name is a nod to the river that runs nearby – and to the Orange Free State, the apartheid-era designation for the province in which it lies. Orania’s founders established it in 1991, the year after South Africa’s best-known Black liberation leader (and future president), Nelson Mandela, was freed following 27 years in prison.

Scientists hope results analysed after the mice watched video footage will help them understand their perceptions

Scientists have reconstructed short movies from the brain activity of mice that watched videos for a project that aspires to lift the veil on how animals perceive the world.

The brief movie clips are grainy and pixellated, but provide a glimpse of how mice processed footage that featured people taking part in various sports from gymnastics to horse riding and wrestling.

Royal commission says response led by Jacinda Ardern was broadly ‘appropriate’, in a wide-ranging report featuring recommendations for future pandemics

A royal commission into New Zealand’s Covid response has found it was one of the best in the world but acknowledged the period had left “scars”.

The second of two inquiry reports on the pandemic was released on Tuesday and focused on the period between February 2021 to October 2022, when the government changed from an elimination strategy to one of suppression and minimisation of the virus. It also examined vaccine safety and the government’s immunisation programme, lockdowns and tracing and testing technology.

US president describes conflict as ‘very complete’, but threatens further strikes after Iran says it won’t allow ‘one litre of oil’ to leave Middle East while war continues

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Oil prices have tumbled from four-year highs, capping an extraordinary 24 hours in global markets after Donald Trump suggested the US-Israel war on Iran could end “very soon”.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, surged as high as $119.50 per barrel on Monday as the Middle East conflict intensified fears of a deepening energy supply crisis.

Interceptor drones and operators deployed to Middle East after ‘requests for help from 11 countries neighbouring Iran’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Ukraine’s president has said he dispatched interceptor drones and operators to protect US bases in Jordan last week, one of 11 countries that had asked Kyiv for help as the US-Israeli war against Iran continued into its 10th day.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview that he had responded to a US request for help in defending Jordan last week as Ukraine seeks to improve relations with Gulf and Middle Eastern countries coming under attack from Iran.

Scientific awards – which honor research that makes people laugh and then think – to move away from ‘unsafe’ US

The annual Ig Nobels, a satirical award for scientific achievement, are shifting for the first time from the US to Europe due to concerns about attendees getting visas, organizers announced on Monday.

Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that highlights research that makes people laugh and then think, the 36th annual ceremony will be held in Zurich. It’s usually held in the US in September, a few weeks before the actual Nobel prizes are announced.

• Draper defeats Argentine 6-1, 7-5 in third round

• Cameron Norrie sees off Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-4

Jack Draper continued his impressive comeback from an arm injury by beating Francisco Cerundolo to set up a last-16 clash with Novak Djokovic at Indian Wells.

Draper rode his luck at the end of the second set to clinch a 6-1, 7-5 win and set up his first meeting with Djokovic since he took the first set off the defending champion on his Wimbledon debut in 2021.

The so-called Zorro Ranch was the site of numerous alleged abuses, but was not subject to intense scrutiny

New Mexico authorities launched a search of a ranch previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, state officials announced on Monday.

The late convicted sex offender and financier’s so-called Zorro Ranch was the site of numerous alleged abuses, according to civil and criminal proceedings. But the location was not subject to the same scrutiny as other Epstein properties, and a Guardian investigation in February revealed that federal authorities apparently never searched the New Mexico ranch.

• Romero, Spence and Dragusin will return to the squad

• Pedro Porro says interim coach is ‘100% on the right path’

Tottenham’s interim head coach, Igor Tudor, called tonight’s ­Champions League last-16 first leg at ­Atlético Madrid a “beautiful game”, but admitted it was not the priority as they battle against relegation from the ­Premier League.

Spurs finished fourth in the league phase, earning them direct qualification for the last 16 and a return to the stadium where they played in the final less than seven years ago. But a run of 11 matches without a win has left them one point above the Premier League relegation zone and Tudor under pressure just three weeks after taking over. He admitted: “Our first aim is the Premier League, this needs to be said publicly.”

Loss against Galatasaray in September summed up Slot’s struggles, creating a template he is still working to remedy

It is not the first time Liverpool have come to Istanbul looking for unlikely salvation. There is not a final on the line as there was 21 years ago, but a last-16 tie against Galatasaray feels almost as decisive for their season and possibly for the long-term future of Arne Slot, even as he marks his 100th game as manager.

It’s not even the first time Liverpool have come to Istanbul this season: their 1-0 reverse against Galatasaray in September was their second loss in a run of nine defeats in 12 games from which their season has never recovered. They are in much better form now, but will be without Alisson after he suffered a minor problem in training.

More than 1,200 people in Fiji were diagnosed with HIV the first six months of 2025, making the island nation's HIV epidemic the fastest growing in the world. The UN says Fiji’s location as a drug-running hub and escalating local methamphetamine use has fuelled the rapid spread, coupled with unsafe injecting practices and a lack of access to clean needles. Low health awareness, cultural stigma and inadequate testing and treatment are exacerbating the crisis.

The names and voices of Mirry, Francine, Andi, Clare, Isac and Nemaia have been changed to protect their identities

• Drugs, denial and stigma: the babies and children swept up in Fiji’s HIV nightmare

Uber is expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its ride-hailing platform

Uber launched a feature on Monday to allow both female riders and drivers across the US to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its ride-hailing platform.

The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it is discriminatory against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is also facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.

The master of the everyman gifts us some hard-won parenting insights in this blissfully awkward show about a father and daughter relationship

Humankind, as TS Eliot’s bird said in Burnt Norton, cannot bear too much reality. That feels especially salient now, when we have more reality arriving in a day than we used to have to process in a year.

At the same time, unless you go the whole high-fantasy hog and offer 100% escapism via immersion in a completely alternative world, it is becoming trickier for your audiences to believe in you at all. Programmes set in the real world have to acknowledge the new way of it. Pure, frothy comedy just became that much harder to pull off – and it was never easy. But walking the line between too much reality and not enough is almost as difficult.

Given their inability to win a knockout tie in normal time, there can be little doubt of the physical impediment that West Ham’s continued prolonged endeavours in this season’s FA Cup must make to their efforts of remaining in the Premier League. But, with an eminently winnable home quarter-final against Leeds United now upcoming, the chance of a rare trip to Wembley is the type of happy distraction any relegation-threatened side can embrace.

For the third time in three FA Cup ties, the conventional 90 minutes were insufficient for Nuno Espírito Santo’s team to find a winner, with two goals apiece for Jarrod Bowen and Igor Thiago cancelling each other out.

Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander convicted in New York after being accused of raping dozens of women

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Three brothers, including two of the nation’s most successful luxury real estate brokers, were convicted of sex trafficking charges on Monday after a five-week trial over accusations that they used drugs and force to rape scores of women they had dazzled with their wealth and opulent lifestyle.

The verdict came after 11 women testified they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers: twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 38, and Tal Alexander, 39.

Communities secretary tells MPs that government has to act against record levels of hate crimes

A new definition of anti-Muslim hate will not restrict freedom of speech, the communities secretary has pledged, as he said that “clear expectations” will still be set for new arrivals and existing communities in Britain to learn English.

MPs were told by Steve Reed that the government had a duty to act against record levels of hate crime against Muslims, but that “you can’t tackle a problem if you can’t describe it”.

Anglers describe harrowing phone calls to loved ones once ice detached from shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario

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Kevin Fox thought the spring-like temperatures that had temporarily pushed the cold away from south-eastern Ontario meant a good day on for ice fishing, a popular winter pastime in the region.

After shifting location because the wind and ice “didn’t feel right” and the fish weren’t biting close to shore, he and a friend joined nearly two dozen others far out on a sheet of ice in Lake Huron. They followed the familiar routine of anyone who spends a day on the ice: they drilled holes, dropped their lines and waited.

French president says attack on island is ‘an attack on Europe’ as EU states send military support

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Emmanuel Macron has vowed that Europe will do whatever it takes to stand by Cyprus, the continent’s first state to be directly affected by the Iran war, after coming under what he described as “attack from multiple drones and missiles.”

In the strongest show yet of solidarity towards the EU member closest to the Middle East, Macron likened the attacks, which included a drone strike against a British base on the eastern Mediterranean island, to an attack on Europe.

West coast state’s average cost per gallon has climbed $0.55 since the conflict in Middle East began over a week ago

• Middle East crisis – live updates

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The war in Iran has caused a spike in gas prices that is hitting California consumers especially hard, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

AAA reports that in California, the most expensive US market for gas, the average price per gallon on Monday was $5.20, compared with $3.47 nationally. The national average climbed nearly $0.50 since the conflict began more than a week ago, while in the Golden state it rose by $0.55.

Sgt Benjamin N Pennington, 26, died from injuries sustained during Iranian strike on airbase in Saudi Arabia

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The Pentagon has identified the seventh US service member killed in the war with Iran as 26-year-old army Sgt Benjamin N Pennington, who is a resident of Glendale, Kentucky.

In a statement on Monday the department said Pennington died on Sunday from injuries sustained during an Iranian strike on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia on 1 March. The incident is under investigation, the statement said.