The city was portrayed as an aspirational place to live, but now those who moved there are realising the precarity that comes with being an economic migrant

To be fooled by a mirage, you needn’t be lost in the desert. Sometimes, the illusion is strongest just when you thought you were safely home, posting from the pool about your teenage daughter’s spa party and your own glittering life in a city where “the possibilities are endless”, as they tend to be for billionaires’ daughters living in tax havens. Only then does the fantasy explode in a puff of intercepted missile smoke, leaving just another woman in her pyjamas telling Instagram (as Petra Ecclestone did at the weekend) that she moved to Dubai “to feel safe” and war was never mentioned in the small print.

Who could have guessed that living a few hundred miles as the drone flies from Tehran might have risks? Certainly not the anonymous hedge funder who fumed to the Financial Times that “the trade was not that you were getting exposed to geopolitics”.

If you long for freshly picked produce but don’t know where to start, try these sure-fire winners

At this time of the year, gardeners are susceptible to the lure of colourful, quirky veg catalogues. But hold fire! A little restraint is our friend. By focusing on reliability, yield and flavour over exotic looks, we are likely to have an easier and more successful year on the plot.

The following fruit and veg should produce hassle-free harvests. They may not look like the most exciting crops, but they will result in more food on your plate, having been tried and taste-tested for a high chance of success and good flavour. Their reliability and resistance to problems makes them easier to grow, and they’re also simple to harvest and prepare, so you’ll be left with more time to enjoy eating them.

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.”

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.

Alpine playgrounds, unforgettable train rides and white-water rafting feature in our readers’ family trips from Norway to the Netherlands

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Travelling by rail in Europe gives you plenty of opportunity for ad-hoc adventure. We were returning from a ski trip in Italy and took the Bernina Express part of the way. We’d heard that if you disembark at Bergün, leave your luggage at the station and take the train back one stop to Preda village it’s possible to sledge between the two stations. So there we found ourselves renting traditional wooden sledges from Preda and walking the short distance to the start of the tobogganing run. What we thought might be a gentle run into town turned into a fast and fun-filled couple of hours as we hurtled down the tree-lined course. At times it felt like we were in the game Mario Kart and at one point a children’s birthday party overtook us, the birthday girl’s sledge trailing balloons. About 5 miles later we arrived back in Bergün, before continuing our train journey onwards.
Layla Astley

More athletes than ever, new nations, old favourites and breakout stars: here are all your questions about the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics answered

This is the 14th edition of the Winter Paralympics, to be held on the 50th anniversary of its first. It will be bigger than ever before, with more than 600 athletes from 56 countries expected to take part. El Salvador, Haiti, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Portugal will compete for the first time. There will be 79 different medal events in six different sports, with mixed doubles in wheelchair curling a new addition since Beijing 2022. The president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Andrew Parsons, said the Games would deliver “world-class sport [that is] highly competitive. Sport that will surprise you. And most importantly, sport that will have a life-changing impact on everyone who witnesses it.”

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.

Justice secretary calls for inquiry into reports of cabinet splits at national security council over use of British bases

• Middle East crisis – live updates

David Lammy has said it is an “absolute travesty” that details were leaked from a top secret national security meeting on the US-Israel attacks on Iran and has called for an investigation.

There were reports last weekend of cabinet splits at a national security council meeting, which is protected by the Official Secrets Act, over allowing the US to use British bases for the strikes against Iran.

Reform Front suggests attacks on non-military US assets are diminishing global support for Iran as victim of aggression

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Tehran should appoint a supreme leader who will both challenge US propaganda that Iran is a war-mongering nation and reduce domestic polarisation, the country’s diminished alliance of reformist groups has said.

The Reform Front, which helped Masoud Pezeshkian become president 18 months ago, suggested that attacks on non-military US assets in the region were diminishing global support for Iran as a victim of a blatant aggression, according to comments cited in a report by the Iranian newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad.

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin are all trading blows over US involvement – while Sean Hannity says he’s staying out of it

The stars of the conservative media movement have been duking it out – in extremely personal terms – over Donald Trump’s decision to enter the United States into a conflict with Iran.

While it can be hard to cleanly group the warring factions, much of the fighting has centered on disagreements about whether the US is too deferential to Israeli interests. Those arguing that position most prominently include former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, while conservative media personalities like Mark Levin (a current Fox News host) and Ben Shapiro have strongly supported both the American intervention in Iran and collaboration with Israel.