The Reform UK leader has a lucrative side-hustle sending paid-for Cameo messages. But an analysis of more than 4,000 show they include videos for a neo-Nazi group and a rioter. Henry Dyer reports

Last year it was China’s answer to tariffs, now it’s Iran’s retaliation to airstrikes – ‘America First’ keeps foundering on global economics

Donald Trump is teaching the world a lesson, but not the one he thinks. The attack on Iran was meant to be a dazzling display of military supremacy. It has instead illuminated chinks in the US’s armour.

The US president’s formidable arsenal cannot summon up an insurrection from Iran’s tyrannised and leaderless opposition. It cannot force merchant ships to run a gauntlet of missile and drone attacks in the strait of Hormuz. The government in Tehran and the facts of geography that give it leverage over global trade are unchanged. Trump’s exasperation is showing. He urges tanker crews to “show some guts” by sailing into harm’s way. He calls on Nato members to provide naval chaperones and accuses them of cowardice and ingratitude for refusing. He comes across as peevish and flustered. Impotence is not a good look in a potentate.

As a child, the singer loved to start fires. As an adult, he was barely less chaotic. He discusses Bez, charisma, ADHD, his new memoir – and why making music is great, even if the record industry will always screw you over

There are thousands of pictures of Shaun Ryder and Bez in Happy Mondays, from the mid- to late 80s, that run the gamut from mashed to wrecked. They don’t always look that cheerful, but when they do, they look insanely fun. In Ryder’s new memoir, 24 Hour Party Person, he quotes a critic: “The poorly educated might just call [Bez] a dancer, but he’s the proprietor of good times.” What Bez did for the band, the band did for the era: just went way too far, in an absolutely magnetic way.

Ryder, in a Novotel hotel to the west of Manchester, explains what drew the whole band together. “When you are neurodiverse, you attract other people who are,” he says. “I would have said at the time we were all fucked-up loonies. I mean Bez [he launches into a spirited impression]: ‘I’m-not-fucking-neurodiverse’… it’s like, mate. You are. ‘I’m fucking not.’ Mate, you are. The same with all of them. None of them have been tested and gone through the thing, but they are. All of them.

As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset

Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find footholds in the dark.

I’m here with film-maker Robert Petit, so he can show me something of what he’s been experiencing for the past five years, on his way to making an endearingly poetic documentary film called Underland, which riffs on nature-writer Robert Macfarlane’s bestselling 2019 subterranean travelogue of the same name. We’re heading 100ft underground to the Boulder Chamber where, over sugary snacks, I will quiz him about his obsession.

Whether it’s buying and selling clothes online or some freelance work on the side, plan ahead for potential tax issues

Since the start of 2024, online platforms such as Vinted, eBay and Airbnb have been required to share data with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for any users who sell more than 30 items a year or earn more than about £1,700 (the threshold is set at €2,000) a year. However, this does not necessarily mean that those users owe any additional income tax.

Thirty years since the cult show about sweary lawyers swaggered on to our screens in a fug of cigarette smoke, creator Amy Jenkins talks F-bombs, fellatio … and giving Ricky Gervais his big break

Oral sex in the kitchen. Weed-smoking and talk of temazepam. A full-frontal Andrew Lincoln shower scene. And that’s just in the first episode. Welcome to This Life. Pop on a Portishead CD and leave your inhibitions (and clothes) at the door.

This Wednesday marks 30 years since the landmark drama swaggered on to our screens in a fug of cigarette smoke and swearing. The BBC is celebrating the anniversary by rerunning the none-more-90s saga, with a new introduction by the actor Daniela Nardini, who played the breakout heroine Anna. It enables viewers to revisit a cult classic that not only captured the hedonistic spirit of the Cool Britannia era but left a lasting mark on TV.

IDF calls for evacuations in central Beirut with Lebanese health ministry reporting 12 people killed

Iran is still exporting millions of barrels of oil, with about 90 ships, including oil tankers, having crossed the strait of Hormuz since the beginning of the war with Iran, according to maritime and trade data platforms reports.

This is despite Iran saying it had closed the vital waterway to vessels from the US and its allies.

Tehran residents try to stay safe from bombing and cling to their livelihoods as war stretches into third week

Up to 3.2 million people have been temporarily displaced in Iran since the start of the US-Israeli military campaign, the UN’s refugee agency estimates, a figure that is likely to rise as the war stretches into a third week.

A burning oil depot in the distance after an airstrike, 8 March.

Negotiators had reached agreement on key issues despite Trump team’s idiosyncratic approach. Two days later, war began

In the many bizarre exchanges that occurred in the run-up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, perhaps the most unexpected was an invitation by Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff for the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, to join him and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for a visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group.

The idea that Araghchi would leave talks in Oman about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme to tour a ship sent to the Gulf in an effort to dislodge his government seemed idiosyncratic at best.

Figure up from 15, says UK Health Security Agency, as thousands of students to be offered vaccines in coming days

The number of cases of meningitis being investigated by health officials linked to Kent has risen to 20, up from 15 previously.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that, as of 5pm on Tuesday, 20 cases of meningitis had been reported, up from 15 on Tuesday.