As a career-spanning documentary hits cinemas and the band eye two nights at Knebworth, they revisit their path from pubs to stadiums – but how did they get through their crisis-filled 1990s?

When I ask Iron Maiden bassist and founder Steve Harris about the fact his band have lasted for more than half a century, he sounds bewildered, as if he’s put something down then forgotten where he’s left it. “It’s gone so quick. You go on tour for a few months and it seems to fly, but so much happens. Our whole career is an extension of that – for 50 years.”

He’s looking back on how he steered one of the most influential – and deeply idiosyncratic – British bands in history. Catapulted to the premier league of 80s metal on the back of galloping, theatrical, multi-platinum LPs including The Number of the Beast, Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Iron Maiden not only survived the mid-90s slump that befell many metal bands, but got even more heavy and ambitious.

We assembled a group of the continent’s leading thinkers to assess the threats: their warnings are stark, but the remedy is within reach

Caught between Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Donald Trump’s US and Xi Jinping’s China, Europe appears in a state of profound crisis, the narrative about its future often filled with fatalism. There is a paradox, however. Despite rising nationalism, the climate crisis and the economic slowdown, few would take issue with the claim that Europe still has a great deal going for it. Asked to choose where in the world they would want to live, there is a good chance that most Europeans would still pick Europe over other continents.

The news is not relentlessly negative either. While much of the political commentary in recent years has focused on the rise of far-right nationalism across the continent, its most prominent symbol, Hungary’s former autocrat Viktor Orbán, was ousted in a landslide election this month.

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
The glam set design, gleaming brass and Motown moves are knowingly retro, but Dean’s performance is immediate, vulnerable and natural – the work of a singular artist

When the stage’s cream curtains pull back, Olivia Dean and band are already in full flow. Hands reaching out to the audience in welcome, she shimmies behind a silver mic stand in a floor-length candyfloss-pink dress, her band side-stepping on curved, softly carpeted risers. The swinging, sighing soul-pop single Nice to Each Other is bright with optimism for an on-off relationship, while soft-focus camera footage makes a collage out of gleaming trumpets, glamorous backing singers and Dean’s beaming face. With the air of old-fashioned music TV, it is knowingly retro and deeply romantic – everything you’d expect from the 27-year-old singer who is breathing fresh air into British soul.

On this opening night of two sold-out arena shows in Glasgow, ahead of six nights at London’s O2, Dean breezes through two more of her biggest songs as if it’s no big deal. Lady Lady, about moving out and growing up, is bassy and rich, while So Easy (To Fall in Love) is free, flirty and radiant: “This is a song to remind you that you’re fab,” she crows, now dancing at the stage’s footlights.

Being on dating apps can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack – so Dr Jennie Young devised a technique to burn it down and find better matches

It was 2023, and Dr Jennie Young was sick of online dating. She was looking for a partner, and instead all she found in the apps were inappropriately sexual come-ons and conversations that went nowhere. It felt like looking for a needle in a big, rancid haystack. So one day, frustrated and totally out of ideas, she Googled “how do you actually find a needle in a haystack?”

The answer: burn it down.

The places up for grabs in Uefa’s competitions next season are a moveable feast, leaving plenty of intrigue right up to the final day

With the end of the season approaching, it’s time again to try to get your head around the ever more complex rules that determine whether your club may qualify for Europe. But there will definitely be eight English teams playing continental football next season, and maybe more. The bad news is that if you own a multi-club network you’re too late to place your shareholding in a blind trust. Sorry, but I don’t make the rules, just attempt to interpret them.

The Parks and Recreation actor on working with Martin Scorsese, chatting about cinema with the pope and delivering calzones to stoners

The way your face changes in the Severance elevator is incredible. Are you thinking about anything in particular when you do it? Lott49
We worked on that for a long time, trying to figure out what specifically happens in the elevator. We must have tried 100 times before we landed on it. Eventually, Ben [Stiller, the director] suggested a subtle fluttering of my eyelids as my character goes through the shift between his “innie” and “outie” personas.

How intimidating was it working on The Aviator? PatHobby
I was pretty freaked out at first. But once you’re there, you realise these are just regular people who happen to be actors figuring out a scene. Everyone was extremely kind and generous to me and made me feel comfortable straight away.

In evidence to MPs, Cabinet Office top civil servant disputes that her department suggested vetting might not be needed

The Foreign Office refused to hand over a summary of Peter Mandelson’s security vetting to the civil servant tasked with compiling documents detailing his appointment as ambassador to the US, she has told a Commons committee.

Cat Little, the lead official in the Cabinet Office, had to instead get the document directly from UK Security Vetting (UKSV) after Olly Robbins, the subsequently-sacked Foreign Office head, refused to provide it.

Exclusive: Officials warn department will also lose access to database of 26,000 verified incidents due to cuts

The Foreign Office unit tracking potential breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza and more recently Lebanon has been closed because of cuts within the department, the Guardian can reveal.

The decision to shut the international humanitarian law cell follows a review by Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office dismissed last week by the prime minister over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Seven-day-old Poppy Hope Lomas died after complications during home birth encouraged by midwives at Barnet hospital

A mother who lost her baby a week after an “unsafe” home birth that went against medical advice was failed by the NHS, an inquest has found.

Poppy Hope Lomas was seven days old when she died at University College hospital in London on 26 October 2022 after complications during a home birth that, according to her mother, was encouraged by midwives at Barnet hospital.

US president accuses UK of thinking it can ‘make an easy buck’ from US tech companies, weeks after warning that UK–US trade deal can be changed

Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the UK if it does not drop its digital services tax on US social media firms.

The digital services tax, introduced in 2020, imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of several major US tech companies.