When I found out my father had been adopted, I was curious to know more about his side of the family. Nothing could have prepared me for what I would discover …

Above my grandma’s bed hung a framed black‑and-white photograph of my dad. As a small child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking.

As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact, a photograph of my dad but of a man called Elvis Presley. Apparently he was very famous. My grandma had been a lifelong fan. My parents laughed – an adorable mistake – but I felt a hot pulse of humiliation.

He’s the Democratic politician with movie-star looks and a picture-perfect family, dogged by accusations of being a smooth‑talking elitist. Can he really unite the American left and win the most powerful office in the world?

When you think of the politician Donald Trump isn’t, when you think of the norm he broke, the archetype he shattered, you might well picture a man who looks a lot like Gavin Newsom. Tall and handsome, hair coiffed just so, with a blond wife and four photogenic kids at his side, Newsom, who has been the governor of California since 2019 and is often described as the frontrunner to be the Democratic nominee for the White House in 2028, looks the way professional politicians, and especially presidential candidates, look in the movies.

It’s dogged Newsom for years, that look of his, perennially suggesting that he is, in the words of one California newspaper, “too ambitious, too slickly handsome, and too patrician-seeming”, especially for a populist age that cherishes the authentic and has no truck with anything either phoney or “elite”. The elite tag especially has hung around Newsom’s neck for decades, thanks to the fact that his ascent to the top of California politics has seemed smooth and unbroken, apparently eased by a childhood spent in the orbit of the Getty family, when that name was a byword for astronomical wealth.

Ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the supermodel has been under fire. But is there another motive behind all the controversy?

“I was rooting for you,” Tyra Banks famously berated a contestant on America’s Next Top Model some 20 years ago. But who, now, is rooting for Tyra Banks?

The supermodel and reality-TV mogul has been under fire from all sides ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Long-circling scrutiny of the show’s tasteless extremes, frequent body-shaming and blatant failures of duty of care have come to rest on Banks herself, with viewers, Top Model contestants and even her former friends all expressing outrage at her apparent lack of repentance.

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
His music is still all over the place, lurching from landfill indie to solipsistic ballads, but the youngest Beckham son can certainly play guitar

“Memorabilia,” the person on the door says, passing out a commemorative ticket welcoming fans to Cruz Beckham’s show in “Cardiff, England”. It’s an inauspicious start, particularly in a building that’s a decades-old monument to Welsh-language culture, but once the house lights go down, there’s enough to suggest that, even if he’ll never make it as a geography teacher, he could give this music thing a proper lash.

It would be easy to go in studs-up on Beckham, the youngest son of David and Victoria. He’s already a tabloid fixture, his profile supercharged by the recent intra-family beef that has opened up new seams in the content mines, and his every move might duly be viewed with cynicism. His desire to play clubs, to “do it the right way”? The machinations of a nepo-prince currying favour with the masses.

As high rents push more adult children back to the family nest, it is vital to have a conversation about who pays what

When her 27-year- old son and 24-year-old daughter moved back home, Tricia Carter decided to ask them to pay rent. The 63-year-old, who lives in south London, charges them £300 each a month to cover bills including electricity and groceries.

She has a comfortable income, but their contributions help to keep the books balanced. The money is also a way to make her children aware of the financial burden of living somewhere, she says.

There is no end in sight to the pollution caused by a ‘broken’ system. Experts say it could even be getting worse

Sarah Lambert took her usual morning swim for 40 minutes off Exmouth town beach before her volunteer shift helping disabled people get access to the water.

A wheelchair user herself, Lambert’s regular sea swims twice a week between the lifeboat station and HeyDays restaurant were the perfect form of exercise for her disability.

Explosions reported across the Middle East as Iran hits back after major attack by US and Israel

• Full report: US and Israel attack Iran

• Analysis: Trump’s attack has no clear objective

• What we know so far

Blasts have been heard in several cities, including the capital, Tehran, and Isfahan in central Iran.

Reuters reports there are long queues at petrol stations in the capital, as many people try to leave. An unnamed Iranian official who spoke to the news agency said several ministries in southern Tehran had been targeted.

US president calls on Iranian people to ‘take over your government’, as explosions heard across central Tehran

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran – what we know so far

Israel and the US have launched a war on Iran, with Donald Trump declaring the start of “major combat operations” and calling on Iranians to rise up against their government.

The US president’s comments came soon after explosions were heard across central Tehran. One apparent strike hit near the offices of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran is preparing a “crushing retaliation”, an Iranian official told Reuters.

US president violates UN charter just days into his Board of Peace era, and chooses to take the biggest gamble of his administration

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran: what we know so far

The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public.

Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen, made clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into concessions at the negotiating table. He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not surrender they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missile and navy would be smashed.

Prime minister calls together emergency committee to decide UK’s response to latest fighting in Middle East

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran: what we know so far

Keir Starmer is chairing a meeting of the UK government’s Cobra emergency committee as Britain decides how to respond to the US-Israeli bombing of Iran, and Tehran’s retaliation against bases in the Gulf.

The UK did not participate in the first wave of strikes early on Saturday but had deployed RAF Typhoons to Qatar to protect the al-Udeid airbase in the country and other allied military facilities in the region.