LLMs-gone-rogue dominated coverage, but had nothing to do with the targeting. Instead, it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity

On the first morning of Operation Epic Fury, 28 February 2026, American forces struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, in southern Iran, hitting the building at least two times during the morning session. American forces killed between 175 and 180 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and 12.

Within days, the question that organised the coverage was whether Claude, a chatbot made by Anthropic, had selected the school as a target. Congress wrote to the US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, about the extent of AI use in the strikes. The New Yorker magazine asked whether Claude could be trusted to obey orders in combat, whether it might resort to blackmail as a self-preservation strategy, and whether the Pentagon’s chief concern should be that the chatbot had a personality. Almost none of this had any relationship to reality. The targeting for Operation Epic Fury ran on a system called Maven. Nobody was arguing about Maven.

Hair transplants have never been more widespread or more affordable. So why do so many balding men prefer glued-on hairpieces? And are the best really undetectable?

When you hear the word toupee, certain images spring to mind. Older men with suspiciously thick hair, say; or a poorly colour-matched partial wig covering a bald patch, perhaps flying off in the wind. These are the toupees of old.

Toupees are distinct from wigs in that they cover only part of the scalp, but both have a long history. While humans were wearing hairpieces as far back as ancient Egypt, toupees originated in the 18th century, the name developing from the French toupet, meaning “tuft of hair”. They became particularly prominent in the mid-20th century, with Time magazine estimating that more than 2.5 million men across the US were wearing toupees by 1970. But concerns about how obvious the pieces were, hammered home by ridicule in popular culture (see Monty Python’s Toupee Department sketch) combined with the gradual acceptance of shaved heads in fashion, led to their decline.

A box the size of a filing cabinet was lifted by crane, slowly moved and placed very carefully in the back of an unassuming lorry earlier this week. What looked like a casual drive around the Cern campus was actually a world-first experiment in transporting antimatter, the most expensive and volatile substance on Earth. To find out why scientists wanted to achieve this milestone, and what happened on the journey, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, and the Cern physicist Dr Christian Smorra.

Please drive carefully: scientists plan to transport volatile antimatter for first time

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Noah Wyle is back on our screens as a lovable doctor in the punchy, gory and totally addictive series that has taken the US by storm. Believe the hype!

It’s here at last. The medical drama that took its native US by storm last year has finally crossed the pond. All 15 episodes of The Pitt’s first season, set in almost real time over a single shift in the overstretched emergency department of a busy Pittsburgh hospital, are being offered to tempt us all into subscribing to yet another streaming service – HBO Max, which also promises other baubles, such as the new Harry Potter series and the adaptation of DC Comics’ Lanterns plus rich pickings from its prestigious back catalogue, such as The Sopranos, Succession, Game of Thrones and Friends (which departed Netflix last year, giving many viewers the first insight into the true transience of life).

But The Pitt is the one that we older viewers, perhaps, have been waiting for. For it comes from much the same team that produced the then-groundbreakingly gritty ER, and it stars one of its most enduring talents, Noah Wyle. He arrived in the 1994 pilot episode as third-year medical student John Carter, and we followed him as he endured, then thrived under Dr Benton’s tough-love training, qualified in emergency medicine and moved up the ranks at Cook County before bowing out as a main character in the season finale in 2006. With many a literally heart-stopping moment in between, let me tell you. The show made a megastar out of George Clooney (as womanising paediatrician Doug Ross) but Wyle was never less than brilliant.

Pressing tasks for new director general also include an expiring royal charter, and finding a new top team

Matt Brittin may have only just been announced as the new BBC director general, but his inbox is already overflowing. Here are his immediate challenges:

Some gen Z men are using the term to describe an easy meal consisting of ground beef, rice, and a vegetable or fat

Recently, after a long day of sending emails, I assembled a bowl of food I had prepared over the weekend: brown rice, ground turkey and half an avocado, all drizzled in hot sauce. As I snarfed my meal on the couch, my husband peeked into my bowl and said: “Having some boy kibble?”

It turns out he was not just making a rude comment about my slop. On social media, health-conscious gen Z men have started using the term to describe a quick and easy meal: ground beef, rice, and sometimes a vegetable or fat. The brown, lumpy concoction is praised by gym bros as an easy, relatively cheap way to get the carbs and protein necessary to maximize their workout gains.

Salmon with rice and vegetables

Greek yogurt with fruit and granola

Eggs with whole grain toast and avocado

Stir-fry with tofu, vegetables, buckwheat noodles, and crushed nuts and sesame seeds

A whole grain wrap filled with black beans, guacamole, veggies, cheese and salsa

Whole grain pasta with turkey meatballs, zucchini spirals, olives, parmesan cheese and tomato sauce

US president claims Iranian negotiators fear being killed by their own side; Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi says US and Iran ‘signalling a willingness to negotiate’

• Iran rejects US ceasefire plan and submits its own amid push for talks

• Analysis: Trump pitches Iran peace plan but military buildups rarely veer to off-ramp

Not long after Donald Trump said the US was engaged in “strong talks” to bring the war with Iran to an end this week, Qatar took the unusual step of distancing itself from the alleged diplomatic negotiations.

Qatar was not involved in any mediation efforts, Majed al-Ansari said at a briefing on Tuesday night, before adding as a telling aside: “If they exist.”

There’s a lot of pent-up frustration and disappointment that is affecting their willingness, and perhaps even ability, to mediate anything.

Reluctance to cheerlead alleged US ceasefire efforts reflects suspicion talk of peace could be another foil for escalation

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Not long after Donald Trump said the US was engaged in “strong talks” to bring the war with Iran to an end this week, Qatar took the unusual step of distancing itself from the alleged diplomatic negotiations.

Qatar was not involved in any mediation efforts, said Majed al-Ansari at a briefing on Tuesday night, before adding as a telling aside: “If they exist.”

Hostilities should halt and healthcare facilities must be treated as ‘safe havens’, WHO’s regional chief has said

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A total stop to hostilities in the Middle East is needed to halt a “health crisis unfolding in real time”, the World Health Organization’s chief in the region has said.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must be treated as “safe havens”, urged Dr Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Peers, in vote of 266 to 141, reject Keir Starmer’s proposals for public consultation to decide if social media ban should be introduced in UK

The House of Lords has backed an Australian-style social media ban for under-16s.

Peers, in a vote of 266 to 141, rejected Keir Starmer’s proposals for a public consultation to decide whether a ban should be introduced.