Can you beat a traditional spiced yeast bun at Easter? There’s only one way to find out. Bring on the rhubarb and custard version, the red velvet, the chocolate and fudge, the tiramisu …

Hot cross buns, the Easter treat traditionally eaten on Good Friday, now appear in our shops as early as January. And it’s not just the spiced ones packed with dried fruit that you’ll find on supermarket shelves: it seems that any enriched-dough creation can be described as a hot cross bun, so long as a flour cross has been slapped on top.

Step into a Marks & Spencer food hall and you will be greeted with displays full of garish pink “red velvet” hot cross buns, while Tesco has more than 10 varieties available this year, as well as a tear-and-share brioche. Purists may turn up their noses, but Becca Stock, who reviews food on TikTok and Instagram as @beccaeatseverything, says that, to enjoy a non-traditional bun, you have to view it as a separate product. “For me, they sit in different categories,” she says.

The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is

The fate of environmentalists is to spend their lives trying not to be proved right. Vindication is what we dread. But there’s one threat that haunts me more than any other: the collapse of the global food system. We cannot predict what the immediate trigger might be. But the war with Iran is just the right kind of event.

Drawing on years of scientific data, I’ve been arguing for some time that this risk exists – and that governments are completely unprepared for it. In 2023, I made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into environmental change and food security, with a vast list of references. Called as a witness, I spent much of the time explaining that the issue was much wider than the inquiry’s scope.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The actor is horribly convincing in this ripped-from-the-headlines drama about the newsreader’s grooming scandal. You might not even be able to stomach it

When future generations look back at all the trends and micro-trends that shaped television over the years, you have to assume they’ll be quite surprised when they arrive at the glut of dramatisations that have been made about famous men caught up in sex scandals.

Suddenly they are everywhere. Jimmy Savile got one, with Steve Coogan playing him in The Reckoning. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor got two, with Michael Sheen and Rufus Sewell playing him in A Very Royal Scandal and Scoop respectively. And now, with almost crushing inevitability, comes the turn of Huw Edwards, the subject of Channel 5’s Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards.

V&A South Kensington, London
The Italian designer loved to shock and this dazzling show is like sashaying through a party in 1930s Paris with Schiap and her darling friends Cocteau and Dalí

Naked mermaids and prancing horses, silk carrots and unshelled peanuts, gilded elephant trunks, drums and masks – and those are just a few of the buttons. The V&A’s lavish spring show is a weird and wonderful tumble down the rabbit hole that is Schiaparelli, fashion’s house of surrealism.

Elsa Schiaparelli designed clothes to be witty, not just pretty, and that lively spirit runs through this show. A shoe becomes a hat, bones grow on the outside of a dress, a telephone dial becomes a compact mirror. A stroll through the galleries feels less like admiring a beauty pageant lineup of frocks, and more like taking a turn through a 1930s Paris cocktail party with Schiaparelli and her friends Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau: bracingly avant garde, mildly unsettling, all visual puns and in-jokes and never a dull moment. Turn a corner from a Man Ray painting of a lit candle wearing a harlequin coat and you encounter a mannequin perched on a ledge, wearing a jacket that sprouts gold palm trees at the shoulders. It is wild, and it works.

The moment I stepped into English National Ballet’s studio, I stopped being just a patient. Among fellow spirits, I have rediscovered my sense of joy and agency

Fourteen years ago, a neurologist told me: “You have Parkinson’s.” I remember his face before I remember his words: calm, certain, kind. Parkinson’s: a progressive neurological disease. No cure. In my mind, it was an old person’s disease. Something that happened to other people, later in life. Not to a single man in his early 50s who believed there was still time for romance, adventure, reinvention.

What terrified me most wasn’t the tremors or the stiffness. It was the imagined future. I pictured a partner signing up not for love, but for care. I thought: who would choose that? Who would choose me, knowing this?

The ancient city – with its gardens, hammams and Moorish architecture – comes alive in spring and its Holy Week processions are among the most authentic in Andalucía

As I turned the corner on a narrow, cobbled street in Granada, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a slightly sinister re-enactment society. Mysterious men dressed in white robes and tall, conical, face-covering hats with slits for their eyes were followed by women in black dresses and mantillas, holding pillar candles and crosses, then children wearing caped cloaks, carrying baskets of prayer cards.

It was indeed a re-enactment of sorts, but deeply rooted in Catholicism, representing the Passion of Christ, staged during Holy Week (Semana Santa), which runs from 29 March to 5 April this year. Easter processions are held across the country, but this Andalucían city hosts one of the most authentic in Spain.

Iran says it fired missiles at Israel and US forces in bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain; military spokesman asks US if it is ‘negotiating with yourselves’

• Trump’s rehashed 15-point Iran plan unlikely to appease Tehran

Iranian nationals with valid Australian tourist visas will be blocked from entering the country for six months, Australia’s home affairs minister said, citing concern some may decide to stay longer than they’re allowed.

Tony Burke said the direction was necessary as there was a risk Iranians on tourist visas visiting Australia may be unable or unlikely to leave when their visa expires.
The order only applies to people with a valid tourist visa outside of the country.
The government said “sympathetic consideration” would be given to citizens with Iranian parents.

The government said it would closely monitor global developments and adjust settings as required.

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the day:

An Iranian military spokesperson mocked US attempts at a ceasefire deal, insisting Americans were only negotiating with themselves. Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari’s statement came after the Trump administration reportedly sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran through Pakistan.

Even as Donald Trump claimed productive negotiations to end the war were ongoing with Tehran, Iran’s relentless bombardment of the Gulf states showed no sign of relenting. Kuwait and Bahrain were both hit with damaging strikes on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, as the patience of the Gulf states after rebuffing constant attacks for almost a month begun to wear thin.

The World Trade Organisation warned disruptions to international fertiliser supplies caused by the closing of the strait of Hormuz will cause food scarcity and high prices. A third of the world’s fertilisers normally transit the strait.

Oil prices fell nearly 6% and Asian shares gained, after reports Donald Trump had sent a peace plan to Iran fuelled optimism in the market. A barrel of Brent crude was down 5.92% at $98.30, while benchmark US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, was down 5.01% at $87.72.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed nine people, state media reported. Citing the health ministry, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said strikes had killed people across towns and a Palestinian refugee camp.

News that Trump had approved the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East further undermined the US president’s repeated claims of successful peace talks. Iran has previously threatened to mine the gulf surrounding the island if the US appeared to be landing troops.

Israel and Gulf states are targeted by Iran while Tehran denies any negotiations with US to end war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The US is poised to deploy airborne troops to the Middle East as strikes intensified across the region on Tuesday and Donald Trump claimed the US was in “very good” talks with Iran to end the war.

Early on Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had launched a new wave of attacks against locations in Israel including Tel Aviv and Kiryat Shmona, as well as US bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain. Drones hit a fuel tank and sparked a fire at Kuwait international airport, the Gulf state’s civil aviation authority said.

Diplomats say US president’s latest claimed plan probably based on now outdated framework put forward in May 2025

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The 15-point framework plan for peace with Iran that Donald Trump has said is being discussed is based on a proposal put forward by his negotiating team during nuclear talks almost a year ago, diplomats with knowledge of the talks believe.

That original 15-point plan was the basis for negotiations in late May 2025, shortly before the talks collapsed due to Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Wes Streeting set to hail result as proof of progress, but Britons remain frustrated with long waits for GP hospital care

Public satisfaction with the NHS has risen for the first time since 2019, but people remain deeply frustrated with stubbornly long waits to receive GP, A&E or hospital care.

The proportion of voters in Britain satisfied with the way the NHS runs has increased from the record low of 21% seen last year to 26%. At the same time dissatisfaction with the health service fell 8% – the biggest drop since 1998 – although it remains high at 51%.