Andrew Lownie spent years investigating the greed and excesses of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson for his book Entitled. Here, the writer reveals the barriers he faced in getting to the truth

The Saturday morning I meet Andrew Lownie, the author of “the most devastating royal biography ever written” (according to the Daily Mail), the front page of every newspaper carries the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Some have aerial shots of the police arriving to search his home, most including the now infamous photograph of his face in the back of the police car. He looks hunted, because he literally has been, but his expression is curiously blank, its most legible emotion grievance. One journalist, Lownie says, reported late on the night of Friday’s arrest that: “Andrew still can’t see what the problem is. He thinks he’s been hard done by. He’s obsessed with other details – whether he can take his horses up to Norfolk, who’s going to get the dogs, where he’s going to park his car. It’s a sort of disassociation.”

Lownie’s office, in his home a stone’s throw from parliament, is a monument to the success of his book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (along with his other books: one on the Mountbattens, one on Guy Burgess, one to come on Prince Philip). One desk is piled high with books about Andrew and Sarah, some of them by Ferguson herself, others warts-and-all, kiss-and-tell accounts from confidants and clairvoyants. Lownie has stacks of rejected freedom of information requests, from UK Trade and Investment; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the Information Commissioner – “They sometimes took so long to respond that they haven’t even downloaded the request before it expires.” He approached 3,000 people from all the way through Mountbatten-Windsor’s life; only a tenth of them would speak to him, which to me feels quite unsurprising, and yet Lownie is indignant. “I wrote to ambassadors, and they said ‘not interested’. This was a matter of public interest. Others, very cheerily when I wrote to them a third time, said ‘nice try’, as if it was some sort of joke. These are the guys I want in the dock, in parliament, on oath. This is the thing that makes me upset. I, perhaps naively, expect standards in public life.”

For a long time fat was seen simply as an inert yellow substance wrapping around our bodies, but now that’s changing. Scientists are beginning to understand that our fat is actually intricate and dynamic, constantly in conversation with the rest of the body. It’s now even considered by some to be an organ in its own right. To find out more about the complex role fat plays in our health, Ian Sample hears from co-host Madeleine Finlay and from Declan O’Regan, professor of cardiovascular AI at Imperial College London

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I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis.
Could retraining my brain be the answer?

At the Croydon secondary school I attended in the late 1990s, the deputy headmistress was a stocky woman with a military haircut who patrolled the corridors in voluminous outfits patterned in shades of brown. The outfits were much discussed, not charitably, by the teenage girls in her charge – as was her voice, which made you think of a blunt knife being drawn across a rough surface. Thirty years later, I can still hear that terrible voice refer to my “mystery illness”. In truth, the deputy headmistress never actually spoke those words – they were included in a typed letter she sent to my parents concerning my prolonged absence from school. Still, the indicting force of five syllables is as distinct in my ear as if she were looming over me.

I was 11 and, after coming down with a normal-seeming virus, I simply hadn’t got better. Instead, my system seemed to have become stuck, sunk into some grey, unchanging state. I had a headache, a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes, body pains both dull and sharp, fatigue and weakness, plus something I later learned went by the name of “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome”: a faintness and momentary blacking out upon sitting or standing up. When I list the symptoms in this way, as a collection of discrete and manageable items, it seems false. I wish things felt discrete and manageable. Instead, being ill felt – and still feels – more like a thick, obscuring cloud. When that cloud descends, my blood feels like old glue mixed with whatever you’d scrape off the bottom of a Swiffer. During bad episodes, I can’t quite locate my mind, or my personality. Reading is impossible. TV is abrasive. Breathing feels effortful, forming words is a strain.

The original show might have ended on a whimper and the first spin-off might have disappointed but this lighter, shorter series has been a genuine joy

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I first entered into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms extremely gingerly. Game of Thrones (as we all know) all but cratered during its final season, to the point that watching it almost felt like a punishment. House of the Dragon was somehow even worse, for reasons we’ll come to shortly.

And so, presented with an opportunity to dip my toes back into Westeros, I hesitated. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me repeatedly due to a capitalist desire to permanently entrench all existing IP in order to minimise subscriber churn, shame on me.

I was disturbed, but I wasn’t shocked. It’s a bigger problem that in these toxic times, so many of us endure this and other slurs in our daily lives

At the outset of the Baftas, the gilded crowd anticipated historic wins, emotional speeches and enjoying the familiar glow of a cultural institution congratulating itself on progress – whether fully warranted or not.

Then, as proceedings began and as Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, two of the leading actors of our time, stood on stage, there was the N-word – shouted from the audience by John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner who also lives with TS and is the inspiration for the Bafta-winning film I Swear.

Nadine White is a journalist and film-maker

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Famous Last Words is a series of interviews conducted with notable names and only released after their death and it offers an incredible opportunity

Exactly one day after the death of actor Eric Dane, a new show appeared on Netflix. Entitled Famous Last Words, it consisted of an interview with none other than Eric Dane himself. While at first the timing of the release might have seemed coincidental at best and exploitative at worst, the reality of the interview was something else entirely.

Dane, it transpired, had recorded the interview in full knowledge that he was dying. What’s more, he conducted it on the understanding that it would only be released in the event of his death. Because this is the conceit behind Famous Last Words. It exists as a living obituary, as an opportunity to go on the record for the very last time to contextualise their life in a manner of their choosing.

Exclusive: Trump’s decision will be driven by envoys’ judgment on whether Iran is stalling on a nuclear deal

Donald Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the matter.

The president has not made a final determination on any strikes, as the administration prepares for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, ahead of what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.

Video footage shows former peer being driven away shortly after he was escorted from his London home by officers. He was later released

Peter Mandelson has been arrested by detectives investigating claims he committed misconduct in public office during his friendship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Video footage showed the former British ambassador to the US being driven away in an unmarked police car for questioning shortly after being escorted from his London home by plainclothes officers.

Firm does not specify amount but seeks reimbursement after supreme court ruled against president last week

FedEx sued the US government on Monday, seeking a refund for the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump that were deemed illegal by the US supreme court last week.

The lawsuit marks the first attempt by a major company to receive reimbursement of their share of an estimated $175bn in levies after the highest court found Trump had overstepped his authority in issuing the tariffs. Other companies are expected to follow.

Killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader sparks wave of violence across western Mexico

• Analysis: Mexico faces uphill battle to appease kingpin Trump

• Who was El Mencho?

Mexican authorities tracked down and killed “El Mencho”, one of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers, by following a romantic partner to his safe house near a picturesque mountain town, the country’s defence secretary has revealed.

In a press conference, officials provided the first details about the operation that led to the death of the leader of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime group, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).