More than 80% of the UK’s tradespeople have had tools stolen. Some have lost months of work as a result. With thefts up 16% in a year, can the police and the government do anything to protect them?

If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and has millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram. He’s in demand, highly skilled, generous in sharing tips from his many years of experience and even has his own range of products on sale in the UK and the US.

But even with his social media army and branded brushes, he’s still not immune to the biggest threat faced by British tradespeople: tool theft. “It was Boxing Day morning,” Tingley says. “I was still in bed, my wife was on her way to the gym. She came running back in and told me that all the doors of my van were open.”

Larger than any dog, let alone a house cat, the beast swaggered through the Dartmoor mist. My schoolfriends and I were entranced – until the adults who had slept through everything told us we were lying

I was 11, with a handful of friends on a school trip to Dartmoor. We’d set up our tents near the edge of a camp, which was mostly empty.

The first morning, our tent woke before the teachers. We stole out to find another group of boys already on the dewy grass, standing hands in pockets, together in nature. The sun was just coming up. The last of the night-time mist was peeling away.

If the president’s first term didn’t inoculate the American body politic against tyranny, there is no guarantee that a second dose will work

Donald Trump is a despot and the US is a democracy. These things can be true simultaneously but not indefinitely. There is now deadlock in the struggle between a president who would be king and a constitution drafted in repudiation of monarchy. But it is a battle to the death. Tyranny will either break the spirit of the republic or be quelled by it.

Since the US is the world’s paramount power, the outcome of this contest has epic consequences for countries, such as the UK, that depend on Washington for security.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

As the extraordinary superhero satires comes to an end, a mighty showdown has terrifying parallels with modern America. What a horrifying pleasure it has been to watch

The Boys is back in town, for its fifth and final season. There’s too much to recap in full for those who have not yet had the pleasure of the satirical superhero show created by Eric Kripke from the comic books written by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Or who have not yet been horrified by the gory splatterfest (courtesy of all kinds of body fluids) of the preceding 32 episodes, which have seen orifices and appendages put to extraordinary use, and some of which have rightly entered what we will very carefully spell as the annals of TV history.

So, let’s just say that the new season finds us set for a showdown between an increasingly power-mad (“Have you seen the memes about me? Posting them should be a crime”) – or, as the voices of angels start speaking to him, possibly just mad – Homelander (Antony Starr) and the Butcher crew. The former is now overlord of the US, with the president and, apparently, Sage (Susan Heyward) at his beck and call. But the gang has just succeeded in screening – in front of a Maga … I mean, Homelander-loving … rally – the long-buried footage of him leaving the passengers on Flight 37 (as he did all the way back in season one when he was just a little baby villain) to die.

Richard Hewett, who was forced to sleep in his car when his relationship broke down, is one of many in the UK hit by rising costs and a lack of social housing

When Richard Hewett’s relationship broke down, he was forced to leave his partner’s council house – but found his disability benefits didn’t stretch far enough to get him his own flat in his Essex home town. He resorted to the next best option: sleeping in his car.

It wasn’t what he had expected, aged 59. At 6ft 2in, he squeezed into a Ford Focus and struggled to sleep. When he broke his ankle, he couldn’t look after it properly, contracted sepsis and had his leg amputated.

Mikel Arteta discovered that playing your best goalkeeper can be a good idea as his side recovered from cup exits with late win in Lisbon

There was a temptation to fixate on the moment when Arsenal won this game with a goal that could change their season. Mikel Arteta had urged his players not to panic, not to sink away with hopes of a quadruple long gone, and Kai Havertz got the memo. Gabriel Martinelli crossed from the left and, as the ball dropped, Havertz caught the Sporting defence napping at last, controlled with a feathery touch, took a breath and rolled a finish past Rui Silva to give Arsenal victory in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.

It had been a slog at Estádio José Alvalade. Arsenal attempted 488 passes and it was not until the first of two added minutes that they made one really count. Before then it was a grind. Arsenal were often constipated in open play. Although they controlled the game, at least until allowing it to become ragged during a fraught finale, there were long spells when the best the Premier League leaders offered was set-piece wrestling. Noni Madueke, mostly ineffective as he deputised for Bukayo Saka on the right wing, curled an early corner against the bar. Viktor Gyökeres was recorded as being on the pitch. Leandro Trossard tried to score from 40 yards. Leandro Trossard did not score from 40 yards.

US president abandons threat for Iran to surrender or face destruction with last-minute intervention led by Pakistan

• Middle East crisis – live updates

• Iran war ceasefire announcement – what we know so far

• Explainer: What is in Iran’s 10-point ceasefire plan and will the US agree to it?

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday evening, which included a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz, after a last-minute diplomatic intervention led by Pakistan, canceling an ultimatum from Donald Trump for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction.

Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire agreement came less than two hours before the US president’s self-imposed 8pm Eastern time deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges in a move that legal scholars, as well as officials from numerous countries and the pope, had warned could constitute war crimes.

Pakistan’s PM had said the ceasefire would cover Lebanon; IDF ‘continues fighting and ground operations’ against Hezbollah

• US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen strait of Hormuz

• Iran war ceasefire announcement – what we know so far

A genocidal threat, and then the US president, Donald Trump, blinked – without any apparently meaningful concessions from Iran. As in so much concerning the second Trump administration, the two week ceasefire “deal” that will see the strait of Hormuz reopened – if it can be described as such – is maddeningly vague and short on detail, apparently kicking the can on key issues down the road.

Iran’s nuclear issue, Trump said, would be solved “perfectly.” “It was a big day for world peace”, Trump posted on Truth Social. “Iran can start reconstruction” he added. “Big money” could be made. Yada. Yada. Yada.

PM to meet regional leaders to discuss effort to ‘support and sustain ceasefire’ and reopening the strait of Hormuz

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran.

The prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening, canceling a self-imposed deadline by the US president, Donald Trump, for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction.

Brent crude oil dropped to $93 a barrel after Trump ceasefire announcement and Iran’s pledge to reopen strait of Hormuz under its management

• Middle East crisis – live updates

• Full report: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen strait of Hormuz

Oil prices plunged by almost 15% after Donald Trump held off on his threat to bomb Iran into “the stone ages” on Tuesday night, and Iran’s foreign minister said passage through the strait of Hormuz would be allowed for the next two weeks under the management of its military.

With just over an hour until his deadline was due to pass, the US president said he was holding off on threatened attacks on Iran, subject to Tehran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and reopening of the strait of Hormuz.