The Middle East on fire, a spat with the pope – and he posts himself as Potus Almighty. Will his disciples now see that their messiah has feet of clay?

You hear such a lot from Maga Republicans about how liberals think Trump voters are stupid. But not nearly enough about the far more salient point: that Donald Trump thinks Trump voters are stupid. Naturally, nobody deplores his own people as passionately as a populist, but even by those exacting historical standards Trump really does regard his supporters as a honking great throng of halfwits. How else to explain his seemingly retrofitted claim yesterday that the AI picture he posted of himself as Jesus was “me as a doctor”. Er, no. After it incensed leading figures in the Christian right, which makes up a large part of his voter base, the US president later deleted it, lamenting of these idiots that he “didn’t want anybody to be confused. People were confused.” Yeah, people are stoopid.

Alas, as you’ve no doubt seen, controversy still attends this image Trump shared on his Truth Social/True Sociopath platform. It depicts Trump in Jesus robes and holding a glowing orb of something – presumably heavenly light or radioactive material he omitted to tell Congress about – which he is transmitting restoratively into the forehead of some midwestern Lazarus. I’m sure we’d all love to know how the AI prompt for it could be “show me Donald Trump as a doctor”, or indeed how the LLM of choice would react when called out on its subsequent error. “You’re right – I overstated that. I shouldn’t have implied the US president is a benign deity who can raise the dead. To clarify – he’s a malignant narcissist and a tumour on the world. Thanks for catching that.”

Whether it’s everyday grime or dust mite poo, your mattress might be dirtier than you think. We asked the experts about the best way to remove stains, smells and allergens

• The best mattresses – tested

Your mattress is not just furniture, it’s family. You drool and sweat into it for hours, have sex on it, and shed millions of dead skin cells into it every night. It shares your DNA. Romantic or disgusting? Either way, that thing needs a wash.

Sticking a mattress in the washing machine is clearly about as feasible as putting the car in the dishwasher, but at least you can hose a car down and leave it to dry in the sun. With a mattress, especially one that contains foam (like most of the mattresses I’ve reviewed for the Filter), care, patience and a little bit of ingenuity are required when cleaning, or you could end up damaging it.

The MoD shows little sign of learning from its mistakes – no wonder the Treasury is reluctant to agree to its demands

George Robertson, Tony Blair’s first defence secretary, a former Nato secretary general and an author last year of the latest in a series of evasive strategic defence reviews, accused Keir Starmer on Tuesday of a “corrosive complacency towards defence”. He said the prime minister was not willing to make the “necessary investment”.

Lord Robertson could have directed his fire elsewhere. He must know that no government department has been so complacent in the face of years of devastating evidence of waste, profligate contracts, and policy decisions that have avoided confronting new but increasingly clear security threats to Britain and other western countries.

When your boss asks to meet, do you assume you’re about to get fired? Experts explain this common pattern

Your boss asks you for a meeting later in the week; you have never received negative feedback, but you automatically assume you’re about to get fired. Thoughts begin to swirl as you imagine the consequences: soon, you’ll be unemployed and unable to pay your rent.

Or, perhaps, when your partner is a little late coming home, you visualize a terrible accident on the motorway, their car crushed in the pile-up.

The Tory leader, now seemingly more gentle, is blessed with the ability to forget everything that happened the day before

Please sit down. Loosen your clothing. Do not adjust your screen. Take several deep breaths. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in your happy space. Your life might not be quite the same again.

Hard to believe, but Kemi Badenoch has had a psychological makeover. Don’t get me wrong: we’re not talking a complete personality change. There hasn’t been a miracle. A laying on of hands by Donald Trump (AKA Christ the Redeemer). Kemi is still unable to stop herself from saying the ridiculous. It’s more that her madness has been somewhat diminished. Made more user-friendly. It only really resurfaces at prime minister’s questions. For reasons that aren’t quite clear, Keir Starmer is triggering for her.

Music from Charli xcx can’t save David Lowery’s dour chamber piece, despite some flashes of dazzling style

For a certain stripe of pop fan, diva worship comes along with having a high tolerance for their unique flavor of psychobabble. So when Anne Hathaway, as the titular singer in David Lowery’s Mother Mary, declares that her new single Spooky Action is about Einstein’s “transubstantiation of feelings”, I ignored the snorts from those in the theater beside me. Finally, I thought, fondly casting my mind back to when Lady Gaga would talk about her music as a reverse Warholian explosion: a pop star who is not afraid to lean into high-concept nonsense. My generosity quickly faded when I began to realize that Mother Mary – the character and the film – was missing a crucial component for any modern pop star worth their salt: self-awareness.

Mother Mary is a one-time music A-lister in search of a comeback after a mysterious event that has taken her out of commission. She seems … haunted, and is experiencing a fashion emergency to boot, unable to find anything to wear for her imminent return to the stage. Three days before she is due to make her big appearance she turns up in the rain at the gothic mansion of fashion designer Sam Anselm (an enjoyably over-the-top Michaela Coel), looking like a rat caught in a monsoon, begging for an outfit that “feels like me”. Sam has moved on considerably since she was Mother Mary’s partner in fashion, and perhaps her lover behind closed doors too. In fact, she entirely loathes the pop star. “You are a carcinogen, you are a tumor,” Sam says in an amusingly ominous voiceover. “The bile is rising.”

US president says the country is ‘inclined’ to go to Pakistan for more talks; Israel and Lebanon enter direct negotiations in Washington for the first time since 1990s

• US-Iran peace talks could resume in next two days, Trump says

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has said rising tensions around the strait of Hormuz make it hard to be optimistic about the fallout from the Iran war, warning that high oil prices and supply-chain strains are likely to persist for some time.

Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday the government should treat prolonged disruption in global energy and raw materials markets as a given and reinforce its emergency response system.

For the time being, difficulties in global energy and raw materials supply chains and high oil prices will continue … I ask that we pursue the development of alternative supply chains, medium- to long-term industrial restructuring, and the transition to a post-plastic economy as top-priority national strategic projects.”

Lebanon and Israel have been at war in some form since the early 1980s. You’re not allowed to enter Lebanon if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. The two don’t have diplomatic relations. So the fact that these talks are happening directly between the two governments is something that’s really astonishing.

Growth forecasts cut for US and global economy, while UK suffers sharpest downgrade in G7

• Reeves arrives at IMF with little leeway to prove its UK downgrade wrong

A further escalation in the Iran war could trigger a global recession that would affect the UK more than any of the other G7 nations, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Against an increasingly volatile backdrop, the Washington-based fund said the economic damage from the Middle East conflict was steadily rising as it cut its growth forecasts for 2026 based on the impact of the war so far.

Refugee Council criticises Labour’s decision, saying military sites are unsuitable and ‘more expensive than hotels’

Hundreds of asylum seekers have been removed from government-funded hotels while others have been sent to live in army barracks, the Home Office has announced.

Eleven “asylum hotels” in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been closed, as first reported by the Guardian, and more will close “in the coming weeks”. About 350 claimants have been moved to the Crowborough military camp in east Sussex, described by a spokesperson as “basic accommodation”.

Measure by Jamie Raskin follows statements by Trump about annihilating Iran and post depicting himself as Jesus

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House Democrats on Tuesday proposed creating a commission that would work with JD Vance to remove Donald Trump from office under the 25th amendment, should they determine he is no longer fit to serve.

The measure, introduced by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, follows a series of statements from Trump, including his recent warning that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if it did not capitulate to his demands, and a social media post that depicted him as Jesus Christ.