After forgetting the nibbles, refusing my costume requests and emailing GCHQ, ‘Gaskell’ did at least get us to show up

Two weeks ago, an AI bot invited me to a party it was organising in Manchester. It then promptly lied to dozens of potential sponsors that I’d agreed to cover the event, and misled me into believing there would be food.

Despite all this, it was a pretty good night.

Ofcom data points to more passive consumption amid changes to apps and fears about mental health and past posts

Posting significant events in your life, from birthdays to weddings and promotions, is a social media staple. But Jenny, like many other Britons recently, has hesitated over contributing to the infinite scroll.

“I wouldn’t have even posted my wedding really,” she says. “But I had to because … There’s like an etiquette. Nobody else can post your wedding until you’ve posted. So my friends were like: ‘Please post, it’s been like a week.’”

The Reform UK leader’s energy bill giveaway certainly grabs our attention – but it’s a distraction from the real winners and losers

You can already imagine the video.

A man stands in the middle of a suburban English street holding a wad of cash in his hands. Grinning at the camera he says: “I’m about to pay this entire street’s energy bills.” Cut to gliding drone footage of the neighbourhood. The man knocks on a front door and a bewildered looking woman answers in a fleecy dressing gown. “Congratulations, Carol. You’ve saved more than £1,000 this year!” High-energy electronic music swells to a climax as she gives him a hug. Then, a shot of the next neighbour receiving his prize, and another, and another, as a tally at the bottom right of the screen shows the total cash sum rising. Finally, the entire community is out on the street waving their hands with joy.

Brings old-school charm to a touristy part of town

Burro, a new Italian restaurant in Covent Garden, London, had been on my horizons even before the napkins were on order, because Conor Gadd, the chef-owner, has form. His first restaurant Trullo, up in Islington, has sat unshakably around the top of my recommendations list for about 15 years and is namechecked by me at least twice weekly when complete strangers want a tip for a birthday, proposal or a client they need to impress. Or simply, “somewhere to take a foodie” who “really likes food”. Yes, the brief given to restaurant critics is often that vague, but to all these things I say: “Have you been to Trullo? Order the beef shin ragu and some good red wine. It’s been there for ages and they know what they’re doing.”

While trends came and went – no reservations, no tablecloths, no seats, just benches and upturned buckets – Trullo kept on being an actual grownup restaurant. And now Gadd, via Burro, is bringing some of that authority and old-school charm to a more touristy side of town; to be specific, a few minutes from Covent Garden tube, off King Street in a hidden courtyard that leads down to Floral Street. Burro’s menu certainly has elements of her big sister, but perhaps erring more on the elegant but hearty side. Take the rough-hewn, well seasoned, luscious paté of Venetian chicken livers on a thick slab of bruschetta that sits on the antipasti section of the menu, but in all honesty would do as a main course with a glass of something bright, sharp and white to cut through all that fattiness. Or simply a negroni, as chosen by my dining companion, the long-suffering Charles.

Under Anne Hidalgo – mayor for 12 years until last week – the French capital added bike lanes, cut traffic and reclaimed public space, but not without resistance

When Corentin Roudaut moved to Paris 10 years ago, he was too scared to cycle. The IT developer had biked everywhere as a student in Rennes but felt overwhelmed by the bustling French capital. Cars were everywhere. Cyclists had almost no protection.

But once authorities carved out space for a segregated bike lane on Boulevard Voltaire near his home in the 11th arrondissement, Roudaut returned to the two-wheel commute and did not look back.

As the Middle East is drawn into war, expats and influencers are under pressure to only share the positive side of the UAE. In reality many are at risk of being put behind bars, and often find the UK government has little interest in helping them get out

A four-metre barbed-wire fence runs through the desert at the UAE‑Omani border. In the early hours of 17 February 2021, Albert Douglas, 58, a British businessman, was creeping along it, looking for a way through. Douglas, who cuts a slight figure, wears spectacles and has a broad, earnest smile, never expected things to come to this. He’d been forced to abandon his home on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, the tree-shaped archipelago lined with upmarket residences, and go into hiding. Usually he’d be driving around in a Rolls-Royce, now he was in a pickup truck, being chauffeured by people smugglers. They’d transported him to the edge of the Al Ain border, which neighbours Oman, in the dead of the night. It was incredible, really, how fast the life he once led could evaporate. All that mattered now was getting to the other side of that fence.

A few weeks earlier, Douglas had been sitting at home, watching his supreme court appeal via video link. He was being hounded by the Dubai authorities over debts incurred by his son Wolfgang Douglas’s company and, while Wolfgang was in the UK, Albert had been arrested. Albert was facing a £2.5m fine and a three-year prison sentence – this was his final chance for a reprieve. He had always believed the truth would prevail, but as he watched the hearing play out, his faith in the system deserted him. He decided to lie low in a friend’s apartment while he weighed his options. It soon became clear that he didn’t have any. “That’s when I decided to leave,” he says. “I left it not to the last minute, but the last second.”

US president tells Iran: ‘Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell’

Iranian media has claims that a US aircraft was destroyed while searching for the crew member of a missing US F-15 fighter jet.

“An American enemy aircraft that was searching for the pilot of a downed fighter jet was destroyed by the fighters of Islam in the southern region of Isfahan,” the Tasnim news agency quoted Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as saying. The Guardian was unable to verify their claim.

Concerns raised over minors placed in adult detention centres since removals began under scheme in September

More than 70 children from various conflict zones whose ages were disputed by the Home Office have been held in detention centres in the UK in preparation for forced removal to France under the government’s “one in, one out” scheme, research shows.

The one in, one out initiative means each small boat arrival can be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person – who has not attempted the crossing – being brought to the UK legally.

• Updates from 4.30pm kick-off (BST) at London Stadium

• Survival or silverware? Farke faces dilemma at Leeds

1 min West Ham kick off from left to right as we watch. You’ll be pleased to hear that national treasure Danny Dyer is in attendance at the London Stadium.

“If he organisers are trying to recapture some of the long-faded ‘magic of the cup’, they’ll need to turn the pitch at Wembley into a quagmire for any potential meeting of Chelsea and Leeds,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “The 1970 FA Cup final was famously played the day after the Horse of the Year Show, and looked more suited to WWI trench warfare than a football match, even one in the 70s. May I suggest that England’s national stadium offer to host Ireland’s National Ploughing Championships on the same week?”

Road and rail travel also disrupted across the UK before weather warnings lifted on Sunday

Storm Dave left thousands of homes across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland without power and disrupted road and rail travel across the UK before high wind and snow warnings were lifted on Sunday morning.

Winds of up to 93mph were recorded in Capel Curig in north Wales – 20mph higher than forecast – while the Met Office issued a yellow severe weather warning for heavy snow and blizzards across the Scottish Highlands, Argyll and the Western Isles on Saturday.