At first, Mike made Tamsin feel good about herself – and his love-bombing led her to leave her family and resign from her job. Soon she had lost her car, phone and all her money

Tamsin met Mike in the summer of 2022. He was a mechanic in a garage that she walked past twice each day between home and work. After a while, he’d call out “good morning” or “good evening” and she’d wave and smile back. Then the exchanges got a little longer. (“Hard day?” “Looking forward to dinner?”) Six months later, Mike and Tamsin exchanged numbers.

Within two years, her life was wrecked. She had left her marriage, lost her home, quit her job, and sold her car and her phone, spent all her savings and racked up tens of thousands in debt. (Under her current repayment plan, it will take another eight and a half years to pay back her creditors.) Tamsin’s story seems scarcely credible and she is mortified to have to tell it. She stumbles through, piles of notes on her lap and a support worker from Victim Support at her side. Every few minutes, she breaks off to say, “It sounds so stupid”, “I sound like an absolute nutter” or “Where was my head?” In truth, she spent two years in the company of a psychopath, a master manipulator. He is in prison now, serving a 22-year sentence, but not for romance fraud, or anything involving Tamsin. Her experience, police have told her, “would not stand up in court”.

MoneySavingExpert founder has said changes that will lead to some graduates in England and Wales paying more are ‘not moral’

• Graduates in England and Wales: share your views on student loan repayments

A fairly technical-sounding change to student loans tucked away in last November’s budget has become the catalyst for an increasingly bad-tempered row pitting the UK consumer champion Martin Lewis against the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

In one interview, Lewis – the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, who boasts a vast following – said he did not think the planned change to repayment terms “was a moral thing”.

This documentary about four women, victimised as teenagers by the same man, is an instant rebuttal to that most unsympathetic question: why don’t women just leave their abuser?

Last year I began a review of the BBC documentary To Catch a Stalker with the words “Welcome to part 86,747,398,464 of the continuing cataloguing via television documentary of the apparently infinite series Ways in Which Largely Men Terrorise Largely Women and Prevent Countless Millions of Them from Living Their Lives in Freedom and Contentment.” Welcome now to part 86,747,398,465 (providing, that is, we limit ourselves only to products from the BBC. To include Netflix’s contributions could break calculators.)

Lover, Liar, Predator tells the stories of several women who were coerced, abused and raped by a man called Aaron Swan over his decades-long career. He was 17 when he approached Natalie at a party. She was 17 too but, as a devout Christian with a very protected upbringing, effectively younger and highly vulnerable to his charms. He put pressure on her to give up her virginity. She got pregnant and they married. He was “demeaning and unkind” to her, insulting her looks, claiming to be in love with his ex and subjecting her to violent, unwanted sex (“I endured whatever was required … I thought that’s what sex was”) for years.

Euphoric scenes are a snub to theocracy’s culture of piety, say analysts, and carry message of rebellion

Iranians killed in recent protests that rocked the country have been laid to rest in boisterous funerals featuring loud pop music and dancing, apparently intended to convey defiance to the ruling Islamic regime.

Instead of holding sombre traditional mourning ceremonies presided over by a Shia cleric, bereaved relatives are turning the burials into exultant celebrations of the lives of their loved ones in what analysts say is an intentional snub to the culture of piety demanded by Iran’s theocracy.

In spring 2003, exuberance at the fall of Saddam was swiftly followed by a descent into deadly chaos. Whether moving independently or embedded with troops, Guardian reporters witnessed the violence on the ground

The allied attack on Iraq began on 20 March 2003. The Guardian’s 4am edition on Friday 21 March carried the headline: “Land, sea and air assault.” The report was by Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Camp As Sayliyah, on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar. It opened: “The ground war began in Iraq last night as British and American marines stormed beaches on the Gulf coast in an assault on the south-eastern city of Basra, while explosions lit up Baghdad under a heavy bombardment by cruise missiles.”

The first British fatalities came shortly afterwards when a US helicopter crashed in Kuwait, killing all on board. Suzanne Goldenberg’s front-page report from Baghdad revealed that only two hours after the decapitation effort, Saddam Hussein himself had made a defiant appearance on television. A Guardian leader stated that the plain fact was this first “surgical strike” had missed its mark. Even had it reached its target, it would have been difficult to applaud. “State-ordered assassination sets an abominable precedent that encourages unwelcome emulation … The US must tread carefully – for the legal and moral grounds for this war are already very shaky.”

The only question now is how it took this long for Labour’s greedy, reckless Prince of Darkness to meet his reckoning

This is the end, beautiful friend, the end. There have been many Peter Mandelson resignations. Twice from the cabinet, once as the UK ambassador to Washington. But the announcement late on Sunday night that Mandelson was resigning from the Labour party somehow felt more final.

In the past, there had always been get-out clauses. Unexpected routes back to the centre of power. Not this time. Somewhat late in the day, the establishment had closed every door. For the first time in decades, Mandy was truly on his own. You might ask what had taken everyone so long. Mandelson hadn’t exactly made much effort to hide his tracks.

Met police assessing reports of alleged misconduct in public office after government information apparently shared

Peter Mandelson is facing a possible police investigation into his alleged leak of market-sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein at the height of the financial crisis.

New disclosures from the Epstein files appear to show Mandelson sent a string of emails to the late sex offender containing confidential information that the government was receiving to deal with the global crash while he was business secretary under Gordon Brown.

A confidential UK government document outlining £20bn in asset sales.

Mandelson claiming he was “trying hard” to change government policy on bankers’ bonuses.

An imminent bailout package for the euro the day before it was announced in 2010.

A suggestion that the JPMorgan boss “mildly threaten” the chancellor.

Minister announces Microsoft, Cisco and Adobe to help apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses

In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.

The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.

Caroline Willgoose, whose 15-year-old son was killed by another pupil, says murder was ‘senseless and avoidable’

The family of a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed to death at school by another pupil has said her son’s murder was “senseless and avoidable” and that a report ordered by the school showed too many “red flags” were missed.

Harvey Willgoose died one year ago to the day, and his killer, Mohammed Umar Khan, is serving a minimum term of 16 years’ detention. A report commissioned by the trust that runs Harvey’s school, All Saints Catholic high school in Sheffield, has highlighted a number of missed opportunities in the run-up to the murder. The review was undertaken by a former school headteacher and inspector of schools at Learn Sheffield.

Masoud Pezeshkian instructs foreign minister to seek negotiations with US as Trump warns ‘bad things would happen’ if no solution agreed

Iran’s president said on Tuesday that he had instructed his foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the US, as the two countries reportedly prepared to send top envoys to Istanbul for high-stakes talks on the Iranian nuclear programme later this week.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a post on X: “I have instructed my minister of foreign affairs, provided that a suitable environment exists – one free from threats and unreasonable expectations – to pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, prudence, and expediency.”