The Tory leader thinks she has masterminded the PM’s series of crises. You could put her on a fairground ride and she would still think she was in control of where she was going

• UK politics live – latest updates

To have one Labour peer with a close association to a child sex offender may be regarded as a misfortune: to have two looks like carelessness. This was never going to be an easy prime minister’s question for Keir Starmer.

The opposition was spoilt for choice. The peers in question – Peter Mandelson and Matthew Doyle – as well as the topics of Morgan McSweeney, Tim Allan, Wes Streeting … These were just some of the crisis points of the past seven days. Even by the political psychodramas of the past 10 years, it’s fair to say Starmer has had the week from hell. Just one damn thing after another.

The late actor became known for his role in Kevin Williamson’s era-defining teen show but in the years after he worked hard to subvert his persona

• James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson’s Creek, dies aged 48

• James Van Der Beek: a life in pictures

When an actor like James Van Der Beek dies, the obvious thing would be to concentrate on their biggest role. In the case of Van Der Beek, that would be Dawson’s Creek, Kevin Williamson’s soapy drama that ran for six seasons across the millennium.

And that would be perfectly justified, since in its time Dawson’s Creek was a genuine sensation. It might be hard to remember, since the show became the water that all teen drama swims in, but Dawson’s Creek had a rare knack for meeting its audience where it was.

In the 1980s, spearheaded by Channel 4, British TV stopped telling Black and Asian people how to assimilate and gave them a voice. A golden age of dissent, activism and culture ensued – but have we since gone backwards?

One afternoon in 1984, Farrukh Dhondy went for lunch, not realising he was about to become part of British television history. The Indian-born writer was working for Channel 4 at the time on breakout multi-ethnic shows such as No Problem!, a sitcom about a family of Jamaican heritage in London, and Tandoori Nights, a comedy about an Indian restaurant. When Dhondy arrived at the Ivy, Jeremy Isaacs, the burgeoning broadcaster’s founding chief executive, ordered an £84 bottle of wine.

“I thought, ‘What the hell is this all about?’” Dhondy says. It turned out Isaacs wanted him to be the next commissioning editor for Channel 4. “For God’s sake, I’m not an office job man,” he said. “I’m a writer.” But after a brief conversation with the Trinidadian activist-scholar CLR James, who was living with him while going through a divorce, Dhondy changed his mind.

Gen Z fell in love with him on the small screen, but with the release of Emerald Fennell’s steamy new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the Aussie actor’s star is set to shine even brighter

Jacob Elordi is Heathcliff. The 28-year-old Australian actor has scarcely been out of the headlines since his controversial casting in Emerald Fennell’s imminent adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Now, in the week of the film’s release, he’s being hailed as “the hottest man on the planet”, tipped as a future Oscar winner and household name. Not even mixed early reviews seem to be slowing the momentum.

Truly, these heights must seem wuthering to the boy from Brisbane who fell in love with acting after being cast as The Cat in The Hat. “As soon as I was singing and dancing with the big hat on, I knew that that was what I wanted to do,” Elordi said last December. But who is he, and what’s behind his rapid rise?

In interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieces together how an operation targeting a criminal gang left 122 people dead last October

• Warning: contains graphic images

• Visual investigation: how Rio’s deadliest police raid unfolded

• The Long Wave newsletter: ‘It doesn’t shock that it’s Black people getting killed’

Juliana Conceição startled awake as the first shots of an infamous day were fired in the Complexo da Penha, the labyrinthine Rio favela where she was born and raised.

It was 4.30am on 28 October. Thousands of police had surrounded the community’s barricaded entrances and were preparing to swarm up its streets on foot and in black armoured personnel carriers with firing ports and bullet-cracked ballistic windows.

Our expert shares saucy gifts for every experience level and relationship status – from feather ticklers to Fairtrade massage bars

• The best vibrators, tested

I won’t beat around the bush (although I will suggest some devices that can do that for you very efficiently): Valentine’s Day is coming up, so you may well be looking for some saucy gift suggestions for your other half.

As an award-winning expert who’s worked in the sexual wellbeing and pleasure sector for more than two decades, I’ve trialled thousands of vibrators and stimulators, lotions and potions, and a whole A-Z of BDSM bits and bobs. In fact, I have an entire loft room in my house dedicated to storing all my X-rated testers, samples and prototypes. I’m a trustworthy source when it comes to sauciness, so here are my top Valentine’s gift suggestions, whether mild or wild – all tried and tested. From a turmeric latte massage bar to a crotchless teddy, let’s get stuck in.

Harriet Harman leads calls for an appointment that would ‘turbocharge’ a ‘complete culture change’ at No 10

Female Labour MPs have demanded that Keir Starmer appoint a senior woman as his de facto deputy to oversee a “complete culture change” in Downing Street after a series of scandals that they say have exposed a No 10 “boys’ club”.

Harriet Harman, one of the party’s most senior figures, urged Starmer to revive the role of first secretary of state on Wednesday, a post occupied by Peter Mandelson under Gordon Brown.

A teacher and five students among those killed in attack in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday

Canadian police have identified the suspect who carried out a school massacre in remote British Columbia as an 18-year old woman with a history of mental health problems.

Six people, including a teacher and five students, were killed in the attack on Tuesday in the town of Tumbler Ridge, in foothills of the Rocky mountains. The victim’s mother and step-brother were later found dead at the family home, police said. The body of the shooter was also found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Cognitive health in later life is ‘strongly influenced’ by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers

Reading, writing and learning a language or two can lower your risk of dementia by almost 40%, according to a study that suggests millions of people could prevent or delay the condition.

Dementia is one of the world’s biggest health threats. The number of people living with the condition is forecast to triple to more than 150 million globally by 2050, and experts say it presents a big and rapidly growing threat to future health and social care systems in every community, country and continent.

Adam Mosseri defends app on witness stand and says critics must separate ‘clinical addiction’ from ‘problematic use’

Instagram’s CEO dismissed the idea that users can be addicted to social media at a landmark California trial on Wednesday.

“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Adam Mosseri said on the witness stand. Psychologists do not classify social media addiction as an official diagnosis. Researchers have documented the harmful consequences of compulsive use among young people, and lawmakers around the world are worried about its addictive potential.