In one corner, clean energy champion Ed Miliband. In the other, residents – and Reform politicians – outraged at plans for more large-scale solar farms in Lincolnshire than anywhere else in the UK

As night descends on the grand offices of Lincolnshire county council, everything appears orderly and calm. Paintings of long-forgotten councillors and dignitaries stare out into an empty drawing room. The council chamber is silent and dark. Bored receptionists glance at their phones while a handful of admin staff hunch over glowing screens. But a rebellion is brewing in the office of the council leader, Sean Matthews, who took charge last May, when Reform replaced the Conservative old guard. The affable former royal protection officer is plotting an apparently radical campaign of civil disobedience against a series of giant solar farms planned for Lincolnshire.

Despite a quarter of a century in the Metropolitan police, Matthews is willing to break the law to stop solar developers. He is planning to lie down in front of the bulldozers. “They can arrest me – I’ve arrested plenty of people,” he says, leaning forward on a sofa. “It’s much bigger than me and my criminal record. For goodness sake, it’s the future of the county, it’s the future of our land. I am passionate about that and I will do what I can.”

The Woman’s Hour host, who has died aged 75, could talk about hydrangeas, campaign against domestic abuse, then tear a strip off a politician – all within a few minutes

Before she took over Woman’s Hour in 1987, Jenni Murray was a presenter on the Today programme. She had joined the BBC in Bristol in 1973, and became a TV reporter and presenter for South Today, so arrived with solid news credentials. But Today in the 1980s was inveterately sexist – the guys took the politics, the women mopped up the rest – that the format was just too small for her.

Woman’s Hour, on the other hand, was absolutely reshaped in her image: there was no preconception of tone, and nothing was too serious or too light for it. Murray, who has died at the age of 75, could tear a strip off a politician, talk about hydrangeas, then campaign against domestic abuse, all within a few minutes. She was instinctively open and generous about her personal experience, but never solipsistic – an incredibly fine balance.

Sightings in Varginha in 1996 have been dismissed as hoax, but saga continues to draw people from around world

The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil’s greatest mysteries was born.

“It really was something unique,” recalls Marco Antônio Reis, a zoo director, who was at his ranch outside Varginha one stormy day in January 1996 when, he says, an otherworldly creature came to town.

The Brooklyn author on immigration and the inspiration behind his latest collection of stories

I often write the first paragraph of a story in a notebook, add to it every so often or leave it there to see if something might emerge from it. In 2008, in San Francisco, I went with three friends on a hike near Muir Woods overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the summit, there was a kind of lodge where you could get a bed for the night and use the kitchen to make your own dinner. The view was spectacular.

As we climbed, I began to imagine a character, an Irish guy who had made up his mind to go home. This was his last big outing in the landscape. He had been working as a plumber. Dotted in the Bay Area were houses where he had repaired pipes and installed new sinks and toilets and washing machines. This was his legacy in America. He was someone who could be depended on in an emergency. But he was illegal and he was going home.

The former Countdown host on nasty rightwingers, the plane she bought to fly solo around the world, and her love of snogging

Born in Bedfordshire, Carol Vorderman, 65, studied engineering at Cambridge University. Her mathematical skill secured her a role on the Channel 4 gameshow Countdown, which she co-hosted from 1982 to 2008. Since 1999, she has presented the annual Pride of Britain awards, and in 2000 she received the MBE for services to broadcasting. She has published educational workbooks, self-help guides and her latest paperback is Now What? A People’s Manifesto for a Better Britain. She is a team captain on Channel 5’s show Celebrity Puzzling. She is twice divorced, has two children and lives in Bristol.

When were you happiest?
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.

It’s hard under the best of circumstances. For those with difficult family relationships or estrangement, it’s even more complicated

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The phone call came in mid-2016. “I’ve got cancer,” the old woman announced. Kathy*, a small business consultant, lived in Sydney. Her widowed mother, then in her 80s, lived in a large regional town four hours’ drive away.

For the next five years, Kathy became her mother’s drive-in, drive-out carer, clocking up thousands of kilometres on her odometer.

President says US ‘getting very close to meeting our objectives’; missiles fired at joint US-UK military base in Indian Ocean but neither hit

Circling back now to Diego Garcia, Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean – but neither of them hit, according to news reports citing US officials.

The Wall Street Journal said one of the missiles failed in flight, and that a US warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other, citing two US officials. It could not be determined if an interception was made, one said.

Weapons fired after PM authorises US to carry out further attacks from UK bases, a move critics say must be approved by parliament

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The Ministry of Defence has condemned Iranian strikes directed towards a US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia.

Iran fired the missiles after warning that British lives were “in danger” after Keir Starmer authorised the US to carry out further strikes from British bases.

Iranians in Tehran and across the country cautiously marked the Persian New Year despite the ongoing war entering its fourth week

Heavy strikes echoed across Tehran during one of the country’s biggest holidays as Tel Aviv said it had “acted alone” in striking Iran’s South Pars gasfield, a move that further escalated the conflict.

Donald Trump said on Friday he was considering “winding down” military operations. He wrote on social media: “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives.”

Regime will do whatever it takes to cling on to power – including sacrificing economies of other Gulf states

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Brinkmanship, the ability to take a country to the edge of war without plunging it into the abyss, was the cornerstone of cold war diplomacy. But in our different, more unstable times – in which the line between state and non-state actors has blurred, and weapons of war have diffused – the world this week finally tipped over the edge, and suddenly it is in freefall.

The first six days of the Iran war cost the US $12.7bn (£9.5bn), but now the Pentagon is seeking as much as $200bn in military funding. Oil at $125 a barrel is no longer an Iranian, or Russian, fantasy. The crown jewel of Qatar, Ras Laffan – the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant – may not reopen fully for five years, at a cost of $20bn a year. Other combustible oil depots in the Gulf, from Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, are exposed to Iran’s low-cost drones. Then add the human cost of 18,000 civilians injured and more than 3,000 killed in Iran alone.