As a career-spanning documentary hits cinemas and the band eye two nights at Knebworth, they revisit their path from pubs to stadiums – but how did they get through their crisis-filled 1990s?

When I ask Iron Maiden bassist and founder Steve Harris about the fact his band have lasted for more than half a century, he sounds bewildered, as if he’s put something down then forgotten where he’s left it. “It’s gone so quick. You go on tour for a few months and it seems to fly, but so much happens. Our whole career is an extension of that – for 50 years.”

He’s looking back on how he steered one of the most influential – and deeply idiosyncratic – British bands in history. Catapulted to the premier league of 80s metal on the back of galloping, theatrical, multi-platinum LPs including The Number of the Beast, Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Iron Maiden not only survived the mid-90s slump that befell many metal bands, but got even more heavy and ambitious.

Some people are put off by myriad investment options. Here is a guide to the key decisions to help you choose

• ‘Savvy Squirrel’ ad campaign looks to push Britons towards investing

The UK government is keen to encourage people to invest. If you are thinking of dipping your toe into the stock market, an Isa is often the best way, as it lets you protect any gains from tax. Here’s how to get started.

Anas Sarwar speaks to the Guardian about why he thinks the polls are wrong and how he hopes to end the SNP’s near 20-year dominance at Holyrood

Anas Sarwar says he is certain he can pull off one of the greatest escape acts of modern British politics. It is 14 days until the Holyrood election, and the polls consistently show Scottish Labour is in a battle simply to come second, never mind win.

Those polls are wrong, Sarwar says, and in two weeks plans to prove it. Claiming to be “more than happy” with his party’s underdog status, the Scottish Labour leader insists the media are too obsessed by polling numbers.

We assembled a group of the continent’s leading thinkers to assess the threats: their warnings are stark, but the remedy is within reach

Caught between Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Donald Trump’s US and Xi Jinping’s China, Europe appears in a state of profound crisis, the narrative about its future often filled with fatalism. There is a paradox, however. Despite rising nationalism, the climate crisis and the economic slowdown, few would take issue with the claim that Europe still has a great deal going for it. Asked to choose where in the world they would want to live, there is a good chance that most Europeans would still pick Europe over other continents.

The news is not relentlessly negative either. While much of the political commentary in recent years has focused on the rise of far-right nationalism across the continent, its most prominent symbol, Hungary’s former autocrat Viktor Orbán, was ousted in a landslide election this month.

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
The glam set design, gleaming brass and Motown moves are knowingly retro, but Dean’s performance is immediate, vulnerable and natural – the work of a singular artist

When the stage’s cream curtains pull back, Olivia Dean and band are already in full flow. Hands reaching out to the audience in welcome, she shimmies behind a silver mic stand in a floor-length candyfloss-pink dress, her band side-stepping on curved, softly carpeted risers. The swinging, sighing soul-pop single Nice to Each Other is bright with optimism for an on-off relationship, while soft-focus camera footage makes a collage out of gleaming trumpets, glamorous backing singers and Dean’s beaming face. With the air of old-fashioned music TV, it is knowingly retro and deeply romantic – everything you’d expect from the 27-year-old singer who is breathing fresh air into British soul.

On this opening night of two sold-out arena shows in Glasgow, ahead of six nights at London’s O2, Dean breezes through two more of her biggest songs as if it’s no big deal. Lady Lady, about moving out and growing up, is bassy and rich, while So Easy (To Fall in Love) is free, flirty and radiant: “This is a song to remind you that you’re fab,” she crows, now dancing at the stage’s footlights.

The places up for grabs in Uefa’s competitions next season are a moveable feast, leaving plenty of intrigue right up to the final day

With the end of the season approaching, it’s time again to try to get your head around the ever more complex rules that determine whether your club may qualify for Europe. But there will definitely be eight English teams playing continental football next season, and maybe more. The bad news is that if you own a multi-club network you’re too late to place your shareholding in a blind trust. Sorry, but I don’t make the rules, just attempt to interpret them.

US president orders navy to ‘shoot and kill’ boats laying mines in Hormuz and claims ‘total control’ over the strait

• Trump claims US has total control over strait of Hormuz after Iran seizes two container ships

• Analysis: Trump may talk of regime infighting, but Iran seems united by strategy born of war

The EU’s foreign chief has said that talks with Iran should include nuclear experts otherwise “we will end up with a more dangerous Iran.”

Speaking on Friday ahead of an informal summit of EU leaders in Cyprus, EU’s foreign chief Kaja Kallas said: “If the talks are only about the nuclear and there are no nuclear experts around the table, then we will end up with an agreement that is weaker than the JCPOA was.”

The department of justice has refused to hand over key evidence from the Jeffrey Epstein files and could delay Scotland Yard’s criminal inquiry.

The final debate in the House of Lords on the assisted dying bill is happening now, follow along as we bring you the latest lines.

The bill passed the House of Commons in June last year, but there has been so many amendments tabled in the Lords – more than 1,280 – that it appears doomed to fail given there is not enough time to review them all before the end of this parliamentary session, expected next week.

Amjad Youssef one of most-wanted fugitives in relation to slaughter of almost 290 civilians under Assad

A Syrian former regime official suspected of leading a notorious civilian massacre revealed by the Guardian – and who became one of the country’s most-wanted fugitives after the fall of Bashar al-Assad – has been arrested by security forces, Syria’s interior ministry announced.

Amjad Youssef was captured in the countryside about 30 miles (50km) outside the city of Hama and had “been taken into custody following a carefully executed security operation”, the interior minister, Anas Khattab, said in a social media post on Friday.

MPs call for investigation into Essar Energy, owner of Stanlow refinery, which shifted loans from ‘Putin’s piggy bank’ VTB to Mauritius

Days after the first wave of Russian tanks surged over the border into Ukraine in March 2022, dockers at a port in northern England took a stand.

Appalled by Vladimir Putin’s brutality, workers at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire vowed never to unload any Russian oil destined for the nearby Stanlow refinery, a major hub for UK fuel supplies.