It sends us to sleep and wakes us in the night, excites us and depresses us, gives us confidence one moment, anxiety the next. How does this messy drug wield so much power?

Whatever you think of alcohol, you have to admit that it’s versatile. Ever since the first humans started smashing up fruit and leaving it in pots to chug a few days later, we’ve been relying on it to celebrate and commiserate, to deal with anxiety and to make us more creative. We use it to build confidence and kill boredom, to get us in the mood for going out and to put us to (nonoptimal) sleep. Where most mind-altering substances have one or two specific use-cases, alcohol does the lot. That’s probably why it’s been so ubiquitous throughout human history – and why it can be so hard to give up entirely.

“We often call alcohol pharmacologically promiscuous,” says Dr Rayyan Zafar, a neuropsychopharmacologist from Imperial College London. “It doesn’t just calm you: it can stimulate reward pathways, dampen threat signals, release endogenous opioids that can relieve pain or stress, alter decision-making and shift mood, all at the same time.”

Decision to cap interest rate at 6% from September is unlikely to defuse row over crippling cost of debt

• Full story: UK caps interest rate on student loans

The government has announced a small concession for millions of university graduates with “plan 2” student loans.

However, the decision to cap the interest rate charged at 6% from September is unlikely to defuse the row over the crippling cost of degree course debts.

The US constitution should make it possible to remove a president who’s not fit for office. But we’re going to need another way out

For the past few months, I have been waging a cold war with a neighbour who constantly puts out their rubbish on the wrong day. And by “cold war” I mean complaining incessantly to my longsuffering wife while the neighbour goes about their business blissfully unaware that we are mortal enemies. But enough is enough. Last week I decided to end this situation via a strongly worded letter. “Tuesday will be Explosions Day in your house, neighbour!” I wrote. “There will be nothing like it!!! Put out your Fuckin’ Rubbish properly, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

I am sorry to drag Allah into this obviously imaginary exchange, but I’m just channelling the US president. I’m sure you’ve already seen Donald Trump’s profanity-laden Easter Sunday warning to Iran, where he threatened to carry out the mass bombing of civilian infrastructure – but if you haven’t, then go read it and weep. The days where Trump’s outbursts were amusing (remember “covfefe”?) are long gone. There is nothing funny about endless stream-of-consciousness screeds from a man who is not just destroying the US, but dragging the whole world down with it. If a civilian acted like the president routinely does, they’d find themselves fired very quickly.

From Sleep Token to Ghost and Slaughter to Prevail, the genre’s biggest stars are using freaky facial disguises. Are they hiding behind them – or revealing their true nature?

When US avant garde metal band Imperial Triumphant decided that their image needed a shake-up in 2015, they considered putting on corpse paint, the ghastly makeup popularised by 90s black metal. But, their singer/guitarist Zachary Ezrin says, they then realised how much effort it would take – and how uncool the post-gig rituals would feel: “You just rocked a show, and now you have to sit backstage and wipe off your makeup.” (Perish the thought of being the average female pop star.)

They instead chose to wear striking gold masks modelled after 1920s art deco architecture, though these brought their own problems when they got lost in transit. “We had to do one show where Steve [Blanco, bass] was wearing a new mask that we put together from parts. We went to some Hungarian costume shop and just started grabbing stuff and piecing it together.”

The Reform leader cynically pushes the boundaries of how far he can go without alienating too many of the voters he needs – but it’s a perilous calibration

What counts as beyond the pale these days? Having successfully pushed back the cordon sanitaire that surrounds British politics, Nigel Farage is struggling to work out where, precisely, it now lies. Some decisions are simple. Attacks on Grenfell victims are, and have always been, beyond the bounds of decency. Farage promptly sacked Simon Dudley last week after the housing spokesperson mused of the victims that “everyone dies in the end”.

But on other choices Farage dithers. Not wishing to sound prudish to his more hard-boiled supporters, he previously dismissed accusations he was racist at school as “banter in the playground”. It was only in January that he did what any other mainstream politician would do with likely unprovable claims of racism and denied them completely.

Martha Gill writes about politics and culture

As global row intensifies, Reform UK has said it would not issue visas for people from any country seeking reparations

The rightwing Reform UK party has said it would stop issuing visas to people from any country that seeks reparations for the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of Africans, at a time when the global battle for reparative justice is intensifying.

Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, this week claimed the UK was being “ridiculed on the world stage” and said the “bank is closed” to anyone who wanted to “use history as a weapon to drain our Treasury”.

Attacks on Iran increase and Israel tells Iranians to avoid train travel as deadline to reopen strait of Hormuz looms

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has warned that Iran’s “whole civilisation will die tonight” if Tehran did not comply with his demands, as the world braced to see if the president would deliver on his latest threat to order the mass destruction of Iranian power plants and bridges in the absence of a deal by 8pm EDT (1am BST).

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards signalled they were also ready to escalate the war with a threat to retaliate “beyond the region” and “to deprive the US and its allies of oil and gas in the region for years”, suggesting Iran would target oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf and elsewhere, potentially sending the world into recession.

UN chief warns that deliberate attacks on civilians amount to war crime; Trump once again implores Iran to make a deal to avert attack

• Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die’ if Iran ignores demands

• Democrats outraged at Trump: ‘A threat to commit a war crime’

Here are some of the latest images coming in from the Middle East as the war continues in week six.

The Israeli military has just warned the people of Iran not to use trains, saying that doing so “endangers your life”.

Dear Citizens, for the sake of your security, we kindly request that from this moment until 21:00 Iran time, you refrain from using and travelling by train throughout Iran.

Your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life.

Lib Dems, Greens and some Labour MPs demand UK block US from using its airbases for Iran missions

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure to limit US access to British airbases after Donald Trump threatened “a whole civilisation” would die if Iran ignored his demands, comments that Downing Street has not directly criticised.

No 10 has allowed US forces to use UK bases only for defensive missions against Iran, such as targeting missile sites, ruling out involvement in attacks on civilian infrastructure such as power stations, which the US president has threatened.

As US threatens to attack civilian infrastructure, UK’s distinction between defence and attack is under strain

• Donald Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die’ if Iran ignores demands

In Downing Street, Keir Starmer has been at pains to emphasise that he will only authorise the use of UK bases by the US for “defensive” strikes on Iranian military targets. In the White House, Donald Trump has threatened to bomb civilian infrastructure – and said on Monday that he was “not at all” worried about committing war crimes.

So far in the war, Starmer’s position has allowed him to present the UK as a responsible actor concerned for regional security – but not a direct participant in the conflict on the US side.