The Middle East on fire, a spat with the pope – and he posts himself as Potus Almighty. Will his disciples now see that their messiah has feet of clay?

You hear such a lot from Maga Republicans about how liberals think Trump voters are stupid. But not nearly enough about the far more salient point: that Donald Trump thinks Trump voters are stupid. Naturally, nobody deplores his own people as passionately as a populist, but even by those exacting historical standards Trump really does regard his supporters as a honking great throng of halfwits. How else to explain his seemingly retrofitted claim yesterday that the AI picture he posted of himself as Jesus was “me as a doctor”. Er, no. After it incensed leading figures in the Christian right, which makes up a large part of his voter base, the US president later deleted it, lamenting of these idiots that he “didn’t want anybody to be confused. People were confused.” Yeah, people are stoopid.

Alas, as you’ve no doubt seen, controversy still attends this image Trump shared on his Truth Social/True Sociopath platform. It depicts Trump in Jesus robes and holding a glowing orb of something – presumably heavenly light or radioactive material he omitted to tell Congress about – which he is transmitting restoratively into the forehead of some midwestern Lazarus. I’m sure we’d all love to know how the AI prompt for it could be “show me Donald Trump as a doctor”, or indeed how the LLM of choice would react when called out on its subsequent error. “You’re right – I overstated that. I shouldn’t have implied the US president is a benign deity who can raise the dead. To clarify – he’s a malignant narcissist and a tumour on the world. Thanks for catching that.”

The taboo-busting, Tony-award-winning show has returned. But how will its 00s attitudes land today? Will they still sing Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist and If You Were Gay?

There are certain problems you might expect when rehearsing a West End musical. Then there are the problems arising today, regarding the flaccidity of a prominent performer. “This one’s too floppy,” protests actor Noah Harrison, who is struggling with the choreography because his dance partner lacks backbone. No offence is taken, mind you: the culprit is made of felt. It’s time to swap out this cloth character for a sturdier one, and there are plenty to choose from. Row upon row of Sesame Street-alike puppets flank the room, each awaiting its moment in the spotlight.

This is Avenue Q, the Broadway-to-London hit, with songs by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, and book by Jeff Whitty, now revived to celebrate 20 years since its West End premiere. When it first launched, its mixture of multicoloured kids TV puppets, real-world problems (sex, racism, the housing crisis, existential drift) and outrageous songs felt truly out of the blue, and secured it Tony awards for best musical, best book and best score. But the young people to whom its story was addressed are now all grown up, and a new generation could benefit from the tale it has to tell.

The MoD shows little sign of learning from its mistakes – no wonder the Treasury is reluctant to agree to its demands

George Robertson, Tony Blair’s first defence secretary, a former Nato secretary general and an author last year of the latest in a series of evasive strategic defence reviews, accused Keir Starmer on Tuesday of a “corrosive complacency towards defence”. He said the prime minister was not willing to make the “necessary investment”.

Lord Robertson could have directed his fire elsewhere. He must know that no government department has been so complacent in the face of years of devastating evidence of waste, profligate contracts, and policy decisions that have avoided confronting new but increasingly clear security threats to Britain and other western countries.

The festival might feel more corporate than ever but enthusiasm remained sky high with Bieber fever, a Demon Hunters surprise and a pop takeover

Even in the best of times, Coachella can be a heavy lift – long drive, perhaps longer lines and, if you do it right, extremely long days of careening between live music sets under the intense desert sun. Every year, North America’s largest music festival generates a round of buzz and scorn in near equal measure for good reason – the sky-high prices, the deluge of cringey social media boasts, the overwhelming vibes of influencer culture. Yet the faithful keep returning (and the agnostics keep tuning in online), forking over a minimum of $649 for a three-day pass or securing a brand deal to witness what continues to be the most expansive and comprehensive music slate in the country, a genuinely exciting mix of up-and-comers gunning for a breakout set and you-had-to-be there moments such as, say, the return of Justin Bieber …

While Bieberchella dominated much of the conversation on the ground this year – his low-key but sufficient Saturday headliner set drew perhaps the biggest crowd in festival history – Coachella 2026 offered plenty of range for those not interested in the comeback of the millennial icon. Coachella may be the one thing in American currently safe from actual inflation – there was no rise in ticket prices this year, though I have to imagine that, like last year, over half of attendees are on payment plans. But the inflation mindset prevails. Following its so-called flop era two years ago, when underwhelming headliner billing led to the slowest ticket sales in over a decade, the festival has returned to conversation-dominating form with a more is more approach: more international artists catering to more potential attendees; more infrastructure (a new underground movie theater, the Bunker, was tailor-made for Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia audiovisual experience); more investment in an impressive livestream operation, as the festival continues its shift from in-person experience to global event/brand; more surprise DJ bookings – the xx’s Romy! John Summit! – that overflowed the EDM-heavy Do LaB.

The government hails the ‘green revolution’ as a solution to economic decline, but some young jobseekers say the rhetoric does not match their experience

On paper, Jake Snell, 19, sounds like the perfect candidate for a role in the UK’s burgeoning green energy sector. He has high grades in maths and physics A-level, a distinction in BTec engineering and another distinction in an extended engineering diploma. He has also done work experience at an engineering company.

He is from Lowestoft, a coastal town in Suffolk, outside Great Yarmouth. Both towns contain areas that fall within the most deprived 20% in England and are part of a wider pattern of coastal places with low employment opportunities.

The 1990s series set her career alight; then came 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and countless theatre triumphs. She discusses Tina Fey, Stephen Sondheim and why it would take a broken leg to keep her off stage

‘I’ve been on three television shows that moved the needle a little bit,” says Jane Krakowski. “It sounds obnoxious for me to say it, so hopefully you’ll phrase that as if you said it.” In fact, I did also say it: the first was Ally McBeal, from 1997 until 2002, in which she played Elaine Vassal, an idiosyncratic character in a groundbreaking show. The kind of people who liked to sit around arguing about telly and post-modernism talked constantly about what kind of feminism McBeal was iterating, in the late 90s, with its scatty, neurotic heroine, such an unfamiliar screen trope of Career Woman, but somehow so much closer to life. Krakowski was almost the photo-negative of Calista Flockhart’s title character: brassy, eccentric, unconcerned by others’ opinions. Similarly, her character in 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney, acted as the bookend to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon – Krakowski untouched by self-awareness, Fey beset by it. That ran from 2006 until 2013, and two years later, Fey’s follow-up, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, featured Krakowski as Jacqueline White, a magnetically unlikable wealthy socialite, in a fictional world so surreally improbable that it feels like a high-wire act only this particular cast could have pulled off.

You could split hairs about whether Ally McBeal invented the “dramedy” or just honed it, and the question of Fey’s comic sensibility could suck you in like quicksand. But in each show, Krakowski creates a character that you cannot imagine having landed, fully formed, on the page. She is expressive in a way that’s so high-voltage but so controlled, funny in a way that feels so instinctive but so deliberated, that the dialogue and the performance seem to explode together like two chemical elements.

Growth forecasts cut for US and global economy, while UK suffers sharpest downgrade in G7

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A further escalation in the Iran war could trigger a global recession, spiralling inflation and a sharp backlash in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Against an increasingly volatile backdrop, the Washington-based fund said the economic damage from the Middle East conflict was steadily rising as it cut its growth forecasts for 2026 based on the impact from the war so far.

Iran-linked vessels pass after start of Trump’s blockade; France and UK to chair talks on Friday

• US starts naval blockade of Iranian ports after deadline passes

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has said rising tensions around the strait of Hormuz make it hard to be optimistic about the fallout from the Iran war, warning that high oil prices and supply-chain strains are likely to persist for some time.

Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday the government should treat prolonged disruption in global energy and raw materials markets as a given and reinforce its emergency response system.

For the time being, difficulties in global energy and raw materials supply chains and high oil prices will continue … I ask that we pursue the development of alternative supply chains, medium- to long-term industrial restructuring, and the transition to a post-plastic economy as top-priority national strategic projects.”

Lebanon and Israel have been at war in some form since the early 1980s. You’re not allowed to enter Lebanon if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. The two don’t have diplomatic relations. So the fact that these talks are happening directly between the two governments is something that’s really astonishing.

George Robertson says Iran war should be wake-up call to address military underfunding in scathing remarks

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• Analysis: Armed forces have only themselves to blame

The government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK in peril, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticism of Keir Starmer’s military policy.

George Robertson, the former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, believes Starmer is “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times reported.

Independent Office for Police Conduct examines allegations that the race of victim’s’ families influenced conduct of officers

The police watchdog is investigating complaints made against 11 officers over their handling of an inquiry into a car crash that killed two schoolgirls.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has confirmed that the officers, including a serving commander and a detective inspector, are being investigated over alleged gross misconduct.