Lucia Osborne-Crowley has endured threats and sexual harassment to report on Jeffrey Epstein’s chief enabler. Maxwell’s conviction was only the start of the quest for justice, she says

On 9 September 2022, Lucia Osborne-Crowley flew from London to Miami and caught a Greyhound bus north to West Palm Beach. The writer and journalist had arranged to meet Carolyn Andriano, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell from the age of 14 until she was 17, starting in 2001. Andriano had been a crucial witness in the trial against Maxwell in 2021.

When the two women met, Andriano said she had just been visited by a private investigator – a man in his 60s, who had heard she was talking to someone about a book. In a restaurant that afternoon, Osborne-Crowley was approached by a man in his 60s. What was she writing, he wanted to know. He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are finding their carefully projected image of stability has been blown away

There is a tendency to think of the Gulf powers as static and unchanging. They are, after all, fortified by massive wealth and absolute monarchical rule, and secured with deep economic and military relationships with the US. The past week of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, and Iran’s retaliations, have brought into focus what these countries export (oil and gas) and what they import (tax avoiders and labour). But beyond thinking about energy-supply challenges to the global economy and engaging in the cheap and popular sport of smirking at influencers in war zones, we must remember that the current conflagration will have profound consequences for the entire region. This is not just about the US, Israel and Iran; it is about a complex, overlapping political order in the Middle East that is much more fragile than it looks.

Amid all the ways the region has been changing over the past few years, the low-key evolution of three Gulf countries in particular has been the most significant. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been rapidly making changes, the effects of which have been felt from Libya to Palestine. The 7 October attacks, which arguably set off the chain of events that led to this moment, were partly inspired by Hamas’s desire to stop the normalisation process that Saudi Arabia was undertaking with Israel; this was following the UAE and others signing the 2020 Abraham accords with Israel. The three countries have been pursuing in different ways, often at odds with each other, ambitious global and regional agendas. And they are also much more unsteady than their decades-long familial rule suggests.

There are urgent calls for Australia to take action before the team return to Iran but with no word from the players themselves the situation is fraught and uncertain

Their forward was once suspended when her head scarf slipped off during a goal celebration. Their youngest player is just 18. Another once worked as a personal trainer overseas. These are the women of the Iran football team, who are at the centre of an international diplomatic incident, even as the US and Israel rain missiles down on their family back home.

The team remains in a hotel on the Gold Coast, where they played their third and final match of the Women’s Asian Cup on Sunday. Their departure from Australia is imminent, even if it’s not clear whether they want to go.

Kasasa island, in the Seto Inland Sea, has only seven residents but its fate is strongly intertwined with relations between Tokyo and Beijing

His island home is shrouded in mist, but his union jack woolly hat makes Hideya Yagi easy to spot as he greets the approaching boat. The 80-year-old, a former president of a construction company, is pleased to see the small group of passengers disembark, mainly because he is one of only seven registered residents at their destination, Kasasa island.

Kasasa is known as the “Hawaii” of Japan’s inland sea because of its warm climate and beautiful coastline. Yagi and his wife, Mihoko, eke out a quiet life alongside just one other couple and an elderly woman. The other two residents are almost always absent.

In search of a new adventure, Craig Munns went back to school. Now, at 65, he spends his days examining long-vanished life forms

Craig Munns has a large model of a T rex on his desk. He got it with a magazine subscription two decades ago. One day, a few years ago, he was sitting in his study, which was dense with books and yellow sticky notes and posters charting evolution from single cells upward, and he thought, “What am I going to do next in my life?” And his eyes lit upon the T rex.

Munns had recently taken on a job at the public library in Canberra, but it had always rankled with him that he had not studied for a degree, starting instead as an electronics trainee after he left school in Sydney, Australia. So he decided to enrol as a part-time student. He graduated at 62, with honours in palaeontology from the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.

It is estimated that every year more than one million bald people fly to Istanbul. They go for two reasons – hair transplant quality and competitive costs

“I used to look at my father and understand that I was destined to go bald,” says James McElroy. He smiles when he thinks back to his trip to Istanbul a year ago. “I had a few doubts at the beginning, but today I’m happy and satisfied. Yes, I had a hair transplant, I don’t hide it and I’m not ashamed of it. It was a somewhat intense experience, but I’d do it again – especially now that I’m single. I’m happy to talk about it and I’m happy to receive compliments. That wasn’t the goal, but I appreciate them.”

A patient is reading the terms and conditions of his contract before the transplant begins at Sule Hair Clinic.

Move could lead to escalation of war as Donald Trump has already called Mojtaba Khamenei an unacceptable choice

• Middle East crisis - live updates

Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen as his successor.

Members of the clerical body responsible for selecting Iran’s highest authority announced the decision on Sunday, calling on Iranians to rally behind him and preserve national unity.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, with oil on track for its biggest daily jump since 2020

• Iran war drives oil prices above $100 a barrel for first time since 2022

Donald Trump’s claim that the surge in the oil price is “a very small price to pay” has added to the sense that neither side is showing any signs of de-escalation, says Jim Reid, market strategist at Deutsche Bank, adding:

Another important thing from the weekend is that we saw oil infrastructure targeted by both sides. This is an escalation from last week where this was, on the whole, avoided.

Bombing of oil depots in Iran not only sent oil prices surging but also shows the shift in war strategy. Qatar indicated that war will force Gulf countries to stop energy exports within weeks. The attack on the desalination plant suggest that the human cost of the war is likely to increase over the coming days. Iran has confirmed Mojtaba Khamenei as its new Supreme Leader, a move that is unlikely to be acceptable to the US. Iran increased its missile attack over the weekend, though some reports suggest that it may limit its attacks on other gulf countries. FT reported that G-7 countries may discuss emergency oil reserve release to help with oil prices.

Donald Trump insists surge in energy prices is ‘very small price to pay’ as Middle East conflict sparks fresh stock market sell-off

• Middle East crisis - live updates

Oil prices surged past $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022 as fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran continued to rattle global markets and leading economies moved to tackle a worsening energy supply crisis.

A weekend of escalating violence in the Middle East intensified concerns around a sustained supply crunch, propelling oil prices to their highest level in four years and triggering a deep stock market sell-off.

Leaders discuss military cooperation day after US president hit out at PM over lack of immediate backing for attacks

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Keir Starmer sought to repair fractured relations with Donald Trump over the war with Iran on Sunday, as a Labour backlash gathered pace over Tony Blair’s assertion the UK should have supported the US’s initial airstrikes on Iran.

The prime minister spoke to the US president on Sunday afternoon after a barrage of criticism from Trump, who told his UK ally on Saturday that his help was not needed, even as the US continued to use UK bases for strikes against Iran.