Marci Shore made news around the world when her family moved to Canada. She discusses Trump, teaching history and how terror atomises society

She finds the whole idea absurd. To Prof Marci Shore, the notion that the Guardian, or anyone else, should want to interview her about the future of the US is ridiculous. She’s an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe and describes herself as a “Slavicist”, yet here she is, suddenly besieged by international journalists keen to ask about the country in which she insists she has no expertise: her own. “It’s kind of baffling,” she says.

In fact, the explanation is simple enough. Last month, Shore, together with her husband and fellow scholar of European history, Timothy Snyder, and the academic Jason Stanley, made news around the world when they announced that they were moving from Yale University in the US to the University of Toronto in Canada. It was not the move itself so much as their motive that garnered attention. As the headline of a short video op-ed the trio made for the New York Times put it, “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US”.

Losing credibility Netanyahu has acted to diminish Iran while he still can, and in doing so regain support from his allies

There are two ways of looking at events in the Middle East over the past year and a half. One is that the response to 7 October 2023 was a break from the past. The attack by Hamas triggered an Israeli response so vengeful that it has been impossible to fit within the boundaries set by international laws or contain geographically – the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of southern Lebanon, the occupation of the buffer zone in southwestern Syria and airstrikes across that country, and now its attacks against Iran.

Then there is the explanation that these events are part of a historical continuum. Regional peace was the result of a volatile status quo that was always vulnerable to disruption. It only looked tenable because it relied on a variety of factors that, working together, looked like a settlement. This fine balance has been tipped by an Israeli government that is now fixated on pursuing its own agenda, singlehandedly rewriting the future of the region in ways that it is unable to explain and unwilling to control.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist.

The Tour de France stage winner talks in detail for the first time about transitioning when her cycling career ended, growing up in the Gorbals and alienation in the peloton

Pippa York used to be Robert Millar, a stage winner and king of the mountains in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. Millar was also a podium finisher, in both the Vuelta a España and the Giro, a British national champion, and Tour of Britain winner. But Millar had also wanted to be a girl since the age of five, a secret that remained buried throughout childhood in Glasgow, the subsequent racing career, and beyond, into mid-life.

In her new book, The Escape, written in collaboration with David Walsh, the 66-year-old unflinchingly documents the long and painful process towards transition and the isolation, fear and loneliness that went with it.

The maker of Netflix documentary about the fire reflects on a very avoidable tragedy and the injustices attested to by former PM, Theresa May

Over the course of 100 minutes, a new documentary on the Grenfell Tower disaster splices footage from the night and the subsequent public inquiry with testimony from survivors and the bereaved.

And at its heart is a universal story: classism, the prioritisation of individual profit over public safety, and a lack of accountability for the decision-makers behind it.

Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message

In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times – even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study’s authors concluded that “people prefer doing to thinking”, even if the only thing available to do is painful – perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.

Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it’s not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn’t always a bad thing – too much rumination is unhealthy – but it’s worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it’s ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways.

Whether you enjoy ‘rucking’, walking, running or making your own sandbags, life after winding up your monthly membership can be your healthiest and happiest ever

After almost two decades of regular gym-going, I’ve finally cancelled my membership. The reasons for this are many and varied – I’m trying to save money, gym music is terrible these days, everyone seems to have forgotten how to share the equipment – but the main one is, I think it may actually make me fitter.

Working for Men’s Fitness magazine for almost 10 years, I got to try out every trend, workout style and fitness event I wanted, and I noticed something interesting: quite frequently, the people with the fewest resources were in the best shape. I’m not including Hollywood actors in this, but otherwise, it’s often true: powerlifters working out in unheated concrete sheds get the strongest, runners who stay off treadmills get the fastest, and people exercising in basements have a focus rarely seen in palatial upmarket gyms. Browsing through photos from when my own gym membership was (briefly) paused during Covid lockdowns, I look … if not quite like Jason Statham, then at least his off-brand office-party equivalent. I might not have had the best cardio of my life – even social distancing couldn’t convince me to run more than three miles (5km) at a time – but I was certainly lean.

Up to eight reportedly killed and more than 90 injured in Israel as strike damages hospital in the west of Iran

• Iran strikes Tel Aviv and Haifa as conflict enters fourth day

If you are just tuning in to the latest developments in the escalating conflict in the Middle East, here is our new wrap on the strikes between Israel and Iran.

Iran has executed a man who was found guilty of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday, as reported by Reuters.

After Israel’s surprise attack on Iran on Friday, there have been days of escalating strikes between the two longstanding enemies

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Iranian supreme leader is backed into a corner, a situation he has spent his life doing his best to avoid

When he appeared in public for the first time in five years in October, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, had an uncompromising message. Israel “won’t last long”, he told tens of thousands of supporters at a mosque in Tehran in a Friday sermon.

“We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,” the 84-year-old told the gathering.

Deaths of four family members sheltering in supposed ‘safe rooms’ in Tamra highlight racial inequality of Israel’s defence of its citizens

When an Iranian missile bound for the industrial port of Haifa dropped out of the sky on the town of Tamra on Saturday night, it fell on Israel’s most vulnerable, and in one devastating flash, lit up the country’s deepest divide.

The missile demolished a three-storey stone house and killed four members of the same family: Manar Khatib, and her two daughters – Shada, a university student, and Hala, a 13-year-old schoolgirl – as well as Manar’s sister-in-law, Manal.