Few psychiatric conditions are as stigmatised or as misunderstood as narcissistic personality disorder. Here’s how it can damage careers and relationships – even before prejudice takes its toll

There are times when Jay Spring believes he is “the greatest person on planet Earth”. The 22-year-old from Los Angeles is a diagnosed narcissist, and in his most grandiose moments, “it can get really delusional”, he says. “You are on cloud nine and you’re like, ‘Everyone’s going to know that I’m better than them … I’ll do great things for the world’.”

For Spring, these periods of self-aggrandisement are generally followed by a “crash”, when he feels emotional and embarrassed by his behaviour, and is particularly vulnerable to criticism from others. He came to suspect that he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) after researching his symptoms online – and was eventually diagnosed by a professional. But he doesn’t think he would have accepted the diagnosis had he not already come to the conclusion on his own. “If you try to tell somebody that they have this disorder, they’ll probably deny it,” he says – especially if they experience feelings of superiority, as he does. “They’re in a delusional world that they made for themselves. And that world is like, I’m the greatest and nobody can question me.”

The French president dominated the centre ground but has failed to build a legacy there. Labour is in danger of doing the same

Britain and France do not share a fixed quota of political stability such that reduced volatility on one side of the Channel causes chaos across the water. It was just a coincidence that Keir Starmer won a huge majority at precisely the moment last July when legislative elections made France ungovernable for Emmanuel Macron.

It was a misfortune for both men, and for Europe, that their political trajectories were out of sync. Macron had dealt with four Tory prime ministers before finding a potential ally in the ascendant Labour leader. By then his presidency was in spiralling decline. Britain was rousing itself from Brexit delirium just as France was losing the plot.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

For years, I kept a stash of ‘nice things’, waiting for the right occasion to use them. The accident taught me to live now, rather than in the future

I used to have a drawer where the “nice things” lived: posh candles and fancy bubble bath; two flagons of Greek extra virgin olive oil; that Aesop handwash, to bring out for visitors. A bottle of fizz gathered dust on the kitchen side and, in the bathroom, an expensive moisturiser remained unopened. Life’s little luxuries, I believed, weren’t for enjoying now, but were to be saved for some unspecified “special” time in the future.

Then I was hit by a car. It happened in May last year, while I was walking down a quiet street soon after lunchtime in Bermuda, where I’d been sent on an assignment for work.

The late singer may have suffered from setbacks and only released three studio albums, but the range he displayed in this perfect catalogue was astonishing

• D’Angelo, Grammy-winning neo-soul pioneer, dies aged 51

• D’Angelo – a life in pictures

In the mid-90s, the Roots’ drummer Questlove was approached to work on the first album by a new soul singer. He turned the offer down out of hand: “I was like, ehhh, soul singers in the 90s – whatever,” he later remembered. “I’m not doing this. Nothing about soul singing had moved me, from any 90s offering, the same way it did with Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Lou Rawls.”

A year later, with D’Angelo’s debut album Brown Sugar on the shelves, Questlove had radically reconsidered his opinion: when he spotted the singer in the audience at a show the Roots were playing, he “thwarted and threw off the entire show” by suddenly playing “an obscure Prince drum roll” in a (successful) attempt to attract his attention. “The only person that mattered to me that night in the room was D’Angelo,” he admitted.

Ultra-slim and light smartphone feels special, but cuts to camera and battery may be too hard to ignore for most

The iPhone Air is a technical and design marvel that asks: how much are you willing to give up for a lightweight and ultra-slender profile?

Beyond the obvious engineering effort that has gone into creating one of the slimmest phones ever made, the Air is a reductive exercise that boils down the iPhone into the absolute essentials in a premium body.

There are many options for getting better prices on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Sky’s Now TV

Many of the streaming services offer free trials, so you could sign up to one, binge-watch the shows everyone is talking about and then cancel before you are rolled over into a paid-for subscription. Read the terms and conditions very carefully to make sure you are not caught out.

Hamas accused of breaching agreement by withholding bodies of hostages but Palestinian militants say they face obstacles in retrieving them

The fragile ceasefire in Gaza faced its first test on Tuesday when Israel said the flow of aid into the devastated Palestinian territory would be cut by half and the crucial Rafah border crossing with Egypt would not open as planned, blaming Hamas for delays in the return of bodies of hostages.

The militant group handed over the remains of four hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday night, bringing to eight the number of bodies transferred since the US-brokered ceasefire took hold, leaving 20 to be accounted for. Hamas said it was facing obstacles as not all the burial sites had been identified.

Climate advisers warn that current plans to protect against extreme weather are inadequate

Britain must prepare for global heating far in excess of the level scientists have pegged as the limit of safety, the government’s climate advisers have warned, as current plans to protect against extreme weather are inadequate.

Heatwaves will occur in at least four of every five years in England by 2050, and time spent in drought will double. The number of days of peak wildfire conditions in July will nearly treble for the UK, while floods will increase in frequency throughout the year, with some peak river flows increasing by 40%.

Legislative change comes five years after treaty suspended in response to city’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists

Exiled Hong Kong dissidents say they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the city could put them in greater danger, saying Hong Kong authorities will use any pretext to pursue them.

An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to the government crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, and its imposition of a Beijing-designed national security law.

Exclusive: Source says senior legal figures appear reluctant to head investigation launched by Keir Starmer in June

Keir Starmer’s national grooming gangs inquiry has stalled amid wrangles over its remit and difficulties in finding a senior legal figure willing to become its chair, the Guardian has been told.

Terms of the statutory investigation are still being discussed by a panel of stakeholders including survivors of abuse rings, four months after the prime minister bowed to pressure and set it up.