Song about bushy-bearded barbarians that took 144 takes sparks interest in often maligned language

German has provided some of the most jaw-straining single words in the history of human language. Fußbodenschleifmaschinenverleih (rental shop for floor-sanding machines), anyone? Not to mention
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, a late lamented state law for labelling meat.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a former defence minister with a dastardly difficult name to say, was long seen as a likely successor to the relatively pronounceable ex-chancellor, Angela Merkel. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s resignation as the conservatives’ party chief came as a relief to news presenters the world over, clearing the way for the tight three-syllabic Olaf Scholz. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, once a federal justice minister and the ultimate double-barrelled tongue-tripper, was not invited to join his cabinet.

Yorgos Lanthimos teams up with Emma Stone for the third time in this off-kilter and provocative tale, while Emma Myers leads the new YA drama adaptation from Holly Jackson’s smash-hit novel

Kinds of Kindness
Out now
Yorgos Lanthimos is, simply put, one of the best directors working today, fearlessly bringing his off-kilter visions of everything from dating to monarchy to misogyny to the big screen with characteristic biting wit and dark humour. His latest is a provocative triptych starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe, set in the worlds of work, relationships and religion.

Frontman, who spoke before about substance addiction, said to have taken mix of pharmaceutical and street drugs

The US singer Seth Binzer, whose rap-rock band Crazy Town became a No 1 hit with 2001’s Butterfly, died as a result of an accidental drug overdose, his group’s manager told the Guardian on Friday.

Crazy Town manager Howie Hubberman said the death on Monday of the musician known as Shifty Shellshock occurred after he ingested an unintentionally lethal combination of pharmaceutical and street drugs, though the medical examiner in the vocalist’s home town of Los Angeles had not yet provided details on an official cause or manner of death.

It’s the first big day at Glastonbury 2024 – we take you on a visual tour from Thursday evening to Friday night, including Seventeen, Marina Abramović’s silence for CND and Dua Lipa’s headline performance on the Pyramid

Glastonbury 2024 woke up gradually over the course of a baking hot Wednesday and cooler Thursday, as hundreds of thousands of people slowly fed into the site. And come Thursday evening, the view across the site from up above the Park was as glorious as ever.

Guardian photographer David Levene was at the Crow’s Nest as night fell on the eve of the first day…

In front of the Crow’s Nest up beyond the Park. Photograph by David Levene

Pyramid stage
The British singer’s Friday night set underlines her claim to be one of the world’s great current pop stars, with a cast-iron hit always around the corner

According to the most intriguing bit of her between-song chat, Dua Lipa’s headlining Glastonbury slot came about as a result of an act of childhood manifesting. The singer claims she wrote out her desire to top the bill on the Pyramid stage in detail, up to and including what night said event should take place on: a Friday, so she “could spend the rest of the weekend partying”. And now here we are: watching a slightly peculiar video of Dua Lipa signing her name and writing the words “GLASTO 24” on a pane of glass, then licking it.

Whether you buy the stuff about manifesting or not, Dua Lipa has clearly spent a lot of time carefully studying and absorbing how a successful Glastonbury headline set works, and putting what she’s gleaned to good use. The announcement of her appearance led to a degree of consternation, particularly after her most recent album, Radical Optimism, failed to replicate the kind of world-beating success afforded its predecessor, the lockdown smash Future Nostalgia. But she already has a stockpile of inescapable hits, from New Rules to her Elton John collaboration Cold Heart, which is half the battle won. And furthermore she throws everything she has at her set in order to lend it a sense of event, rather than it being simply another pop show transposed to a field in Somerset, another stop-off on a world tour that happens to be on a farm.

Serbian performance artist tells Pyramid stage crowd to confront cyclical violence in thousands-strong ‘collaboration’

It’s been home to some of the UK’s loudest singalongs, most propulsive rap lyrics and most cacophonous guitar solos. But the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury experienced something almost unprecedented in its history on Friday: total silence.

The Serbian artist Marina Abramović, invited by festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis, led the audience in what she called a “collaboration” called Seven Minutes of Collective Silence, to “see how we can feel positive energy in the entire universe” and act as a bulwark against the horrors of war and violence.

Florence Pugh, Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott among the stars making appearances this year at Pilton Palais

• Glastonbury live – latest updates

Hollywood A-listers can often be glimpsed at Glastonbury taking advantage of the relative anonymity away from the glare of paparazzi. And this year some of cinema’s biggest stars are not just enjoying downtime on Worthy Farm, they are taking part in one of the biggest draws.

The screening programme from Pilton Palais, tucked away near the acoustic stage, is arguably better than many film festivals. On Friday Florence Pugh is introducing Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune: Part 2 alongside a Q&A, and in the evening Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott are taking part in a talk after a screening of All of Us Strangers alongside its director, Andrew Haigh.

South Korean 13-piece boyband take to Pyramid stage for ‘Glasteen’ in front of fanbase often overlooked by western festivals

When they bought their Glastonbury tickets last year, Leah Townsend and Taz Delarosa never expected their favourite K-pop band to end up in the lineup. “I cried so much when we found out,” said Delarosa, 26. “I think this is going to be massive for them.”

“I was over the moon,” added Townsend, 26. “It was completely unexpected – we didn’t think it was going to happen.”

The Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London
Premiering Roderick Williams’ song cycle about Black Tudors alongside songs from the period itself, the rising-star soprano was elegant, while the uber-lutenist poured her solos like liquid

Deep inside the Tower of London, the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula was built for the people who lived and worked in the fortress during Henry VIII’s reign. Thomas More is buried there; so is Anne Boleyn. It’s a coolly atmospheric place. For the opening concert of this year’s Spitalfield’s music festival, it was more than a venue: the Tower’s many “ghosts” inspired the programme performed by rising-star soprano Nardus Williams and uber-lutenist Elizabeth Kenny.

There were three short pieces attributed to Henry VIII and songs with texts by Robert Devereux, who became one of the Tower’s many prisoners. Courtly grace crossed such political divides: seated next to Kenny, Williams’s vocal lines were elegantly shaped but unshowy, her ornamentation featherweight, her diction crystalline. Kenny’s brief solo turns poured like liquid, musical lines barely troubled by the percussive quality of plucking.

Exclusive: Boom Radio listeners share in election fatigue but demographic arguably has less to lose than younger voters

Sometimes only a song can sum up the national mood. When a soggy Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on the general election in May, D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better blared across Downing Street. Five long weeks later and voters are cueing up rather more mordant tracks to capture their political fatigue.

Listeners to Boom Radio, asked to pick a classic song to sum up their feelings about the campaign, have selected Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (“Is this the real life?/Is this just fantasy? / Caught in a landslide / No escape from reality”) and Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower (“There must be some way out of here / Said the joker to the thief”).

The broadcaster and record label owner on swapping BBC 1Xtra for 6 Music, overcoming her fear of swimming, and leaving the radio on for her dog

Born in south east London in 1990, Jamilla Walters, AKA Jamz Supernova, is a broadcaster, DJ and boss of record label Future Bounce. In 2021, she became the presenter of BBC 6 Music’s Saturday early afternoon show, broadcasting global club sounds, alternative R&B and left-field electronica. A current Mercury music prize judge and part of the BBC’s presenting team at Glastonbury, she lives with her partner, music producer Sam Interface, and their two-year-old daughter.

You wanted to be a BBC presenter since your teens. Why?
I always thought of it as a trusted place as a kid, watching things from CBBC to Saturday morning TV. Then I came across BBC 1Xtra in the mid-2000s and heard the kind of radio they were doing – a bit closer to the old pirate-radio days, but not as commercial as places like Choice FM. I loved it – it felt like a place of freedom in terms of how you could be a presenter and where that could take you.

Leaked documents from Philip Morris reveal ‘secret’ strategy to market its heated tobacco product IQOS

The tobacco company Philip Morris International has been accused of “manipulating science for profit” through funding research and advocacy work with scientists.

Campaigners say that leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate also reveal plans to target politicians, doctors and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the multinational’s marketing strategy to attract non-smokers to its heated tobacco product, IQOS.

Court filing details how the King of Pop was in financial straits as he was preparing to embark on his This Is It tour

Michael Jackson had accumulated more than half a billion dollars of debt when he died in 2009, new court documents reveal.

A 21 June court filing by the executors of his estate provided some of the most complete details yet about the strained finances with which the 13-time Grammy winner was grappling at the time of his death.

The first day is reaching its climax – join us as we review the best sets and bop to Pyramid stage headliner Dua Lipa

Park, 12.25pm

Just after Lynx at Park, Bishi – wearing a gold kaftan and a white feathery headdress – performs Yoko Ono’s Voice Peace for Soprano before leading the crowd in a primal scream for peace, power and whatever you fancy, really. (If collectivism isn’t your thing, she suggests it could be a warmup for Dua Lipa later on the Pyramid stage.)

Claimants, backed by composer’s estate, lose claim of co-authorship, described as ‘historical fiction’

A French court has ruled that Boléro, one of the best-known works of classical music in the world, was written by Maurice Ravel alone, in a verdict on a case with big financial stakes that could have taken the work out of the public domain.

Ravel first performed Boléro at the Paris Opera in 1928 and it was an immediate sensation. He died 10 years later and his heirs were paid millions of dollars until the copyright ran out in 2016.

Purcell Room, London
Ben Goldscheider’s solo horn took centre stage in a rewarding and fascinating concert featuring new and older compositions that combined his instrument with live electronics

We’ve come a long way from the early days of electroacoustic music, when a ring-modulated piano or a flute or a violin dialoguing with electronic echoes of itself was often the height of technological sophistication. Even so, it still seems strange to find a solo horn as the focus of a concert featuring real-time electronics. But Ben Goldscheider spent his time during lockdown in 2020 looking into the possibilities of combining his instrument with live electronics, and he presented the results of his research in a recital with the “media artist” Philip Dawson, which featured the premieres of three specially commissioned works.

Goldscheider also included the work that had started him on his explorations, the 1979 Fantasie for horns by the German-born Canadian Hildegard Westerkamp, in which the solo horn has a taped accompaniment assembled from the sounds of many different horns, including fog, car and alp. The writing for the live instrument is entirely conventional, the tape background mostly continuum-like, until shortly before the end the horn embarks on a solo that seems to come straight out of a 19th-century German opera. Thea Musgrave’s Golden Echo III was Goldscheider’s multi-channel recreation of a piece originally composed in the 1980s for solo horn and 16 other horns on tape, which places the audience at the centre of a surround-sound celebration of brass sonorities.

(Hot Girl)
The feelgood fun of Hot Girl Summer and WAP has been replaced by icy tales of false friends, adultery and incessant betrayal in a broadly humourless, navel-gazing album

When Megan Pete found fame at the turn of the decade, it was as the bringer of fierce, frisky, feelgood fun. Though always preoccupied with spreading word of her own sex appeal and appetites, there was a light-heartedness and communality to the rapper’s early hits, whether she was teaming up with Beyoncé for the double Grammy-winning Savage Remix, or joining forces with Nicki Minaj and Cardi B for the earwormy, meme-worthy Hot Girl Summer and hilariously outrageous WAP respectively.

A few years on, the mood has soured substantially. The 29-year-old may have secured a spot in the rap firmament – recent single Hiss debuted at No 1 on the Billboard charts – but judging by Megan, the self-titled third album from which it was taken, it’s never been lonelier at the top. This record does work as a skill showcase – the rapper’s flow is satisfyingly brisk and crisp – but Megan mainly acts as an icy, insanely repetitive sermon on its creator’s own superiority, as she bemoans the alienation being “that bitch” results in. Gone is the warmth of Hot Girl Summer or the irreverent camaraderie of WAP: Megan’s world is one of false friends (she is currently feuding with Minaj), mutually adulterous relationships and incessant betrayal, spurred by jealousy.

Youth groups from Serbia and Kosovo who organise the Mirëdita Dobar Dan cultural event accuse Serbia’s interior ministry of failing to protect them from intimidation

Organisers of a festival designed to promote cultural exchange between Kosovo and Serbia say Belgrade authorities have caved in to pressure from hooligan groups by banning this year’s event.

In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, Belgrade police cited security concerns as the reason to cancel the event Mirëdita Dobar Dan (meaning “Good day” in Albanian and Serbian), which was due to start in the Serbian capital yesterday.

Inspired by a boxing, DJing nun, the trombonist laid down the foundations of reggae – but he was also a schizophrenic who killed his girlfriend, Jamaica’s ‘rhumba queen’ Margarita. A new graphic novel retells their stories

In the early hours of 2 January 1965, Anita “Margarita” Mahfood returned to the room she lived in on Rusden Road in Kingston, Jamaica, with her boyfriend, the trombonist Don Drummond. Margarita was the “rhumba queen” of the island, famous for her sensual and provocative dancing; Drummond was a trombonist, and a huge musical star. A founding member of the Skatalites the year before – the reggae band who celebrate their 60th anniversary at Glastonbury this weekend – Drummond’s jazz-inflected melancholy can be heard on hundreds of tracks that were coming out of the studios such as Studio One proliferating in Jamaica at the time, backing the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff and Toots and the Maytals among others. The way he melded jazz into the rhythms of ska paved the way for reggae to take over the world.

And yet this celebrated, non-conformist couple lived in little more than a shack. That night Margarita had been performing at Club Havana, a lucrative show thanks to its well-heeled clientele. Drummond was supposed to have played with the Skatalites the night before, but he’d overslept and missed the gig. Not long after Margarita got home, a neighbour reported hearing the couple argue. At some point before dawn, Drummond stabbed Margarita four times, killing her. She was 25.

Singer wore footwear on and off stage during 1950s before giving them to a friend when called up to US army

Well it’s one for the money … a lot of money actually.

The blue suede shoes worn by Elvis Presley during the early part of his career are expected to fetch £120,000 at auction on Friday.

Moving around a lot as a child taught the 22-year-old to listen and absorb myriad musical influences. Now she’s combined them into a Grammy-nominated cocktail of R&B and Afrobeats and is ready to conquer Glasto

Three years ago, to mark the release of Nigerian singer Ayra Starr’s debut EP, Starr’s brother paid a Lagos singer of fújì, a Yoruba genre incorporating elements of poetry, to chant praises at her. That melodic verse opens Starr’s sophomore album The Year I Turned 21, and sees the artist – born Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe – labelled “the glorious child”.

It’s a moniker Starr isn’t exactly scared of embracing. “One thing you’ll notice about me is I’m very audacious,” she says. “I like to shock people and I always show temerity in any way possible.” The audaciousness is what grips you – while you’re taken in by the beautiful, rhythmic fújì melodies, you’re then hit with Starr’s bold vocals, and lines like “I run up blocks, I run ’em myself” and “I don’t watch my tone cause I like how I sound, bitch”.

Receiving a key to a city is the ultimate accolade for many rap stars, and Combs’s key ring was the lyrical equivalent of the infinity stone gauntlet

Now that Sean “Diddy” Combs has become persona non grata, his hometown is officially locking him out.

Last fall Eric Adams presented the hip-hop impresario with an honorary key to New York City in a splashy Times Square ceremony that doubled as a showcase for each man’s unbidden bravado. “The bad boy of entertainment is getting the key to the city from the bad boy of politics,” declared the New York mayor, who could be observed making a heart hand with Combs while posing the commemorative placard.

Serbian artist hopes Friday’s ‘public intervention’ will make festival goers reflect on the current state of the world

Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage has played host to some of the loudest rock bands in the world and mass sing-alongs with thousands of participants, but on Friday the artist Marina Abramović will step out and ask the crowd to do something different: remain silent for seven minutes.

“I am terrified,” said Abramović, whose performance pieces have made her one of the most famous artists in the world. “I don’t know any visual artists who have done something like this in front of 175,000 to 200,000 people. The largest audience I ever had was 6,000 people in a stadium and I was thinking ‘wow’, but this is really beyond anything I’ve done.”

(Quality Control Music/Motown & Republic)
The rapper and singer are both unafraid to confound fans by taking stylistic chances, but here their soulful ambition doesn’t quite gel

Lil Yachty and James Blake have each strayed a fair distance from their artistic beginnings. On last year’s Let’s Start Here, the 26-year-old Atlanta rapper left fans baffled or delighted by his unexpected pivot to Pink Floyd-tinged psychedelia, having made his name on a string of oddly avant garde trap ditties. Meanwhile Blake, once the auteur crooner of the post-dubstep scene, is these days the go-to producer for rap A-listers looking for an injection of sad-robot soul.

So their collaboration makes perfect sense on paper, but in reality, Bad Cameo sounds like it’s got stuck in the planning stages, with handfuls of promising ideas stuffed awkwardly into ambient song shapes. There are moments of genuine spine-tingle – like hearing Yachty’s elastic voice funnelled through Blake’s black box of tricks on Missing Man and Transport Me, and the almost-gospel Red Carpet, an a cappella threaded with Hammond organ and analogue hiss.

The London five-piece are due to have this year’s Glastonbury moment – the cherry on four years of hard work. But from accusations about their authenticity to the speed of their rise, they say success has been ‘disturbing’

The annual scramble for Glastonbury tickets is a rite of passage – and Georgia Davies is used to disappointment. “I’d been trying to get tickets for years,” she says. “It never worked.” But last year, she and her friends found a workaround. “The trick is to play it,” she says with a grin.

Davies plays bass in Britain’s most talked-about young band, the Last Dinner Party (TLDP). The baroque-pop five-piece have had a staggering rise since forming in the pandemic, fuelled by their maximalist, nihilistic debut single, Nothing Matters, released in April 2023. Two months later, they played Glastonbury’s Woodsies stage, clocking off just after noon to enjoy the rest of the festival. It was “the best feeling ever”, says the rhythm guitarist, Lizzie Mayland: the thrill of performing, plus the freedom of being a punter.

With the BBC livestreaming globally for the first time, and an especially rich lineup of Black artists, 2024’s festival champions a broad remit – but plays it safe with Coldplay

Whether seen as too male, too white, too traditional or not traditional enough, complaints about the Glastonbury lineup have become something of a national pastime. But as it opens its gates for 2024’s edition, the festival can lay claim to one of the most diverse and globe-straddling bills in the British festival calendar this year.

For the first time there are two women among the three Pyramid stage headliners. On Friday Dua Lipa is expected to bring lavish production and thrilling choreography to her relatively small but hits-packed discography, making her the most dance-focused headliner since Basement Jaxx in 2005. On Sunday the American singer SZA becomes the first Black woman, and first R&B artist, to headline the Pyramid since Beyoncé in 2011. The Sunday teatime “legend” slot will also be held by a woman: Shania Twain.

The 13-member band, whose sales last year were only beaten by Taylor Swift, perform both as a full ensemble and in smaller units

While household names including Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Shania Twain abound on the Glastonbury roster this year, one of the biggest acts on the festival’s main Pyramid Stage might not be so well known in the UK.

But sales of the South Korean boyband Seventeen – which has 13 members – last year surpassed those of every other pop act worldwide bar Taylor Swift.

The multi-talented musicians were held back in their home country where even certain instruments were off limits – but they’re ready to take centre stage at Worthy Farm

Walking into an industrial estate in Peckham, I can hear impassioned cries coming out of a rehearsal space located here. Soaring vocals are punctuated by the gentle strum of a thumb piano along with bells that are strapped to the shaking ankles of Pendo and Leah Zawose, who make up the Zawose Queens. It’s their first time playing this music outside Tanzania – and if that wasn’t enough of a culture shock, some of their first-ever UK gigs will be a trio of sets at Glastonbury this weekend.

“We don’t really have any idea about Glastonbury or what it will be like,” says Pendo, via Aziza Ongala who is the band’s manager and acting as a translator. “But I’m told it’s a big deal. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to grasp how big of an experience it is until we actually do it but we’re very excited.”

From A-list pop names such as SZA and Dua Lipa to rising stars and leftfield oddities, here’s who to try and catch at this year’s festival

There have been the usual Facebook-comment grumbles about how there’s too much bloody pop, but at the very top of Glastonbury’s Pyramid this year is a formidable trio: high-production dance from Dua Lipa (Fri, 22.00), quintessential flag-waving whoa-oh-oh-alongs from Coldplay (Sat, 21.45) and a new flavour for a Pyramid headliner: atmospheric, emotionally intelligent R&B from SZA (Sun, 21.30). Elsewhere, there are ample party-starters in Jessie Ware (West Holts, Sat, 22.15), Jamie xx (Woodsies, Fri, 22.30) teasing his long-awaited new album, LCD Soundsystem (Pyramid stage, Fri, 19.45) and Confidence Man (Other stage, Fri, 15.45). PJ Harvey (Pyramid stage, Fri, 18.00), Little Simz (Pyramid stage, Sat, 19.45), Brittany Howard (West Holts, Sun, 18.30), Corinne Bailey Rae (West Holts, Sat, 16.00) and Kim Gordon (Woodsies, Sun, 18.30) offer various shades of provocation; and Danny Brown (West Holts, Fri, 18.30) and the National (Other stage, Sun, 21.45) essay middle age from fairly polarised perspectives. And after the reformed, original Sugababes (West Holts, Fri, 16.55) packed the Avalon field to bursting in 2022, it seems as though Avril Lavigne (Other stage, Sun, 18.00) will be this year’s hottest nostalgia ticket for the festival’s millennial core. Laura Snapes

A close friend to Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, Friedman also wrote several novels and ran for Texas governor in 2006

American country singer-songwriter, author and aspirational politician Kinky Friedman, known as the “Jewish cowboy”, died on Wednesday at the age of 79, his estate announced.

“Kinky Friedman stepped on a rainbow at his beloved Echo Hill surrounded by family & friends,” Friedman’s official account posted on X on Thursday. “Kinkster endured tremendous pain & unthinkable loss in recent years but he never lost his fighting spirit and quick wit. Kinky will live on as his books are read and his songs are sung.”

HMRC data shows 26% more people over state pension age paying tax on earnings than in 2021-22

• Business live – latest updates

The number of people dragged into paying income tax in the UK has leapt by an estimated 4.4 million in three years because of the government’s freeze on thresholds, official data shows, a statistic likely to reignite the election debate on tax.

The figures show that a continuing freeze on income tax thresholds, seen as a stealth tax by some, has pulled an extra 1.77 million pensioners into the income tax bracket.

Presenter forced to improvise after track cuts out because of computer system failure

“Please don’t stop the music,” Rihanna once sang. On Thursday, producers at BBC Radio 2 scrambled to oblige as Vernon Kay was forced to use CDs to play music on the station after its digital system failed.

The radio presenter, 50, was playing Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who towards the end of his show when the issue occurred. At about 11.30am, the track cut out and he came back on air laughing. He said: “This has never happened to me, where the computer system has just failed.”

Study shows population on Arctic island was stable until sudden demise, countering theory of ‘genomic meltdown’

The last woolly mammoths on Earth took their final stand on a remote Arctic island about 4,000 years ago, but the question of what sealed their fate has remained a mystery. Now a genetic analysis suggests that a freak event such as an extreme storm or a plague was to blame.

The findings counter a previous theory that harmful genetic mutations caused by inbreeding led to a “genomic meltdown” in the isolated population. The latest analysis confirms that although the group had low genetic diversity, a stable population of a few hundred mammoths had occupied the island for thousands of years before suddenly vanishing.

Li Shangfu, who vanished from public life last year, and Wei Fenghe accused of accepting gifts and facilitating benefits

The Chinese Communist party has expelled two former defence ministers for corruption, including Li Shangfu, who disappeared from public view along with other senior figures last year.

Li was sacked as defence minister in October, two months after he disappeared from public life. He served just seven months as defence minister. No explanation was given for his sudden removal, which temporarily destabilised efforts to rebuild US-China defence dialogues.

Anger, confusion and disappointment were among the emotions in the nations eliminated in group stage

Poland were the last team to qualify (their penalty shootout playoff win in Cardiff finished later than Ukraine’s and Georgia’s games) so it is no great surprise they bowed out first, being the only side to lose their opening two matches. The 36-year Robert Lewandowski is insisting on carrying on despite the public having doubts and his penalty (scored at the second attempt) in a 1-1 draw with France was a consolation for the Barcelona striker. The respected Polish journalist Michal Okonski summed up Poland’s tournament by writing: “Poland saved its face. It’s got the face of Kacper Urbanski” – referring to the 19-year-old youngest member of the squad, who at Thiago Motta’s Bologna has learned to play without fear.

“Gone in 60 Seconds,” declared the front page of the Scottish Sun. “Down and Out,” said the Daily Record. The Record showed Scott McTominay with head in hands, the Sun providing a shot of Steve Clarke consoling the Manchester United midfielder. Coverage of another Scotland group-stage exit has been twofold. The Tartan Army, who have captured hearts and minds across Germany, take up a lot of the column inches as tens of thousands of Scots beat a hasty march home. There has also been stark criticism of Clarke for what is perceived as an overly negative approach, particularly against Hungary in a must-win fixture. The manager faces an uphill task to remove that label of over-caution. Clarke’s emphasising of a non-European referee during the Hungary defeat – in which Scotland were denied a late penalty – has drawn ridicule at home.

Decision could result in retailers being prosecuted if they import goods made through forced labour, campaigners say

The UK National Crime Agency’s decision not to launch an investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province was unlawful, the court of appeal has found.

Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which brought the action, said Thursday’s decision was a landmark win that could lead to high street retailers being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) if they import goods made through forced labour.

As he plays Glastonbury and prepares a Fabric mix, Skinner answers your questions on his film debut, dinners with Chris Martin and the secret to true happiness

Why haven’t you gone on tour and performed A Grand Don’t Come for Free to celebrate its 20-year anniversary? Turangaleela2
I don’t tend to look back. I’ve only ever really done what was in front of me at the time. It’s great to sing the old stuff, but as a musician your old songs pay for you to write new ones, even if no one wants them. I know people like Liam [Gallagher] and Dizzee [Rascal] have done the anniversary thing, but I don’t really need the money and I think for your own sanity you have to at least pretend that you’re doing things that are important right now.

I read in your memoir, The Story of the Streets, that you read books by Hollywood screenwriters while you were writing A Grand Don’t Come for Free. Did they come in handy for your film debut [The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light]? JJethwa
I actually went to see [the screenwriting consultant] Robert McKee, who’s Hollywood in every way – a sort of very aggressive, no-nonsense American. There’s a hell of a lot to take in, but ultimately it comes down to the basics: show, don’t tell; start with an idea and finish with the same one; have the characters act out your ideas in a very physical way.

Royal Opera House, London
The men prance about in fake moustaches while the women roll their eyes in this turbo-charged revival of Jan Philipp Gloger’s riotous take on Mozart’s opera

‘Is that the one with the mobile phones?” someone asked me ahead of the latest revival of Jan Philipp Gloger’s 2016 production of Così fan Tutte. That’s the one, but those phones are just one cameo in a staging that rampages around time and place with riotous energy and accessories galore. Although Da Ponte’s libretto about male naivety and female faithlessness theoretically unfolds in a single 24-hour period, the Aristotelian unities don’t trouble us here.

Act One alone hurtles from a 21st-century night at the Royal Opera (still clutching their red programme books, the opera’s two couples have just watched … Mozart’s Così fan Tutte) to a farewell scene at a Brief Encounter-ish station, to a bar populated by a kind of Rat Pack of aggressively flirtatious men wearing thin black ties and porkpie hats, to a Technicolor Eden where the now-disguised Ferrando and Guglielmo pretend to poison themselves under an apple tree sporting a prominent serpent.

BBC lacks the hottest takes from Lineker’s Rest Is Football crew while Overlap gang and Christina Unkel boost ITV

It is accepted among TV and film execs that a tertiary element now complicates the relationship between viewer and product. Even auteurs such as Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan have been forced to assimilate grudgingly the reality of phones, tablets and watches pumping out all manner of distraction.

Coverage of Euro 2024 has seen further foxes in the chicken coop of linear TV broadcasting. Going viral on social media is a key target even if neither of the UK broadcasters has yet headed down the route of CBS’s Champions League coverage: less infotainment, more a raucous post-works drinks session. Podcasting, meanwhile, part of the wider football media landscape since Germany 2006, has become a lucrative, fresh and – crucially here – unregulated frontier for pundits.

(Polydor)
Leaving behind gooey balladry and family-friendly fare, the US star’s reinvention owes a clear debt to Charli xcx but leaves her grasping for space on her own album

The release of I Luv It, the first single from Camila Cabello’s fourth solo album, brought with it something new for the 27-year-old singer: a degree of musical controversy. Ever since her 2017 single Havana sold a staggering 10m copies in the US alone, Cabello has made her way dealing in pleasantly undemanding, low-risk Latin-American pop, the kind of thing that makes its way onto the playlists at Radio 2 as easily as it does Radio 1. Something of the eager-to-please TV talent show contestant she had once been – Cabello first found fame as part of US X Factor semi-finalist girl band Fifth Harmony – seemed to cling to her: her lyrics contained no swearing, she told one US journalist in 2019, because she wanted to be “a good example for younger girls”.

I Luv It was audibly different: a brief burst of wilfully repetitious and tinny-sounding hyperpop that staggered along the line that separates insistent from annoying. Moreover, some people suggested it bore rather too much resemblance to Charli xcx’s 2017 single I Got It, although if you’re playing spot the influence, the offending chorus also seems to have a dash of Ariana Grande’s No Tears Left to Cry in its DNA. Among said voices was that of Charli xcx herself, who posted a parody of Cabello’s announcement video to TikTok, with I Got It replacing I Luv It on the soundtrack: cue the ever-delightful sound of diehard fans arguing with each other online.

ITN’s Tom Bradby raised the alarm, but I’m not sure it’s a problem to worry me or David Attenborough. Viewers benefit from diversity behind the desk

Since the last general election, we have gone through three prime ministers, changed monarchs and seen a record number of scandal-fuelled resignations from the cabinet. But at least one thing will remain the same. Tom Bradby will be back to present ITV’s coverage of election night, joined once more by George Osborne and Ed Balls.

There is comfort in familiarity, but maybe not for Bradby and the like. Speaking to the Radio Times about the coverage, he suggested that perhaps, career-wise, he should be nervous as “there aren’t many white male anchors left”.

Leila Latif is a freelance writer and critic

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‘Are you two the best we’ve got?’ It was a harsh question, but it summed up last night’s final leaders debate pretty well

Two cliches hovered over Wednesday night’s TV debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak – the first that the stakes were high, the second that Sunak had nothing to lose and Starmer had everything to lose, since he was on course for a victory so resounding that its foundations must be fragile. It’s simply not possible for nearly 50% of the country to agree on one leader, the logic goes, so Sunak’s job was to camp on Starmer’s contradictions, and scare away the undecideds with talk of Labour’s tax burden.

It makes sense on paper, but only in a world in which positive change is so unimaginable that the status quo represents safety and prosperity: all the audience questions suggested that it does not. Whatever their prescription, from closing the borders to making a better contract with young people, whether they were battling benefits sanctions or bankrupt local councils, the audience questioners were pretty unanimous on one point: everything’s broken. So Starmer’s job was to stick that broad-spectrum malaise on his Conservative opponent, and try to make sure none of it seeped out into a more generalised, will-sapping pessimism.

PM again declines to say whether he told Craig Williams in advance about his decision to hold the election in July

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Rishi Sunak is returning to the campaign trail on Thursday, PA reports, after a two-day hiatus for the Emperor and Empress of Japan’s state visit and preparations for the final head-to-head debate with Sir Keir Starmer.

With one week to go until polling day, the deepening gambling scandal is still likely to feature heavily when he faces the media during a tour of the East Midlands and Yorkshire.

He is expected to visit a factory in Derbyshire and hold an evening campaign event in Leeds.

Keir Starmer accused Rishi Sunak of using transgender issues “as a political football to divide people” during their head-to-head debate on Wednesday.

Balloon wars and troop incursions have led to a rise in uncertainty along the militarised buffer and left international observers nervous

Just a stone’s throw from North Korea, farmer Park Se-un tends to his crops under the watchful eye of the South Korean military. In the distance, past the bushes and fields strewn with landmines, he can see North Korean soldiers on patrol.

Park’s village of Daeseong-dong is the only inhabited area in the south of Korea’s demilitarised zone (DMZ), located just 365 metres from North Korea at its closest point. Born and raised inside this zone, Park is used to the political tensions that shape his everyday life.

Justina Kitchen overcame a ruptured ACL and will compete in Paris as the sailing class features in the Games for the first time

When New Zealand’s Justina Kitchen hits the water for the Paris Olympics next month in kite foiling, the 35-year-old will compete with an impact vest, a hook knife and a crash helmet.

The safety equipment is a requirement for kite foiling, a sport making its Olympic debut. It is considered the fastest sailing class, where competitors are harnessed to a large kite and routinely reach 48km/h (30mph) on a board that appears to hover over the water on a thin foil.

A storm had been brewing all night and, right on full time, it erupted. Once it had cleared Turkey’s players bounced around in the centre ­circle, mimicked by the choirs encompassing them who somehow still had voices left. But first came the shower of bodies piling into each other near halfway, a brawl ­breaking out that gave the referee, Istvan Kovacs, plenty to do on top of what had already been an intimi­dating workload.

It took Vincenzo Montella to hotfoot across from the technical area and pull Arda Guler away as his ­prodigy, substituted earlier, piled into the fray.

Organiser Emily Eavis says it is ‘best moment of the year’, as visitors are sprayed with water while they set up camp

Glastonbury attenders were setting up camp in sweltering temperatures as the 54th edition of the UK’s best-known festival got under way on the hottest day of the year so far.

Temperatures in the UK soared to 30C on Wednesday, and at Glastonbury music fans were sprayed with water as they made their way around the 364-hectare (900-acre) site, which opened at 8am to fans who had queued overnight.

‘This is going to ruin the tour,’ the pop star said when an officer pulled him over last week – but according to fans at his MSG concert, it didn’t

By now, anyone who has internet connection knows what Justin Timberlake said when a Sag Harbor officer pulled him over for driving while intoxicated in the Hamptons last week: “This is going to ruin the tour.” What tour? “The world tour!”

With that, the pop star birthed a catchphrase for the chronically online. (“This is going to ruin the tour,” I scolded my cat when he jumped on the counter the other day.) Timberlake was charged with one DWI and cited for two traffic violations – but did his arrest actually ruin anything?

The rock star turned activist turned Sopranos actor talks about his revealing new documentary, Disciple, his unlikely career and his fears over the state of the world

For Stevie Van Zandt, unique as the consigliere to both Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano, the moment of political awakening came four decades ago in white minority rule South Africa.

“I was in a cab and a Black guy stepped off the kerb and the cab driver swerved to try and hit him,” Van Zandt, 73, recalls. “He [the driver] says, ‘Fucking kaffir’, which of course was the Afrikaans word for [N-word]. I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just seen – whoa! let me out.