Labour leader pressed on Nick Ferrari show about first leaders’ debate and whether he would have served in a Corbyn cabinet

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Q: [From Emma in Greenwich] How will you protect single-sex spaces for girls, while making it easier to get a gender recognition certificate?

Starmer says he is passionate about protecting single-sex spaces. As director of public prosecutions, he dealt with a lot of cases involving violence against women and girls.

The person I have in my mind when I say working people is people who earn their living, rely on our services, and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble.

Visit is Russian president’s first to North Korea in 24 years as he seeks continued military support from Kim Jong-un

• Report: Vladimir Putin to visit North Korea as he seeks further military support

China has urged Nato to “stop shifting blame” over the war in Ukraine after the western military alliance’s chief accused Beijing of worsening the conflict through support of Russia.

Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Monday called for China to face consequences for what US officials have called a major export push to rebuild Russia’s defence industry.

There are reports Putin will be staying at the Kumsusan guesthouse in Pyongyang, which also housed Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a 2019 state visit to North Korea in 2019.

The mansion is located near the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where Kim Jong-un’s father Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung, lie in state.

Barbican, London
Piano arrangements of Philip Glass’s music for his operas based on the French director’s films come complete with bespoke scents

Regular Barbican concertgoers might have been forgiven for thinking that the fragrances wafting through the auditorium during the Labèques’ recital were part of the latest attempt to disguise the hall’s famously malodorous toilets. But renovation of the noisome loos has finally begun, and the scents were actually part of the concert. Specially created by Francis Kurkdjian, with lighting design by Mehdi Toutain-Lopez, they were part of the sisters’ performance of Philip Glass’s Cocteau Trilogy, arrangements for two pianos by Michael Riesman of music from the three operas that Glass based on films by Jean Cocteau.

Composed in the 1990s, these scores contain some of Glass’s finest music, and each treats the original film in a different way. The first to be composed, Orphée, is a conventional chamber opera, while in the second, La Belle et la Bête, the spoken words of the film are replaced by Glass’s setting of the same text, lip-synced in live performance to a screening of the film, and Les Enfants Terribles became a dance opera, with the accompaniment of three pianos. Even though the ingredients of Glass’s style are the same as ever, the music seems peculiarly French, and a reminder too that he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger between 1964 and 1966.

BBC says presenters ‘regularly reminded of guidelines’ on promoting clothing after Lineker wore green T-shirt

The BBC has said on-screen presenters and contributors are “regularly reminded of the guidelines in relation to clothing” after Gary Lineker appeared to be wearing his own range of clothing on air.

While fronting the coverage for the BBC for England’s opening Euros game against Serbia on Sunday, the Match of the Day host wore a pale green knitted T-shirt, and put on a sage green jacket at half-time.

PC, PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox; The Chinese Room/Secret Mode
This horror game creates great atmosphere with its acting and visual design, but is regularly brought to its knees by uninspiring gameplay

The premise here is a genre classic: one day, workers on the oil rig Beira D hit something with their drill they shouldn’t have, and soon, a nameless horror descends on the ship and picks off the crew one by one. When it happens, Glaswegian electrician Cameron “Caz” McCleary is already on his way off the rig, fired from the remote job he fled to in order to dodge the police after a serious scrap at a bar. It’s his work boots we step into as he desperately searches for an escape.

While the team that made Still Wakes the Deep is almost entirely different from the incarnation of developer The Chinese Room that made its previous hits Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, all share high visual fidelity, realistic sound work and affecting acting as their trademark. Still Wakes the Deep’s setting is probably the most realistic oil rig in any media to date, down to hundreds of little hissing valves and a labyrinth of perilously groaning metal staircases. Even without an encroaching horror from the deep, this isn’t a place to tell health and safety about, and the rig is without a doubt the game’s most outstanding character.

The Russian president’s visit to Pyongyang signals a deepening relationship between two isolated countries

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

China accounts for more than 90% of North Korea’s trade and has been its most dependable aid donor and diplomatic ally. But as Vladimir Putin’s imminent visit to Pyongyang proves, the secluded state’s behaviour is being increasingly influenced by its security and economic ties with Russia.

This blog delves into CMMC, the introduction of CMMC 2.0, what's changed, and what it means for your business.

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What Exactly Happened?

Admission of Violations and Settlement

Government Response and Accountability

Initiative to Address Cybersecurity Risks

• My Carefree Life
• 以莉高露 Ilid Kaolo《尋找你 Longing》-女人島 (客廳音樂會Live)
• 餵奶歌 —以莉高露教你唱(feat. Stacey Wei) ｜2018台北演唱會即將開演

• 搭寮 Patireg to Talo'an｜漂流出口 Outlet Drift x 蔡子安 TZU-AN, TSAI｜LUC UP ! 10 x 10 [合拍]
• 漂流出口(Outlet Drift)海女(Lady of the Ocean)
• # 漂流出口 Outlet Drift – 仙人掌的花 Cactus Flower (Live from YuChen Studio)

An extract from new book Travelling follows the Canadian songwriter’s restless adventures in psychoanalysis and psychedelia from Hejira to Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter

In the 1970s, Joni Mitchell was reaching out, taking it all in. The shy girl and the party girl did a little boho dance inside her, trading places depending on what day it was. “I’m always talkin’, chicken squawkin’, bigawwk, bigAWWWK!” she yakked in Talk to Me, musicalising the women’s art of conversation as it goes off the rails. That song, from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, is an extrovert’s embarrassing indulgence, the final shove from a pushy broad. Mitchell liked to run her mouth off. But then she would retreat into solitude. Reflecting on this period later, she’d describe the 1970s as a time when she moved away from the introversion that had reached its nearly claustrophobic peak on Blue and toward a new role as an observer, telling others’ stories as she encountered them on the road. Yet in another, fundamental way, she remained inwardly focused. She just had a different framework for doing so, one emblematic of the time. A silent listener sits across from her in Hejira’s songs as she recounts her excursions. Herself, in the role of analyst.

“I tried to run away myself,” Mitchell sings in Coyote, “to run away and wrestle with my ego.” Hejira’s opening salvo identifies her travels as both geographical and psychological. She ranges through her own mind as much as anywhere else, but her lyrics show signs of a new mindset. The scholar David Shumway identified the Freudian couch as the source. “Ambivalence is a characteristic of neurotic states, but it is also a product of the work of analysis,” he wrote in his book Rock Star. “Mitchell’s work depends heavily on the discourse of, if not psychoanalysis proper, then the therapy of the talking cure in a general sense.”

Threat of EU tariffs may not be enough to slow carmaker in its attempt to challenge Tesla on global stage

• How will tariffs on Chinese EVs work?

Germany’s men kicked off Euro 2024 on Friday in Munich. The city is storied in football terms, but it also occupies an important place in Germany’s self-image for a different reason: Munich is home to BMW, one of the country’s car exporting powerhouses.

Yet it will not be the logos of BMW or German rivals including Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz plastered on stadiums or television coverage. Instead, China’s BYD is the only carmaker to sponsor Europe’s premier international tournament.

Thaksin appears in court accused of lese-majeste relating to 2015 interview with South Korean media

The former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a powerful backer of the ruling government, has been formally indicted for allegedly insulting the monarchy almost two decades ago.

One of Thailand’s most influential political figures, Thaksin, 74, appeared at Bangkok’s Ratchada criminal court accused of lese-majeste. The case relates to an interview he gave to South Korean media in 2015. He was granted bail on Tuesday.

Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and spent 15 years in self-imposed exile to avoid charges he said were politically motivated. He returned to Thailand last year, arriving back in the country on the same day his party Pheu Thai formed an unlikely coalition with his former enemies from the conservative military establishment – a deal that was in both sides’ interest because it kept a popular, youthful pro-reform party out of power.

• Highlanders outside back died on Monday following a ‘medical event’
• Garden-Bachop represented the Māori All Blacks in two Tests in 2022

Otago Highlanders outside back Connor Garden-Bachop died on Monday at the age of 25 following a medical event, New Zealand Rugby has said.

Garden-Bachop, who made his Highlanders debut in 2021, was on the team’s roster this season but parted ways with the Super Rugby Pacific club after their latest campaign finished in the quarter-finals.

Pyongyang’s trade in wigs and false eyelashes is booming, offering a vital revenue stream to help it pursue its nuclear ambitions

They almost certainly don’t know it, but western owners of shiny new wigs and false eyelashes could owe their look to North Korean slave labour.

In recent years, a booming trade in human hair has helped to sustain North Korea’s isolated economy, softening the impact of international sanctions and providing Pyongyang with vital revenue to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Country on track to become third in Asia – after Taiwan and Nepal – to legalise same-sex marriage

Thailand’s senate has passed the final reading of a historic marriage equality bill, paving the way for the country to become the first in south-east Asia to recognise same-sex marriage.

The bill gained the support of nearly all upper-house lawmakers and will be sent to the palace for the pro-forma endorsement by King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The law will come into force 120 days after it is published in the royal gazette.

Singer due to headline Glastonbury embraces risk of backlash over ‘Israeli genocide’ post on Instagram

The pop star and soon-to-be Glastonbury headliner Dua Lipa has said she is willing to risk a backlash over political statements after she recently described military operations in Gaza as “Israeli genocide”.

In an interview with the Radio Times, the 28-year-old said she repeatedly checked herself before making a statement, but did so if she felt it was for the “greater good” and worth the risk.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

Adobe prioritized profits while spending years ignoring numerous complaints from users struggling to cancel costly subscriptions without incurring hefty hidden fees, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged in a lawsuit Monday.

According to the FTC, Adobe knew that canceling subscriptions was hard but determined that it would hurt revenue to make canceling any easier, so Adobe never changed the "convoluted" process. Even when the FTC launched a probe in 2022 specifically indicating that Adobe's practices may be illegal, Adobe did nothing to address the alleged harm to consumers, the FTC complaint noted. Adobe also "provides no refunds or only partial refunds to some subscribers who incur charges after an attempted, unsuccessful cancellation."

Adobe "repeatedly decided against rectifying some of Adobe’s unlawful practices because of the revenue implications," the FTC alleged, asking a jury to permanently block Adobe from continuing the seemingly deceptive practices.

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Enlarge / Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, chief executive officer Novo Nordisk A/S, during an interview at the company's headquarters in Bagsvaerd, Denmark, on Monday, June 12, 2023. (credit: Getty | Carsten Snejbjerg)

After some persuasion from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the CEO of Novo Nordisk will testify before lawmakers later this year on the "outrageously high cost" of the company's diabetes and weight-loss drugs—Ozempic and Wegovy—in the US.

CEO Lars Jørgensen will appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), which is chaired by Sanders, in early September. The agreement came after a conversation with Sanders in which the CEO reportedly "reconsidered his position" and agreed to testify voluntarily. As such, Sanders has canceled a vote scheduled for June 18 on whether to subpoena Novo Nordisk to discuss its US prices, which are considerably higher than those of other countries.

The independent lawmaker has been working for months to pressure Novo Nordisk into lowering its prices and appearing before the committee. In April, Sanders sent Jørgensen a letter announcing an investigation into the prices and included a lengthy set of information requests. In May, the committee's investigation released a report suggesting that Novo Nordisk's current pricing threatens to "bankrupt our entire health care system."

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The musician, whose real name was Paul Spencer, was diagnosed with stage four rectal cancer in 2023

Paul Spencer, the dance music producer known as Dario G, has died at the age of 53.

The musician was diagnosed with stage four rectal cancer in 2023 and regularly posted about his condition on social media.

Russian leader will have talks with Kim Jong-un with shared aim of expanding security and economic cooperation

Vladimir Putin has praised North Korea for supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, as he travels to Pyongyang to seek continued military support from one of the world’s most isolated nations.

In his first visit to North Korea since 2000, Putin will meet Kim Jong-un for one-on-one talks in Pyongyang as the two leaders pledge to expand their security and economic cooperation in defiance of western sanctions against both countries.

Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Surrey
Natalya Romaniw is touching as the heroine trapped in a loveless marriage, while Susan Bullock is chilling as her monstrous mother-in-law in David Alden’s staging

Only a generation ago Janáček’s operas were outsiders, regarded as spiky and hard to place. Now they are so much part of the repertoire that they are regularly served up between the champagne and interval picnics of the country house opera circuit. Grange Park Opera’s latest Janáček production, in the theatre in the grounds of West Horsley Place – which fans of the TV series Ghosts will recognise as Button House – reunites some big names for his 1921 opera, supporting a powerhouse role debut from the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw.

The director is David Alden, almost fresh from reviving Janáček’s Jenufa at ENO and here revisiting a work he first staged more than a quarter of a century ago. His familiar fingerprints are all over it. Apart from some chaotic moments as Katya’s world unravels in the final act the action is staged simply and allusively on Hannah Postlethwaite’s sloping slab of a set, with Tim Mitchell’s lighting creating silhouettes that seem almost like characters in their own right. The era is vaguely Janáček’s own, the setting dour and almost plain apart from a door marked Vychod, “exit”, at the back. In the storm, whipped up by chorus members brandishing umbrellas, the ruined building in which everyone shelters is unambiguously an abandoned church, the chorus witness Katya’s self-inflicted downfall as a stony-faced congregation.

Yamanashi prefecture brings in modest hiking fee to stop ‘bullet climbing’ and address safety concerns

A crowd-control gate has been installed halfway up Mount Fuji before the start of this year’s climbing season on 1 July, but the governor of Yamanashi, one of the two prefectures that are home to the mountain, said additional measures were needed to control overcrowding on its lower slopes.

The gate was completed on Monday as part of a set of measures being introduced this year to address growing safety, environmental and overcrowding problems on Japan’s highest and best-known mountain.

• US-born teenager was set for sport’s Olympic debut
• Sister pays tribute to ‘the most amazing brother’

JJ Rice, who had been chosen to represent Tonga at the Paris Olympics, has died in a diving accident. He was 18.

Rice’s father, Darren, confirmed his son’s death on Monday to the Matangi Tonga newspaper.

Band say carbon emissions for vinyl production will be reduced by 85% thanks to new method, as they announce 10th studio album

Coldplay are aiming to make the most ecologically sustainable vinyl record yet, for their newly announced album Moon Music.

Each 140g vinyl copy of Moon Music, released 4 October, will be manufactured from nine plastic bottles recovered from consumer waste. For a special “notebook edition”, 70% of the plastic has been intercepted by the environmental nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup from Rio Las Vacas, Guatemala, preventing it from entering the Gulf of Honduras and the Atlantic Ocean.

Vulnerability scans evaluate systems, networks, and applications to uncover security vulnerabilities. Leveraging databases of known vulnerabilities, these scans detect your weakest spots. These are the points most likely to be exploited by cybercriminals. Scans also help prioritize the order of importance in remediating and patching vulnerabilities. Vulnerability assessment scans are critical for maintaining the security […]

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Nigerian national Ebuka Raphael Umeti was convicted in the US for operating a business email compromise (BEC) scheme.

The post Nigerian Faces Prison in US After BEC Fraud Conviction appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Donington Park, Leicestershire
Plagued by rain, technical issues and boycotts – as well as by some distinctly non-metal headliners – the weekend is practically a washout, despite some virtuoso shredding and fiery melodeath lower down the bill

Is this the most cursed edition of Download to ever go ahead? Optimism for the 2024 edition of the heavy metal festival was at a low from the off, when the two-thirds non-metal trio of Queens of the Stone Age, Fall Out Boy and Avenged Sevenfold were announced as headliners. Then, in the week before the event, the smaller stages were gutted by bands such as Pest Control and Ithaca pulling out over the sponsorship of Barclaycard, which has ties to defence companies supplying Israel.

Early on the Friday, as the festival begins, “bimbocore” provocateur Scene Queen announces on the second stage that Barclays has withdrawn its sponsorship of the weekend, and that she’ll be donating her payment to charities supporting Palestine. The Callous Daoboys, similarly, scream “Free Palestine!” after being one of the few acts to actually grace the fourth stage today. Their violin-backed mathcore makes for a brilliantly disorientating sonic cocktail.

The likes of Fatboy Slim and Armand van Helden remixed original tracks into mutant dancefloor beasts, but thanks to streaming and risk-averse labels, this artform is threatened

Back in the 1990s, the right dance remix could make – or sometimes resurrect – a career. Fatboy Slim’s mix of Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha took a marginal indie band to the top of the British charts, Andrew Weatherall saved Primal Scream from potential obscurity with his remix of their lachrymose ballad I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have (which became Loaded) and Todd Terry’s remix of Everything But the Girl’s Missing gave the band a new lease of life in electronic music.

Kelli Ali says that Armand van Helden’s 1997 remix of Spin Spin Sugar by her former band Sneaker Pimps – a classic of the early UK garage scene – introduced the group’s music to an audience “who were maybe searching for something to listen to outside the club, when the sun came up.” She says: “It meant that our music crossed over to a whole generation of hardcore clubbers. I still have friends saying they were dancing to the track recently, which is pretty epic in terms of longevity for a remix.”

Nikhil Gupta accused of plotting to kill US resident who advocated for sovereign Sikh state in northern India

An Indian man suspected by the US of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to kill a Sikh separatist on American soil has been extradited to the US from the Czech Republic, the Czech justice minister said.

Nikhil Gupta has been accused by US federal prosecutors of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US resident who has advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.

Film-maker Tomáš Kratochvíl follows the story of Czech-Mancunian trucker turned activist Štefan Pongo

Centring on an ordinary man with extraordinary determination, Tomáš Kratochvíl’s documentary shows how one simple video can ignite a revolutionary movement. After emigrating to the UK nearly 15 years ago, Czech Roma lorry driver Štefan Pongo built a new life for himself and his family in Manchester. At the same time, the persecution faced by his community never strayed far from Pongo’s mind. After hearing a speech in which Miloš Zeman, then the president of the Czech Republic, claimed that 90% of the Roma people were “socially unadaptable” and resistant to work, Pongo started a viral appeal online where he and countless other Roma compatriots posted selfies of themselves at their workplaces.

The appeal was straightforward, yet hugely impactful. Its aim was to battle harmful stereotypes thrust upon Roma people, which Pongo himself had experienced first-hand from a young age. In one particularly painful anecdote, he mentioned his primary school teacher rubbing his arms in front of the whole class to demonstrate how “dirty” the Roma are. As Pongo took a leadership role in the fight for Romani rights, his activism also translated into real-world actions, organising protest rallies in Brussels, and travelling to rural Slovenia to deliver aid to the most vulnerable in the community.

Seven out of top 10 most played acts, encompassing radio, broadcast and public places, are British

Britons rule the airwaves in the UK, with Ed Sheeran taking the most played spot and homegrown artists dominating the top 10 in a chart compiled by the music licensing company PPL.

For Yorkshire-born and Suffolk-raised Sheeran, 33, it is the seventh time in nine years he has topped the list of music used across UK radio, TV and in public places.

University of Liverpool hosts Tay Day to coincide with singer’s Eras tour concerts at Anfield

It was mid-afternoon in the 600-seat lecture theatre in the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre at the University of Liverpool and the audience was deep into an analysis of sexual racism in Taylor Swift’s music videos.

At the front of the room, blown up on a giant screen, were several screenshots of the singer kissing white men in a variety of music videos, held in contrast with three images of her conspicuously not kissing her black love interests. How much of this is a product of a fundamentally racist society? What is her responsibility as a pop star to fight against society’s evils?

Thirty-minute mix from world’s rarest album played at Mona in Tasmania, leaving listeners buzzing – and ‘a bit sad’

This waiver I’m signing says it is binding until the day I die or the year 2103 – whichever comes first. I’ll be 112 years old in 2103 or (more likely) very dead. Who knows if anyone will still be talking about Wu-Tang Clan then, or what state Once Upon a Time in Shaolin will even be in by 2103. The album exists in a sole physical copy and that’s a CD – will any one other than antique dealers even have CD players then? In any case, I’ll make sure not to slip up at age 111.

I must sign (and I’m rigorously frisked) to ensure I have no plans to make a covert recording of what happens next, as I enter Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art. This is where Once Upon a Time in Shaolin will be for the next week as part of the gallery’s new exhibition, Namedropping, examining status, celebrity, scarcity and notoriety. Once Upon a Time in Shaolin fulfils on all counts: a never-before released album by a generational-defining group, that exists as a single copy in an ornate silver box and sold for millions. About 9% of the 500 people who will get to hear it at Mona are travelling from overseas; the gallery closed the waiting list when it reached 5,000 people.

Meteorologists warn that heat will spread east through the week, with ‘heat dome’ expected to trap high temperatures

Millions of Americans are facing “dangerously hot conditions”, the National Weather Service said, with a heatwave set to hit the midwest and north-east US from Monday.

Michigan, Ohio and western Pennsylvania were all under heat warnings starting Monday, with alerts in place until Friday evening. Meteorologists warned that the heat will spread east through the week, with a “heat dome” expected to trap high temperatures across New York, Washington DC and Boston.

Complaints about BBC coverage can quickly become the story, drawing attention away from the actual issue

• UK election live – latest updates

Nigel Farage knows the BBC will not allow him to join its televised Sunak vs Starmer leaders’ debate later this month. But the he also knows that a battle with the BBC can be an effective political tactic.

“If the BBC want a fight with me on this, they can have one,” Farage has said.

Royal Festival Hall, London
The peerless 71-year-old opens this year’s Meltdown festival sounding very much like the Chaka Khan of the 70s and 80s used to, and performs 50 years’ worth of potent disco, soul and jazz classics with effortless vibrancy

The opening gig by the curator of this year’s Meltdown festival begins in impressively grandstanding style. The lights in the Royal Festival Hall dim, the familiar intro of I Feel For You by rapper Melle Mel booms out, and an introductory film unspools. The cast of faces paying tribute to Chaka Khan is pretty extraordinary: Stevie Wonder, Michelle Obama, Grace Jones and Joni Mitchell appear alongside old clips of Whitney Houston and Prince singing Khan’s praises. And so is the archive footage: dog-eared copies of old albums by Rufus, the funk band she intermittently fronted from 1973 to 1983, are pictured next to images of her performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Ray Charles. It is all evidence of a strikingly varied career.

You hear her before you see her: a frankly extraordinary succession of pitch-perfect extempore wails from offstage precedes her arrival. Then here she is: a diminutive, big-haired figure in sparkling black, alternately complaining about the British weather (a recent rain-drenched festival appearance was “like a horror film”) and joking about her advanced years (age-related memory loss is apparently less of a problem when you’ve lived a life as tumultuous as Chaka Khan’s, because “if I could remember everything I’d done, I’d probably kill myself”).

Exclusive: Revelation of emails to Imperial College scientists comes amid growing concerns about security risk posed by academic tie-ups with China

A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, the Guardian has learned.

Emails show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute (Jari) discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use.

The music publicist was given up for adoption and always had a sense of not belonging but, in his job, he found his kindred spirits

I always knew I was adopted. I had a sister, Mary, and a brother, Tony, and we all looked quite different, so I suppose our adoptive parents, Harrington and Elizabeth had to tell us the truth. They took us all in as babies – each one a year apart – I’m the eldest. We were all told from the beginning and it was a warm, loving family – it was only me that was the tearaway.

We were happy growing up in Worthing, Sussex, and our parents provided a loving family home, so I didn’t think about being adopted much during my early childhood. But as I moved into my teenage years and beyond, my parents struggled to contain me – as Bob Dylan sang, “Your sons and daughters are beyond your command,” and so it was with me.

He made rock history with the Velvet Underground, produced landmark albums for the likes of Patti Smith and collaborated with John Cage. At 82, Cale’s 18th solo outing proves he’s still making music at the bleeding edge

Even over the phone from Los Angeles, John Cale has a certain presence. It’s not just the still resonant Welsh lilt of his speaking voice or the way he takes his time to settle on the right words, more his tangential way of thinking – about music, songwriting, the world in general. This is someone, after all, whose 1999 biography was titled What’s Welsh for Zen?.

That phrase echoes in my head more than once during our transatlantic conversation, Cale having lived in Los Angeles for 10 years now after a long stint in New York. His answers, while always courteous and considered, sometimes tend towards the abstract and are marked by a reluctance to be pinned down about the subject matter of his songs.

Landmark powers to impose huge fines to tackle tax evasion and avoidance are ‘pointless’, figures show

The UK’s tax authority has not fined a single “enabler” of offshore tax evasion or noncompliance in five years, despite landmark powers to impose huge fines.

Tory ministers claimed new laws introduced in 2017 allowed HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to pursue accountants, lawyers and bankers who facilitate offshore tax evasion would “create a level playing field”, with potential fines of several millions of pounds.

The pop star and the TV presenter are lifelong friends, and it’s their intimacy – and honesty – that gives their new BBC show its edge. They discuss their storied careers, and how they turn life’s challenges into audio gold

In a photographer’s studio in north London, sitting at a wooden table with mugs of tea, two friends are having a chat. They’ve discussed food and clothes, but now they’re on to their actual friendship: the reason why we’re here.

“I think before this podcast,” says Miquita Oliver, “a lot of people who were aware that Lily and me have a friendship would be basing it on pictures of us leaving the Groucho pissed when we were 23…” She looks at Lily Allen, who is laughing quite hard.

The news anchor, who will present the programme with Laura Kuenssberg, has spoken on Desert Island Discs about the insults and threats he has experienced as a broadcaster

Clive Myrie has detailed the racism he has experienced during his broadcasting career, as he prepares to present the BBC’s general election night programme.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast on Sunday, the 59-year-old listed some of the insults and threats he has endured, including being sent faeces and pictures of gorillas in the post.