Deal is 18th such package since Ukraine invasion as Ursula von der Leyen says EU is ‘striking the heart of Russia’s war machine’

One other thing to watch at this morning meeting of EU ministers in Brussels is the national reactions to the European Commission’s draft budget for 2028-2034.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz made it very clear last night that he was not happy with parts of it, particularly with the proposal to tax EU businesses as he regularly criticises burdens already placed on companies.

Treasury minister James Murray said Abbott’s claim that ‘this Labour leadership wants me out’ was ‘absolutely not the case’

HS2 has incurred “significant cost” because public bodies have launched nine legal challenges against it, transport secretary Heidi Alexander said.

The Cabinet minister noted that in “almost all cases”, the courts have found in favour of the high-speed rail scheme between London and Birmingham.

• Big match buildup, team news and previews

• Why not email Emillia with your thoughts

I want to hear from you today! Feel free to email me with your thoughts on last night’s match. Who impressed you the most? Who was your Player of the Match? Thoughts on the penalty shootout?

Also, let me know your score predictions for tonight’s game!

Two separate Israeli strikes reported in southern Gaza, with another attack in the north

Two of Jerusalem’s most senior Christian clerics travelled to Gaza on Friday after a deadly Israeli strike on the Palestinian territory’s only Catholic church, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, headed an “ecclesiastical delegation” to meet local Christians after Thursday’s strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, a statement read.

Those responsible must be held to account.

It is crucial that immediate steps are taken to prevent recurrence of such violence.

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The UK still holds many attractions for the privileged despite prophecies of a wealth exodus if Rachel Reeves swoops

I’ve worked with the super-rich my whole career. I worked for more than a decade as a lawyer advising high net worth individuals, and many of the people I worked with had assets worth more than £10m. It was commonplace to refer to their luxury apartments – usually in neighbourhoods like Kensington or Chelsea – as “safety deposit boxes in the sky”. My work involved advising them on how to pass on assets such as these pieds-à-terre and country piles in the home counties while minimising their taxes.

Many of the super-rich have ties all over the world, decamping to homes in the south of France in the summer, or their Alpine chalets for ski holidays. Some have constructed more contrived connections to places like Singapore or Bermuda to reduce their tax bills. But regardless of their undeniable worldliness, the super-rich love living in the UK.

Stephanie Brobbey is founder and chief executive officer of the Good Ancestor Movement

Today’s rumours were up all night

Given Victor Osimhen is one of the world’s best No 9s, definitely available for transfer and with a £64m release clause is a cheaper option than both Viktor Gyökeres (who is older) and Hugo Ekitike (who is relatively unproven), it seems a little bit wild that Arsenal, Liverpool or any other elite European team are not in for the Nigerian striker. Having impressed last season on loan at Galatasaray, winning the Golden Boot in Turkey on the way to a Süper Lig title, Osimhen could complete a remarkable permanent move to Istanbul in lieu of any other interest. Napoli are happy to sell, given Osimhen has one year remaining on his contract, but have reportedly inserted a clause preventing the striker from joining Juventus at a later date.

Like a sophisticated nuclear submarine patiently lying in wait or just a middle-aged man trying to get out of a bathtub, West Ham have emerged as a potential loan destination for Jack Grealish. The Manchester City winger’s gargantuan wages are too dear for a permanent move but a loan deal may suit and the Mill is wholeheartedly in favour of the deal, mainly because Grealish and West Ham mascot Danny Dyer will undoubtedly be thrown together in the name of #content. Everton could yet scupper the Englishman’s move to east London, offering Grealish a chance to stay in the north-west.

Environment Agency records 75 serious incidents among total of 2,800, with Thames Water being worst offender

Serious pollution incidents by water companies were up 60% last year compared with the year before, data has revealed.

These incidents are the most environmentally damaging and indicate that the sewage spill or other pollution incident has a serious, extensive or persistent impact on the environment, people or property. They could, for example, result in mass fish deaths in rivers.

Low-lying areas of Punjab province hit by significant flooding after rivers overflow their banks

The south-west monsoon continued a deadly streak in Pakistan this week, with torrential rain on Wednesday killing at least 63 people. After beginning life as showers and thunderstorms in north-west India this week, a more organised area of low pressure developed, merging showers into a larger area of heavy rain as they moved into the Pakistani province of Punjab. This rain tracked roughly north across Punjab on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, hitting several major cities including Lahore and the capital, Islamabad. The greatest rainfall was in the city of Chakwal, which recorded 423mm (16.6in), more than double the July average.

Rivers overflowed their banks, significantly flooding low-lying areas of Punjab. Though several of the deaths were attributed to drowning, most were the result of building collapses. A number of deaths were reportedly from electrocution. This latest deluge takes the death toll from this year’s monsoon, which began in late June, to almost 180, more than half of which are children. Owing to its large low-lying regions, Pakistan is among the countries most endangered by the climate crisis, with significant flooding events becoming more common in recent years.

• ‘Devastated’ Samu told he cannot feature in tour match

• ‘They must have been worried we were going to win’

The British & Irish Lions have been accused of running scared on the eve of the first Test against the Wallabies, amid a disagreement over the availability of Pete Samu for next week’s First Nations & Pasifika XV tour match.

Samu, who last season represented Bordeaux before joining the Waratahs for the next Super Rugby season, has been blocked from playing in Tuesday’s game and is said by the head coach, Toutai Kefu, to be “devastated”.

Rules to prevent ‘enormous waste’ of fuel are seen as weak and poorly enforced and firms have little incentive to stop

The fossil fuel industry pumped an extra 389m tonnes of carbon pollution into the atmosphere last year by needlessly flaring gas, a World Bank report has found, in an “enormous waste” of fuel that heats the planet by about as much as the country of France.

Flaring is a way to get rid of gases such as methane that arise when pumping oil out of the ground. While it can sometimes keep workers safe by relieving buildups of pressure, the practice is routine in many countries because it is often cheaper to burn gas than to capture, transport, process and sell it.

Shapps, defence secretary when the superinjunction was imposed, said its use was ‘entirely justified’ to save lives

• Afghan nationals: have you arrived in the UK under the ARR?

The former defence secretary Grant Shapps has defended the use of an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led to the UK government relocating 15,000 Afghans.

The Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

(RCA)
While the sonic invention and off-kilter details remain, on his 10th album the cult musician eschews distortion for melancholic melodies and crooked love songs

Alexander Giannascoli’s nine-album back catalogue is the record of a great creative evolution. Starting with thin, wobbly Moldy Peaches-style anti-folk in his teenage years, the Pennsylvania native added lusher, twangier elements – Americana with a slacker twist – before introducing glitched beats, pitched-up vocals and copious vocoder. By 2022’s God Save the Animals he had a zealous cult following and was pushing at the limits of what indie singer-songwriter fare could be, melding acoustic strumming and sweet melody with distortion that ranged from unsettlingly inhuman to downright demonic.

On Headlights, his 10th album, Giannascoli, 32, reins in the warp and abrasion: the sonic invention remains, but it is deployed with increased subtlety. Exceptional opener June Guitar has chipmunk backing vocals and a surging organ riff that strongly recalls Centerfold by the J Geils Band; Beam Me Up is haunted by a mid-century sci-fi sound effect and Louisiana begins with a revving engine – yet all serve the timeless, melancholic soft-rock rather than overpowering it.

The journalist and TV presenter’s memoir of events leading up to her diagnosis, aged just 61, is a moving account of a life slowly unravelling before her and her husband’s eyes

In 2019, the TV presenter and journalist Fiona Phillips booked a last-minute trip to Vietnam with a friend. Nothing unusual there, you might think. But not only did Phillips not invite her husband or children, she didn’t consult them, instead simply informing them that she was leaving the following week. It was an impulsive decision that she hoped would lift her out of a depressive episode that was manifesting in brain fog and anxiety. But for her husband, TV editor Martin Frizell, it was another instance of Phillips behaving oddly, a sign that things “were not all they should be”.

Remember When chronicles, with illuminating candour, the changes that culminated in Phillips’s diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2022, at the age of 61. Billed as a memoir by Phillips herself, owing to her decline during the three-year writing process, it’s really a co-production between her, her ghostwriter Alison Phillips (no relation) and Frizell, who provides fitful interjections. As such, it offers a rare account of the impact of Alzheimer’s not just from the person who has it, but from their primary carer too.

Firm says technology used in El Eternauta is chance ‘to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper’

Netflix has used artificial intelligence in one of its TV shows for the first time, in a move the streaming company’s boss said would make films and programmes cheaper and of better quality.

Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive of Netflix, said the Argentinian science fiction series El Eternauta (The Eternaut) was the first it had made that involved using generative AI footage.

(River Lea)
Masters of atmosphere, Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody contrast hauntological synths with robust noise on this playful debut

The latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn’t begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it’s as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama.

Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless’s Ruth Clinton, Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying sailor desperate not to be buried at sea, and Clinton delivers its lamenting lyrics with a bright, shining innocence. MacDiarmada leads Lorene, a rolling, country ballad by Alabama duo the Louvin Brothers, with a similarly soft, brooding magic. Singing as a boy desperate for a letter from his beloved, despite clearly knowing he’s being ghosted, the song’s melancholy slowly rises as voice and guitar mesh together.

The blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s epic has not finished filming and has no official runtime. But super fans – and scalpers – already have seats

The first tickets to Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s Odyssey have gone on sale – before he’s even finished filming it and a year before the film is even out, in what is likely the longest pre-sale in cinematic history.

The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon as the cunning Odysseus as he fights his way home after the end of the Trojan war, will be released on 17 July 2026. But on Thursday, Imax released tickets to the first screenings at the 26 Imax cinemas around the world that have the staff and equipment required to project in 1570 format.

We need to know who is funding our parties, but this new frontier is custom-built for hostile actors. The elections bill is a good start – but only that

• Liam Byrne is the Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill

Our party finance rules are riddled with loopholes. Shell companies. Unincorporated associations. Anonymous donations routed through digital campaigns between elections. All legal. All ripe for abuse. And now, a new gateway has opened: cryptocurrency.

When someone buys a cryptocurrency their identity is anonymous, but the transaction itself is recorded on the blockchain and is publicly visible. So far we know that this anonymity has allowed cryptocurrencies to be used to fund everything from sanctions evasion to election interference. A recent report from the Centre for Information Resilience revealed that A7A5, a new “digital rouble”, has already been linked to sanctions evasions by Russians. The report also found that Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch who has been accused of being involved with Russian-backed attempts to meddle in Moldovan elections, had allegedly used the currency to funnel at least $39m (£29m) into the bank accounts of thousands of Moldovans in exchange for their votes.

Liam Byrne is the Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill

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Who’d be brave enough to programme John Tavener’s choral epic? We talk to the team behind the staging that’s opening this year’s Edinburgh international festival, and veterans of its 2003 premiere remember the challenges and rewards

What’s the longest concert you’ve ever been to? Ever found yourself sitting through more encores than you’d bargained for, worrying about your last train? Or mid-symphony becoming desperate to stand up and stretch?

What about the longest single piece of music? Opera-goers may or may not sympathise with Rossini’s quip about Wagner’s “good moments but awful quarters of an hour”, but there is no denying the monumental scale of Die Meistersinger, for instance, which runs to about four and a half hours, not including intervals. And then there’s the same composer’s Ring cycle – about 15 hours in total, albeit split across four instalments; as close to a marathon as classical music usually gets.

Piles of waste line the streets of Manshiyet Nasr, turning it into a no-go zone for many. But a new generation see themselves as agents of change in the fight against plastic pollution

When Mina Nedi graduated with a nursing degree last year, his friends and family expected him to start working in one of Egypt’s overstretched hospitals. Instead, the 25-year-old decided to join his father’s recycling business in Manshiyet Nasr, a neighbourhood on Cairo’s eastern outskirts known as Garbage City.

Every day, he sorts through thousands of plastic bottles, collected by a team of men who roam the city at night to pick up rubbish, separating them by colour and compressing them into large bundles with the help of a machine, ready to be sold for recycling and reuse.

Mina Nedi, 25, has been working as a plastic collector for five years and funded his university education with it

Texas has long been under threat from the launches and explosions of SpaceX rockets. Now Hawaii is emerging as another possible victim

The north-west Hawaiian island of Mokumanamana is said to be touched by the gods. Bisected by the Tropic of Cancer latitude line, it is deep in the Pacific Ocean, about 400 miles from Honolulu. The island’s steep rocky cliffs give way to indigo blue waters dotted with monk seals and stony coral. No humans have lived on Mokumanamana, but it has the world’s highest density of ancient Hawaiian religious sites.

“It sits as a boundary between what Native Hawaiians refer to as ‘pō’, the darkness, and ‘au’, the light,” said William Aila, the former chair of Hawaii’s department of land and natural resources. “When a Hawaiian passes, their soul makes its way from wherever it is in the main Hawaiian Islands, up to the North-western Hawaiian Islands. And at that juncture, at pō, they’re met by their ancestors.” As Aila tells it, if a person has been good, they can pass into pō and be with their ancestors, who inhabit the Pacific waters west of Mokumanamana.

• Latest updates from the second day of the 153rd Open

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Adam Scott should have won this Championship in 2012. But he bogeyed holes 69 through 72 at Lytham, handing the Claret Jug to Ernie Els on a silver platter. What the genial Scott would give to play that stretch again. Ah well, he’ll always have Augusta National, nine months later. What the Big Easy would give for a green jacket. Scott started this morning on +1 after a 72 yesterday, but he’s going backwards now, after a clumsy double bogey, his first of the week, at the short par-three 3rd. He over-clubs, his ball disappearing down the swale at the back … then he under-chips, his ball coming back towards his feet. A second chip doesn’t get close, and two putts later, he’s +3 and prodding the green with his putter in annoyance, not so genial right now.

Sergio Garcia missed a five-foot putt to win the Open at Carnoustie in 2007. He had his chance to win at Hoylake in 2014 too, but failed to get out of a bunker at the par-three 15th and that was that too. At 45 years of age, it’s not too late to right those wrongs, and yesterday’s opening round of 70 offered hope. But he’s started his second round horrendously, tugging his opening tee shot into the thick stuff down the left, finding a greenside bunker, failing to get onto the green, chipping short, then failing to make the eight-footer that remains for bogey. A double, and those shoulders are slumping already. We’ve seen this story too often before. Oh Sergio. He’s +1.

Once a haven for the world’s rich and famous, the landmark hotel was burned down this month as violence gripped Port-au-Prince

There was an outpouring of grief in Haiti when the Hotel Oloffson, a cultural and architectural landmark in Port-au-Prince, was set ablaze on the night of 5 July, in what local media described as retaliation by armed gangs after a police operation in its vicinity.

For many, its ruins are a stark and sobering symbol of the state of a capital city on the verge of collapse, and a sign that a once vibrant culture may be fading as violent criminal armed groups continue their reign of terror.

The International Booker winner explores Bulgarian family life under communism in this moving depiction of a son’s bereavement

The Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov was published quietly in the Anglophone world for years before he won the 2023 International Booker prize with Time Shelter, about an Alzheimer’s clinic that recreates the past so successfully, it beguiles the wider world.

He is perhaps now Bulgaria’s biggest export. Ever playful, never linear, his new novel Death and the Gardener consists of vignettes of a beloved dying and dead father, told by a narrator who, like Gospodinov, is an author. Gospodinov has spoken publicly about losing his own father recently, and the novel feels autobiographical in tone. When we read “My father was a gardener. Now he is a garden,” it is not the beginning of an Archimboldiesque surrealist tale, but rather a more direct exploration of how we express and where we put our love.