Playing stadiums and causing dance crazes, the Irish singer-songwriter is going supernova – and whether opining on trans rights, body shaming or capitalism, she’s more forthright than ever

Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, or CMAT as she’s professionally known, says she can clearly remember writing the song that changed her life. She was 22 and having moved from Ireland to Manchester, was working in TK Maxx and, at the weekends, as what she’s fond of calling a “sexy shots girl”: “Cash in hand, £8 an hour, 11pm to 3am, teetering up and down the stairs of a nightclub in the building where Joy Division shot the video for Love Will Tear Us Apart with a tray of Jägermeister shots they’d put a bit of dry ice in – burned your skin if you got it on your hands – selling them for three pound each. Terrible job. And just getting absolutely stoned out of my bin all the time, doing whatever drugs anyone would give me for free. I had absolutely no friends.”

An attempt to get her musical career off the ground, “trying to make hyperpop because I loved Charli xcx so much”, had come to nothing. She had just broken up with her “old, weird” boyfriend and was “completely alone in a flat in Chorlton, thinking: ‘What have I done?’ I got really, really, really upset. I kind of looked at myself in the mirror …” She lets out a snort of laughter. “I feel like there’s so many film scenes where people write songs and I’m like, ‘that didn’t fucking happen like that’, but this one did. So I’m crying, grabbed my guitar and wrote I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby! in like 20 minutes. And that was that. I thought: ‘I know what I need to do now.’”

The bromance might be over but Trump has kissed and made up with his enemies before. Enjoy it while it lasts

If you paid attention during physics class you will remember the third law of ego-dynamics. Namely: when two egos of equal mass occupy the same orbit, the system will eventually become unstable, resulting in an explosive separation and some very nasty tweets.

To see this theory in action please have a gander at the dramatic collapse of the Donald Trump and Elon Musk bromance. The news has been a nonstop horror show for what feels like forever. Watching two of the very worst people in the world direct their nastiness at each other is extremely cathartic.

The self-described ‘British Muslim patriot’ can take a lot of credit for Reform’s recent success – but will his decision to leave make a difference?

Delivered without warning in a 54-word tweet, Zia Yusuf’s announcement that he was standing down as Reform UK’s chair has seemingly come out of the blue.

For close watchers of Nigel Farage’s party in recent times, however, the departure of the man largely credited with “professionalising” its operation before last year’s general election performance and last month’s local election breakthrough is not a shock.

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
The big hits might be truncated to make way for her latest, country-inflected album – but seen live, these songs sound like a powerful act of protest

It clearly hasn’t escaped Beyoncé’s notice that the meteorological omens auger ill for the first UK show of her Cowboy Carter tour. The weathermen are predicting a thunderstorm, the Tottenham Hotspur ground is noticeably lacking a roof, and she’s no sooner arrived onstage than she’s suggesting that the prospect of rain “ain’t gonna stop the party”.

The thunderstorm never comes, but a cynic might suggest the glowering skies, and a sudden downpour – through which the singer will be required to fly on a giant neon-lit horseshoe – act as a kind of metaphor for the fortunes of the Cowboy Carter tour. It’s thus far attracted the usual laudatory reviews – such is the blanket critical acclaim for everything Beyoncé does, you rather get the feeling that were she spotted using a public convenience, there would be a spate of articles claiming she’d singlehandedly redefined going to the lavatory – but it has also been attended by news reports suggesting all is not well. There is talk of sluggish ticket sales and demands for refunds from fans who shelled out full whack for seats on release, only to see them going for vastly reduced prices as the gigs drew nearer. One headline-grabbing complaint noted that tickets for her LA show were now “cheaper than a McDonald’s Minecraft meal”.

Lana Estemirova promised to tell story of her mother, a renowned human rights activist. This month it is published

Lana Estemirova was 15 in 2009, when her mother, the renowned Chechen human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, was kidnapped and murdered. Bundled into a car as she walked to the bus stop on her way to work, she was driven out of town and then shot five times in the chest and head.

The killing was widely seen as retribution for Estemirova’s fearless investigations of extrajudicial murders, kidnappings and human rights abuses in Chechnya, first by Russian soldiers and then by forces loyal to the Kremlin-appointed warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the crime.

Tess McClure reports on a landslide in Switzerland that left one person missing and destroyed a village

The Swiss village of Blatten was wiped out in seconds. A glacier collapsed above the village on 28 May, triggering a landslide. The 300 residents had been evacuated a week earlier, but a 64-year-old man who is believed to have stayed is missing.

Tess McClure, the Guardian’s commissioning editor for the Age of Extinction, reported on the aftermath.

Labour celebrated the ‘incredible’ win in the central seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, as voters rallied around popular local candidate Davy Russell

• UK politics live – latest updates

Scottish Labour is celebrating an “incredible” win in a pivotal Holyrood byelection, beating the incumbent SNP and fighting off Reform UK’s “racist” campaigning, in a result that confounded predictions and will boost the party ahead of next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections.

Voters in the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse rallied round the popular local candidate, Davy Russell, after a toxic campaign during which Nigel Farage launched an unprecedented series of personal attacks on the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, labelled racist by the SNP leader, John Swinney.

SpaceX owner rows back on threat to decommission Dragon spacecraft after X user advises him to ‘cool off’

• US politics live – latest updates

Elon Musk has suggested he may de-escalate his public row with Donald Trump after their spectacular falling out.

The Tesla chief executive signalled he might back down on a pledge to decommission the Dragon spacecraft – made by his SpaceX business – in an exchange on his X social media platform. He also responded positively to a call from fellow multibillionaire Bill Ackman to “make peace” with the US president.

Deputy leader says discussion must not be ‘forced underground’ when it is policy in some European countries

• UK politics live – latest updates

Reform was right to start a debate on banning the burqa even though it triggered the resignation of its chair, Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, has said.

Tice, who is one of five Reform MPs, said he was “enormously sad” that Zia Yusuf had quit as chair as he was partly responsible for the party’s strong performance in May’s local elections.

Three people killed and 20 wounded as missiles and drones strike Ukrainian capital

• Europe live – latest updates

Russia launched an intense missile and drone barrage at Kyiv overnight, killing four people, after Vladimir Putin had vowed to respond to Operation Spiderweb.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Friday that Russia had launched more than 400 drones and more than 40 missiles at the country, as he urged allies to build pressure on the Kremlin to end its war.