In your briefing today:

📣 King Charles III marked the 250th anniversary of American independence from Britain with an address to Congress, and an after-dinner speech in the White House, laced with warm references to the countries’ shared history, and delicately delivered warnings about authoritarianism and diplomatic isolation. The King’s speech to Congress has, in particular, been hailed by observers as a “masterclass” in diplomacy this morning. (AP)

📣 Scotland’s political leaders clashed in the final televised debate of the election campaign last night, in a shouty affair that many will have found a tough watch. (STV)

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer survived a Labour rebellion over calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the Mandelson affair. But his own MPs have been described in various states of upset over the affair and Starmer’s leadership: a question left hanging is how long the PM has left in office.

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📣 More Scottish firms are showing signs of distress, with a spike of more than 50% of firms showing signs of critical problems, according to new data. The financial services, utilities, wholesale and leisure sectors all showed the biggest increases. (Scotsman)

📣 Members of the tartan army are hiring a fleet of school buses to get thousands of fans to games at this year’s World Cup in the US, in a fightback against rip-off prices for transport. (Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 A Scottish backpacker in Thailand fears he’s stuck in legal “limbo” after being accused of stealing a mobile phone in an incident he insists was a mistake. (BBC)

📣 Drone footage shows the huge extent of damage after that fire in South Lanarkshire yesterday. (BBC)

📣 The United Arab Emirates is to leave the OPEC oil cartel in a move that will shake up the alliance, and the world’s oil market - once it’s actually able to ship the stuff again. (AP)

📣 Britain could soon see shortages of potatoes, milk and chicken as a result of the Iran war. Even toilet paper could be impacted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. (Independent)

📣 Eleven cancers are on the rise among young people - a study suggests that a decades-long pattern of people becoming more overweight may be contributing to the trend. (BBC)

⚽️ It was an utterly remarkable game of football: Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich duked out a 5-4 win for the French side in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final in a game of relentless attacking class and - it must be said - some less impressive defending.

But let’s not be churlish. As Jess Anderson points out, it was the highest-scoring semi-final since Eintracht Frankfurt beat Rangers 6-3 in the European Cup in 1960. And you couldn’t take your eyes off it. (BBC) (See the highlights)

🗣️ It was quite a sight to see, King Charles III addressing the US Congress. Because if you were able to look past the incongruity of a monarch offering a reminder to elected representatives sitting in a “citadel of democracy” of “sacred rights and freedoms”, constitutional checks and balances, and of shared democratic values, you could also see something else: what observers are, this morning, calling a masterclass in diplomacy.

It was a speech that flattered his American hosts, talking of the country’s great power and influence and importance to the world. It highlighted the importance of friendship and cooperation between the US, UK and its European allies. It noted the importance of checks and balances to executive power enshrined in the Magna Carta.

You can read the full text here, or watch the King deliver it here. You can also watch the King’s after-dinner speech here.

The references were all delivered with words of diplomacy that, so often these days, seem completely lost. But nobody in the chamber would not have heard the meaning they contained.

And yet the King still drew laughter and applause during his address, and an ovation at the end.

David Smith puts it beautifully this morning in the Guardian: “A flick of Oscar Wilde here, a nod to Henry Kissinger there, a sprinkling of Charles Dickens here, a dollop of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt there. Job done!

“The British monarch mobilised an elite squad of dead white men, leavened with humour and subliminal politicking, on Tuesday in a charm offensive aimed over Donald Trump’s head and squarely at the US Congress.”

There were some no-go areas for the speech, Smith notes. “Entirely predictably, the name Iran never’s passed Charles’s 77-year-old lips. Nor did Israel, nor immigration, nor climate, nor a bunch of other hot potatoes in the Trump era.

“Instead the king delivered an exquisitely measured masterclass in less-is-more, emphasising common bonds that long predate Trump and – hopefully! – will long outlast him.”

In a rare moment of agreement between the Guardian and the Sun, the latter’s Matt Wilkinson also hailed “a diplomatic masterclass” with a succession of “zingers” delivered in an after-dinner speech following the banquet.

The New York Times also detected the “ever-so-subtle rebuttals” to Donald Trump in the King’s references to the value of the trans-Atlantic alliance. “He even spoke of his time in the Royal Navy, after Mr. Trump belittled British naval capabilities in recent weeks,” the title reports.

A difficult moment came during that state dinner, later, when Trump remarked that “Charles agrees with me” on the war in Iran. “It was an awkward moment because Charles studiously stays out of such matters of war and politics,” the NYT notes.

But back to the statecraft: The Washington Post even found symbols of unity between the countries in the fashion worn for the State dinner. The men, of course, were in white tie - with little room for improvisation. The women, however, were apparently coordinated, the Post notes, “in complementary shades of pink.

The “ultra posh” menu picked by Melania Trump also wins praise.

But will there be a lasting impact from all this? The New York Times thinks it unlikely. “There is little evidence in more recent history that an era of good feeling will last much beyond the departure of the royal couple’s jet from American shores on Thursday, particularly as Mr. Trump’s well-known affection for the royals does not extend to the British government.”

It may be, however, that the King is playing a longer game than merely the next news cycle. He - and the UK’s Foreign Office - may hope his messages echo loud enough to by heard by the next US administration, and beyond.

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