In your briefing today:

📣 Artemis II’s four astronauts are on their way home after becoming the furthest-travelled humans in history. Their Orion spacecraft crew “saw sights that no human has ever seen,” the craft’s commander said, after the craft vanished from view - and radio contact - in an expected 40-minute flyby. (BBC live coverage)

📣 Donald Trump’s threatened destruction of Iran’s power plants and bridges could constitute a war crime, experts have warned, as the US President reiterated his social media threats in a press conference yesterday, and his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz looms.

Trump said yesterday he was “not at all” concerned about the possibility of committing war crimes and that every power plant in Iran would be “burning, exploding and never to be used again” should Iran not bow to his demands today. His remarks followed a bizarre and expletive-laced threat on social media posted on Sunday. (AP)

📣 Defence jobs are taking centre stage in the Scottish election campaign, with the GMB union calling for the Navantia - formerly Harland and Wolff - yard in Fife to be awarded a contract to build new dry docks for the UK’s submarine fleet. Louise Gilmour, the union’s secretary in Scotland, says the contract would secure the yard’s future. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

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📣 The Scottish Prison Service is being urged to remove all biologically male prisoners from women’s jails after claims from ex-prisoners that one woman became pregnant. (Daily Record)

📣 CalMac’s troubled Glen Sannox ferry - one of those hugely delayed Ferguson Marine ships, finally launched only 15 months ago - is out of action again, until later today at the earliest. (BBC)

📣 Scots could face disruption to their summer holidays because of jet fuel shortages, a Scottish academic has warned. (STV)

📣 A record number of children are reporting “sextortion” attempts, with campaigners urging tech companies to do more to prevent it happening. (Guardian)

📣 More than 1,700 people claim they fell ill during holidays in Cape Verde, and have joined legal action against travel company Tui. Lawyers believe at least eight Britons have died after holidays there in recent years. (BBC)

📣 Waitrose is facing a public outcry after it sacked an employee of 17 years after he tackled a shoplifter attempting to steal Easter eggs. (Sky News)

📣 US Vice President JD Vance is expected in Hungary today to back Prime Minister Viktor Orban, seen as a key European ally of the Trump administration. (BBC)

📣 Ukrainian forces are stopping Russians “cold” on the front lines and Vladimir Putin no longer has the upper hand in the war, ex CIA director David Patraeus has said. (CBS News)

⚽️ World Cup ticket prices are getting absurd: one for a Uruguay game was on sale for nearly $1 million (no news of whether it sold, mind you) while some Scotland tickets are going for £44,000, notes Alan Pattullo. “Stop the count,” he says. (Scotsman)

⚽️ If Rangers were to win the Scottish title they could move straight to the Champions League league phase, bypassing the qualifying stages which have proved such a minefield for Scottish clubs. It’s all because of their strong European form in recent years - and some results in Greece. (BBC)

⚽️ Fears of crowd trouble are likely to rule out a high-stakes Old Firm game on the last day of the season, a former SPFL official says. (Daily Record)

🗣️ Are there signs the Scottish election race - polling day now a month away - is warming up? There are certainly some signs that (opinion) poll ratings are on the move: Norstat, for the Sunday Times, was a clear illustration that many Scots have yet to make up their minds who to vote for on May 7th.

The biggest headline was the slump in support for Reform UK, to 15% (-4%) in constituencies and regional lists. The consensus has been the party is paying the price for a chaotic start to their Holyrood campaign under Lord Malcolm Offord.

As the Record’s Paul Hutcheon wrote last week, eight Reform candidates have already quit the race early on for one reason or another. With a press officer having also bailed, and the contents of his own revolting “joke” about George Michael becoming one of the more noteworthy early election stories, “the sails have come off Malcolm Offord’s yacht.”

If Reform have slumped, Labour have bumped up to 19% - up two points in the constituencies, although flat on regional lists - to take the lead for second place.

That’s enough to make talk of Anas Sarwar’s route to becoming First Minister sound a little less… unhinged. Indeed, Kenny Farquharson devotes his column today to the potential for Labour to strike a deal with Reform, in the wake of last week’s report in The Scotsman that just such a possibility was on the cards.

He accuses Sarwar of offering a classic “non-denial denial” when he said: “Let me make it absolutely, fundamentally clear. No coalition, no deals, no stitch-ups. We are not going to touch Reform”.

And while those sympathetic to Sarwar might wonder what the Scottish Labour leader has to say to persuade Farquharson and others he doesn’t want to work with Reform, the columnist’s point is nuanced: Reform could just decide to back Sarwar to be First Minister, on the basis they want the SNP out, and that would be enough. No deal would be required.

In those circumstances, writes Farquharson, Sarwar should elect not to run for the top job: that would, he says, be the “morally correct thing to do”. Instead, he should seek a “grand coalition” of the SNP and Labour, to freeze out Farage.

That would mean Swinney, not Sarwar, in the top job. But it would avoid being at Farage’s mercy, avoid handing Reform a seat at the top table, and avoid “damn[ing] the party in Scotland for generations”.

All this, of course, continues a dance: a dance necessary to maintain some suspense in this story, which is otherwise dominated by a key fact: the SNP is all but certain to win. Indeed, the SNP may well win more than double the seats of any other party, and could yet win an outright majority.

The quirks of our electoral system mean that Reform’s slide could actually be bad news for the SNP. And, as Alex Massie points out in his analysis of the polling, a slip in performance could still see John Swinney return as First Minister, and then face speculation over how long he can remain in office.

There remain, then, a lot of ifs, buts and maybes. And yes, this is only one poll. But what it highlights is that there is still something for all the parties to play for as we enter the main part of the campaign. There may be more twists and turns to come.

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