In your briefing today:

📣 Donald Trump has imposed sweeping new tariffs on more than 80 countries, including the UK, to replace a 10% global duty that was due to expire. The move has sparked a wave of criticism from US allies and major trading partners: his administration applied the charges under cover of legislation designed to punish countries that use forced labour. (Guardian)

📣 Andy Burnham is ready to “move quickly” to scale up North Sea oil and gas production, with approval expected to be given for production from the Jackdaw and Rosebank developments within weeks.

The move, it’s claimed, would come soon after a consultation period ends, with one source telling the Times Burnham would want to “reap the benefits” of the schemes quickly, as part of his cost-of-living policy blitz. The developments could be producing oil and gas by October, if approved next month. (Times)

📣 The King and Queen emerged from a Tardis “piloted” by Sir Chris Hoy at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony last night in Glasgow, which also featured Nessie, the Glasgow Central clock and singer Callum Beattie singing Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.

The Scotland team won a standing ovation when they emerged, part of a parade of all 74 competing nations and territories. (BBC) (🎥 Mail)

Over 4 million people have had the same lightbulb moment.

Morning Brew is a free daily newsletter that breaks down what's happening in business, finance, and tech — clearly, quickly, and with enough personality to make it the best email in your inbox.

No yelling. No filler. Just the news, finally making sense.

Try it for free

📣 Locals say a wildfire in the Cairngorms which had been reported as contained has flared up once more, after the wind direction changed. The fire has already left a huge swathe of the area blackened. (STV)

📣 Edinburgh’s new tourist tax comes into effect today: visitors will be an additional 5% levy on their overnight stays. (BBC)

📣 Women’s groups have called for a full investigation into a police officer who took his own life earlier this year, and is now thought to have carried out a series of sexual assaults and attempted murders over a 14-year period. (Daily Record)

📣 CalMac have paused visits to the bridges of their vessels after one passenger used smart glasses to film without permission. (Ayrshire Weekly Press)

📣 Security experts have claimed all five AI models they tested tried to go rogue and hack their way around security controls they had put in place during tests. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned AI is now a “clear and present danger” to Britain’s national security. (Mail)

📣 Andy Burnham has placed England’s early prisoner release scheme on hold amid anger that two people involved in the death of PC Andrew Harper could be freed within months. Around 5,000 prisoners would have been freed from September, as part of an effort to reduce overcrowding in prisons. (Independent)

📣 The UK is complacent about the threat of war, the boss of a defence contractor BAE Systems has warned. (BBC)

⚽️ Motherwell took a step towards the European Conference League proper with an excellent win over Havnar Boltfelag at a packed Fir Park. Despite losing their manager and two key players in the summer, fans were entertained by a side still playing with the verve that lit up the Premiership last season. Martin Moormann scored on his debut, and Lukas Fadinger was assisted by another debutant, Mikey Booth, for the second. (BBC)

⚽️ Hibs, however, slumped to an embarrassing 2-0 reversal to Kosovan minnows Malisheva, also in the Conference League qualifiers. The best that can be said of this performance is that - surely - things can only be better when they host the return leg at Easter Road next Thursday. (BBC) (Highlights)

⚽️ Rangers have signed Partizan Belgrade captain and Serbian international midfielder Vanja Dragojevic for £4.6 million. (Daily Record) (BBC)

🗣️ India is in the grip of a Gen Z revolt, with a satirical “cockroach” party becoming one of the world’s largest youth movements. Viren Naidu paints a vivid picture of a restless young generation in India, a country with the largest youth population in the world - more than 370 million people aged between 15 and 29. And now many of them are pissed off.

The problem came after a medical exam scandal, and the comments of the Chief Justice of India, during a Supreme Court hearing, who likened young Indians to “cockroaches”, implying their careers lacked purpose and direction.

“Thirty-year-old communication professional Abhijeet Dipke voiced his outrage online. He posted on X: ‘What if all the cockroaches came together?’,” reports Naidu. “What was intended as a jibe at the government resonated with millions.

“Thus a political symbol was born. We are used to symbols that evoke pride – doves, flowers, lions – but a creature associated with nuisance and disgust resonated more.”

What happens next? Nobody’s quite sure. But it has revealed a generation of young Indians who are restless - and there are lots of them. (New Statesman)

🗣️ Tim Shipman reckons Andy Burnham’s being putting on a “centrist” act since arriving in Downing Street at the start of the week, but says he’s not fooling anyone. He’s already committed £340 million to tackle rough sleeping, and another £850 million to remove VAT from domestic electricity bills, plus £450 million to cap bus fares in England at £2. Then there’s implied additional spending on the MoD.

“A prominent figure on the Labour right observes: ‘0.7 per cent on aid, 3 per cent on defence, not touching the triple lock… energy bills capped, transport fares capped. You get to £50 billion very quickly,” writes Shipman. “‘And 1p on the basic rate of income tax raises you five to eight billion on a good day, under favourable circumstances, if you squeeze your eyes one way and keep your fingers crossed the other.’

“These are eye-watering sums of money, which imply very significant tax rises in the autumn Budget. However you cut it, this is on course to be the most economically left-wing government since the 1970s.” (Spectator)

🗣️The Economist wonders aloud this week: Should you be afraid of Elon Musk? The magazine has a long interview with the entrepreneur and engineer this week, so you can make up your own mind. But, in a leader, the newspaper invites you to draw a conclusion that, even if you’re not exactly afraid, you should certainly be wary.

They find a range of paradoxes in a man they call a genius: he’s powerful, yet believes he is powerless to stop AI exceeding the thinking capacity of humanity within five years, “and dwarfing it within ten”.

“Just as AIs will dominate the digital realm, so legions of AI-powered robots will dominate the physical world, he predicts. Against such relentless competition, he simply cannot imagine people holding their own. If so, AIs will not take orders from people any more than they would from chimpanzees.”

Yet he also calls for a fairly light form of self-regulation for the AI industry, backed rather than led by governments. And he also has a “dangerous fatalism” in which he “professes to lunge from ‘exhilaration to terror’ within a single day”. (Economist)

🗣️ The New World conducts a survey of devolved nations in the wake of Andy Burnham’s much-heralded “Manchesterism” and warns - it’s been tried elsewhere, and it’s not a magic fix.

In Mexico, an attempt at renewed federalism collapsed amid civil service resistance, high costs and the pandemic. In Italy there’s a little more success with five special autonomous regions, created in 1948, but it’s been a mixed bag. It was a violent disaster in the Philippines, the magazine reports.

And In France, there’s been a move towards decentralisation over the last 25 years. It’s proved popular, but it’s also produced a “two-speed France”: “the promise of rebalancing the country was only partially fulfilled”. (The New World)

Sent this by a friend?