In your briefing today:

📣 Cuts are on their way: Scotland’s public spending will need to be reduced, Scotland’s new finance secretary, Jenny Gilruth, signalled yesterday. The largely unanswered question is which areas will face the axe.

Speaking on the BBC yesterday, Gilruth said newly-appointed Public Service Reform Secretary Ivan McKee would be “driving some of the efficiency” needed to tackle a £4.7 billion shortfall expected by 2029-30. She also suggested a lot of the work to identify cuts has already been done… just not yet announced.

But there is cross-party support for reducing the number of public sector bodies in Scotland: bad news for some quangos. (BBC) (Herald)

📣 The US and Iran are inching closer to a peace deal, sending global oil prices down, although there remains little firm detail on what will be included in that deal, or when it may actually be agreed.

Current suggestions are that it will not include anything on Iran’s highly enriched uranium, at the heart of the conflict. Instead, it would offer Iran sanctions relief and the unlocking of $20 billion in frozen assets in return for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the promise of negotiations on its nuclear programme. (Guardian)

📣 Today is likely to be the hottest May day on record in parts of the United Kingdom, as searing heat in parts of the country continues. Temperatures in parts of southern England are expected to reach 34 °C, smashing the previous high of 32.8 °C set more than 80 years ago. (BBC)

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📣 Former SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell is due to appear in court today, accused of embezzling £459,000 from the party over 12 years. (STV)

📣 A body has been found in the search for missing hillwalker Adam Chalmers who went missing on Saturday in the Ben Lawers mountain range. (Herald)

📣 A 19-year-old woman has been hospitalised with “serious injuries” after being hit by a tram in Edinburgh yesterday. (BBC)

📣 Keir Starmer says he’s “appalled” by the case of three teenage boys who have been spared jail after they raped two teenage girls. (BBC)

📣 Nigel Farage continues to face questions over his finances after he claimed Russian spies hacked his phone to expose a £5 million “gift” from a crypto billionaire. (Mirror)

📣 Firefighters are continuing to battle to prevent a disaster in a densely populated part of Southern California as a damaged chemical tank threatens to blow up or leak a poisonous gas. (AP)

📣 An RAF jet flying the defence secretary home had its signal jammed as it flew near the Russian border last week. (Sky News)

📣 Terrifying footage: a plane smashes into a paraglider high over the Austrian mountains, sending the paraglider spiralling down. The paraglider managed to deploy a parachute: the plane landed safely later. (Sun)

⚽️ West Ham were relegated after 14 seasons in the top flight: a 3-0 win over Leeds couldn’t save them, because rivals Tottenham also managed a win, against Everton. (Sky Sports)

⚽️ Rangers are expected to sign Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland in the next few days - the only outstanding issue is a medical. It’ll be seen as a huge transfer coup for the Glasgow club, and a bitter blow for Hearts, who’ll lose their talismanic striker after an outstanding season. (Sun) (BBC)

⚽️ Should Ollie McBurnie be going to the World Cup with Scotland? He scored the decisive goal in the Championship Play Off final at Wembley on Saturday - and quite a few people think he should be on the plane to the USA next. (BBC)

🏎️ Kimi Antonelli won the Canadian Grand Prix last night after teammate George Russell had to retire from a gripping contest with engine failure. (Guardian)

🗣️ Green MSP Q Manivannan isn’t quite who they say they are: Manivannan, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, caused a stir by getting elected on a student visa.

During the election, they said they are a “queer Tamil immigrant” from a “lower caste” background who would be a voice for the “working class and marginalised”. They said they had faced the “full force of digital, infrastructural, carceral, and affective violence in India”.

But some digging by The Sunday Times found a background that didn’t sound so bad. “Manivannan comes from an upper-middle-class household in Chennai, one of India’s wealthiest, most cosmopolitan cities.

“Manivannan attended both private high school and university,” the newspaper adds, “and went on to run a subsidiary of an Indian business that coaches the children of the super-rich to access the world’s elite institutions.” All that education didn’t make it onto Manivannan’s LinkedIn profile. The Greens want to ban private education. (Sunday Times)

🗣️Healthy life expectancy for women is now lower than for men in some parts of Scotland. Women in some of the poorest parts of the country now only live to 52 before suffering poor long-term health, illness or disability, according to Scottish Government numbers.

Reports the Sunday Post: “Experts point to several reasons – including women bearing the burden as family carers, not making enough time for themselves, working long hours in lower-paid and part-time work, and having little time to eat healthily.”

The areas include Scotland’s poorest: Dundee, North Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, West Dunbartonshire and Inverclyde. But even including Scotland’s most affluent areas, the healthy life expectancy for Scottish women, at 59, is four years less than counterparts in Europe. (Sunday Post)

🗣️ Try not to weep as you read what could have been built for the £100 billion cost of HS2. tl;dr: lots of roads, trams and… floral bridges. (Sunday Times)

🗣️There are high hopes for the Scottish Parliament’s new presiding officer, Kenny Gibson. Last weekend Alex Massie pointed out that Gibson has spent 19 years on the backbenches, which may raise concerns given the calibre of those who have been summoned to ministerial office in that time. He put it down to “Gibson’s intolerance for fools and preference for saying what he thinks. These are useful qualities for a presiding officer.”

This weekend, Euan McColm adds his voice of hope. “We will judge the new Presiding Officer by his actions but his election gives grounds for cautious optimism,” writes McColm. “Make no mistake, Gibson is a substantial politician. That he has spent the best part of three decades being passed over for promotion by leaders of his party is no reflection on his intellect.

“The thing that made the Scottish Parliament’s seventh Presiding Officer unsuitable for ministerial office is something that will serve him, and Holyrood, well: Kenny Gibson has no filter.

“Gibson does not merely say what he thinks, he shouts it. He has a finely tuned bullsh**-detector and an admirable history of pointing it in the direction of SNP ministers.” (Scotland on Sunday)

🗣️ Sometimes you read stories and find yourself muttering… what? Add this to the list: suggestions, backed by some evidence - or is it really conjecture? - that England goalkeeper Gordon Banks had his drink spiked by the CIA at the 1970 World Cup, with disastrous (sporting) consequences. No, really. It’s a ripping yarn, at the very least. (Observer)

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