TODAY’S WEATHER

🌤️ It’ll be more overcast in Glasgow and Edinburgh, although the odds of rain remain low. Aberdeen, Inverness and London will all enjoy a bright, dry and relatively mild day. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Trump shifts on Ukraine, and lambasts global leaders | Lib Dems’ rallying cry | Chat show host Kimmel returns

📣 President Trump appeared to dramatically shift his position on the war between Russia and Ukraine, and attacked the world’s diplomats, during a lengthy speech to the United Nations in New York that was followed by posts to his social media account.

Trump said Ukraine, with the support of Europe, was in a position to reclaim and regain all the territory it had lost.

That stance may offer him the freedom to step back from involvement in the conflict, which he once said he could solve in days.

During his UN speech, which ran four times over its planned length and was disrupted by a malfunctioning teleprompter, Trump told global leaders “your countries are going to hell” and called climate change a “con job”.

• Read the full transcript of Trump’s remarks (Foreign Policy) 🎥 See video excerpts (AP)

• The New York Times fact-checkers went through Trump’s speech, and found themselves busy. (🎁New York Times - gift link)

• Patrick Wintour: The US President’s speech made a mockery of UN values and highlights the need for strong anti-Trumpian alliances

• More reaction and analysis below ⬇️

📣 Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey offered a rallying cry to his party at their annual conference, painting the party as the bulwark against Nigel Farage and his Reform Party. (BBC)

• Chris Mason: Punchy Lib Dems use Reform UK as a call to action (BBC)

• Rafael Behr: Resisting Faragism offers the Lib Dems a rare clarity of purpose (Guardian)

• Andrew J Quinn: Scotland didn’t get a mention in Davey’s speech - that’s bizarre, given the Scottish Lib Dems could be kingmakers in a hung Scottish parliament next year. (Scotsman)

📣 US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel returned to air last night after his suspension from ABC over comments he made about far-right activist Charlie Kirk. He called government threats to silence comedians “anti-American” and, his voice breaking with emotion, said “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man”.

He also hit out at Donald Trump, saying the President “did his best to cancel me” but “instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show”. But more than 70 local affiliates of ABC refused to show the Kimmel show to their audiences. (Guardian)

• Watch Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue in full (YouTube)

IDEAS
Trump at the United Nations: a speech that left the world’s diplomats, and the institution itself, stunned

🗣️ Even by the standards of the Donald Trump show - and some people do think he runs the White House like a reality show - the last 48 hours have been a surreal, bewildering and even worrying time.

He followed up baseless comments about Tylenol on Monday with an extraordinary speech yesterday to the United Nations yesterday, where he took to the podium - minus a fully functioning autocue - for more than an hour, four times over his allotted time, to hector the world’s diplomats.

The New York Times (🎁gift link) offers a succinct summary: “He accused environmentalists of wanting to ‘kill all the cows.’ He personally insulted the Muslim mayor of London. He bashed allies and foes across the globe. He questioned whether the United Nations should even exist. […] ‘I’m really good at this stuff,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘Your countries are going to hell.’

It was shortly afterwards that he dropped his third plot twist: on social media, he announced a pivot on Ukraine by saying that, with the support of Europe and NATO, the country was “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.

“Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” he said.

What’s he up to? According to a diplomat from one Latin American country, quoted by Politico: “It was the guy who runs the most successful company telling other CEOs what they should do to make their companies more successful.”

That was putting it kindly. Trump, says Politico, “rambled to an extraordinary degree.” He “spouted an astonishing number of falsehoods […] such as suggesting that London was moving toward adopting Islamic law.

Another piece of Politico analysis compares this address with Trump’s first-term speech to the UN, where he railed against globalism and drew derisive laughter that - for a moment - put him off his remarks. “No one’s laughing now,” it notes.

That’s a line also used by Rob Crilly, the Telegraph’s chief US correspondent. He notes how the world has changed since that 2018 humiliation (🎁gift link). “That humiliation helped drive Mr Trump to turn his back on the UN and develop his America First movement,” says Crilly.

By contrast, today: “In front of him were delegates who now know that the Trump of 2018 is no longer just a brief aberration,” he writes. “They come from governments drawn from a new international populist movement or whose leaders know that working with Mr Trump is more fruitful than opposing him.”

The US political right was delighted with Trump’s remarks. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (🎁 gift link) said his candour has the advantage of speaking truths no one else dares to recognise - “such as telling the United Nations General Assembly that it is increasingly irrelevant.

“Mr. Trump isn’t so much rejecting the U.N. as noting the way it has become an obstacle to the peace, prosperity and universal human rights it claims to promote,” it says.

It also notes that delegates listened in silence this time. Trump’s White House may appear to be a sort of circus, with fresh storylines emerging every day, but it will have consequences for us all.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 John Swinney will ask Reform to back his final budget before the Holyrood elections, despite his attacks on the party. (Mail)

📣 The head of Scotland’s prison service has warned the system is “simmering on the brink of crisis” because of overcrowding and the threat of violence. (Scotsman)

📣 A rape victim has been stopped from watching her attacker’s parole hearing, where he’s requesting an early release from his jail sentence, because it would not be “fair” on him or “necessary in the interests of justice”. (Daily Record)

📣 More than £200,000 of whisky was accidentally flushed into the Clyde, after a distillery blunder. (The Sun)

📣 The FT casts an approving eye over a Scottish railway line - the line between Glasgow and East Kilbride, currently served by “decades-old, noisy, slow diesel trains” but shortly to see those replaced by quieter, faster and cleaner electric rolling stock.

It’s the latest beneficiary of a 10-year programme of investment, an approach which “contrasts with that in England." (Financial Times £)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 China and Hong Kong is braced for a “super typhoon” after 14 people were killed in Taiwan, with 129 others missing. (Sky News)

📣 A phone “spyware” scandal in Greece is deepening, with claims that Greek intelligence targeted the mobile phones of government ministers, senior military officers, judges and journalists. Yet the apparently huge scandal will break surface today only before a low-ranking judge, amid claims of a cover-up. (BBC)

📣 Rachel Reeves needs to break Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, the Institute for Government think tank has said, as the chancellor looks to fill a £30bn budget black hole. (Independent)

📣 Dani Dyer has had to pull out of Strictly Come Dancing after breaking her ankle in training. She said she was “heartbroken” at being unable to take part. (Mirror)

SPORT

⚽️ These are desperate days at Aberdeen: boss Jimmy Thelin says his Dons have hit their “rock bottom” after last night’s 2-0 defeat to Dundee United. They’ve played five league games this season and have one point, and not a single goal, to their names. He now thinks the pressure’s off as they head to Motherwell this Saturday - “the only thing we can do is become better”… (Daily Record)

⚽️ Hibs are, at least, an entertaining watch - and undefeated this season - but their head coach David Gray is also seeking answers after they could only earn a point after being 2-0 up at Falkirk. “We're creating enough chances, we're not being clinical enough to finish games off,” he said. (Scotsman)

⚽️ Scots are doing well abroad:

• Lennon Miller got his first start for Udinese last night after his £4.7 million move from Motherwell, and scored a goal. (Herald) (See the goal on X)

• And Billy Gilmour has also got what is (remarkably) his first club goal ever, scoring a fine winner opener for Napoli in their 3-2 over Pisa. (The Sun)