TODAY’S WEATHER

☀️Another lovely day across Scotland, although cooler. Glasgow will have the best of it but Edinburgh and Aberdeen will remain dry and sunny. London will be overcast until the afternoon, but will remain dry. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Gunman kills Israeli embassy staff | Starmer’s u-turn on winter payments | M&S website down overnight

📣 A gunman shot and killed two Israeli embassy staff in Washington overnight as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. A suspect was arrested soon after: he chanted “Free, free Palestine” after he was handcuffed.

The Israeli Ambassador to the U.S said the couple killed were about to be engaged: the man had recently bought a ring, planning to propose next week in Jerusalem. (AP) (BBC) (Washington Post)

📣 Keir Starmer signalled a u-turn, of sorts, on his government’s wildly unpopular plans to cut winter fuel payments to pensioners. Speaking in the Commons, the Prime Minister said the threshold for payments would be reconsidered. However, it remains unclear if this change will take place in time for next winter, or how many pensioners will have their allowance restored. (Guardian)

• John Crace: Did Kemi Badenoch spot Starmer’s u-turn? (Guardian)

• Lloyd Evans: Badenoch responded well to Starmer’s u-turn (Spectator)

• Will Labour’s big u-turn be enough to quell a parliamentary rebellion? (LabourList)

📣 The Marks & Spencer website has been down all night as the retailer recovers from a cyber-attack over the Easter weekend which is expected to cost the company £300 million. (BBC)

• The attack was caused by “human error”, the chain’s Chief Executive Stuart Machin said yesterday. “Everyone is vulnerable. For us, we were unlucky on this particular day through some human error.” (ITV News)

IDEAS
Explained: Google’s AI leap forward will affect us all

🗣️ Big, fast shifts in what technology can do for us are relatively rare. I got pretty excited about wifi back in the day. I suspected the iPhone would change a lot of things. And, earlier than those developments, when Google was a fledgling search company, I managed to persuade my bosses to let me fly to California to find out what they were up to. I was pretty sure they’d turn out to be a big deal, because their search engine was light years better than the rest.

Well, they’ve been at it again. I’m pretty confident the astonishing series of bets Google unveiled on Tuesday - placing artificial intelligence at the heart of their search and mobile phone businesses - will prove as transformational as their original intervention in the search business.

A slick two-hour presentation at a tech industry event brought announcement after announcement. Examples:

• Clever AI agents that solve complex life problems, like finding a new apartment to rent for three housemates, that swap scrolling for hours through estate agent listings with a simpler, faster experience, built from a single simple prompt. It was even able to book viewings.

• A breathtaking live example of real-time speech translation between one person speaking English, another Spanish. The AI voice even mimicked the original speaker, providing a clear, instant translation.

• Amazingly detailed faux-photography created in Imagen 4, or similarly staggering full-motion video in Veo 3, with AI audio, sound effects and proper dialogue built right in.

Of course, some of these capabilities have been available in other services for a while. But Google’s secret sauce is its power to bake it into the world’s most popular search and phones, whether they want it or not, placing their AI at the heart of the internet experience for billions, worldwide, immediately. It’s right there, and it’s easy to use. Moreover, Google knows all about you - your interests, your places, your friends, your experiences. That gives it a big advantage by allowing it to personalise its responses.

What does it mean for you? If you have the time, watching some of the full video will let you marvel at the leap forward this technology has made (there’s also a 10-minute summary of the key bits). It might get you thinking about the implications for…. well… everything: for research, for shopping, for creativity, for entertainment, for science, for medicine. Many Early Line readers run businesses and organisations: immersing yourself in the optimism and possibility of this AI world can help you understand better what it might do to yours.

The impact will be profound, and not always good for us as business owners, workers and citizens. Yes, AI might make us more productive. But take the examples above: the apartment hunt will diminish the power of online estate agents such as Rightmove, making them mere information providers to all-powerful AI. Will that be good for their business? It’s hard to see how. Similarly, it isn’t easy to see how real photographers and translators benefit when AI can do their jobs.

And, while immersing in Google’s world, don’t expect any mention of the ethical concerns of AI models stealing the fruits of human endeavour while mugging those creatives of income. Or anything about wild AI “hallucinations” - such as those that saw one US newspaper print pages full of worthless AI “recommendations” for fake books.

But you will be able to start forming a picture of what is sure to be another rush of development in the digital revolution that is defining our age. And forewarned is forearmed, right?

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scottish councils are facing a budget shortfall of almost £650 million this year, caused by inflation, higher costs and high demand. (Scotsman)

📣 Islay’s famous whisky festival is being disrupted by problems with the island’s key ferry, MV Finlaggen, according to the island’s community council. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 Former Greenock Morton footballer Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has admitted trying to smuggle £600,000 worth of cannabis into the UK in suitcases belonging to his girlfriend and a friend. The club sacked the player when he was charged last year. (Mail)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Donald Trump ambushed South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting in the Oval Office, with claims of “genocide” against white South Africans. His claims were an echo of “white genocide” conspiracy theories, which have gained notoriety recently after Elon Musk’s AI bot, Grok, became obsessed by it.

Yesterday, Trump had staff play a video of Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, telling followers at a rally to “kill the farmer” and “kill the Boer”. Ramaphosa said Melama had no power and wasn’t part of the government. (Independent)

• The US has officially accepted a Boeing 747 “gift” from Qatar (BBC)

🌎 The launch of North Korea’s newest naval destroyer went horribly wrong, with the 5,000-ton vessel capsizing and sinking as “supreme leader” Kim Jong Un watched on. He declared the mishap a “serious accident and criminal act that could not have happened and could not be tolerated due to pure carelessness, irresponsibility, and unscientific empiricism.” (Mail)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰 STV plans to launch a new radio station in Scotland as part of a refreshed strategy for the media company. The new station will be aimed at 35-54-year-olds and - perhaps to the disappointment of those who’d love to see more speech-based competition for BBC Radio Scotland - will be built around mainstream music. (STV) (Herald £)

💰 A deal to sell Prestwick airport could be close after more than a decade of public ownership. (Scotsman)

💰 British designer Sir Jony Ive, famous for his work with Apple under Steve Jobs, will lead design for OpenAI as part of a $6.5 billion deal that sees io, the secretive AI hardware company he founded last year, acquired. (Design Week)

SPORT

⚽️ Scotland might be a co-host of Euro 2028, but we’ll still have to qualify for it, alongside fellow hosts England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. There will be two guaranteed places for host nations, should all four fail to make it through their results, but there is the possibility of the party going ahead without our team being invited… (STV)

⚽️ The all-English Europa League cup final was an utterly dire affair, but Spurs fans won’t mind. The game was settled by a bundled Brennan Johnson effort in the 42nd minute that looked more like an own goal off Luke Shaw, but it allowed Ange Postecoglou to maintain his record of winning a trophy in his second season at a club, and ended a long wait for silverwear at the North London club. (Guardian)

• Once, Tottenham “could be relied upon to fix your team’s problems by losing to you. Not any more,” writes Oliver Holt. “For United, there was no consolation. They were abject. Utterly abject. Their performance had no redeeming features. They were an embarrassment to themselves and to their fans, to Sir Alex Ferguson, who was watching in the stands, to their glorious history and to English football.” (Daily Mail)

⚽️ The rumour mill says Steven Gerrard’s path back to Ibrox is clear as rival Russell Martin prepares to take the seat at freshly-relegated Leicester City. (Sun)