In your briefing today:

📣 Donald Trump said he’d call Benjamin Netanyahu and “tell him not to retaliate”, but Israel and Iran have been exchanging strikes all night in the most serious escalation of violence in the Gulf since the start of their ceasefire in April.

The exchange was sparked by Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs early yesterday, which had come without warning and despite that US request for Israeli forces to stand down.

Iran now says it has targeted two military bases in Israel, and has promised a week of retaliation, while explosions have been heard in a number of Iranian cities. There are fears the region is being dragged back into all-out war. (AP)

📣 Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has called his friend JD Vance to tell him he was wrong to blame “an invasion of immigrants” for the murder of Henry Nowak. It’s the latest twist in a row that started with the US Vice President’s remarks, on Friday, in which he claimed the 18-year-old would still be alive if Europeans had “stood their ground”. Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, is UK-born. (Independent)

📣 A powerful earthquake has struck the Philippines overnight, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 200. Social media videos show buildings collapsing and schoolchildren screaming: the quake has struck on the first day of the new term. (BBC live coverage)

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📣 The SNP’s Westminster leader is under pressure to back a Commons inquiry into Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of party funds. (Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 The Scottish Information Commissioner will cap the number of appeals people can lodge to cope with a surge in cases. (Herald has the exclusive)

📣 There’s a “hunger crisis” in Scottish prisons, jail insiders are warning, with the daily food budget for a prisoner reported to be £4.27 per day. They claim “hungry prisons are dangerous prisons”, with shrinking portions a recipe for trouble. (Daily Record)

📣 Three men extradited from Scotland last year have admitted their involvement in the death of a Canadian man over an “unpaid bill”. (STV)

📣 Brexit has cost Britain up to £30 billion every year, former foreign secretary David Miliband has claimed. He called on the government to “give new political momentum” to closer ties with the EU. (Independent)

📣 An ex-model is due to make a string of allegations against former West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan on BBC Panorama tonight. Sullivan, who denies any wrongdoing, has stepped down from his roles with the football club to focus on suing the BBC. (Mirror)

📣 Donald Trump stormed out of an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press after a clash over his claims that elections for California governor and the presidency were “rigged”. (Guardian)

📣 How do you keep youth unemployment down? Ask the Dutch: their policy of “no dead ends” ensures every stage of a young person’s journey is designed to lead somewhere, writes Anna Holligan. (BBC)

📣 Saudi Arabia is scaling back its vast NEOM project - a huge, futuristic new city that is planned for the desert and was, at one point, going to cost more than $1 trillion to build. Even cancelling some of the building contracts will cost $16 billion. (Semafor has the exclusive)

⚽️ Scotland head into their first World Cup match in that most unusual of moods: heady optimism. For Keith Jackson, it’s all too much: “The only trouble with this is we’re going to need a bigger crash mat,” he writes. “Because what went on here in a sun-kissed New Jersey over the course of a sizzling late Saturday afternoon didn’t just set the temperatures soaring. It may very well have sent expectations rocketing into orbit too. And that’s a very dangerous place for Scottish hopes to go to.” (Daily Record)

⚽️ Denmark player Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch yesterday while playing Ukraine, but was conscious as he was taken from the field by medics. Eriksen, who had a defibrillator fitted in his chest after another incident against Finland in 2021, was said to be “doing well under the circumstances”. (Guardian)

🏎️ A flawless weekend from Kimi Antonelli saw the youngster win his fifth Formula 1 race in a row, after a chaotic end to the Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. (Sky Sports - report & 🎥 highlights)

🗣️ Rows about data centres are becoming commonplace around Scotland: regular readers will recall one, for Edinburgh, that was recently refused planning permission, and another planned for the Borders which has caused a stir because of its sheer scale.

Here, then, is an interesting read from Greig Cameron and Marieta Marinova on why we’re seeing these rows popping up more - with 20 large developments mooted around Scotland.

Part of the answer is that Scotland is a very logical place to put these power-hungry plants: we have a surplus of nearby renewable energy, and the climate is cool.

But campaigners say we don’t have any decent policy to address concerns about land, emissions, water, and power use, and want a moratorium until we do. They also say these vast sheds full of computers don’t provide many jobs, and note the difference between building infrastructure sheds and hosting the (more lucrative) intellectual leadership that uses their capabilities. (Sunday Times)

🗣️ The UK’s entire fleet of attack submarines is unfit for war and stuck in dock. All five of them - the Astute class of subs - are in dock awaiting maintenance and other repairs. Military experts warn that it leaves the UK’s subsea internet and power cables “dangerously vulnerable” to sabotage by Russian forces. (Mail on Sunday)

🗣️ More Murrell claims: it’s been alleged the disgraced former SNP Chief Executive, awaiting sentencing for embezzlement, years ago accepted a £50,000 cash donation to help an unnamed wealth businessman’s relative - also unnamed - become an MP. The claims were originally made by the late Alex Salmond, but will now intensify demands for an inquiry into what Murrell did, and who knew about it. (Sunday Mail)

🗣️ Four SNP ministers are jetting off to the World Cup: an open goal that opposition politicians are not refusing. That First Minister John Swinney is going is not an enormous surprise: his official trip will include “other commitments around investment and economic activity”. Sports minister Maree Todd will also argue her job means she should be there.

But eyebrows are being raised at transport minister Stephen Flynn and community care minister Alison Thewliss, who have been given special permission to bring forward their summer holidays and join the Tartan Army in a private capacity.

“I’ll be cheering on Scotland from home while backing our beleaguered hospitality sector, which has been hammered by the SNP,” sniffed Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay. (Scottish Mail on Sunday)

🗣️The great journalist Jon Snow, for so many years a fixture on Channel 4 News, has revealed he has Alzheimer’s.

His producer and editor of 17 years, Ben de Pear, writes a moving piece about going on one last job with Snow, where his professionalism of old comes to the fore and he discovers a story which - through his efforts - ends up making a material difference to an African community devastated by a toxic flood.

It’s a lovely tribute to an old colleague, but also a powerful piece on the impact of Alzheimer’s on those who suffer it, and the people around them. (Observer)

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