TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ A day much like yesterday: dry but cloudy in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, with the chance of some rain in the north late in the day. London will be dry too. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Earthquake triggers tsunami warnings around Pacific | Peggie denies “vindictive campaign” | Trump flies home

📣 What’s being estimated as the sixth-biggest earthquake ever recorded has sparked tsunami warnings around the Pacific. The quake hit overnight close to the sparsely populated Kamchatka Peninsula, and waves have already struck towns in Russia and the coast of Alaska.

The greater risk to life is now in nations surrounding the Pacific, with alerts likely to last long into the day today as the waves radiate out. In Japan, 1.9 million people have been told to evacuate to higher ground, including workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was badly damaged in an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Hawaii and the US West Coast are also on alert at send time, with 10-foot tsunami waves possible in Hawaii. Even New Zealand, thousands of miles to the south, is on alert for unusual waves and currents later today.

• Follow live coverage at the BBC, CNN and AP

📣 Nurse Sandie Peggie has denied waging a “vindictive campaign” against Dr Beth Upton during her second session of evidence at an employment tribunal she brought against Dr Upton and NHS Fife.

Peggie said comments regarding Upton - including asking for pictures of "the weirdo" on a night out - were made in dark humour.

The nurse also said racist jokes she made in a WhatsApp chat was humour intended to shock people. (BBC) (Mail)

• The counsel acting for NHS Fife accused Peggie of faking a "menstrual flood" in order to confront the doctor in the female changing rooms at work. (Express)

• Murdo Fraser MSP: Persecution of nurse reveals SNP as modern-day witch-burners (Scotsman)

📣 Donald Trump has flown home after a “whirlwind” visit to Scotland, during which he concluded a major trade deal with Europe, tightened a deadline for Russia to cease hostilities with Ukraine, met Keir Starmer and John Swinney, and opened a new golf course. (BBC)

• Trump hailed John Swinney as a “terrific guy” after their meeting. (Herald)

• The US President launched was critical of North Sea oil and gas taxes (Mail)

• Alison Campsie: What it’s like covering Donald Trump’s visit to Scotland (Scotsman)

• Trump is winning his trade war. What does that mean for the global economy? (New York Times - gift link)

IDEAS
How a lukewarm welcome for Swinney’s indyref plan makes clear the SNP leader’s conundrum

🗣️What should we make of John Swinney’s latest strategy for winning independence for Scotland? The First Minister used his column in the Daily Record earlier this week to set out what he hopes is the route to another referendum on Scotland’s future.

He pointed to the SNP winning a majority of Holyrood seats in 2011 as a successful trigger for the 2014 referendum. “That is the only mechanism that has been proven to deliver such a vote - so that is what we need to deliver again,” he wrote.

All very logical. But this wasn’t new news, however. Indeed, pro-independence newspaper The National splashed on similar-sounding plans earlier in the month. And, as the blog Wings over Scotland points out, that wasn’t even new news then: very similar promises have been made in the past, often on the front page of the same newspaper.

Swinney’s perennial bind is that permission for another indyref can only come from Westminster, and there are no signs that Keir Starmer - who will enjoy a commanding majority for years to come - is willing to relent and grant another poll, no matter the results in next year’s Holyrood elections. He described the case for independence as “the politics of yesteryear” while meeting Donald Trump this week.

Starmer may be right when he says voters have other things on their minds at the moment - the cost of living, and state of the NHS and other public services continue to loom large in opinion polls. But, as Kathleen Nutt writes in The Herald, support for independence remains at more than 50%: this isn’t an issue that’s going away any time soon, even if the SNP faces travails in government.

But what of Swinney’s tactics? Some pro-independence commentators are concerned the SNP also lacks the sort of springboard of success in government which it could call on in the run-up to the 2014 referendum. Writing in The National, SNP activist David Birkett says Swinney has “lost the dressing room” on the question of how to secure that referendum.

“When we repeat the call for independence, people will quite rightly ask what would we "amplify" now?” he asks. “We won our majority in 2011 because we were competent, collaborative, and effective. We delivered despite the composition of the parliament and limits of devolution. That gave us the credibility to ask for more.

“What successes do we have to point to from the 2021 to 2026 term?”

The challenge for Swinney is that there are few credible alternatives to secure that independence referendum and, of course, no guarantees his pro-independence preference would win if one was called. And while he tries to placate an increasingly impatient pro-indy base, Lucy Dunn in the Spectator points out his party faces similar problems to Starmer’s in London: it’s being squeezed from both left and right, by the Greens and - now - Reform, which offers an alternative “protest” vote for those “skunnered” by the alternatives.

Swinney might have steadied the SNP ship after the post-Sturgeon turmoil, but the question of how to secure the SNP’s founding purpose remains as tricky as ever to answer, and may be getting no easier.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scottish healthy life expectancy has fallen again, to a near ten-year low, with the Scottish Government being accused of mismanagement of the nation’s health. Women can now expect 60 years of healthy life; men only 59.6 years.

The numbers also show big discrepancies between council areas. Scots living in Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, and Perth and Kinross are expected to enjoy good health for longer. Those in North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Dundee and Glasgow have the lowest healthy life expectancy. (Scotsman) (Health and Care Scotland)

📣 Oscar Onley, the cyclist who equalled the best-ever finish by a Scot in the Tour de France, has been hailed as a hero in his hometown of Kelso. (BBC)

📣 Crime novelist Val McDermid has accused writers who protested against Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of book festivals of “staggering” levels of hypocrisy, “virtue signalling” and “jumping on a bandwagon.” The investment firm ended its 20-year sponsorship of the Edinburgh International Book Festival after protests from climate activists. (The Herald has the exclusive)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Foreign Secretary David Lammy hopes the UK's warning to Israel that it will recognise a Palestinian state in September will "affect the situation on the ground" and lead to a ceasefire in Gaza. The UK announced on Tuesday it would recognise a Palestinian state if Israel did not agree to a ceasefire and take further steps to end the war. (BBC)

• Benjamin Netanyahu said Keir Starmer was “appeasing terrorists” after his warning on Gaza. (Independent)

📣 President Trump has said the US will partner with Israel to open additional food centres in Gaza, although details of how the operation will work are scant. (AP)

📣 Football fans packed The Mall in London to salute England’s women footballers, who paraded the European Championships trophy. (Independent)

📣 Up to 40,000 new homes are to be built across England on disused railway land (BBC).

SPORT

⚽️ The heat is on, in a very literal sense, for Russell Martin and his Rangers side as they prepare for the second leg of their Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos.

They arrived yesterday with temperatures hitting 40 degrees in Athens and, writes John McGarry, “without a breath of wind in the air, it felt even hotter.” A win gives them a chance of a seat at Europe’s top table this season, and the millions that go with it. And it guarantees some form of group-stage football. (Mail)

• Rangers’ pursuit of Crystal Palace winger Jesurun Rak-Sakyi looks in trouble after the FA Cup winners’ manager, Oliver Glasner, said he couldn’t afford to lose any more players after a largely fruitless transfer window. (Record)

⚽️ Celtic are also having their tribulations in the transfer market: Marco Tilio is expected to leave after failing to do enough to convince manager Brendan Rodgers that he should stay. But Rodgers is reluctant to let him leave just yet, until another winger is brought in. (Sun)