In your briefing today:

📣 Microsoft is struggling to fix a vast global outage that has left users of its Microsoft 365 cloud services unable to access email, attend Teams meetings, use some PCs, consult the company’s Copilot AI service, or access 15 other services.

The company says the outage is not caused by a cyber-security incident, but its attempts to fix the issue are “not taking as expected”.

One technology expert has told the BBC that, if the outage is not caused by a cyber-attack, the issue must stem from “incredible incompetence”. Some parts of the world have now lost an entire working day to the problem which, at send time, had been running for around 12 hours. (BBC live coverage)

📣 A damning report into NHS Grampian has raised more concerns about the quality of the well-paid executives running the nation’s health service.

Under the spotlight this time is NHS Grampian Chief Executive Laura Skaife-Knight, who ordered a review into major problems at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin, but then misled that review.

She has subsequently apologised, but the inquiry says her misinformation caused “significant distress” to more junior staff who felt management was trying to shift blame for problems onto them.

The report concludes that “stronger leadership, clearer accountability, improved service integration, and a renewed focus on clinical governance are required to deliver sustained improvement across NHS Grampian.” (BBC)

📣 A vast number of sewage spills have been detected across Scotland after new monitoring equipment was installed, suggesting that a similarly huge number of spills went unrecorded for years.

Until 2024, only 6% of the Scottish Water network was monitored. The installation of 1,009 new monitors that year increased the proportion to 30%. That new kit has picked up 76,000 sewage spills into Scottish waterways, including our best-known rivers and at beauty spots such as Loch Lomond.

Scottish Water claims the vast majority of spills were not harmful to the environment.

The BBC’s coverage includes an interactive map which lets you see how many times sewage polluted a waterway near you. Only 12% of sewer overflows are legally required to report their data to Scottish Water’s regulator, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. (BBC)

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📣 The lawyer for a woman raped by former Scotland international footballer David Goodwillie says prosecutors made a “mistake” in not putting him on trial. (BBC)

📣 A woman has died after being hit by a van on Edinburgh city bypass: Police closed the road for 17 hours yesterday, causing widespread disruption. (STV)

📣 Foreign states could “meddle” in Scottish affairs, Conservatives have claimed, in a debate about rules which allow migrants with only temporary leave to remain to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament. (Mail)

📣 Jensen Huang resigned yesterday, the Nvidia CEO - and a central figure in the AI revolution - bowing to the inevitable after revelations of his affair with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy were compounded by reports of affairs with two more women. “It’s a stunning fall for one the most powerful figures of the A.I. boom.” (New York Times)

📣 Europe wants a seat at the Ukraine peace talks but leaders remain at odds over which country should take the lead. (AP) (Politico)

📣 Russell Brand has been accused of sexual misconduct by six more women. (Independent)

📣 Darth Vader’s lightsaber has sold for nearly $5 million. (Guardian)

⚽️ Scotland take on North Macedonia tonight: captain Andy Robertson will make history by equalling Kenny Dalglish’s caps record, while his side seek a first win under new boss Sebastien Pocognoli. (BBC)

🏉 Kyle Steyn wants Scotland to deliver a "real physical defensive performance" as they take on Australia at Murrayfield this weekend. (BBC)

⚽️ Crystal Palace have sacked manager Pierre Sage after only 16 games in charge, with the club anchored to the bottom of the Premier League. (BBC)

🗣️ A radical overhaul of the benefits system is likely to be proposed by a report coming out next Tuesday, authored by former Labour minister Alan Milburn. It could see some under-25s moved off the main sickness and disability benefits, with an effort - instead - to get them into work.

Tim Shipman says Pat McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was in a Job Centre in Bellshill, outside Glasgow, when he realised how urgent the task he had assigned to Milburn was.

“The area manager said to me she ran a network of 13 Job Centres across central and east Scotland,” McFadden tells Shipman. “Over 40 per cent of the young people that she was dealing with were what they call ‘on the health journey’, which is DWP’s term for either claiming or on the way to claiming long-term sickness benefits. That’s people under 25. I was really struck by that.”

“Tackling the welfare bill is not just about moral failure, societal decay or even saving money,” writes Shipman. “It poses several tests for the new government. Can an external expert, allied to a tenacious minister and a prime minister who needs some wins, galvanise an entire administration into action? Are Labour MPs really serious about making these difficult decisions? And is the British state even capable any more of delivering a joined-up reform programme?”

The political argument about to break out will be one of the defining ones of this government. (The Spectator)

🗣️ One of the reporters who exposed Russell Brand says she hopes his conviction will lead to a “Me too” moment for the UK - one she says has failed to arrive in Britain with full force.

“It is a familiar mistake – seen with Black Lives Matter – of assuming that a cultural shift in the US has swept through Britain at equal speed and to equal effect,” writes Rosamund Urwin, who led the Sunday Times’s investigation into Russell Brand.

“In reality, Me Too claimed some of the easier scalps – handsy ministers; businessmen who had behaved inappropriately in public towards staff – but it was never the movement that it was Stateside, as predators were toppled one after the other.”

She wants changes to the law in the wake of Brand’s conviction. “I hope the women who weren’t part of this trial aren’t forgotten,” writes Urwin. “As the media focus moves on, I hope that Brand’s conviction proves to be Britain’s true Me Too watershed moment.

“That we look at how media organisations have indulged heinous behaviour from male ‘stars’ and covered it up. That we acknowledge that while defence barristers are entitled to cross-examine in rape trials in a forensic way, complainants should be afforded the same level of civility as defendants. That we will question now whether it really should be legal for a 30-year-old adult to have a relationship with a 16-year-old child. Let’s not miss this opportunity for change.” (The New Statesman)

🗣️Greta Thunberg has become toxic to the climate movement, says Ross Clark: once, she was the fresh-faced “yoof voice” but in recent years she has moved on from climate campaigning which has, in her mind, “become a little passé now a more fashionable cause has come along.”

Clark’s jaundiced eye also extends to COP meetings which, says Clark, have become “fundamentally dishonest”.

“We have left-wing activists feigning interest in the climate but who really want to use it as a vehicle to finish off global capitalism,” he writes. (The Spectator)

🗣️You should expect an AI crash, the Economist says in a leader - but not necessarily a financial cataclysm.

A crunch is something we should worry about, it says. “History offers clues. Plenty of past technologies, from canals and railways to the internet, have brought market euphoria and then despair. Bets on them went wrong even though the underlying technologies proved revolutionary.”

But there are important differences between the AI boom and previous gold rushes: today’s speculation is funded largely by huge tech companies whose underlying businesses are highly profitable; it is built on equity, not debt.

“A furious political backlash could still interrupt the breakneck advance of AI. A financial crash probably won’t.” (Economist)

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