THE BIG STORIES
Markets continue their Trump slide - what happens next? | College cash crunch | Peerage for Jack

📣 The dollar is becoming worth less and less, while stock markets in Asia slumped again overnight, as the turmoil from Trump’s tariffs - even after this week’s partial unwinding - continues to bite. Gold has hit a record high.

The latest turmoil largely stems from the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, the US and China. The US is now placing a staggering 125% levy on Chinese imports. China has retaliated with an 84% levy. (Ongoing BBC coverage)

• The US and Chinese economies are vast, and intertwined. A full trade war would be catastrophic. So what’s Trump’s endgame? (CNN)

• European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen used an FT interview to warn the EU could use taxes on digital advertising revenue as leverage in trade talks with the US (FT £).

• US government debt - long a safe haven for investors - is now trading as a risky asset. It’s a huge warning to Donald Trump. (🎁Bloomberg gift link)

• As Trump alienates allies , China is poised to exploit the gaps (AP)

• EU finance ministers are “brainstorming” today on ways to get a US trade deal (Yahoo Finance)

📣 The majority of colleges in Scotland have been told they will face real-terms funding cuts for this year. The Scottish Funding Council says funding will increase by 2.6 per cent from last year, below inflation at 2.8 per cent. It comes in the wake of a 17 per cent real-terms cut in funding for Scotland's colleges since 2021/22, which has left some in a perilous position. (Scotsman) (Herald)

📣 Former Scottish secretary Sir Alister Jack will receive one of the peerages handed out in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list, to be announced later today. His former cabinet colleague, Michael Gove, is also on the short list. The Financial Times (£) has the exclusive.

FROM THE WEEKLIES
What they’re saying… about anything other than Trump’s tariffs

We usually round up the big reads in the weekly magazines here. But I think we’ve probably had enough on tariffs. The key lines on that are above. Here, we’ll focus on some of the other interesting things they’re saying this week…

🗣️ Dead Man carries real heft in British politics. Dead Man - he died after the 2019 General Election - is a right-wing man who wanted Brexit. He was key to the referendum result in 2016. These days, he’s holding the Labour party back from moving too close, too quickly, to Europe. He stops the Tories offering too much to well-off southern England. His departure to Reform keeps both parties awake at night. All that, despite being dead, the demographics show. “British politics is shackled to a corpse. Undoing those chains would leave everyone better off,” says The Economist (£).

🗣️If you’re interested in Facebook’s influence on the world, you’ll want to read Sarah Wynn-Williams’ book about it, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work. Wynn-Williams’ view of the company is clear from the title, says reviewer Megan Gibson, her book offering a vivid picture of “Facebook’s ‘rotten’ corporate culture, its disregard for political and social consequences, and, most of all, the recklessness of Zuckerberg and his top executives, the careless people of the book’s title.” Meta went to lengths to damage the book’s chances. It’s on my reading list. (New Statesman £)

🗣️What should the US do about China? (And no, this has nothing to do with tariffs). A thoughtful essay in Foreign Affairs says the US has been complacent for too long, underestimating China in a variety of ways. The path to success lies, say authors Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, in multinational alliances and new ways of working together with other, like-minded nations. That is, of course, a long way from where Trump is now. But they say it’s the only way for the US to overcome the most formidable competitor it has ever faced. (Foreign Affairs)

🗣️The young rich are, according to Louise Perry in The Spectator, fleeing to Dubai. High earners in the UK are having to pay ever-higher amounts of tax, needing a household income of more than £200,000 a year “to afford a family home in the Home Counties, private school fees and holidays twice a year,” she writes. “Now look at what Dubai offers to such people: no income tax, no capital gains tax, no inheritance tax, very low levels of crime, and the opportunity to shoot up the socio-economic ladder with access to nannies and housekeepers and Middle Eastern branches of some of the top British public schools.” (Spectator £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Judges will rule on the definition of a “woman” next week, in a long-awaited Supreme Court judgment. The judgement will go a long way to deciding if trans women are due the same rights - including access to the same spaces - as born women. (Holyrood)

• NHS Fife has asked a judge to block the public live stream of the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal. (Daily Mail)

📣 Nicola Sturgeon has announced a live gig at the Usher Hall for October. (Holyrood)

📣 Demolition work at the Port Glasgow housing estate dubbed “Scotland’s Chernobyl” will begin in the next few weeks. (STV)

📣 All this balmy weather we’re enjoying? It’s going to end next week - rain, maybe even snow, says the Daily Record.

• An extreme warning for wildfires is in place. (Scotsman)

• See dramatic pictures of Scottish wildfires in recent days (Daily Record)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Thousands of women with advanced breast cancer in England and Wales are to be offered a “gamechanging” pill on the NHS after a U-turn by the medicines watchdog. There are calls for the Scottish Medicines Consortium to follow suit. (Guardian)

📣 The UK has announced another package of military support for Ukraine, this one worth £450 million. (BBC)

📣 Pat McFadden is cutting almost a third of officials at the Cabinet Office. Along with other reforms, the Cabinet Office says the cuts will save £110m a year by 2028. More than 500 voluntary exit packages have already been approved. (Civil Service World)

• Jobs in London - rather than in Scotland - will be prioritised for cuts (The Scotsman)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Six people, including a family of Spanish tourists, died when a sightseeing helicopter broke apart and crashed into the Hudson River adjacent to Manhattan. (Daily Mail)

🌎 Michelle Obama has addressed rumours she and her husband were getting divorced, after recent absences from official occasions, including the inauguration of Donald Trump, got the rumour mill spinning. “That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with like disappointing people […] they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.” (CNN)

🌎 More than 200 people are now known to have died in the Dominican Republic after a nightclub roof collapsed on Tuesday night. (CNN)

SPORT

⚽️ It was another extraordinary Thursday night at Ibrox, where a Rangers team incapable of overcoming modest domestic opposition again turned in an entirely different level of performance to hold in-form Athletic Bilbao to a 0-0 draw. That outcome was greeted as a win at Ibrox where Rangers had played almost the entire game with 10 men, following Robin Propper’s justified red card after 13 minutes. The big talking point was Liam Kelly’s outstanding performance in goal: he saved a penalty and made several other important saves to keep the tie alive next week in Spain. (BBC) (📽️ See the highlights)

⚽️ It was especially unfortunate that two Andre Onana howlers gave Lyon a 2-2 draw to take to Old Trafford next week. (Guardian) (📽️ See the highlights)

⚽️ Businessman Alan Savage is the preferred bidder for troubled Inverness Caledonian Thistle, the League One side in administration and which many had feared was headed for liquidation. Savage is a former club chairman and has been funding the club since last summer. (BBC)