TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ Only Glasgow sees rain today, in the morning before things get progressively better through the day. Edinburgh and Aberdeen are dry with sunny spells all day. London is sunny and hot, with a little cloud. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Trump arrives in Scotland this evening | Pronoun spat at tribunal | Former MP Mhairi Black leaves the SNP

📣 US President Donald Trump arrives in Scotland this evening, leaving behind concerns about Gaza, Ukraine, the dollar’s slide and questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein to visit his two golf resorts here, and open a new 18-hole course in Aberdeenshire. Although Trump will also meet UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, it’s unusual for a US president to so clearly promote their personal interests while in office, notes James Cook. (BBC) (Mail)

• A huge security operation is being ramped up for the visit (STV)

• Trump in Scotland: escaping Epstein? (Sky News)

• Scotland will have “a platform to make its voice heard” during the visit, First Minister John Swinney has said. (Scotsman) (Daily Record)

• John Swinney - and Scotland - has an opportunity, should the visit be handled wisely, says Stephen Daisley. (Mail)

• “The truth is that Mr Trump has never shown the slightest interest in his mother’s actual homeland” - Lewis, writes Brian Wilson. “To be fair, Trump’s lack of interest in Lewis has been generously reciprocated,” he writes. (The Herald)

📣 A dispute over pronouns broke out at the ongoing employment tribunal between nurse Sandie Peggie and NHS Fife. Peggie’s lawyer, Naomi Cunningham, was accused by NHS Fife’s legal team of being “offensive” by continuing to refer to Dr Beth Upton as a man and told she must use “appropriate language”.

Lawyers on both sides expressed concern about the fairness of proceedings, with Peggie’s legal team complaining about “asymmetry" in the tribunal’s treatment of both sides.” (Scotsman) (Herald)

• NHS Fife wanted to “punish” Peggie for her challenge to Dr Beth Upton’s presence in a women’s changing room, the tribunal heard. (Mail)

📣 Former SNP MP Mhairi Black has left the party, singling out “the capitulation on LGBT rights, trans rights in particular” as an issue that has driven her out. “There have just been too many times when I’ve thought ‘I don’t agree with what you’ve done there’, or the decision or strategy that has been arrived at,” she said. Black is bringing another show to this year’s Fringe. (The Herald has the exclusive)

• Andrew Learmonth: Once the future of the party, Black has now walked away. (Herald)

IDEAS FROM THE WEEKLY MAGAZINES
Badenoch isn’t working | How private equity ruined everything | The economics of AI-led superintelligence

🗣️ The New Statesman concludes: Kemi Badenoch isn’t working. The Tory leader was supposed to save her party, but now there’s a groundswell of opposition to her within the Conservatives: colleagues can’t wait until November, when she can finally be challenged under the party’s leadership rules, claims Will Lloyd in a long, detailed and fascinating read.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way: for a spell around four or five years ago, she was the future: “She presented herself as no nonsense, no compromise, combat read,” writes Lloyd. “She would rout the ‘woke mob’, shatter the ‘metropolitan elite’. She would restore sanity to art galleries and gender clinics across the land. Older Conservatives, the fundraisers and the media barons and the lords, purred in delight. If they squinted hard enough, the Lady came into view. They had found their saviour.”

But now “the job appears to have swallowed her” - the people who hailed her think he and her team are “lightweights and sycophants”, and she has turned out not to be who they thought she was. She also faces thinly-disguised racism in the smears directed at her from within her own party: a party which now thinks it has to go further right, angier and punchier, to see off the Reform threat. (New Statesman)

🗣️Private Equity has ruined Britain, says Gus Carter, snapping up assets from water companies to entire villages and then sweating them, if not to death then to a very uncertain future. Everyone else gets to pay the price. And it plays a huge part in British life: it makes “around £7 in every £100 generated for the British economy”.

That’s bad news when the Private Equity playbook is so brutal - a “bloodsport”, in the words of one of Carter’s interviewees. The organisations spot a troubled asset and swoop, buying it up and then - systematically and ruthlessly - squeezing out costs. Around 13% of a newly acquired business tends to be laid off within the first two years of a takeover. That’s because “growing a business is much harder than squeezing one”. (The Spectator £)

🗣️“For most of history the safest prediction has been that things will continue much as they are,” says The Economist. “But sometimes the future is unrecognisable.” And - guess what - we are in one of those moments, because in a few years AI will be better than the average human at all cognitive tasks. “You do not need to put high odds on them being right to see that their claim needs thinking through,” observes the magazine. “Were it to come true, the consequences would be as great as anything in the history of the world economy.”(The Economist £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Prestwick Airport has been fined more than £144,000 for failures that led to a worker’s death, when a faulty guardrail on a loading platform gave way. (BBC)

📣 A man has been arrested after an alleged shooting in the west of Edinburgh. A 23-year-old man was taken to hospital with injuries to his arm. Inquiries continue. (Edinburgh Live)

📣 Staff at “the world’s tallest cinema” - the Cineworld in Glasgow - have been told the cinema could be about to close, as landlords take back the property. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Health secretary Wes Streeting says today’s strike by resident doctors in England “undermines the union movement”, with the BMA’s decision to push for new strikes, after receiving a pay rise of 22%, “unreasonable” and “unprecedented”. (Guardian)

• The Prime Minister has made a direct appeal to doctors not to join the five days of industrial action. (The Times £)

📣 Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he is setting up a new left-wing political party to take on Sir Keir Starmer after claiming that “the system is rigged”. The new party - which has yet to be given a permanent name - is a joint venture with former Labour MP, Zarah Sultana. (Independent)

📣 Adult websites will need to check the age of UK-based users from today, as new regulations come into force. There are mixed views on whether the measures will protect children, as is intended. (BBC)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 France will become the first G7 nation to recognise a Palestinian state in September, President Emmanuel Macron has said. The decision drew ire from the US, which called it “reckless”, and Israel, which said it “rewards terror”. (BBC)

🌎 Clashes between Thailand and Cambodia have continued to escalate, with Thailand launching airstrikes as the death toll rises to at least 14. (AP)

🌎 The wrestler Hulk Hogan has died aged 71, with reports suggesting the entertainer had been unwell with heart problems for some time. (Mail)

• Dan Gelston: His death marks the end of an era of larger-than-life 1980s personalities (AP)

🌎 A US tech company executive who was caught on a big screen at a Coldplay concert embracing the company's CEO has resigned. The departure of Kristin Cabot, Astronomer's chief people officer, follows that of Andy Byron, the company's CEO, who left last week. (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️It was another good night for Scottish clubs in European competition, with both Hibs and Dundee United getting results which keep them in contention.

• Hibs’ head coach David Gray said his men were “outstanding to a man” as they won a useful first leg draw away to Midtjylland in Denmark, cheered on by 1,000 away fans. (BBC) (The Sun)

• Dundee United manager Jim Goodwin wasn’t happy with his “sloppy” side, but they still managed a narrow 1-0 win against UNA Strassen at a bouncing Tannadice. (BBC) (Daily Record)

⚽️ Dutch giants Ajax handed Celtic a “pre-season reality check” with a 5-1 drubbing in Como. Brendan Rodgers said the defeat showed the club needed some ambition in the transfer market, but “didn’t quite reflect the game”. (Daily Record)

• There were ugly scenes during the game as Celtic and Ajax fans clashed “despite the genteel surroundings in one of the most picturesque spots in European football”. (The Sun)

🚴‍♀️ Scottish cyclist Oscar Onley “produced the ride of his life” in the Tour de France’s toughest mountain stage, edging closer to a podium finish. He has one more summit finish to complete today, with third place within grasp: “We’ll give it everything,” he said. (Guardian)

• Oscar Onley could be the Tour de France’s most surprising podium finisher for years (The Athletic)