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Wednesday 5 August 2026
In your briefing today:
Donald Trump faces a strategic bind (of his own making) in the Gulf
Ugandan boxers who competed in the Commonwealth Games have gone missing in Scotland, and are expected to seek asylum
Rangers and Celtic are chasing the same £10 million + rated winger
Yesterday’s data centre piece got a lot of interest - readers follow up, and there are some new interesting pieces on the subject too.
TODAY’S WEATHER
🌦️ Expect rain all day in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. Aberdeen is dry until later, but has a ⚠️weather warning for thunderstorms. London will be bright and warm. (Here’s the UK forecast).
THE BIG STORIES
Trump’s Iran bind | Ugandan boxers missing after games | Elon Musk’s SpaceX revenues soar; shares slump
📣 Donald Trump has, once again, insisted overnight that the Hormuz Strait will open again “very soon” or Iran would be “hit very hard”, as oil prices fell to a three-week low in anticipation of a deal. (BBC)
But, in truth, the US finds itself in a strategic bind: a tit-for-tat conflict with Iran would be a political embarrassment for Trump. But a regional war in the Gulf would be a disaster both for the Middle East, and the global economy. The alternative to both options is peace with Iran, on Iran’s terms - including granting it a measure of control over the Strait of Hormuz. (Politico)
An angry Trump struggles to understand Iran’s defiant leaders (NY Times)
The US has used up nearly all of its long-range missiles in the war against Iran, raising concern about its preparedness for future conflicts. (Reuters)
📣 Four Ugandan boxers have gone missing after competing in Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games, amid speculation they plan to apply for asylum in the UK.
One of the missing boxers told Ugandan sports publication NBS Sport that “the athletes intend to seek asylum and continue their boxing careers in a country they believe offers better training facilities and opportunities.
“The boxer appealed to Ugandans for understanding and asked not to be judged for the decision.” (NBS News) (BBC) (Mail)
📣 SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI conglomerate, announced better-than-expected financial figures in its inaugural quarterly report, boasting much stronger revenue than analysts had predicted and lower losses.
But the company’s shares lost value after it said capital spending had also jumped.
SpaceX raised $86 billion in the largest stock-market debut of all time earlier this year. Since then its shares have plunged amid a broader sell-off in AI shares, wiping $1 billion from SpaceX’s market value and ensuring Musk’s status as the world’s first trillionaire was short-lived. (Bloomberg)
An abandoned SpaceX rocket is going to (accidentally) slam into the moon at high speed later today. It’s expected to leave a new crater. (Sky News)
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AROUND SCOTLAND
📣 The man accused of killing Elisabeth-Jane Ross and disposing of her body in a suitcase in Athens reportedly used a burner phone to pose as a jihadist who claimed to have killed her because of her Christian faith. Sharif Ahmadzai, 26, will appear in court later today. (PA)
📣 Hotel chain Travelodge’s security woes continue: a couple woke to find a shirtless man in their Dundee room after he was mistakenly given a keycard by reception; the guy argued with them about who was in the wrong room before leaving. (BBC)
📣 Scotland’s exam results were in yesterday: pass rates increased across the country, with the poverty-related attainment gap being narrowed compared to last year. (BBC)
Opposition parties have pointed out the attainment gap was supposed to have been eradicated by now. (Mail)
📣 An extraordinary story from the M74: a biker gang was attacked on Sunday by a masked and heavily-armed group of thugs who used “swords, bats and anything they could grab as a weapon”. Police are investigating. (Daily Record)
AROUND THE UK & WORLD
📣 It’s a nightmare made real: watch as a Ukrainian street vendor is pursued by a Russian drone, which explodes near him - injuring but, miraculously, not killing him. (🎥 BBC)
At least 14 people have been killed in overnight attacks on Kyiv (BBC)
📣 England’s early release scheme for prisoners, intended to relieve prison overcrowding, could release 9,000 domestic abusers early. (Daily Mail has the exclusive)
📣 The Metropolitan Police spent four months investigating a journalist who emailed questions to Jason Arday, a Cambridge academic accused of plagiarism. Arday has since been accused of plagiarism, which he denies, and making exaggerated claims about his sporting and fundraising achievements. (Times)
Stuart Campbell, who runs the Wings Over Scotland site, says he has been questioned by police under threat of arrest over comments he made on social media about a disgraced former police officer. (Wings Over Scotland)
📣 England is set for its worst harvest since records began in 1984. (Sky News)
📣 Water levels in the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river, are so low the rusting hulks of German battleships, scuttled towards the end of the Second World War, are coming into view. (🎥 AP)
SPORT
⚽️ Celtic and Rangers are chasing the same player: Frosinone winger Fares Ghedjemis. But it looks like their early bids aren’t going to be enough: someone will need to spend more than £10 million if they want the player. (Scotsman)
⚽️ Embattled FIFA President Gianni Infantino has called a crisis meeting of the organisation’s top brass as pressure continues to build on him, in the wake of his failed bid to sell off stakes in the World Cup. (Mail)
⚽️ Correcting an omission from yesterday: Amid my tech meltdown, I failed to tell Hibs and Motherwell fans which sides their teams had drawn in Europe.
Hibs will face either IFK Goteborg or Gent should they advance to the play-off round of the Conference League by beating North Macedonian side Shkendija.
Motherwell will face German Bundesliga opposition in Freiburg, in the same competition, if they beat HJK Helsinki.
Both ties would be stern tests, although you might favour Motherwell as the most likely to go through - if still as underdogs - given the quality of their football these days. (Scotsman)
⚽️ Portuguese midfielder Paulo Bernardo has left Celtic on loan to Polish side Gornik Zabrze for the season. (Sun)
IDEAS
Data centres and Scotland: readers respond, and two more terrific links shed light on the arguments
I imagine that many would warm to the idea of having a data centre in the vicinity if it meant getting their homes heated for nothing.”
🗣️ Yesterday’s piece on AI centres in Scotland - and the controversy they are attracting - sparked an unusual amount of interest from Early Liners. Suffice to say readers are split on the issue: some very much pro, some very much against.
Reader Jim writes: “I’m fascinated by the ongoing discussion about data centres in Scotland and agree that we need more data to evaluate claim and counterclaim.
“One point that seems obvious to me isn’t visible in the debate: potential uses of the ‘waste heat’ generated by these units.
Could developers not be obliged to build district heating systems into neighbouring communities, for example? I imagine that many would warm to the idea of having a data centre in the vicinity if it meant getting their homes heated for nothing.”
And a point of order from reader Chris, who writes: “That map of the proposed data centres in Scotland is wildly inaccurate at least as far as the Cowal Peninsula is concerned! It’s south of Kilellan Farm, between the Ardyne and the start of Loch Striven.”
🗣️Sometimes, it seems inevitable that the moment you write on a subject, several other excellent sources pop up with their own thoughts, which you’d definitely have included in the original piece if only… they’d appeared 24 hours earlier.
Given the level of interest among everyone on these new data centres, I’m going to go for an unprecedented second day on the topic… just so I can get two fantastic links in. I’ll do something else tomorrow, promise.
Molly Taft writes one of those luxurious long reads for Wired which are perfect with a cup of coffee, travelling through the US south to track down the - mostly far-right - anti-datacentre preachers, who are proselytising the evil of both the enormous structures themselves, and the AI systems they enable.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that the populist right knew something I didn’t - about AI, about Americans’ attitudes to tech and the built environment,” writes Taft, who clearly isn’t of the far right themselves.
What’s interesting isn’t just Taft’s story: it’s what is unsaid. Opposition to these centres is often far right, but not exclusively, with the hard left also raising concerns - albeit for different, sometimes environment-related, reasons.
But it’s another field in which the old left-right axis no longer really works: there’s another name, not yet invented, for a particular view of the world that’s sceptical that “progress” is, in fact, progress, and yearns for a different way of life.
Unfortunately, Taft’s story is behind Wired’s impenetrable paywall. But, if you’re really interested in the subject, you might find this piece is worth considering a subscription for. I doubt it’s Taft’s, or Wired’s, last contribution on the issue. (Wired (£))David Lawrence, in the progressive Arguably newsletter, builds a terrific argument in favour of data centres, pulling together some of the data that starts to fill in the blanks we noted as missing in yesterday’s edition
. For instance: energy use. A typical ChatGPT query takes less than half the (miniscule) amount of energy needed to power an LED bulb for five minutes. Even typing 75,000 words into an AI query - the maximum allowed - consumes less electricity than - say - watching TV for an hour.
But Lawrence also ends with a pretty balanced conclusion: he’s in favour of building more, but wouldn’t want to ruin our natural heritage and admits he wouldn’t like to live next to one. He doesn’t want public money to subsidise them - in fact, he’d like to see a flow of money from the developers to local communities.
A bit like reader Jim, quoted earlier, Lawrence sees public good coming from these huge developments. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our political leaders could negotiate us that sort of deal?
I’m afraid that Lawrence’s full piece is also behind a paywall. (Arguably (£))
👍 That’s your Early Line for the day
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