In your briefing today:

📣 The UK government has relaxed sanctions on diesel and jet fuel refined from Russian oil as prices continue to rise. A new waiver begins today, and comes amid concerns about supplies of the fuels because of the US-Israel war with Iran, which has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. (BBC)

📣 John Swinney has been re-elected as Scotland’s first minister and has promised to “work every day to repay the trust” of the nation. He will be formally sworn in at the Court of Session in Edinburgh later today, after winning the leadership vote in Holyrood yesterday. (STV)

📣 UK supermarkets have been asked by the government to consider freezing the prices of some essential goods to protect the public from inflation caused by the crisis in the Middle East - a request retailers have rejected. The move by the UK Government echos an SNP election pledge to use its powers to fix prices on 20-50 items such as bread, milk and chicken. (Guardian)

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📣 A Scottish Green Party member says she was asked to stand down because of her student visa status, despite another candidate - Q Manivannan - continuing to run and be elected on a student visa. Sai Shradda Suresh Viswanathan, current president of the National Union of Students in Scotland, says she was “let down” by the party. (BBC)

📣 The father of the boy murdered at Irvine beach last year has branded his son’s killer “evil to the core” after 18-year-old Cole Turley admitted stabbing Kayden Moy to death. Two other youths have gone on trial at the High Court in Glasgow. (Daily Record)

📣 The landfill site in Fife that’s been on fire for more than a week was found to be “major non-compliant” by Scotland’s environmental watchdog. (The National has the exclusive)

📣 The UK is build “for a climate that no longer exists” and needs to make urgent changes to survive global heating, a report warns, with air conditioning needed in all care homes and hospitals within 10 years, and all schools within 25. Heatwaves are expected to exceed 40C in all parts of the UK by 2050. (Guardian)

📣 Fear is gripping Ebola-hit parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the death toll continues to rise. (BBC)

📣 Donald Trump’s MAGA still dominates the Republican party, if last night’s primary results are anything to go by. (Politico)

📣 Why did T rex have such tiny arms? No, not the setup for a dad joke… but a real scientific question. And how a study thinks it has the answer: the head became the weapon of choice. (Independent)

⚽️ Steve Clarke unveiled his Scotland squad yesterday: there were one or two surprises. Southampton striker Ross Stewart made the plane, a reward for a rich vein of form, while teenage winger Findlay Curtis - who’s had an outstanding half season on loan at Kilmarnock from Rangers - adds more youthful exuberance alongside Ben Gannon-Doak. But injured Tommy Conway misses out, as does Udinese midfielder Lennon Miller. (BBC)

⚽️ Arsenal are champions of England, confirmed as winners after Manchester City could only battle back to draw against Bournemouth last night. It’s the first time the North London side has lifted the title since 2004, and comes after four runners-up spots in a row, all under Spanish manager Mikel Arteta, in his first job as manager. (Guardian)

⚽️ Rangers chief executive Jim Gillespie has suggested more might need to be spent on Scottish VAR to improve standards of refereeing. (Mail)

⚽️ Southampton have been kicked out the play-off final, the match with football’s richest prize, after admitting spying on opponents last season. They plan to appeal. (Mirror live coverage)

🗣️ Calum Steele is a Celtic fan - but amid the euphoria of his side’s title win last weekend, he was also left “angry and embarrassed” by the actions of his fellow fans in the aftermath of the match.

“The cheers from my fellow supporters as we won the league for a historic 56th time lasted but seconds before 50-odd thousand booing voices took their place. The imbecilic sections of our support once again thought they were more important than the team they support and they poured onto the pitch to the disgust and anger of almost everyone else in the stadium – and again attracted all the wrong headlines for a club that is everything to so many.

“There is no denying there is a factional, entitled minority of Celtic fans who believe they are bigger than the club. I love them and loathe them in equal measure. For the relentless noise and obvious passion for the team, they are magnificent. For the loutishness, hostility towards other fans – who to them are plastics (not real) – and continual lawlessness, they are a stain on the club and we are better off without them.(The Herald)

🗣️The election of the Scottish Green Party’s Q Manivannan to Scotland’s parliament is an outrage, writes Euan McColm.

“Sworn in last week as an MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East, Manivannan is the new pin-up of the Scottish crank Left,” he writes. “A self-described ‘queer Tamil immigrant’, the politician enjoyed a lacklustre ‘career’ as a performance poet before pitching up at Holyrood, there to receive £77,000 a year.”

The problem is not his heritage, writes McColm. It’s that Q Manivannan is not a UK citizen, he writes. “Are we really to accept that the citizens of a country should be fine about the involvement of someone who isn’t a citizen in the creation of laws?

“Were a middle-class poet and UK citizen from Bearsden to pitch up in Tamil Nadu and seek election it would not only be forbidden, the Scottish Greens would be first to cry foul about colonial attitudes.

“Perhaps they can explain how precisely the election of a middle-class poet and Indian citizen from Tamil Nadu to represent Edinburgh, a city pock-marked by areas of deep deprivation, is different.” (Mail+ (£))

🗣️Scotland should want Andy Burnham as Prime Minister, writes Kenny Farquharson. He was first convinced by the Manchester mayor when he spoke, with rare ability, at an event in Edinburgh a few years ago. “I have seen with my own eyes that Burnham has the ability to speak directly to a Britain that has stopped listening to mainstream politicians,” he writes.

But there is more to him than that. His views are also right for the moment, thinks Farquarson. He “gets” devolution - “He understands what it means to have power exercised as close to the people as possible.” He understands that rewiring the British state is a big challenge worth the effort: “that the status quo of the British state cannot be relied upon to deliver for the poorest and marginalised”. Third, Farquharson believes “Burnham is probably the only politician in Britain capable of stopping Nigel Farage”.

“Burnham is liberal Britain’s last hope. Given the SNP’s likely reaction to a Farage premiership, perhaps the Union’s last hope too,” he writes. (The Times)

🗣️ Roz Foyer says the UK has to unshackle itself from a US it can no longer rely on. The STUC’s General Secretary writes that it’s time for the UK to reduce its economic and military reliance, looking to UK-based defence companies, pursuing greater economic sovereignty and forging new alliances.

“Whilst being far from consistent in their approaches, we have seen other world leaders such as Carney and Macron pivoting, at least in their rhetoric, towards greater sovereignty and adaptation to a multi-polar world,” she writes. “Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is offering a brand of domestic and international leadership of which we can only dream.

“We need to forge new alliances. That means building closer trading and defence partnerships with Europe as well as closer links with the Global South and less friction with China. Our future lies in diversified partnerships, not subservience to one increasingly unpredictable power.” (Herald (£))

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