TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ It’ll be more of the same - dry, cloudy - for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen today, if a little more overcast in the east. London will be wet, and has a ⚠️ weather warning for thunderstorms. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Mass-murder-obsessed teen jailed | Reports of new massacre in Gaza | Trump’s swipe at Sturgeon |

📣 A murder-obsessed teenager who spoke of carrying out a mass shooting at an Edinburgh school has been jailed for six years.

Felix Winter, now aged 18, "idolised" the killers behind the 1999 Columbine High School atrocity in the US, and repeatedly spoke about mounting a similar attack. Winter, who also held racist and pro-Nazi views, admitted two charges at a hearing in February, but until now reporting restrictions had prevented his being named or pictured. (BBC) (Sun) (Record)

📣 There are claims of another massacre in Gaza: the latest, yesterday, saw at least 48 Palestinians killed and dozens more injured while waiting for food at a crossing in the Gaza Strip, according to a hospital that received the casualties. It was not immediately clear who fired on them, and there was no comment from the Israeli military, which controls the crossing. (AP)

• Countries are lining up to recognise Palestine as a state at September’s UN General Assembly. Canada will join France and UK in its push for a new state, while New Zealand and Australia indicated they could follow suit. (Guardian)

• Arab nations are telling Hamas to lay down its arms and surrender. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt called for the terrorist group to “disarm” and disband. (Independent)

📣 Donald Trump took a swipe at former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as he flew home from his long weekend here, calling her “terrible”, but continued to heap praise on John Swinney.

Sturgeon told the BBC the "feeling was mutual" and joked that she was upset it was "too late" to add Trump's endorsement to the front cover of her memoir, due to be released next month. (BBC)

• In an interview with a New York Post podcast, Trump also praised the absence of crime in Scotland, and suggested he could become First Minister if he wanted to. (Daily Record) (🎙️Pod Force One podcast)

IDEAS
The more people know about the Online Safety Act, the less they like it. But here is why it’s here to stay

🗣️ It’s not quite a week since the UK enacted new online safety rules, and debate is swirling about its provisions: long discussed, but poorly understood - or ignored entirely, it seems.

Online safety, it turns out, isn’t a particularly interesting topic until you find your favourite social media network or hobby chatroom can’t be accessed without an age check, or has simply been closed, because of legislation - the Online Safety Act - that’s been in the works for years.

And that is what has happened. X (nee Twitter) is demanding proof of age to view its increasingly irrelevant posts, as are countless sites that might carry content or discussion intended for adults online. Meanwhile niche and entirely innocent online forums say they face real jeopardy, too. For instance, earlier this year the creator of a near 20-year-old cycling forum has handed the site over to a collective of volunteers, rather than face personal liability for its contents on his own (an example cited in this piece in The Register about the act’s consequences).

The intention of the legislation, initiated way back in the time of Therea May’s government, is to protect children from inappropriate content online. “Technology platforms operating in the UK now have a legal duty to protect young people from some of the more dangerous forms of online content,” explains this primer from The Conversation. “This includes pornography, content that encourages, promotes, or provides instructions for violence, promotion of self-harm and eating disorders.”

It was motivated by several tragic stories about the impact of content - about self harm, or diet or dangerous pranks - on real, young lives. For instance, you may recall the tragic case of Molly Russell, the 14-year-old who took her own life after being sucked into a “vortex” of dark content on Pinterest and Instagram. Her story helped galvanise a sense that action was needed. Her father, Ian, became a vociferous and effective campaigner for tighter regulation.

The concern now, however, is that it has gone too far. Nigel Farage voiced the most newsworthy criticism, saying the new rules amounted to "state suppression of genuine free speech", and would be repealed by a Reform government. Technology secretary Peter Kyle retorted that Farage was "on the side" of predators like Jimmy Savile. Farage said Kyle's comments were "absolutely disgusting".

There has been higher-quality debate elsewhere, however. One professor of cybersecurity has written about the (many) concerns society should have about asking that people verify their identity and age before using some services online. “To make the online world safer for kids, technological measures have had an adverse effect on freedom,” writes Eerke Boiten. “As a result, additional online surveillance gets put in place for many of us. Creating additional sensitive databases of information also sets up targets for cybercriminals.

“Even more seriously,” he writes, “the ‘database state’ offers potential for the kind of repressive mass surveillance that privacy activists have been warning of for decades.”

Perhaps most damningly, commentators have been quick to point out that the new blocks on content are entirely ineffective in the face of even a moderately technically-capable child. There’s been a huge surge in demand for VPNs (virtual private networks), simple software services which bypass the checks. One VPN company has warned of “state overreach” in the legislation.

There is no shortage of newspaper columnists ready to agree. Sean Thomas in The Spectator (£) calls it “a total disaster: for online discourse, for the UK tech sector, and possibly for the future of free speech itself.”

Despite the backlash - including more than 433,000 signatures on a petition demanding its repeal - there is no sign of the government wanting to reverse the act’s provisions.

This week’s outbreak of Savile-based rhetoric may, indeed, make the politics of any u-turn very difficult indeed: “a masterclass in left-wing institution shrine-making,” in the words of Lara Brown, also in the Spectator (£).

All of which means the age checks and other restrictions may now be here to stay.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Flights to and from Edinburgh Airport appear to be back to normal this morning after yesterday’s "technical issue" at the National Air Traffic Services centre led to flight delays and cancellations late into the evening. (Mail) (BBC)

• Airlines are far from happy: there have been calls for the UK’s air traffic control boss to resign. (Guardian)

📣 An attempt to find out what MSPs have been trying (and failing) to claim on expenses was only partially successful - the Herald found out what items had been rejected, but not who’d made the claim, or for how much. (Herald £)

📣 A couple blamed for the closure of Altnabreac Station, one of Scotland’s remotest railway stations, have lost their civil case against Network Rail - after they failed to turn up in court, because they couldn’t get a train. (Mail)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned by retailers that tax rises in her autumn budget will drive up prices and damage the economy. Food inflation could hit 6% by the end of the year, they warn. (PA News)

📣 A man has been found guilty of assaulting two female police officers at Manchester Airport last year, breaking one’s nose, in an incident which went viral on social media at the time. (Sky News)

📣 Fears of tsunamis across the Pacific faded yesterday after a huge earthquake, but warnings remain in place for South American nations, and a volcano has erupted on the sparsely populated Kamchatka peninsula close to the epicentre. (Independent)

SPORT

⚽️ Rangers secured European football until after Christmas with a 1-1 draw against Panathinaikos last night, giving them a 3-1 aggregate win. (BBC)

Whether it’s Champions League, Europa League or Conference League football will be determined next, with Viktoria Plzen coming to Ibrox next Tuesday. Manager Russell Martin has urged his players to secure a seat at Europe’s top table. (Mail)

• Rangers’ performances against Panathinakos show there’s a lot of work still to be done. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Hibs welcome Midtjylland to Easter Road tonight, with their Europa League qualifying tie balanced at 1-1. The game kicks off at 8pm. (BBC)

⚽️ Dundee United take a 1-0 lead away to Luxembourg tonight for the second leg of their Europa Conference tie against UNA Strassen. (BBC)

⚽️ Celtic are on the verge of signing young Manchester City centre back Jahmai Simpson-Pusey on loan. He was last year’s player of the year in England’s Premier League 2. (The Sun)