TODAY’S WEATHER

🌧️ The heat of the weekend will become a memory - perhaps to the relief of many. It’s a wet start to the day for Glasgow and Edinburgh, although things will brighten later. Aberdeen starts dry, and sees the rain this afternoon. London sees no relief from the heat, though. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Summer heat is UK’s new normal | UN official’s warning on gender ruling | Trump’s second state visit

📣 It was a sweltering weekend for much of Scotland and the wider UK, and today the Met Office says this is the new normal for the country in its annual weather report. The UK now has a "notably different" climate to what it was just a few decades ago, its State of the UK Climate report says, with many more very hot days and many fewer very cold nights. (BBC) (Read the full report)

• Four people, including a 15-year-old boy, died across Scotland in separate incidents on Scotland’s hottest day of the year. (BBC)

📣 The United Nations’ special rapporteur on violence against women and girls has said there is no reason for the Scottish Government to delay acting on the landmark Supreme Court ruling on gender. Reem Alsalem said there was no “ambiguity” on what the UK’s highest court said, and urged the Scottish government to “actually get on with it and do it”. (The Sunday Times had the exclusive £) (Scotsman).

📣 Donald Trump will make an “unprecedented” second state visit to the UK between September 17 and 19, Buckingham Palace confirmed today. He will be hosted by the King at Windsor Castle, becoming the first US President to make two state visits to the UK. (AP)

SIX THINGS WE LEARNT OVER THE WEEKEND
Finding sense in the silly season: An urgent need for aircon | NHS stuck in pager era | Poetic AI “monster”

🗣️ We’re into silly season… that bit of the year which, when planning The Early Line, I’ve dreaded most. If the newsletter’s purpose is to flag what’s worth your time, just how tricky will it get when there’s less… good stuff around?

The silly season is driven by a few factors: the biggest being that everyone goes on holiday, from newsmakers themselves to the senior editors and journalists who usually cover them, leaving the poor souls who remain scrabbling around for whatever they can find.

Just as, at the corresponding (but shorter) Christmas/New Year lull, you’ll hear more fuss made of celebrities who have died - all that archive to run, memories to write up - you’ll find certain stories rise to the top in the summer: anything about the weather, of course, but also dodgy bits of survey-based research, “exclusive” interviews with politicians, and lots of old news desperately reheated.

Occasionally, a nugget appears. Let’s all try to ignore the rest.

With those caveats in mind, a few things that caught my eye this weekend…

🗣️Britain needs to get more serious about air conditioning, says John Burn Murdoch. Getting too hot isn’t just unpleasant, he notes: we sleep less well, making us less clever and less productive. More people die when temperatures go above 30 degrees. Yet Britain has a bad relationship with aircon, regarding it as an unnecessary extravagance (here’s an excellent example of that stern, if slightly red-faced, attitude). But rapidly rising temperatures and the rise of solar energy to power it all change the equation, says Murdoch. And he points out research that shows it’s some of society’s most vulnerable, not only the rich, who would benefit most from keeping things cool. (Financial Times £)

🗣️ The Observer broke The Salt Path story last week: news that one of the biggest books of the last few years, about a couple’s walk to salvation, was riddled with inaccuracies and omissions. The latest development: a farm owner who rented the couple his cider farm after reading The Salt Path now says he felt “gaslit” by them. Meanwhile, the title says the couple’s defence raises new questions. (All the Observer’s coverage)

🗣️NHS Scotland is shelling out millions for pagers, a freedom of information request has revealed. Data obtained by the Labour Party found health boards had spent at least £4,596,608 on pagers since 2018/19, with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spending almost £1.8 million and NHS Lothian spending close to £1 million. Some health boards didn’t respond to the FOI request (another recurring theme in Scotland).

The story raises at least two important issues: first, that our health service appears stuck in an analogue age, likely hindering efficiency and patient care, presenting another symptom of the need for reform. Second: it does make you feel old when the news report about pagers and fax machines has to include, quite appropriately, explanations of what the devices do, for readers too young to remember. Sigh. (Daily Record)

🗣️Some sports writing deserves to be fished out of the sports section and showcased. Here’s an example: Jonathan Liew on Amanda Anisimova’s nightmarish defeat at Wimbledon, in the women’s final, 6-0, 6-0.

“This is what a scream with no vowels sounds like. This is the weight of the soul leaving the body. The arms are no longer connected to the legs, the legs have been severed from the lungs, the lungs have lost contact with the heart and the heart is getting ghosted by the brain. Amanda Anisimova sits on her chair, baking in the heat, stewing in sadness. She dabs her face with a towel and hopes people won’t notice she’s wiping away tears.” (The Guardian)

🗣️Not now, Planet Earth. But it does appear the Earth’s rotation is speeding up this summer, shaving (a little) time off some midsummer days. (Time)

🗣️ A definition of artificial intelligence, comparing it to “a monster in the forest with a thousand voices”, is both poetic and a little disturbing, and went as viral as anything on Bluesky can. It’s worth half a minute of your time. (@joles.bsky.social‬)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 One of Scotland’s most notorious killers has been released after nearly 50 years in prison: Alexander Miller killed a boy and his sister and was held for 49 years in secure mental facilities. (Record)

📣 Surgeons and the British Heart Foundation have called for the Scottish Government to rethink plans to reorganise cardiac care, saying the plans run the risk of “significant unintended negative impacts on cardiology services”. (Herald)

📣 Assaults and threats of violence at Scottish bus stations have soared over the last year, with the Scottish Conservatives claiming the SNP’s “soft on crime” policies are to blame. (Scotsman)

📣 A B-listed Glasgow tenement which had lain derelict for five years after a fire, and collapsed at the weekend, was weeks away from being saved. (The Herald has the exclusive)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people on Sunday, including six children at a water collection point. (AP)

📣 The European Union will not retaliate with tariffs on $25 billion of US exports - at least, not yet - as officials try to secure a trade deal after President Donald Trump proposed 30% levies on European goods, starting next month. (Semafor)

📣 London Southend airport remains closed after a plane crashed “in a fireball” there yesterday afternoon. (BBC)

📣 Harry and Meghan - the Duke and Duchess of Sussex - have denied they were responsible for a leak which led photographers to capture “peace talks” between their staff and a representative of the King on a London club’s terrace. (Mail)

📣 Would you like to own a chunk of Mars? The biggest piece of the red planet on this planet - around 7% of all the known Martian debris on earth - is up for sale in an auction in New York. Expect to pay $2-$4 million. (AP)

SPORT

⛳️ Chris Gotterup landed the biggest trophy of his career, winning the Scottish Open. (Scotsman)

🎾World number one Jannik Sinner “roared back” from his defeat in the French Open to beat Carlos Alcaraz in yesterday’s Wimbledon final: a thrilling sporting contest which, given the ages of the protagonists, offers the tantalising prospect of years more of this to come. (The Guardian)

• See the winning moment (🎥 BBC)

⚽️Chelsea roared too: to be named World Club Champions, their 3-0 win over PSG as thumping as it was unexpected, with Cole Palmer scoring two of the goals and setting up the third. (Mail)

• Donald Trump gatecrashed Chelsea’s celebrations (🎥 Independent)

⚽️In the Euros, England’s women swept Wales aside 6-1 to set up a quarter-final against Sweden. (BBC)