In your briefing today:

📣 It’s the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Zelenskyy, has told the BBC that Putin has already started WW3, and must be stopped. “Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves,” he says. (BBC)

📣 Close to £100 million has been paid out in NHS Scotland maternity negligence claims over the last five years - even as the country records the lowest birth rate since records began. FOI data obtained by the Herald has revealed the huge payouts and costs, with maternity and obstetric negligence claims accounting for 43% of all NHS compensation payments over the last four years. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 Robert Aramayo was the surprise winner at last night’s Baftas, the I Swear actor winning the top acting award, along with the “rising star” gong. Jessie Buckley won best actress, for her portrayal of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes in Hamnet. The big winner was One Battle After Another, the counterculture comedy, which won six awards, including best film. (Guardian) (BBC)

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📣 Violence against teachers remains “widespread” in Aberdeenshire, according to a teaching union, with more than a quarter of its members assaulted in the past year, and a third seeing violence daily. (BBC)

📣 A diesel spill in Perthshire is clearing - but water for the village of Killin is still not safe to drink after the River Dochart was polluted in what appears to have been a botched robbery. (BBC)

📣 Scottish businesses are warning they are “bleeding to death” because of “Victorian-era taxation” - with a holiday lodge owner, facing a vast increase in business rates, sounding the latest alarm. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 CalMac’s latest ferry has arrived in Scotland after a 3,000 nautical mile voyage from Turkey. The MV Isle of Islay

📣 After Real Madrid’s Vinicius said he was the victim of racist abuse against Benfica last week, there’s been a rash of reports of racism aimed at professional footballers in the UK in the last 48 hours.

📣 Prince William has been “quietly drawing up plans to revolutionise the monarchy” with a new “corporate-like structure” to increase its accountability. (The Mirror has the exclusive)

📣 The EU says it expects the US to honour a trade deal and not raise taxes, after President Donald Trump lost a Supreme Court case over his tariffs. (AP)

📣 Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency and end the indefinite leave to remain, under plans to be announced today. Nigel Farage’s party wants to deport up to 288,000 people a year under proposals that have been branded “fundamentally un-British”. (Independent)

📣 Violence has erupted across Mexico after a drug cartel leader was killed by the army. (AP)

⚽️ The consensus had been that Hearts would struggle with the pressure of leading the Premiership pack: could it be the Old Firm will collapse from the pace of the chase, instead? That’s what pundit Michael Stewart is saying. (BBC)

On the field, Scotland’s iffy-VAR was again in the spotlight.

⚽️ Are managers being put off taking jobs mid-season after Wilfried Nancy’s implosion at Celtic? Aberdeen are facing “unforeseen circumstances” in their 50-day-long search for a new boss: many leading candidates want a full pre-season, Chairman Dave Cormack has revealed. (Herald)

⚽️ Arsenal won the North London derby at a canter, in the end: 4-1, with doubles for Eze and Gyökeres. (Report & highlights - BBC)

🏉 Scotland find themselves with a chance: two games to go, and a tilt at the Six Nations title still possible, after that thrilling, late win in Cardiff on Saturday. But those games are biggies, against France at home and Ireland away. (Scotsman)

🗣️ The Alba Party is in trouble - just how deep isn’t quite clear. On Saturday night, the Herald was definitive: the party, founded by Alex Salmond and now led by Kenny MacAskill, hadn’t been able to register with the Electoral Commission in time for the Scottish elections in May. The party, grappling with “financial irregularities”, was going to find the election “beyond our resources”, according to an email sent by MacAskill. (The Herald)

But… the situation developed through yesterday. By the end, four well-known senior party members - Tommy Sheridan, Angus MacNeil, Christina Hendry and Suzanne Blackley - were offering to take the party over and fight the election. (X / Twitter)

Quite how that would work isn’t clear: MacAskill says he remains leader, and the party needs “to meet the bills that we have”. There isn’t money to pay deposits, or campaign, he says. (BBC)

🗣️The furious row around Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, continued.

🗣️ It’s a grimly difficult job market for graduates. We’d known things were difficult, but these stats caught the eye: the number of graduate jobs offered by Britain’s top 100 employers has fallen by a quarter in just three years. And, to make matters worse, multiple years of graduates are now competing for the same jobs.

Causes aren’t clear, but may be more to do with the economy and specific industries struggling, rather than AI (the impact of which has yet to land) or the quality of candidates. (Sunday Times - 🎁 gift link)

🗣️Britain may face higher tariffs in trade with the US. Donald Trump announced a global 15% tariff, after his original country-specific tariffs, which ranged from 10% to 50%, were ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court. The move left exporters “dismayed”, with a warning that because the rates are global, there’s no room for negotiation this time. (Telegraph £)

🗣️ A rising number of deaths are being linked to weight loss injections - although that increase doesn’t mean the drugs are killing people - only that they might have played a part, reports the Sunday Post.

More than 300,000 people in Scotland now take the injections, and they’ve been linked to 168 deaths - 62 of those happening since June 24 last year. (Sunday Post)

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