What happened
Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon claims that she feels “deceived, betrayed and lied to” after her estranged husband Peter Murrell admitted to embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP. The former CEO of the party this week pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh to misappropriating SNP money over a 12-year period.

Who said what
Speaking at a literary festival in County Kerry while promoting her memoir “Frankly”, Sturgeon described the aftermath of the case as the “worst week” of her life. She said she was struggling to reconcile the crimes with the man she believed she knew.

Sturgeon “still has questions to answer”, said Euan McColm in The Spectator. She “sold herself as a politician of uncommon integrity”, but “that’s all over now”. Her political career “has ended not only in failure, but profound shame”.

What next?
Scotland’s first minister John Swinney said he was “appalled” by Murrell’s actions, but rejected calls for a parliamentary inquiry, arguing that the police investigation had already been exhaustive. The former SNP chief executive remains in custody ahead of sentencing on 23 June. A hearing examining the facts of the case is scheduled for 2 June.

What happened
The British Museum has been criticised for postponing a lecture – part of the UK’s first Jewish culture month – over concerns about protesters.

The keeper of the museum’s Middle East department was due to explore the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah through artefacts today. But yesterday the museum said it had learned that a “significant proportion” of registered attendees intended to “deliberately disrupt the event”. It decided with organisers to delay the lecture until it could take place “without disruption”.

Who said what
The British Museum “fully recognises the importance of lawful protest”, said its statement. But “we have a responsibility” to ensure that events “can proceed safely” and “without intimidation”.

BBC historian and presenter Simon Schama said it sent a “terrible message”.

Kemi Badenoch said the government should tell the publicly funded institution to “do what’s necessary to put this event on”. “Jewish culture month is meant to promote awareness of and celebrate Jewish culture in the UK,” said the Conservative leader. “This decision achieves precisely the opposite.”

What next?
More than 100 events are scheduled to take place before the end of Jewish Culture month on 16 June.

The line between gaming culture and traditional storytelling is being blurred – one quest notification at a time – as readers get addicted to novels that combine sci-fi and fantasy narratives with features from video games.

These “gamified novels” are “going mainstream” and selling in their millions, according to The Economist.

Standing for “literary role-playing game”, LitRPG is a genre of fiction that combines a traditional story with the mechanics from role-playing games and video games. Although a Russian publisher insists that it coined the term in 2013, versions of the genre had been popular in Asia since the turn of the century.

The books “borrow the tropes of video and tabletop games”, and the characters “face challenges and grow stronger” as they “go on quests to obtain rewards”.

For instance, in the novels of Matt Dinniman, whose books have sold more than six million copies, the hero “gets tougher as he punches goblins” and “defeats a monster” that is a mix of a “cosmic octopus” and “your average, suburban, anti-vax, let-me-talk-to-your-manager mom”.

The reader is regularly “updated on his character stats, health bar, XP (experience points) and special skills”. “Video-game vernacular” offers a “useful shorthand” and “minor figures” in the story are called “NPCs: non-playable characters”.

Many of the readers “grew up gaming or playing tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons”, said USA Today. Brandon Dwane, a 28-year-old from Massachusetts, “never considered himself a reader”, but “that changed” when he began consuming LitRPG. Now he’s a “junkie” for the “dopamine” hits the novels give him.