AN SNP staffer was last night forced to apologise after sparking a row over comments calling for “disease-ridden” soft play centres to “stay closed forever”.

SCOTLAND’S Finance Secretary has warned that councils are “still sitting on unspent money” totalling £30 million to help prop up struggling businesses during the pandemic.

The areas in Scotland with the highest rates of Covid-19 have been confirmed in new weekly figures.

DURING Britain’s long occupation of Ireland they weren’t content merely to enslave its people and send them into forced exile. They also sought to eradicate their culture and religion by means of imposing on them a suite of laws forbidding use...

A RECREATED Iron Age house on the shores of Loch Tay has been gutted by a fire which broke out last night.

The Herald’s columnist Professor Linda Bauld has said she is “delighted” to have been made an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, after putting in “many, many hours” with public health colleagues during the coronavirus pandemic.

Campaigners are continuing to press for urgent changes to "distressing and confusing" new guidelines that could see elderly care home residents pressured to wear masks.

A SCIENTIST who has warned that humans could be facing extinction due to declining male fertility rates is leading the race to cure the problem.

A renowned whisky writer, a pop sensation, and a trailblazing female finance leader, are among those recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

MANY island businesses that depend on already infrequent or periodic elements of income, fear permanent closure as they count the costs of the Scottish ferries crisis.

IN November 2019, three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) reportedly became sick with a flu-like illness and sought hospital care.

IT is no surprise that UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss is ignoring Scottish interests ("Food and drink sector condemns ‘rushed’ Australia trade deal amid calls for consultation", The Herald, June 11).

THE fate of Shetland-focused Hurricane Energy looks set to be determined by a High Court judge after investors disagreed about a proposed restructuring.

A new book by one of the foremost experts in the battlefield site is shedding new light on the story

From unsung heroes to celebrities and sporting heroes and those leading the fight against covid, they have all been recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.Here is the full UK list:

CONTEMPLATE this hideous plague anew and consider the questions which are presently exercising the citizenry.

Knight Property Group has won planning consent for a further £3.5m development at Langlands Commercial Park in East Kilbride.

Fidelma Cook

Boak Off UNSPUN bids farewell this week to Matthew Clark, legendary chief of staff to the LibDem group at Holyrood, who is retiring to spend more time in the real world.

EDINBURGH-based rental property specialist Sigma Capital is being sold to a private equity heavyweight in a deal that values the company at £188m.

WATCHING Tony Blair – war criminal and creepy message boy for Bill Gates – doing his world statesman act is never good for my blood pressure but his latest outing on the Andrew Marr Show enraged me.

As imagined by Brian Beacom

THE most talked about and controversial media launch in years – Andrew Neil’s Fox News-inspired GB News ­– takes place tomorrow. Among its hosts, in a live Saturday evening slot that is a break from his normal brand of history presenting, ...

UK gross domestic product jumped by 2.3% month-on-month in April as lockdown restrictions eased, its sharpest increase since last July, and was up by a record 27.6% on a year earlier, writes Ian McConnell.

“YESTERDAY I stood at the third-floor window of Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Building as a cage carrying four men in hard hats and hi-vis jackets rose up, up, into the air and over the fire-blackened walls of the Mackintosh Building opposite t...

THE so-called EU ‘sausage wars’ were discussed by columnists in the newspapers - and a final word on naming the new Royal baby Lilibet.

Scots from all walks of life have been recognised for their work, endeavours and fight in the covid pandemic in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

HOBBIES like collecting have surged during the pandemic, with lockdown affording collectors-of-old time to fully indulge their interests, but there is a specific new trend on the rise - covid collectibles.

Cail Bruich

Mr Tumble

AND every day those days move further and further away. The second half of the 20th century. Now almost a lifetime ago. The stuff of fading newspaper headlines and black and white memories.

AROUND one in 20 people infected with the Delta variant of coronavirus were fully vaccinated and at least 14 days on from their second vaccine dose, according to new data.

Families and relatives are still being denied the chance to “take a cord” at a loved one's funeral, an MSP has said.

The findings certainly did not fit with dire warnings of immediate doom

An online “bot” was set up to submit thousands of fake responses to Edinburgh council’s consultation on whether to keep cycling lanes beyond the pandemic.

CAMPAIGNERS have warned that scaled-back plans to set up a low emission zone (LEZ) in Edinburgh will not eliminate “toxic air across the capital”.

World leaders have gathered in Cornwall for the G7 summit for the first face-to-face meeting in two years.

HUMZA Yousaf has been urged to apologise after the UK Statistics Authority found he had “inaccurately presented" child coronavirus data.

Miller Homes has unveiled two new developments in East Lothian.

THE question to ask isn’t ‘why take the knee’, but ‘why wouldn’t you?’.

YET again, FMQs reminded us what it means to truly suffer.

Dundee's council leader has warned that it would be a "disaster" for the economy and local businesses if the city was to put into tigher restrictions after it recorded the highest rate of cases in Scotland.

Archeologist and television presenter Neil Oliver has called the continued lockdown “the world’s biggest mistake”.

HURRAH. I’m going out to meet a couple of mates tonight. We used to do that, didn’t we? I have a vague memory of such behaviour before the plague times. So, through to Edinburgh, a bite to eat and a drink and a catch-up in person rather than o...

SCOTLAND'S national public health body has been hit by a "conflict of interest" row after a document emerged reportedly showing one of its duties is to protect the reputation of government ministers.

A rapist has been jailed for 15 years today, after fleeing Scotland and faking his own death at a California beach.

SHE knows how to dig for dirt. As a prosecutor in Romania, Laura Codruța Kövesi helped put away sleazy politicians, including a former prime minister.

The latest coronavirus figures have been released by the Scottish Government

I WROTE about Covid-19 vaccines for teenagers in Scotland last week in this column and asked when they might be approved. Well, we now have confirmation from the UK medicine’s regulator that they have endorsed trial results for the Pfizer-BioNTe...

FORMER senior management of the shipyard at the centre of a ferry building fiasco have condemned MSPs for failing to call to account the First Minister and other senior ministers in an inquiry.