NICOLA Sturgeon is to reported to being launching a fresh push for independence 'within weeks' as a new poll suggests support for a second referendum within five years has risen to 55 per cent.

MINISTERS are under scrutiny over unlawful state aid after it failed to notify the European Union about any of its interventions in companies connected to Scotland's ferry building fiasco.

MINISTERS have forked out nearly £1m to private consultants in a year to support the design and delivery of a new National Care Service (NCS) - while approving another controversial contract to global consultancy firm PwC, the HoS can reveal.

David Pratt's Four Corners: Insight and analysis on Ukraine, USA, Haiti and Central African Republic

I DON’T know which gods Nicola Sturgeon prays to, but they came out for her on Friday. The SNP increased its share of votes and seats in the local elections, but that seemed almost routine – it’s what they do.

CONTROVERSIAL demands by ministers for Scotland’s historic properties to be fitted with energy saving measures could cost taxpayers up to £20 million, it has been estimated.

NICOLA Sturgeon’s Government is “managing decline” and failing to tackle Scotland’s root problems, according to one of the country’s top academics and a leading authority on the SNP.

MINISTERS will consider a major increase in the minimum unit price of alcohol following a review of the landmark policy.

TRENDS. Such a curious concept to wrap the head around as we get older. There was a recent story in the New York Times about how disco balls are making a comeback. I found this ever-so-slightly discombobulating.

For more than a century, the sweet aroma of linseed oil hung over the Lang Toon, where generations of workers created the smooth, durable product that would floor the world.

From the garden of her North Ronaldsay home, Kathleen Scott could lift her gaze skywards and on evenings when the merry dancers were at rest and the clouds parted, see the same stars that once fascinated the island’s earliest civilisations.

THEY left me for dead,” declared Boris Johnson as the local council results rolled in.

In a powerful, no-holds-barred interview, Scotland’s foremost black academic, Professor Sir Geoff Palmer, says this country must finally acknowledge the horrific truth about slavery, empire and colonialism. Here, he talks to our Writer at Large Nei...

THIS story begins in Scotland.

Team Johnny or Team Amber – which one are you and why?

Hints and answer for today's Wordle on Sunday, May 8

ONE of the first casualties of any war is the truth. Today we would sneer at the rumours in Britain in 1914 that the Germans were eating Belgian babies, hanging Belgian nuns from church bells then ringing them to death, or crucifying farmers at the r...

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These are the top 10 experiences you need to put on your bucket list this summer from Buyagift

The Assembly election result in Northern Ireland “ushers in a new era”, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill has said.

SCOTTISH Labour has denied courting support from an ultra-unionist councillor to stop the SNP taking control of one of Scotland’s largest councils.

THE SCOTTISH Labour leader has declared his party is "back" after coming second in the local elections.

THE FIRST Minister has said she is certain of a fundamental shift in poltiics across the UK following the local elections.

DOUGLAS Ross has not ruled out resubmitting his letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson after a brutal result in the local elections.

ENERGY suppliers have called for increased investment in hydrogen as a clean alternative to natural gas to be part of the new programme for government amidst a deepening cost of living crisis caused by high gas prices.

A HOTEL sited 100 yards from the first tee of a golf course has come to market.

Late Show NICOLA Sturgeon’s selfie addiction saw her rock up almost two hours late to an SNP event at a blustery Portobello beach last Sunday, where she then spent another hour getting a fix with voters. It meant the assembled Holyrood hacks spent ...

SHE swapped one career as a medical supplies sales manager to become a guide at Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House in Helensburgh.

Omega Diagnostics is taking another crack at raising cash from shareholders as it prepares to sell its HIV testing business and exit Scotland.

THE cost of living crisis is about to get a whole lot more serious as the UK heads towards its highest inflation rate in nearly 50 years and prices just keep rising.

Exclusive

TWO supermarket giants were named as potential suitors for the convenience store chain McColl's, as it collapsed into administration putting 16,000 jobs at risk.

GIVEN politics is already a cruel business, it makes little sense to goad it into doing its worst.

What's the story?

ANDREW DOUGLAS-HOME, AUTHOR

I REMEMBER doors being slowly opened, light spilling out into the dark, the sound of metal pans being beaten, carrying through the cold air that first night of clapping.

SCOTLAND'S maritime history has been captured in miniature as part of a new exhibition which celebrates vessels from paddle steamers to Clyde puffers.

By Gareth Gettinby

The best of the week's TV films

MUSIC

IT IS NOW just over two years since Clemency Burton-Hill suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage that left her in a coma for 17 days from which she awoke unable to speak, walk or even move the right-hand side of her body.

If money were no object it might have opened up as a visitor attraction, adding to the rich array of museums and historical buildings the public has generously free access to in Glasgow.

EVERYWHERE Darren McGarvey goes in this city, there’s something that reminds him of his drinking days. We’re sitting outside a café in Finnieston in Glasgow, half-way down Argyle Street. Darren’s in a cap and T-shirt, sunglasses hooked on the ...

As imagined by Brian Beacom

HE may have been, as one US newspaper described him, a taciturn 200-pound London fur broker, but John Cobb knew all there was to know about breaking speed records.

IN society, individual rights and responsibilities are relative, not absolute. My rights are tempered by my responsibilities to not impinge on the rights of others. The rights of the fetus (this incidentally is the correct spelling from the Latin roo...

Hints and answer for today's Wordle on May 7, 2022

Emeli Sande has been on a journey of self-discovery, leaving her major label and revealing she is in love with a woman. Alex Green finds out more.

A "high performing" manager at a Scottish recycling firm has won his case for constructive dismissal against an employer who was “overtly critical” of the government’s national lockdown.

By Professor Milan Radosavljevic