“We’ve become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy.” (Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, Christmas, 1986) On returning home to Edinburgh, after my somewhat desultory wanderings afar for some years, I found some of its districts, historic and otherwise, crammed with charity shops. Most were squeezed […] Source

A SCOTTISH firm has landed a major deal to make a new range of Marks and Spencer crisps … Source

Millions of workers will receive a pay rise on April 1 when the statutory minimum rates increase in a move unions believe will help boost economic growth. Source

Home Bargains have multiple stores across the Highlands and Moray in Inverness, Tain, Dingwall, Aviemore, Nairn and Elgin. …

Carol Russell was reported missing on Tuesday morning. …

The 21-year-old’s attack left his victim unable to work for three weeks. …

Here’s a grand mix of music this week with new album releases from Kathryn Joseph and Becci Wallace, archive gold from the Maida Vale vaults (The Vultures!) and an amazing project to celebrate Dick Gaughan… Dick Gaughan is a legend in Scottish folk music and his album A Handful of Earth is considered a world […] Source

The ongoing horror in Palestine continues: documentary filmmaker Hamdan Ballal is lynched and courageous journalist Hossam Shabat is killed, just two of the human stories of the unfolding ethnic cleansing taking place across Palestine. Documentary director, Hamdan Ballal who made No Other Land which won an Oscar for best documentary with Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham […] Source

LABOUR have been urged to end the UK’s “damaging” tax policies on Scottish whisky – with an SNP MP saying Westminster has the industry “over a barrel” … Source

The past week has seen the end of a monumental era of Scottish politics: of Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP and of ‘Sturgeonism’. This has generated a welter of instant commentary as expected but with much of it focusing only on the immediate, the party’s prospects for 2026 and what Sturgeon might do post-politics, rather than look […] Source

AN SNP Cabinet Secretary has stepped in after a Scottish drinks brand announced it would be closing down, putting some two dozen jobs at risk … Source

A WELL-KNOWN Scottish drinks brand is set to disappear from shelves – putting two dozen jobs at risk, owners have confirmed … Source

THE oil and gas industry is “peddling a fantasy”, campaigners have warned after bosses said the North Sea could produce about half of the oil and gas the UK will need in the run up to 2050 – but only if new projects can be developed Source

IN Lesley Riddoch’s article of March 20, a representative of Forestry and Land Scotland is quoted as saying: “We have consulted on the energy offerings for new renewables projects (delivering seven community hydro schemes). However, Cruach Mhor is an established wind farm subject to a lease renewal tender and we do not routinely carry out consultations on these.” Source