Scottish Daily Express
Police Scotland release ethnicity of rape accused in Glasgow and nationwide
The issue is in the spotlight after two teenage girls were brutally raped by asylum seekers in Falkirk and Elgin, sparking a summer of protests acr...
 Crucially, however, the statistics do not show the nationality or immigration status of the rape suspects – and they also reveal that officers are not recording ethnicity in large numbers of cases, despite it being mandatory to do so. Earlier this year, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing told forces across the UK to share both ethnicity and nationality in high-profile cases. Police Scotland said it would work with the Crown Office to ensure a "consistent and transparent approach". The issue has come to the fore in recent months, with immigration now one of the biggest concerns for Scottish voters. A summer of protests was triggered after asylum seeker Sadeq Nikzad, 29, was jailed in June for raping a schoolgirl in Falkirk. As part of an investigation into whether any ethnic groups were "over-represented" on the DNA database, the force was asked to provide ethnicity data from its National Custody System for arrests from 2023 to 2024 where DNA was taken. However, Dr Brian Plastow said the figures supplied were so patchy it was impossible to draw any conclusions. He fumed: "The data extract obtained by Police Scotland was incomplete and so heavily caveated to render it unreliable."
Scottish Daily Express
Sandie Peggie: NHS Scotland tried to destroy me but I REFUSE to be brainwashed
In her first full-length interview, the veteran A&E nurse lets rip at the 'disgusting' way NHS Fife has dealt with her case – but insists that sh...
 Ms Peggie, 52, insists there were no raised voices but Dr Upton lodged a formal complaint the following day – Christmas Day – and the nurse found herself under investigation for bullying her colleague. She said: "I was thrown under the bus because I wouldn't allow myself to be brainwashed into agreeing that a man was a woman just because he said he was one." Ms Peggie added: "I feel let down - by managers, senior people, board members I've never even met. There has been no backing whatsoever. I've lost friends over this. They [her bosses] tried to destroy me. They went digging for dirt in my life. I was turned into a pariah." "It's complete madness, lunacy. I think it's disgusting. There has been no common sense. I still don't understand why this could not have been sorted earlier," she said. "There were other places [in the hospital] he could have changed. There are toilet cubicles elsewhere that are huge. He could have been asked to use one of those."
I am so fucking sick of hearing about things like this, how many bloody times!
BBC News
'My brother's deteriorating health wasn't recognised in 999 calls'
Adam Hussain, 23, had appendicitis but his worsening symptoms led to his death.
 Adam was staying with his brother in Clifton when he started to feel unwell with abdominal pain and vomiting. His condition quickly deteriorated and his symptoms had been ongoing for eight hours when he made his first call to 999 on 12 May. By the time of his third call to 999 the same day, Adam was shaking due to the pain he was in and breathing was becoming more difficult. Still, the seriousness of his condition was not recognised. "It became very distressing," Qasim said. "When he reached out for help from the emergency services, they pushed everything away. "They ignored a lot of things and made it seem like it wasn't urgent."
BBC News
Four guilty after girl, 16, raped and exploited by gang
The girl was raped multiple times in a "horrific" ordeal, said West Midlands Police
 Four men have been found guilty after a teenage girl was raped and sexually exploited. Arqash Zaffar, Shiraz Nassir, Mohammed Nadim and Shaban Arif were convicted for their part in assaulting the 16-year-old girl during a "horrific ordeal", said West Midlands police. Zaffar and Nassir were found guilty of rape, Nadim of sexual assault and Arif of facilitating travel for sexual exploitation. Police said the girl was assaulted several times by the group after being picked up in Birmingham, before being taken to Denton, Greater Manchester, and Walsall where she was raped by the pair and other unknown men. Zaffar and Nadim targeted the girl while she was waiting for the bus on Alum Rock Road in Birmingham, with Zaffar asking for her number. She declined and got on the bus - but days later the men targeted her again and persuaded her to get in the car offering her a lift to the city centre. Police said instead Zaffar drove her to a secluded area where both he and Nadim sexually assaulted in the back of the car.
BBC News
Taiwan: Knife attacker kills three after smoke bombing Taipei metro
The suspect's spree began at Taipei's main metro before he moved to another station nearby.
 At least three people have been killed and nine others injured as a knife-wielding attacker ‍went ‍on a ​rampage in the Taiwanese capital Taipei. The 27-year-old suspect set off smoke bombs at Taipei's main metro station, before running to another station in a busy shopping district, stabbing people along the way, Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung-tai said. The suspect, named by officials as Taiwanese man Chang Wen, later died after falling from a multi-storey building, Cho added. His motive remains unclear. Attacks of this kind are rare in Taiwan, which has low rates of violent crime. The last time a similar incident struck Taipei was more than a decade ago in 2014.
Fuck off, nobody even knows what the hell this shite is meant to be about either, so many complaints but they do it anyway. One of my favourite areas at home to be ruined 🤬
BBC News
Airspace approved for use by Western Isles spaceport
Spaceport-1 is a project being developed by local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.
Friday photos
BBC News
Your pictures of Scotland: Photographs from around the country
A selection of photographs submitted to BBC Scotland News from around the country this week.
BBC News
Man charged with six sexual assaults in single evening in Edinburgh
The 22-year-old is due to appear in court on Monday after a slew of incidents were reported to police last Friday.
 A man has been charged in connection with six sexual assaults in the space of a single evening in Edinburgh. Three women were attacked in the Stockbridge area of the city on 12 December in Fettes Row, Inverleith Row and Saxe Coburg Street. Police Scotland launched an appeal for further information and three further attacks in the Dean Bank Lane and Royal Crescent areas were also reported. A 22-year-old man has been charged over the incidents and is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Monday.
The Critic Magazine
Awfully queer science | Ace North | The Critic Magazine
“Historically, queerness and science have been bitter enemies. Queerness has been Science’s BIGGEST cover-up operation.” Gos...
 “Historically, queerness and science have been bitter enemies. Queerness has been Science’s BIGGEST cover-up operation.” Gosh – who knew? It seemed remiss of Brooks not to mention that, under current understanding, mammals are ancestrally gonochoristic (having separate sexes), with no evidence that this condition evolved from hermaphroditic ancestors in the mammalian lineage. This is true despite ongoing uncertainties about the deeper evolutionary origins of separate sexes in early multicellular animals. In any case, it’s quite a stretch to equate Darwin’s speculation that hermaphroditism might have been the evolutionary precursor of separate sexes to a considered view that every man and woman is a hermaphrodite. It is even less clear as to why this is relevant to “queer theory” (which still has not been defined). Is it a belief of queer theory that mammals are hermaphrodites? If you like your queer history with lashings of seahorse and a side-helping of Victorian scandal, give Brooks’s book a go. (Who knows — perhaps it has substance that was somehow left out of this seminar.) If, on the other hand, you are wondering in bewilderment and no little concern at how we got to the point of biology departments platforming queer interpretations of Darwin’s notebooks, all I can say is — you are not alone.