Coronavirus Scotland LIVE as SNP veteran John Swinney is put in charge of covid recovery

Nicola Sturgeon is set to make an announcement on the state of the coronavirus pandemic in the Scottish Parliament later today.The First Minister will address MSPs at Holyrood as cases continue to rise across parts of the country.It comes as Scotland marks six months since the Covid-19 vaccination programme was rolled out.At the end of last week Sturgeon announced that cases of the deadly virus had tripled in the last month just as Scotland starts to move out of lockdown restrictions.The news

lockdown restrictions. In Tuesday's update, Nicola Sturgeon announced some local council areas could move to Level 1 on Saturday, while others will remain at Level 2.

Level 2. Changes are due to come into effect in a weeks time on June 7.

exams. As each school is dealing with assessments differently many pupils feel they are at a ­disadvantage.

Douglas Chapman, the MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, announced he had resigned as national treasurer of the party on Saturday evening.

Twitter messages which she feared were threats of sexual violence, a court heard. Grant Karte was due to be sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday after admitting sending the messages to the Scottish National Party politician.

shock news that one in every 10 care home residents died of Covid in the first year of the pandemic. Care Inspectorate figures showed 3774 lost their lives to the virus up to March 31, 2021.

pandemic news will be dominated by Boris Johnson’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings. The aide is poised to give potentially damning testimony on the UK government’s handling of coronavirus, and particularly the decision to delay lockdown last September, when he appears in front of a joint session of the Commons Health and Science committees.

coronavirus briefing later today as cases rise in some parts of the country.The First Minister will provide an update on the state of the pandemic in Scotland as the country slowly moves out of lockdown.It's expected Sturgeon will address the situation in Glasgow, Clackmannanshire and East Renfrewshire where cases of the virus are particularly high.Glasgow is the only council area in Scotland that remains in Level Three lockdown, while the rest of the mainland sits in Level Two.The news comes as

front-line care staff are still waiting for their Scottish Government promised £500 bonus - six months after it was first announced. A GMB union survey has revealed a staggering 40 per cent of their members in the sector have still not been paid - with some workers told they may have to wait until July for payment.

Covid Recovery said there were "encouraging signs" that the virus was under control across the country. Speaking on the BBC 's Good Morning Scotland show, the SNP MSP revealed the vaccine is working against the strains currently in circulation.

Glasgow is the only part of Scotland still in level three, and some businesses have criticised the decision to keep it under stricter measures. The new Scottish Health Secretary said ministers wanted to ease restrictions as soon as possible and hoped after this week it would become clear whether case numbers had led to a rise in ICU patients.Yousaf said the “critical question” is whether infections caused by the new Covid variant, so-called Indian variant, lead to more severe disease.

SNP veteran will remain as Deputy First Minister and will also take responsibility for cross-government action on Scotland's recovery from covid.Swinney was appointed education secretary in 2016 but has endured a torrid last year in the role as lockdown upended the regular school timetable and led to the scrapping of the exams diet for the first time in history.The replacement system for awarding grades to senior high school pupils was roundly criticised last August and was eventually scrapped

Nicola Sturgeon admitted there was a level of concern about the number of new cases linked to the Indian variant which has spread across parts of Europe. The Scottish Government's National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch said cases in Scotland's biggest city are higher than they would like and urged people to follow the rules to stop the further spread of the variant that has killed thousands in India.

First Minister said that case numbers in North East region taking in Forres, Elgin, Lossiemouth and Buckie, are more than four times higher than in the rest of the country which is due to move to Level 2 on Monday.Sturgeon said :“It’s against that backdrop that, unless the situation was to materially improve over the next few days, it would simply not be safe or sensible to ease restrictions there from Monday.”Read the full story.The “huge success” of the vaccination programme along with

First Minister will likely confirm the country can move to level two as of next Monday when she updates Scots at a media briefing later today. Speculation mounted last night that the Scottish Government will introduce a traffic light system by the end of the month which provide a list of foreign countries Scots can travel to without the need for quarantine.

Perthshire results a “disaster” for the Conservatives and attacked candidates Murdo Fraser and Liz Smith. Both Conservative politicians were later elected to the Scottish Parliament in the Mid Scotland and Fife regional list ballot.

Gove laid out the Tory government strategy of talking up co-operation and talking down the constitutional row in response to the SNP election victory.

Scottish Tories of fuelling divisions in the country by focusing on the constitution.