Scotland's rules on hugging and touching friends and family as lockdown eases

Edinburgh Fringe Festival is "in danger" if the Scottish Government does not ease social distancing rules for venues within a fortnight, the organiser has warned. Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, urged ministers to drop the current two-metre rule for venues to the one-metre rule used in hospitality.

Lorraine Kelly has praised Prince Harry for being honest about his mental health and for opening up about his personal experience with grief. But while she applauded the prince for his honesty, the Scots TV presenter admitted that she felt 'sad' about the comments he has made about the Royal Family, as he continues to speak in different interviews about his time as a senior royal.

This week has been a very busy yet heartwarming trip for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Kate Middleton was seen in an adorable clip on Instagram telling a young boy that she’s a princess during her and William’s Scotland tour.

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.

Perth legends were born. And although fans could not be at the Scottish Cup final at Hampden to see their beloved St Johnstone lift the trophy, they were still there every step of the way.

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.

holidaymakers have been able to book trips abroad once again after restrictions on international travel were slightly lifted. The Scottish Government’s traffic light system was put into place from Monday.

St Johnstone fans not to gather in large numbers to celebrate the club being in the Scottish Cup final. Pete Wishart said people should still avoid meeting up with more people than is permitted due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hamilton Townhouse, Rutherglen Town Hall, Lanark Memorial Hall, East Kilbride Arts Centre and the Village Theatre, are currently selling tickets for events from August onwards.

Join thousands of others in getting the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox.Stirling’s Macrobert Arts Centre was this week among 11 leading Scottish performing arts venues calling on the Scottish Government to urgently review social distancing requirements as lockdown eases.The venue is part of the Scottish Theatre Producing Consortium and Federation of Scottish Theatre, which pointed out that the current two metres-plus distancing requirement makes presenting and producing

reopening of non-essential retail across Scotland as well as a lift in the 'stay at home' guidelines a few weeks prior. April 26 saw shops and services open their doors for the first time this year.

lockdown restrictions on social distancing to ease for the first time in months. During Tuesday's coronavirus briefing, Nicola Sturgeon admitted she felt 'emotional' as she announced that people could now hug each other from Monday, May 17.

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

have been allowed this year.Scots will also be able to meet outdoors in groups of eight people from eight different households.It comes as the number of people testing positive for covid has plummeted in recent months, with hospitalisations caused by coronavirus also in steep decline.The country's vaccination roll-out also continues at speed, with more than half of the population having received at least one dose.Speaking at her first covid media briefing since winning reelection last week, the

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.

Ross, who heads to Holyrood as leader of the largest opposition party with 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs, signalled he will not be relying on numbers to stop the SNP’s independence plans. At a press conference to mark his return to the Holyrood chamber, the Moray MP and now list MSP, spelled out why UK cabinet minister Michael Gove was confident the referendum bill would not end up with the UK government taking the Scottish Government to the Supreme Court.