The centuries-old legal taboo protecting the secrecy of the jury room should be broken to find out why jurors are so reluctant to convict men of rape, one of Scotland’s most senior lawyers said last night.

An investigation has been launched after surgical equipment was accidentally re-used at a hospital. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is conducting the investigation after equipment used in the mouth of one patient was kept and used to treat an infected wound in the mouth of another.

Scotland’s lost generation of young jobless people is costing the country £1.7bn every year as a result of crime, lost productivity and educational under-achievement, a report published yesterday claims.

The University of Glasgow is helping in the fight against heart disease with the appointment of a unique nursing lectureship. Susan Kennedy is the first British Heart Foundation Lecturer in Cardiac Care – the only such post funded by the BHF in the UK.

Capability Scotland has launched its Vote2007 website, which will aim to encourage disabled people to participate fully in the forthcoming 2007 Scottish elections. The Vote2007 website will provide useful and easy to understand information for disabled people on voting

More than 80% of people in Scotland know at least two friends who have experienced mental distress, research suggests. The Mental Health Foundation research also revealed many people did not want to admit their problems to friends for fear of what they would think.

Care services for almost 15,000 vulnerable people across Scotland are in doubt because of cash problems facing voluntary organisations. A report on charities providing care for 60,000 citizens, including the elderly and those with learning disabilities, has found that almost all of them have services which are underfunded.

AIDS charities have criticised the sentence handed down to an Italian chef who recklessly infected his lover with HIV and hepatitis C. Giovanni Mola was yesterday jailed for nine years. He refused to wear condoms after beginning a sexual relationship with a woman in Edinburgh in 2003.

A councillor aged 63 has accused his own local authority of age discrimination after it failed to interview him for a job.

The Liberal Democrats yesterday unveiled plans which they claimed would ensure everyone in Scotland had access to an NHS dentist.