Nurses frustrated with abuse from drunken patients have pinned up posters in hospital waiting rooms in Angus showing the growing number of alcohol-related admissions.

Immigration officials and police have launched a series of dawn raids across the west of Scotland in the first crackdown on so-called sham marriages. They said West Africans have been arranging bogus marriages to British citizens to gain entry to the UK under false pretences.

A woman raped at knifepoint by a teenage heroin addict revealed yesterday that thoughts of her young granddaughter sustained her during the terrifying ordeal. Anne Doherty, 50, above, thought she was going to die when she was attacked while working at a care home.

Scottish scientists hope they are on the way to finding a cure for a rare type of kidney cancer after studying a gene linked to the disease. Wilms’ tumour affects about 70 children a year in the UK and thousands around the world.

Scottish scientists have discovered a brain abnormality which causes Fragile X syndrome, a common form of learning difficulty, raising hopes that a therapy could be found. The condition affects one in 4000 children and adults, and can cause slow learning and lead to behavioural problems similar to autism.

A man who stabbed a teacher to death in North Lanarkshire eight years ago has been found after he went missing from his home almost a week ago. Anthony O’Brien, 37, was sent to the state hospital at Carstairs in 2000 after admitting the attack on Bill Scott in Cumbernauld.

A teenager who raped a care worker at knifepoint may never be released from jail after a judge imposed a lifelong restriction order on him. Steven Malcolm, 19, is only the second dangerous criminal in Scotland to be subjected to the order, which involves monitoring for the rest of his life.

People involved in the care sector are being offered a free training course. North Lanarkshire Council aims to help improve the communication, number and computer skills of people already working in the care sector or unemployed people with an interest in the work.

A “loud and horrid” scream was heard on the day that Angelika Kluk was last seen alive, the murder trial was told yesterday. Leigh Brown, 47, was washing the windows of her high-rise home which overlooks St Patrick’s Church in Anderston, Glasgow, when she heard a woman’s scream “as though someone was being grabbed”.

Pupils from schools across Scotland will join major names from the world of football at Hampden Park today to stand united against racism. The pupils are meeting to celebrate the winning entries in the schools’ anti-racism competition.