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Scotland's sewage workers discovered some strange items in it's sanitary system. According to the BBC, a large Winnie the Pooh bear, a fax machine and a bike, were among the items found in the system across Scotland last year.

Whoever carved the statue would not have had TV's favourite cartoon anti-hero in mind - but there is no doubting the resemblance of this stone head to Homer Simpson It was found by Rosalind and Donald McIntyre when they were clearing the bottom of their garden at their home in Fife, Scotland, earlier this year. The couple were working in their garden when Mrs McIntyre picked up the head. She took it to St Andrews Museum, and the discovery has been referred to the National Committee for Carved Stones of Scotland.

SNP (Scottish National Party)-led West Dunbartonshire Council has ordered that its libraries ban any new volumes by Israeli authors, printed or published in the Jewish state. It follows an earlier decision by the local authority to boycott Israeli goods and produce as part of a pro-Palestinian display. Now, it has emerged the areas’ libraries have been told not to stock any new books from Israel. But a similar boycott move by Dundee City Council has had to be abandoned because legal experts advised such a move is illegal under EU law.

A US government delegation has been invited to Scotland in a bid to overturn its 40-year ban on haggis. Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead's invitation comes two days ahead of Burns Night, when suppers are held in honour of poet Robert Burns.

A highly unusual series of concerts occurred in relation to the New Hampshire Highland Games last weekend ( Sept 17th, 18th and 19th), annually held at Loon Mountain Ski Resort, located in Lincoln New Hampshire. What was unusual is that three schools of music and performing arts gathered amateur students together across the Atlantic ocean for a collaboration of young musicians, from the Scottish Royal Academy of Music and Drama ( Glasgow), The Strathclyde College of Performing Arts, and the Berklee College if Music ( Boston). The twenty or so young people first met each other on Wednesday the 15th...

THE POPE arrived in Scotland to be greeted by an adoring crowd of some 125,000 people in glorious Edinburgh sunshine on his first State Visit to Britain today. It dwarfed protests from less than 100 or so people after flashpoints failed to materialise and mar what turned out to be huge success for the city with coverage of the historic visit beamed to a worldwide audience of around a BILLION people. One lucky schoolboy found himself being hugged by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in an impromptu walkabout in Morningside before lunch, while others revelled in being able to...

LONDON (AFP) – Scottish ministers on Wednesday defended their decision to free the Lockerbie bomber after renewed US anger over the release threatened to spoil the new British premier's first visit to the White House. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said he did not regret freeing Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last August. And Salmon denied claims from US lawmakers that the release formed part of an oil deal between BP and resource-rich Libya. "If you take a decision in good faith, you don't regret it," Salmond, the leader of Scotland's devolved government, told BBC radio. He...

"Gaza flotilla: 2 dead, dozens injured in navy boarding." By JPOST.COM STAFF AND YAAKOV KATZ 05/31/2010 07:00 SNIPPET: "Passengers tried to wrest weapons from soldiers, Army Radio reports; Turkish leadership in emergency meeting to discuss response to attack at sea. Passengers tried to grab weapons away from soldiers boarding the Gaza protest flotilla, starting the violence, Army Radio reported Tuesday morning, responding to accusations that Israeli commandos assaulted the ships guns blazing."

A radical Muslim cleric alleged to have inspired the Fort Hood gunman has been praised in the past as “a preacher of peace” by a prominent SNP candidate with close links to Alex Salmond. The FBI is investigating communications between Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the US Army base in Texas, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric now based in Yemen. Mr Awlaki has a large following in Britain and counts prominent mainstream Muslims among his supporters. In 2006 Osama Saeed, who has been selected as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central for the next...

SUSAN Boyle experiences Life Thru A Lens - just like Robbie Williams on his famous 1997 album cover. The Britain's Got Talent runner-up, 48, was mobbed by paparazzi as she flew into Los Angeles. She is in the States to belt out her version of The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses on American Idol, which you can see by clicking below. (in the article)

Celebrations at Bomber's Return to Libya Stir Angry Response; White House Calls the Reception 'Outrageous and Disgusting'LONDON -- The government of Scotland found itself scrambling Friday to control political fallout from a decision to flex its independence by releasing a Libyan man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Television footage of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi welcoming home Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, and a crowd of Libyans waving Scottish flags has fanned anger about the release. He was allowed to travel to Libya on Thursday despite demands from victims' family members and a host of U.S....

A SCOTTISH soldier has been praised for making the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan after shooting a top Taliban fighter from almost a mile away. Corporal Christopher Reynolds took out the Afghan drug lord during some of the hardest fighting of the war so far. The 25-year-old, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, kept watch on a shop rooftop for three days to eliminate the target. But he admitted the top-level Taliban fighter – known as Musa – was so far away it took him a couple of attempts to get the aim right. Initially Musa, who was with four...

LONDON – They went to Mexico for their honeymoon, they came back with swine flu. A Scottish couple who are Britain's first confirmed cases of swine flu had just returned from their Mexican honeymoon, neighbors confirmed Tuesday. Dawn and Iain Askham became ill over the weekend, a few days after returning from Cancun. .

A SCOTTISH Muslim convert, dubbed the "Tartan Taleban", has re-emerged in Pakistan where he has reportedly been arrested as a terror suspect. Pakistan television paraded images of a man said to be James Alexander McLintock, who had been detained in the north-west city of Peshawar in late February. The 44-year-old father of four, originally from Dundee, converted to Islam in his 20s but came to international attention in December 2001 when he was arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of being a foreign fighter. Mr McLintock was released five weeks later after strenuous denials of links to terror organisations and sent...

Democrats began to press Mr. Specter, saying he would get the $10 billion increase only if he promised to vote for the eventual bill. Mr. Specter pushed back, saying he was concerned about the size of the bill and its mix of tax credits and spending. “I really do not make deals,” he said. And while he had promised Mr. Durbin nothing, the Illinois senator had made him a promise. As Mr. Durbin recalled, at a Super Bowl party at the White House on Feb. 1, “I told him, ‘I’m keeping my word.’ ” More hard bargaining was ahead. Mr....

Smokers in deprived communities of the Scottish city of Dundee will be offered cash to quit the habit as part of a new program coming in the fall. Organizers working with the Scottish government say the $986,000 pilot program aims to help 900 of the city's 36,000 smokers to stop over the next two years. Participants in the new initiative will be offered $25 per week credited onto an electronic card for a maximum of 12 weeks. They can redeem the money in their local supermarket for fresh food and groceries — but not alcohol and cigarettes.

Irish and Dutch vessels found in Scottish graves Evidence that some of our prehistoric ancestors travelled considerable distances has come from two graves in Upper Largie, near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute. One grave contained three distinctive beakers which Alison Sheridan, of the National Museums Scotland, describes as belonging to an early, international style, best paralleled by finds from the lower Rhine region of the modern-day Netherlands. Radiocarbon dates of 2500-2280 BC from hazel charcoal from within the grave confirms an early Bronze Age date. Though no bone was found because of the acidic nature of the local soils, the...

SCOTTISH MASONS' MYSTERIOUS SIGNATURES IN STONE TO BE RECORDED By 24 Hour Museum Staff 08/02/2008 Courtesy Historic Scotland Mysterious symbols carved into Scotland’s medieval churches, castles and bridges are to be studied and recorded in a new scheme supported by Historic Scotland. Masons’ marks are enigmatic signatures cut into stone wherever they worked, and hold clues as to dates of construction as well as the craftsmen who worked on the structure. However, little is known about the identities and life stories of these men who played such an important role in creating the country’s most cherished buildings from the Middle...

Scottish festival bans 'American' Hallowe'en By Tom Chivers Last Updated: 3:31pm BST 26/10/2007 A Scottish Hallowe'en festival is banning "consumerist" pumpkins in favour of turnips. Jack O'Lantern: persona non grata north of the border The spooky celebration, at Scone Palace, Perthshire, is being organised by Scottish firm Herald Events as a riposte to the Americanisation of the traditional autumn festival, based on the ancient Celtic ritual of Samhain and co-opted by the Church. Speaking to the BBC, Jock Ferguson from the company said: "We will be having none of that pumpkin or trick-or-treat rubbish. "Pumpkins are banned and will not...

New book claims Merlin had Scottish roots By David Sapsted Last Updated: 1:52am BST 28/08/2007 Merlin the magician - hirsute confidant of King Arthur and the architect of Camelot - was, in fact, Scottish, according to a new book. The English, Welsh and French have laid claim to Merlin the magician Not only Scottish but, to be precise, hailing from Ardery Street, just off the Dumbarton Road, in the Partick area of Glasgow. While the English, Welsh and even the French have laid claim to the wizard with the peaked hat for centuries, this is the first time that anyone...