Early snowfall and high winds brought disruption to parts of the UK today, affecting roads and ferry services.

Steven Whittaker insists there is no chance of Rangers being distracted by next week's Champions League game in Valencia and risk blowing their 100 per cent Premier League record when they face Inverness today.

A British man had an ear, two fingers and three toes cut off after being kidnapped in Portugal and tortured for 13 days over an alleged debt.

Nevis Gow, the 15-year-old narrator of this dark novel, has spent 11 years living in a van with his father Marshall, a frustrated writer. The squalid existence has left him damaged: in the absence of any other contact, Nevis developed an obsession with – and, later, an erotic fixation on – his dad.

Richard Wilson takes the high road from Glasgow to Fort William and the foothills of Ben Nevis. Scotland's great contrasts are here, from busy city streets to the empty beauty of Glencoe

When hundreds of photographs of soldiers from the First World War were found, each portrait was a mystery in its own right. Here, John Lichfield tells the story of one of them

Inverness CT 0 Celtic 1

Good planning will ensure a trip with a tent is a delight for you and your children, says Alan Murphy

Dangers are few and far between in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland: getting rained on is an obvious one, getting stuck in the middle of nowhere on the Sabbath is another, or perhaps, if you're really unlucky, a spot of light cattle rustling by a rival clan. And there's Culicoides impunctatus – or the midge, as it's more commonly known – a tiny flying creature that is savage and merciless in the extreme and hunts in huge packs.

Danny Alexander is rewarded for his commitment

Britain basked in sunshine today, enjoying the hottest day of the year so far, and temperatures are set to rise even further.

Temperatures in the week ahead are likely to soar to up to 10 degrees above the average for this time of year, a forecaster said today.

Amec, the FTSE 100 engineering group, is understood to have teamed-up with US nuclear giant Energy Solutions to bid for the £2.6bn clean-up of Dounreay power station in the Scottish Highlands.

An industrial building by the canal on Vyner Street in London's East End is the last place you might expect to find a glimpse into a world of rural, isolated wilderness. But venture down that street you should, to spend a few moments listening to a man who lives alone in the wild, and to see the landscape of this very country as if it were totally alien – a glorious planet of fetid flora and kaleidoscopic colour. This is the first solo exhibition in a London gallery of artist Ben Rivers, an award-winning film-maker from Somerset in his late thirties, who has a long-term, almost anthropological interest in those who live in isolated locations. Inside Kate MacGarry gallery, you will find a shed-like structure built from discarded building materials: corrugated metal, old windows, garden gates and industrial waste. All surplus to requirement, unwanted and disregarded.