Ex-husband of Nicola Sturgeon and former CEO of party is due to appear in Glasgow court next Friday

The former chief executive of the Scottish National party (SNP) Peter Murrell has been accused of embezzling £459,000 from the party over a period of more than 12 years, according to court documents that emerged ahead of a hearing.

Murrell, the ex-husband of the former first minister and party leader Nicola Sturgeon, is due to appear at the high court in Glasgow next Friday for a preliminary hearing in the case.

Judge rejects argument that advice is legally flawed and excludes trans people from services they have long used

The Good Law Project (GLP) has lost its legal challenge to interim advice released by the UK equalities watchdog that in effect said transgender people should be banned from using bathroom and changing facilities according to their lived gender.

The advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which has since been withdrawn from its website, was published soon after the landmark supreme court ruling on biological sex last April.

All stones in Cortina are made from granite found on tiny island in Firth of Clyde and crafted in East Ayrshire

“It takes 60m years and about six hours to make a curling stone,” shouts Ricky English above the whine of the lathes. The operations manager at Kays Scotland is surrounded by wheels of ancient granite in varying states of refinement.

It is a small business with a big responsibility: the only factory in the world to supply the Winter Olympics with curling stones. Competitors don’t travel with their own stones, which weigh about 18kg each, and with 16 required for a game. Instead, this year, 132 stones were crafted in the East Ayrshire town of Mauchline and shipped to northern Italy.