NORTHERN Constabulary, NCH and Inverness Caledonian Thistle will stage a massive football festival in Inverness on Sunday at the Bught Park.

CLACHNACUDDIN FC have made a payment to Highland Council amounting to more than 25 per cent of the debt incurred in leasing Grant Street Park.

THE new administration of Highland Council has unveiled its programme of policies for the next three years.

A WOMAN was taken to Raigmore Hospital with serious injuries following a collision between a motorcycle and a car at Clachnaharry this afternoon.

INVERNESS Caledonian Thistle FC has today (Tuesday) issued their annual accounts to shareholders announcing a loss of £432,000 on the year's trading.

THE chairman of NHS Highland has emerged as the former Highland councillor who had his telephone bill paid by the local authority for four years after he left office.

A PETITION has been launched calling for a tougher sentence on knife killer Alan Dewar, who murdered Joshua Mitchell on an Inverness street.

A SMALL conservation charity is celebrating a £1.65 million deal to buy the 10,000 acre Dundreggan Estate in Glen Moriston — one of the largest areas of land in the UK bought for forest restoration.

TWO former pupils of Glen Urquhart High School who joined the Royal Marine Commandos will begin a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in October.

THE closure of the women's unit at Inverness Prison amid worsening overcrowding is to be raised with the justice minister by Highlands and Islands MSPs.

SCOTLAND'S best known cinematic export has been keeping an eye on Tilda Swinton's home-grown film festival in Nairn.

AN Inverness's council-run day centre has been ordered to bring in emergency measures following a damning report by Scottish Government watchdog the Care Commission.

THE women's unit at Inverness Prison has been closed as prisoner numbers soared to what is believed to be a record high.

AN Inverness councillor forced to take an extra £3500 a year in taxpayers' money to do a job he does not want to be paid for is donating the cash to charity.

PLANS for a new complex of 81 flats on the banks of the Caledonian Canal have been submitted to Highland Council by a mystery developer.

AN 25-year-old Inverness cystic fibrosis sufferer stars alongside Hollywood actor Ewan McGregor in a promotional film for the charity which helped turn his life around.

FURTHER options for the route of the long-waited Inverness southern bypass could be put to the public this autumn as part of the on-going consultation to choose the final design.

INVERNESS police have now located the two boys who were the subject of an extensive search carried out yesterday evening by police and Coastguard ground crew, lifeboat and helicopter.

GUESTHOUSES and restaurants at a Loch Ness-side tourist hotspot have been ordered to remove unauthorised advertising signs for road safety reasons.

The clampdown — during the height of the tourist season — is being instigated by national transport agency, Transport Scotland, which has instructed more than 20 businesses to remove signs from the A82 at Drumnadrochit, or to apply for permission.

COUNCIL services across Inverness are set to be disrupted tomorrow — hitting the elderly and schoolchildren — as 6000 Highland Council workers stage 24-hour walkout.

LOCAL children could be among the first in the world to benefit from a scheme proposed by film star Tilda Swinton to introduce youngsters to the magical world of film.

INVERNESS Book Festival, which announces the full programme for its fifth year today at Eden Court, is to close its first chapter with the stepping down of founding director Jason Rose.

HIGHLAND League football club Clachnacuddin will take a big step forward to managing its financial troubles next week when it hands £17,500 to Highland Council.

HOT on the heels of the launch of Oscar-winning actor Tilda Swinton’s new film festival, Nairn is about to be cast into the spotlight again — this time by Google.

THREE teenagers who started a fire at the former Craig Dunain Hospital causing more than £5 million worth of damage have been sentenced at Inverness Sheriff Court.

HIGHLAND Council has listed which of its services will be disrupted tomorrow by industrial action.

THE body of a man was recovered from the River Ness near the Thornbush Slip after a police and coastguard were alerted by a passer-by.

AN Inverness mother is querying security at the city's New Craigs psychiatric hospital after a missing patient was found hiding in her home.

TRAFFIC northbound on the A9 was brought to a halt yesterday afternoon following an accident near the North Kessock tourist information centre.

SOME pupils of Cauldeen Primary School, Inverness, will get a longer holiday following overnight flooding.

A FORMER senior official with the Camanachd Association, shinty's ruling body, has admitted embezzling £1800 from the organisation.

EDUCATION officials in Inverness are considering changes to the way they teach the curriculum after a rise in the number of pupils caught with drugs and alcohol within school grounds.

THE owners of a popular restaurant and takeaway have been left devastated by a fire which ripped through the kitchen, causing extensive smoke damage to the ground floor of the building.

INVERNESS schools could be forced to close if 24-hour strike action planned for next week goes ahead.

ONE of the most enduring figures in Highland entertainment, Margaret Firth, died in Raigmore Hospital this week at the age of 83.

POLICE are hunting for a gang of four men who assaulted and robbed a man in Fairfield Road, Inverness, last night.

AN online database of over 50,000 historic buildings and archaeological sites across Highland was launched today at Highland Council's Planning, Environment and Development Committee meeting.

NIGEL Rose has been named as the new head of internal audit and risk management at Highland Council.

A BEST-SELLING author says children in the poverty-stricken South African townships where she worked have more respect for their communities than youngsters in Dalneigh.

THE new chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Commerce has been named as Stewart Nicol, a board director since March 2006.

NORTHERN Constabulary has been asked to investigate the activities of a land management company amid allegations it has failed to carry out paid-for work and owes an Inverness contractor almost £100,000.

BELLADRUM headliners Scouting For Girls are living up to their name by doing a good deed for Highland Society for the Blind and an 11-year-old girl.

MULTI-million pound plans to revamp an Inverness hotel have been given the go-ahead, despite claims the "space-age" architecture would be a blot on the traditional city landscape.

EURO 2008 star Marius Niculae has been accused of using a mobile phone while driving on an Inverness road.

FIGURES from across the political spectrum gathered at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Inverness this afternoon to celebrate the life of former Scottish Liberal leader and Inverness MP Lord Russell-Johnston of Minginish who died last month.

A CAR came to rest on its roof just six feet from Loch Ness after an accident on the A82 at Lochend this afternoon.

POLICE event commander Superintendent Andy Cowie has praised the overall behaviour of festival goers after Belladrum 2008 passed without serious disorder.

AN Inverness man last seen on July 31 is being sought by police who fear for his safety.

A MAN and a woman were taken to Raigmore Hospital this morning after a gas canister exploded inside a tipi at the Belladrum Tartan Heart Music Festival.

ONE of the first changes of the new Highland Council administration will be to review the capital programmes of two of its biggest-spending services, and over the next few months produce a new10-year programme.

A RISE in the number of Inverness police officers being assaulted while on duty in the city has added weight to a campaign to have people's medical records released to the force.

TALKS on introducing direct flights between Inverness and Germany are at an advanced stage and a service could begin early next year, The Inverness Courier has learned.

THE arduous task of disposing of a 45-tonne sperm whale stranded on the shore near Alturlie Point was completed by 7pm yesterday eveing.

PLANS for a Sainsbury's supermarket in Nairn are set to be sent to Scottish ministers on Monday after councillors discuss 21 conditions recommended by planners before building can begin on the site.

VIOLENCE against taxi drivers is a growing concern in Inverness, according to the chairman of the local taxi and private hire association.

CITY architects are backing calls by business leaders to make sure a multi million pound scheme to build flood defences in Inverness is used to enhance the river and bring it to life.

A POST-MORTEM will be carried out on the carcass of a 45-foot sperm whale which became stranded on the shore near Alturlie Point yesterday afternoon.

AN improved way of screening for breast cancer that can pick up small tumours at a very early stage is to become the standard in Highland from this week.

THE board of the Highland Housing Fair, the UK's first eco housing fair planned for Inverness in August 2009, has moved the event to 2010.

MARINE conservationists and scientists were last night keeping watch on a sick sperm whale — normally at home in the North Sea and deep waters off the west coast — in shallow water near Avoch bay.

RAIL improvements cutting the journey time from Inverness to Edinburgh by 35 minutes will bring more business and visitors to Inverness, the heart of the Highlands, First Minister Alex Salmond said today.

INMATES at Inverness Prison have been brewing alcohol in their cells with the most recent case uncovered last month .

FIRST Minister Alex Salmond has pledged support for complete dualling of the A9 between Inverness and Perth although he would not be drawn on a timetable.

A FATHER believes his Hilton home was targeted by teenagers after he woke up to find his living room full of smoke.

OBJECTORS to a major housing development on the western outskirts of Nairn gatecrashed a developers' meeting yesterday after not being invited to the event.

LABOUR councillor Jimmy Gray was elected the new Provost of Inverness yesterday after the only other candidate for the job — Independent Roddy Balfour — failed to find a seconder.

TWO families have been moved out of their South Kessock homes "in the interests of public safety" following the murder of Joshua Mitchell, it emerged yesterday.

Killer Alan Dewar's family left their Carnarc Crescent council home in the wake of the stabbing on 22nd March as tensions on the street, where Joshua also lived, threatened to boil over.

A SECOND MRI scanner is to be bought for Raigmore Hospital to help meet waiting time targets, it has been revealed.

FINANCIALLY troubled Highland League football side Clachnacuddin will have until the end of the month to pay off £17,500 — more than a quarter of its £67,634 debt — if councillors agree to a new deal to help save the club.

POLICE are investigating another suspicious fire in Inverness — at least the fourth in recent weeks.

THE family of Lib-Dem peer and former Inverness MP Lord Russell-Johnston are to attend a private cremation service in Paris where he died last weekend on the eve of his 76th birthday.

TRAVIS, one of Scotland's most successful rock acts of the last decade, will begin the tour to promote their latest album in Inverness next month.

INVERNESS murderer Alan Dewar was today sentenced to 13 years for the killing of neighbour Joshua Mitchell.

Dewar - fuelled by drugs and Buckfast - had stabbed Joshua near to his Inverness home in Carnarc Crescent in March this year because he was "the closest boy to him".

A MAJOR brawl erupted at a weekend house party and spilled onto a normally quiet residential street in Inverness leaving four people needing medical treatment.

Police were called to Harris Road, Drakies, early on Sunday morning after complaints about excessive noise and fighting on the street.

A FORMER Inverness hostel could be sold and the cash used to build new flats and an advice centre for the homeless.

INDEPENDENT councillor Roddy Balfour has confirmed he will stand for the post of Inverness Provost when members of the city committee meet next week.

SCOTTISH Government minister and Inverness MSP Fergus Ewing yesterday gave the clearest indication yet proposals for the complete dualling the A9 will be included in a soon-to-be-released transport plan.

TRIBUTES from across the political spectrum have been paid to the Lib-Dem elder statesman and former Inverness MP Lord Russell-Johnston, who died in Paris on the eve of his 76th birthday.

TALKS are under way which could see a landmark Inverness building that has lain empty for more than 20 years, restored and returned to public use.

THE search for a site for Inverness's proposed new flagship museum and art gallery is set to be delayed amidst uncertainty over one of the proposed locations.