Around the corner, around the world

Bed blocking crisis

Ayrshire’s bed blocking crisis has been unmasked as one of the worst in Scotland. New figures reveal almost 150 patients were stuck in wards with nowhere to go this September. More than a third had no care package in place, while 41 had not even been assessed. Ayr MSP John Scott said: “Delayed discharge increases pressure on hospitals, with fewer beds available.”

Ayrshire Post Landslip power cut

Twenty-three thousands homes across Skye and the Western Isles were left without power on Monday after a major landslip damaged an overhead line. Some 9,000 tonnes of soil and rock were displaced in the landslide west of Invergarry, which took out the Scottish and Southern Energy network’s power line to the islands. Some homes lost power from 9am until 6.30pm.

West Highland Free Press

Bank foils scam

Police have issued a scam warning after a bank fraud attempt via telephone in Oban. An elderly woman in Oban received a call from a man saying he was from a bank fraud team in Edinburgh. He said someone was trying to take money from her account, and gave her an account number to transfer her savings into. When she went to her bank, staff raised the alarm.

The Oban Times Czech PM Plot

The son of Czech leader Andrej Babis has said he was lured to Russian-occupied Ukraine, and abducted, to stop him testifying in a fraud case against his father. Babis, one of whose firms is accused of embezzling €2m in EU grants, called the report “a manipulation” designed to destroy him. Mr Babis claims his son has a history of mental illness.

euobserver El Chapo framed

Lawyers for Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous drug lord known as El Chapo, claimed on Tuesday that for decades their client had been framed by a vast conspiracy of plotters, including his chief lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, American drug agents, and the last two presidents of Mexico. The defence’s claim was an unexpected start to Mr Guzmán’s drug conspiracy trial.

New York Times