Breaking news, Friday, 21 December

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5:45pm: Four people have been killed, including a gunman, in shooting in Pennsylvania, according to local media.

3:45pm: More than 700 jobs are set to be created after Norwegian energy giant Statoil announced a £4.3billion North Sea project.

3.33pm: Neon Roberts can have radiotherapy treatment, against his mum’s wishes, a High Court judge rules.

3.30pm: President Barack Obama is to nominate Senator John Kerry as America’s next Secretary of State later today.

3:10pm: A male prostitute who stabbed a university lecturer 114 times in his home in Edinburgh’s Merchiston has been jailed for 12 years.

3:05pm: Four fishermen who were rescued by Campbeltown Lifeboat in the early hours of this morning have been arrested on suspicion of being drunk in charge of the boat.

3:00pm: A man who attacked a grandmother leaving her with horrific facial injuries has been jailed for a total of 15 years.

3:00pm: A man who killed an 88-year-old war hero during a robbery bid has been jailed for seven years.

1:45pm: SKIERS and snowboarders heading to the popular Glenshee ski centre in Aberdeenshire can now use their smart phones or home computers to check if the snowgate on the A93 at Braemar is shut before they head off for the slopes.

12:35pm: Tayside Police are investigating a “suspicious incident” involving a man at Alyth Primary School in Perthshire.

12:20pm: A 25-year conflict in drink-driving law in Scotland and England has been resolved - with motorists north of the Border now having a better chance of escaping conviction.

12:10pm: A former British Army doctor has been struck off the medical register over his involvement in a cover up following the death of an Iraqi prisoner.

12.00pm: A week after the mass shootings that killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school - 20 of them children - the nation’s largest gun-rights lobby is returning to the spotlight as Congress prepares to consider tighter restrictions on firearms in the new year.

11.45am: A landslide has hit the main railway line between Edinburgh/Glasgow and the north, one mile south of Perth.

10.25am: Chancellor George Osborne’s plan to bring down the budget deficit was dealt another blow today after it emerged borrowing unexpectedly increased last month.

10.06am: British Transport Police are appealing for information following two incidents of “appalling” indecent behaviour by young teenage boys on successive nights on a passenger train between Aberdeen and Stonehaven.

9.55am: Smoked salmon worth thousands of pounds has been stolen in a break in at a fish processing plant in Moray.

8.15am: BAE Systems, the British aerospace firm, has signed a £2.5 billion contract to supply Oman with 12 Typhoon and 8 Hawk military planes.

8.10am: Sally Roberts, who does not want her seven-year-old son Neon to have radiotherapy treatment following surgery on a brain tumour, should discover today whether she has won a High Court battle.

8.00am: The home of TV weatherman Fred Talbot has been raided by police as part of an investigation into historic sexual abuse, sources said.

7.50am: Four fishermen have been rescued after their boat started taking on water off Campeltown Loch.

The vessel broadcast a mayday message at 2.30am today reporting that it required immediate assistance.

ON THIS DAY:

1620: The Pilgrim Fathers went ashore frm the Mayflower at what is now New Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1972: West and East Germany formally signed treaty ending more than two decades of enmity.

1988: Pan-Am flight 103 was blow up in mid-air by a terrorist bomb, crashing on Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire with the loss of all 259 people on board nad 11 on the ground.