The Herald Scotland website has looked back at our most-read stories of 2017 and compiled a list of the top twelve of the year.
The stories are ranked based on the number of page views.
12. Damien Love's TV highlights
January: Satirists and late-night comics did not spare President-elect Donald Trump and neither did the Sunday Herald's TV critic.
Sunday Herald reviewer Damien Love’s write-up of Donald Trump's inauguration broadcast characterised the proceedings as the return of “The Twilight Zone” and sent social media into a viral spin.
11. Arrest of Wings Over Scotland blogger
August: Stuart Campbell was arrested in August after a woman in London alleged she was the victim of a two-year campaign of intimidation.
The pro-independence blogger behind the Wings Over Scotland website faced no further action over the alleged online harassment.
10. Tesco withdraws 'we are removing the Scottish Saltire' statement
November: Tesco decided to stick with the Saltire after it deleted a tweet that indicated it would replace the emblem with the Union flag on product packaging.
The supermarket giant caused a stir through its @TescoNews twitter feed when it said: "We are removing the Scottish Saltire and replacing it with the United Kingdom flag."
9. Westminster and the big lie about Scotland's oil
August: We exclusively revealed how Westminster's "mismanagement" of oil since the price slump two years ago has cost Scotland tens of billions of pounds and is being falsely used to attack independence.
A leading think tank claimed Scotland would be an economic powerhouse if UK ministers had not mishandled North Sea wealth since the start of the oil crisis, Business for Scotland (BFS) said.
8. Orange hall Halloween partygoers dressed as Hitler and the Pope
July: A fancy dress party organised by a flute band in an Orange Order hall caused outrage after it was won by a man and woman dressed as Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun while two children wore rags branded with a yellow star-shaped patch like that which Jewish people were made to wear in Nazi Germany.
Another entrant to a previous year’s party organised by the same flute band dressed as the Pope and wore a noose around their neck, tongue lolling, to depict a hanging.
The photographs were posted on a public Facebook page designed to promote the activities of the Orange Order, but were condemned as “hateful”, “racist” and “breathtaking in their ignorance."
May: The 58-year-old former lead singer of The Smiths, who grew up in Manchester, got mixed reviews for his commentary on the reaction to the deadly suicide bombing that occurred at the Ariana Grande’s concert.
He lashed out against British politicians, criticising their statements on the Manchester attack.
April: Guillotines, castration, and flogging – these were just some of the policies put forward by controversial Scottish Ukip candidate, Gisela Allen.
Allen, who stood in Glasgow for the anti-EU party, also insisted mothers with young children should not work. She spoke exclusively to the Sunday Herald setting out her views on crime, health, childcare and relationships.
5. World reacts to “brilliant” Trump inauguration TV listing
January: Readers across the world were left in stitches over reviewer Damien Love’s satirical TV listing of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
He captured the world's mood before the screening in his Sunday Herald TV roundup.
In the copy, he wrote about the Donald Trump story as a box office style disaster movie.
4. Scotland's Christmas gift to the world...
December: Finance Secretary Derek Mackay stripped Donald Trump’s Scottish business of a lucrative tax break.
The US president's luxury golf resort, Trump Turnberry, this year got more than £100,000 in business rates relief from the Scottish taxpayer. However, the SNP Government changed the rules and called a halt to such rebates.
The exact cost to Trump from the change is unclear.
3. Glasgow vet stranded after being caught up in Trump immigrant ban
January: A University of Glasgow vet was blocked from coming back to Scotland after being caught up in President Donald Trump's ban on imigrants and refugees from several Muslim countries.
Hamaseh Tayari, who majors at veterinary anaesthesia the university, was due to fly back to Glasgow but was denied entry onto a flight because it went via New York and she would need a transit visa, which was revoked.
2. Orange Order claim Sturgeon's referendum plan "shot to pieces"
July: Members of the Orange Order brought the streets to a standstill as they swaggered to Glasgow Green with renewed purpose.
Thousands gathered in the public park to hear triumphalist speeches which attacked First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and “Republican sympathiser” Jeremy Corbyn, but talked up the rise of the DUP as an indication that “the future is Orange”.
Cheers erupted when the crowd was told the SNP “got a kicking” and Sturgeon’s plans for a second independence referendum were now “shot to pieces”.
1. That time Angelina Jolie revealed how she tried to hire a hitman...
December: This story took everyone by surprise, not least because it was originally published in June 2001.
The interview with Angelina Jolie resurfaced on the 'Today I Learned' forum on the globally popular social news sharing website, Reddit.
At the time, the American actress was promoting her upcoming film, Tomb Raider, and told the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) that she once tried to hire a hitman to kill her.
The then 26-year-old said she had been contemplating suicide, and felt that her being killed would have been easier on her family.
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