Scotland votes to stay in UK

The biggest news story of the week - or the year - has been what has been happening in Scotland. The country is part of the UK but has its own parliament that decides many of its affairs.

However, some people in Scotland wanted the country to be independent of the UK. This week there was a vote to decide whether or not the country would stay in the UK.

The campaign has been going on for two years and until this summer it looked as though most Scots would vote to stay in the UK. Then newspapers asked people how they planned to vote - and found out that the two sides were very close. There was then a huge campaign to get people in Scotland to vote No to independence.

The result was still close, and very high numbers of people voted. They decided to stay in the UK, but have been promised extra powers.

Four UK universities in world's top six

Two British universities have risen to second place in the annual table of the world's best universities.

Cambridge and Imperial College in London are now joint second, behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. Oxford University and University College London are in joint fifth place, with Kings College London, Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester all in the top 30. Glasgow, Warwick, Birmingham and Sheffield are in the top 70.

The QS ranking is based on research carried out in the universities.

Dogs' home burns down - and raises a million pounds

A charity which looks after abandoned dogs has raised a million pounds after its building burned down at the weekend.

Manchester Dogs' Home caught fire on Friday night. More than 150 dogs were rescued, more than 20 by two men who saw the fire and jumped over the fence into the building. 60 dogs died in the fire, which police think was started deliberately.

Now people have donated more than GBP 1.4 million to the dogs' home, and thousands of businesses in Manchester have offered to help with rebuilding.

New app for spider spotting

This is the time of year when spiders come into British homes and their webs appear everywhere. This is because it is breeding time for the spiders.

There are no deadly spiders in the UK, but many people are still very scared of them. This week a new smartphone app was publicised. It was designed by scientists to help us identify 12 of the most common spiders. There are 660 species in the UK.

The app shows the difference between the spitting spider, the jumping spider and the zebra spider. Check out the  or the Apple version or Android version of the app.