9am Briefing: Elderly woman in hospital after flat blaze

AN ELDERLY woman was taken to hospital after a fire broke out at a flat in Morningside in the early hours of this morning.

The blaze took place in a ground floor flat on Falcon Gardens just after 6am.

The woman, who was suffering from smoke inhalation, was transported to the Royal Infirmary by ambulance.

Firefighters were called to another flat fire in Marchmont at around 11.30pm last night.

The small fire broke out in the bedroom of a third floor flat on Arden Street but it was extinguished before the fire service arrived.

A man and a woman suffered smoke inhalation and were given oxygen by the fire service and checked over by paramedics at the scene, but did not go to hospital.

Salmond to face committee over Homecoming

First Minister Alex Salmond has been asked to appear before a Holyrood committee investigating the way public money was spent on a major part of the Homecoming celebrations.

MSPs on the Public Audit Committee are probing the legacy of The Gathering.

The committee made the unusual request in private last week for the First Minister to appear and are yet to receive a reply.

Cairn strikes oil off Greenland

CAIRN Energy, the Edinburgh-based explorer, has struck oil for the first time off the coast of Greenland.

Shares in the group led the FTSE-100 leaders' board for much of yesterday amid hopes the find could lead to a major discovery.

Cairn said it had found evidence of both oil and gas from drilling in Baffin Bay between Greenland and Canada.

Shares in the company closed up 9.7p, or 2.3 per cent, at 436.5p, valuing it at some 6.1 billion.