9am Briefing: Fresh raids on suspected crack dealers

POLICE today carried out a second day of raids against suspected Yardie gangsters involved in peddling crack cocaine in the Capital.

Officers swooped on more addresses in the Leith area at 6am this morning in a bid to round up more suspects identified by a six-month covert investigation and seven people were detained. See today's Evening News for the full story.

Museum boost for economy

THE National Museum is forecast to generate 58.1m a year for the Scottish economy after it reopens next July.

Annual visitor numbers are expected to soar from 800,000 to more than 1.1 million, with bookings already being confirmed for major exhibitions, conferences and gala dinners.

The 46m refurbishment of the Chambers Street building includes a 50 per cent increase in public space and 25 per cent extra exhibition space.

Auction to help fund archive

PAINTINGS donated by Scottish artists and private collectors are to be auctioned to help fund a permanent home for an art archive.

The archive has been collected over 50 years by one of the leading figures on Scotland's contemporary arts scene.

Proceeds from the charity auction, which includes works by artists including Ian Hamilton Finlay and Anne Redpath, will be used by Edinburgh-born art promoter Richard Demarco to run his not-for-profit Demarco Archive Trust at Craigcrook Castle in Edinburgh.

The sale of more than 100 paintings at Lyon and Turnbull auctioneers in Edinburgh begins today with a seven-day preview.

Man killed after bridge jump

A MAN jumped to his death from the Forth Road Bridge last night.

Kinghorn Coastguard team and a South Queensferry lifeboat attended the scene just before 6.30pm, but the man – who jumped from the Fife side of the bridge – did not land in the water.

A spokesman for Fife Police said: "He landed on hard ground underneath the bridge on the North Queensferry side, next to Ferry Road."

He died at the scene.