9am Briefing: Hundreds left without gas after burst water main floods network

Engineers were working to solve the problem, but it is understood it could take two days to restore supplies.

Scotia Gas Networks said it was a "major incident" and warned people not to try to use gas appliances until the situation was resolved.

At first, around 300 homes in North Gyle and West Craigs were affected, but by this morning the problem had spread to 700 homes in a wider area.

SGN have issued an emergency number 0845 0701432.

A CAPITAL charity which was wound up last week after more than 100 years had run up debts of up to 4 million, it was reported today.

It has also emerged that former Hibs chairman David Duff, who was jailed for two years for fraud in the mid-1990s, had been acting as an adviser to the Edinburgh University Settlement (EUS) charity, which collapsed last week with the loss of 40 jobs, it was reported today.

Scotland's charity regulator is thought to have been investigating the affairs of the social outreach charity, which ran a number of centres and programmes for disadvantaged groups, for months.

DETECTIVES investigating a murder in Fife have searched a house in Livingston.

Mohammed Nameed Siddique, known locally as Toby, was found dead at a flat in Forres Drive, Glenrothes, on 24 October after being shot.

Yesterday forensic officers from Fife Constabulary carried out searches of a house in Livingston in connection with the incident.

A 27-year-old man is expected to appear at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court today in connection with the death of Mr Siddique.

He has also been charged with the attempted murder of the second man at the flat.

SCOTLAND has won the fight for the coveted contract to maintain Britain's two new aircraft carriers, it was reported today.

There had been concerns that the 50-year contract for the huge vessels would go to France as part of a deal on greater military co-operation.

But military sources are said to have indicated that Scotland is in line to land the contract, with former prime minister Gordon Brown adding his voice to calls for Rosyth to be where the work is carried out.

PRISONERS will get their first chance to vote in next year's elections to the Scottish Parliament after a ruling overturned a 140-year-old ban.

The Government is to confirm that it is ready to change the law to remove the voting ban on more than 70,000 inmates of British jails.

The move comes after government lawyers advised that failure to comply with a 2004 European ruling could cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds in litigation costs and compensation.

Prime Minister David Cameron was said to be "exasperated and furious" at having to accept that there was no way of keeping the UK's 140-year-old blanket ban on sentenced prisoners voting.