9am Briefing: Novelty sphinx behind city airport bomb scare

A SOUVENIR sphinx was today said to have been behind a bomb scare which delayed a holiday flight from Edinburgh Airport and led to passengers being put up in a hotel overnight.

The sphinx statue was reportedly discovered in a toilet on an easyJet plane with a note reading: "I'm an Egyptian terrorist".

Police and bomb disposal experts were called, but it was found to be a hoax.

One source said it was a prank by stewards on the plane which had just flown in from Madrid.

Spark makes it into Oxford

AUTHOR Dame Muriel Spark and haggis manufacturer John Macsween are among 213 people added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Dame Muriel is best known as the author of seminal Edinburgh-based novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Mr Macsween built the world's first haggis manufacturing plant in Loanhead.

All those added to the dictionary died in 2006.

Land row scuppers zoo plans

A SERIES of "wow" attractions at Edinburgh Zoo have been mothballed as a row over plans to sell land for housing rumbles on.

New enclosures for penguins, orangutans and rhinos are among the projects put on ice, it was reported today.

Plans to sell land for 125 new houses on Corstorphine Hill were blocked when the Scottish Government ruled against "high-density" housing on the site.

Plans for a visitor centre and a panda enclosure are expected to go ahead.

Man dies after crash

A 42-YEAR-OLD man died after his car collided with a lorry.

The accident happened on the A1 south of Cockburnspath, Berwickshire, at about 7:45pm last night.

The BMW driver was pronounced dead at the scene and the 36-year-old lorry driver was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

The A1 was closed for eight hours following the crash and reopened at 3:45am.

Police have appealed for witnesses to contact them.