9am Briefing: Rioting spreads to more cities

RIOTING has spread from London to several more English cities, forcing the Prime Minister to today return from his holiday to deal with the escalating crisis.

As violence gripped Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, three people were arrested in London on suspicion of the attempted murder of a police officer who was hit by a car while trying to arrest looters.

The worst rioting in decades saw widespread looting and arson outside of London for the first time since the trouble began on Saturday night.

• THE Scottish Government is to ask for an extra five years to meet air pollution targets in Edinburgh city centre amid fears the country is in breach of levels set by Europe.

A lethal pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, is being spewed out by traffic in such large quantities that Scotland has exceeded its allocation set by the European Commission – risking the lives of thousands of Scots, Holyrood has been warned.

• THE Edinburgh International Book Festival's box office has been thrown into chaos days before the event begins – after being shut down by lightning strikes in Ireland.

Organisers blamed their Dublin-based service provider, Amazon, for the complete meltdown of online ticket sales.

The festival took to Twitter and Facebook to apologise for what it described as "technical difficulties" which began on Sunday evening and are still unresolved.