9am Briefing: SNP pledge support for football academy and youth in manifesto

The party, seeking re-election to Government on May 5, is the fourth of the larger parties to launch their programmes for the next Scottish Parliament, following manifestos from Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.

SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon revealed before the launch a 50 million "young Scots fund" designed to help people make the most of their potential in sport, business and arts.

The pot of cash is the fifth and final part of a wider 250 million Scottish Futures Fund that the SNP pledges to establish with money saved in the construction of a new Forth crossing.

A POLICE investigation has been launched after a pensioner who was walking her dog on a beach in East Lothian was approached by a man who made sexual comments.

The man approached the 63-year-old woman from behind and made remarks of a sexual nature on the beach at Whitesands, near Dunbar, at around 2.15pm on Tuesday.

The woman contacted Lothian and Borders Police, and the man made off.

CHEAP plonk has the same effect on the palate as wine costing up to six times as much, a psychological taste test has shown.

The study suggests many people are merely paying for the label when they splash out on that "special" bottle.

A total of 578 members of the public took part in the "blind" taste challenge during the Edinburgh Science Festival.

They were offered a range of red and white wines costing less than 5 and other vintages priced between 10 and 30.

Participants were asked to state which were cheap and which were expensive.

Purely by the laws of chance, they should have been able to make a correct guess 50 per cent of the time.

This was exactly the level of accuracy seen, demonstrating that the volunteers could not distinguish between wines by taste alone.