Breaking news

This chalk-stencilled design appeared outside Drummond Community High School last week, and is a visible reminder of an important campaign playing out across the capital.

Originally launched in 2009, No Knives Better Lives aims to get across the dangers of carrying a knife, and has regional focuses in Clackmannanshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire.

Here, it is a partnership between Lothian and Borders Police, City of Edinburgh Council, local schools and a variety of voluntary organisations.

The Scottish Government's Minister for Gaelic, Alasdair Allan (right), has welcomed the decision by City of Edinburgh Council to create a dedicated new Gaelic primary school at Bonnington.

The vacant and now ruinously vandalised former primary school on Bonnington Road will be renovated largely thanks to Holyrood funding of £1.8m.

Sainsbury is mounting a charm offensive while it redraws plans to open a shop at 28 Howe Street.

As reported in Breaking news (15.9.11; 28.9.11), the supermarket giant was initially rebuffed by City of Edinburgh Council Planners unimpressed by the proposed treatment of a listed building in the Edinburgh World Heritage site.

The street-artist responsible for an urban anti-hero on McDonald Road has struck again, this time at the other end of the city on the outermost borders of Greater Spurtleshire.

Now that trams are no longer in prospect for Leith Walk, work to restore the thoroughfare to normality – or even to improve it – could begin as early as June 2012.

City of Edinburgh Council's Transport, Infrastructure and Environment Committee will convene on 29 November and consider proposals to:

Staff at Drummond CHS staff have enlisted the help of volunteers in the first step to revive a multi-purpose vegetable garden at the back of the school.

By last spring, the raised beds behind the gym block had become overgrown and very weedy, so science technician Audrey Finlayson and Food & Consumer Technology (FCT) assistant Elaine Brackenridge decided to seize the nettles.

National Schools Film Week kicks off across Scotland tomorrow and will continue until 4 November.

Run by the charity Film Education, it links free screenings of carefully selected movies to the school curriculum via online resources.

The Union Gallery on Broughton Street will exhibit new abstract landscapes by one of its owners and founders, Alison Auldjo, from 11 November to 5 December.

Gone to Earth features what partner Robert Dawkins describes as 'melancholy but beautiful' responses to a time of uncertainty in which individuals – not least financially troubled artists – must stick together for mutual support. Shown right is her 'The Longest Day with Angel, Devil and a Hare' (oil on canvas).

As part of its remit as a social enterprise, Edinburgh Markets (EM) is offering 2 services to local voluntary organisations:

Broughton Street's Escargot Bleu chef-patron Frederic Berkmiller has recently returned from a trip to Britanny, where he led a group of Scottish chefs and food producers on a journey of gastronomic discovery.

In a scheme started by the Institut français d'Ecosse, Berkmiller (right, kilted) and chefs from the catering school at Dinard, the Scottish group were treated to a 4-day programme of visits (to an artisan butter factory, and traditional pig and oyster farms) as well as enjoying meals prepared by famous Breton chefs.