Migrants in Britain - the official verdict says the front page of the Times

Migrants are more reliable and harder working than British-born workers and are boosting economic output by £6 billion a year, according to a government study published yesterday.
Immigrants have a better work ethic than the British and are willing to work longer hours with less time off sick. Weekly mean earnings of migrants are also £60 higher than their UK counterparts.
But while large numbers of migrants bring overall economic benefits, their arrival may be hitting the wage levels of the unskilled, the study found.

The Guardian confers

Migrants are a boon to UK economy, says study

The joint Treasury, Home Office and Work and Pensions study says that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Polish and other east European workers has had "no discernible" impact on unemployment and has led to only a "modest dampening of wage growth" for British workers at the bottom end of the earnings league.

The Mail reports that

'Open door' immigration policy puts nation under a huge strain, Government admits

Immigrants are placing a huge strain on public services, Labour finally admitted last night.
Crime is up, schools are struggling to cope with Eastern European children, community tensions are rising, health services are coming under enormous pressure and house prices are being driven up, the Government said.

It leads with health news

Obesity is 'deadlier than smoking' and can knock 13 years off your life

Obesity is more dangerous than smoking and will dramatically shorten the lives of millions, a landmark study has found.
While smoking reduces life by an average of ten years, the research says being seriously overweight can cut life expectancy by as much as 13 years.
The Foresight report, written by 250 leading scientists, says Britain's obesity crisis is so severe that it would take at least 30 years to reverse.

The front page of the Telegraph looks to todays BBC announcemnents

BBC faces strike over thousands of job cuts

A strike at the BBC was said to be inevitable last night as Mark Thompson, the director general, prepared to announce the largest number of compulsory redundancies in the corporation's history.
Mr Thompson will tell the BBC Trust today that 2,000 employees — almost a tenth of the workforce — will be sacked in an attempt to find £2 billion in budget cuts.
The decision is controversial, with senior broadcasters such as John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman criticising the management for planning to reduce news and current affairs while finding funds for less popular digital channels and internet sites.

There is still plenty of speculation about the demise of Ming Campbell

Sir Menzies: I did it for the party but I am angry and frustrated reports the Times

Sir Menzies Campbell declared yesterday that he had been unable to escape the “cloying blanket” of questions about his age and leadership and insisted that his decision to stand down was his own and not forced upon him.
As Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne prepared to announce their campaigns to succeed him as Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies invited television crews to his Edinburgh home to speak of his frustration and irritation at having to leave the stage.
Although he maintained that he had not been pushed, The Times can disclose that Sir Menzies decided to leave his post after being told by a group of close friends and confidants that the game was up.

A slightl;y different take from the Sun which says

GRUMPY OLD MING

BITTER Sir Menzies Campbell last night blamed his downfall on his age, saying: “I feel irritated and frustrated”
The former Lib Dem leader said he was hounded out by a media obsession with the fact he is 66.
A grumpy Sir Menzies lashed out 24 hours after being ousted by his party in a coup.


Campbell hints that Huhne's supporters plotted against him says the Independent

The former Liberal Democrat leader appeared to attack supporters of the leadership hopeful Chris Huhne for briefing against him. He told Channel Four News that he believed the environment spokesman was loyal and had integrity. But challenged about Mr Huhne's supporters, he said: "Those who undermine any part of the party, whether it is the leader or the president or the spokesman on social security undermine themselves as much as they undermine the party. It's a dangerous game."

It leads with the story that

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans less intelligent than Westerners

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

The Tabloids are still reporting on Maddy.The front page of the Sun reports that

COPS SEIZE GERRY McCANN'S COMPUTER

POLICE have seized a computer used by Gerry McCann in Portugal.
And they will apply to a judge to scour his emails and websites he visited after daughter Madeleine disappeared. Adding that

The swoop was revealed as Gerry and wife Kate admitted for the first time that four-year-old Maddie is “probably” dead.

PARENTS CAR HID A CORPSE is the lead in the Express

BODILY fluids found in the car hired by Madeleine McCann’s parents could only have come from a corpse, it was claimed yesterday.
Forensic tests prove a body was placed in the Renault Scenic, a Portuguese police source alleged.
The fluids were on the underside of a carpet over the spare tyre well in the boot of the car hired by Kate and Gerry McCann 25 days after Madeleine disappeared on May 3, aged three.

The Telegraph claims ioan interview with the parents of the couple

Madeleine's parents 'made a terrible mistake'

The mother of beleaguered Kate McCann has admitted that her daughter and son-in-law made a "terrible mistake" to leave Madeleine and her twin siblings alone.They said their daughter is tormented by the "scurrilous rubbish" about her and Gerry's culpability in Madeleine's disappearance that is reported in the Portuguese press and repeated in the UK.
She said that Kate, a 39-year-old GP from Rothley, Leicestershire, feels she is being persecuted because she does not look maternal enough.




The Mirror has a world exclusive

Sir Paul McCartney: I'll give her £25million

Macca and Heather Mills are on the brink of a divorce deal after he offered her £25million.
Heather's legal team is urging her to accept the cash, which is a huge increase on Sir Paul's opening offer of between £3million and £5million.
The fine print, including a gagging clause to stop Heather telling her story, is still being discussed. But the two sides are said to be "within touching distance" and could shake hands on a deal by Friday. A source said: "There is no guarantee - but it's the closest they've been."

The Guardian leads with the news that

Britain to claim more than 1m sq km of Antarctica

The United Kingdom is planning to claim sovereign rights over a vast area of the remote seabed off Antarctica, the Guardian has learned. The submission to the United Nations covers more than 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed, and is likely to signal a quickening of the race for territory around the south pole in the world's least explored continent.
The claim would be in defiance of the spirit of the 1959 Antarctic treaty, to which the UK is a signatory. It specifically states that no new claims shall be asserted on the continent. The treaty was drawn up to prevent territorial disputes.


Happy ending for saga of suicide and grief as Booker judges choose surprise winner

The bleak tale of a sprawling Irish family grieving the suicide of one of their clan was a rank outsider to scoop the most prestigious literary prize in the calendar. But last night, Anne Enright's fourth novel, The Gathering, was named the surprise winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize.
After two and a half hours of deliberation, involving three separate voting systems, the panel of judges, led by Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, chose Enright's book for the £50,000 award.

'Depressing Irish saga' wins the Booker Prize is the Telegraph's take

A desperately bleak Irish family saga featuring a suicide and sexual abuse that has sold barely 3000 copies in the UK in five months emerged as the surprise winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize


HORROR OF DI CAR CRASH reports the Express

THE carnage of the crash that killed Princess Diana was described in its full horror yesterday by one of the first people on the scene.
French film-maker James Huth said he saw the lifeless bodies of Diana’s lover Dodi Fayed and his driver Henri Paul in the mangled wreckage of their Mercedes in the Alma tunnel in Paris.

More grusome facts in the Mirror

She was lying crumpled in the footwell behind the passenger seat and hidden by Dodi's body, the inquest heard yesterday.
Witness James Huth said he had run into the Alma tunnel to find driver Henri Paul already dead, his face buried in the car's airbag.
Bodyguard Trevor Rees, the only survivor, was "panicking" and groaning and Dodi Fayed's denim-clad leg was sticking out, clearly broken.

The Guardian reports that

Putin warns US against military action in Iran

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, gave Iran's leaders a public morale boost in their nuclear dispute with the west yesterday by issuing a veiled warning to the US not to resort to military strikes over the issue.
Mr Putin used a historic visit to Tehran - the first by a Kremlin leader since Stalin in 1943 - to amplify his opposition to an American attack against Iran. "We should not even think of making use of force in this region," he told a five-nation summit meeting of Caspian Sea nations.

Vladimir Putin pledges to complete Iranian nuclear reactor says the Times

President Putin forged an alliance with Iran yesterday against any military action by the West and pledged to complete the controversial Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

The Independent reports that

Spain seizes US ship in treasure row

A Spanish warship seized an American treasure-hunting vessel at gunpoint yesterday, believing it had taken goods worth millions of dollars from a sunken Spanish galleon that is the subject of an increasingly tense international stand-off.
Patrol boats from Spain's maritime police intercepted the 76m Odyssey Explorer – owned by the underwater salvage firm Odyssey Marine International – three miles off the coast of Gibraltar


David Miliband demands apology for Hitler jibe says the Telegraph

A furious David Miliband has demanded an apology after a senior Labour MP compared his approach to the new EU treaty to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938.The Foreign Secretary, who is the son of Jewish immigrants, reacted with horror when Michael Connarty, who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee, said listening to Mr Miliband explain there was no threat to British sovereignty from the reform treaty reminded him of Chamberlain's "peace in our time" declaration shortly before the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Meanwhile the Sun reports of another racism row

GRAND Prix sensation Lewis Hamilton was caught in a racism row last night after shocking comments by Spain’s top motor racing official.
Carlos Gracia claimed Britain is a racist country and said it was ironic that Brit fans were counting on a black driver.
Hamilton, 22, is poised to become the first rookie ever to win the F1 title.

The Mail reports

Nurse 'murdered four elderly patients with overdose because they were nuisance'

Colin Norris, 31, was so confident that their deaths would be attributed to natural causes that he believed he could carry on killing with impunity, the jury was told.
During the course of a six-month killing spree his arrogance grew to such an extent that he allegedly predicted - within 15 minutes - the exact time his final victim would die.

Probation cuts 'risk to public' says the Mirror

Budget cuts will mean dangerous criminals being left unsupervised after they leave jail, it was warned last night.
Probation officers' union Napo said plans to cut the service's budget by 1.7 per cent a year meant it faced "meltdown".
Assistant general secretary of Napo Harry Fletcher warned: "The cuts will inevitably mean a sharp reduction in the number of staff.
"This will mean less supervision, fewer programmes and compromised public protection."

The Telegraph reports that

'Anarchy and civil war risk' to South Pacific

To the world it portrays an image of coral reefs and coconut palms, but the South Pacific is plagued by political unrest and poverty, regional power brokers Australia and New Zealand have warned.
Citing last year’s military coup in Fiji and recent riots in Tonga and the Solomon Islands, New Zealand’s foreign minister said several countries teetered "on the brink of civil war and anarchy."
"In parts of the Pacific, pockets of absolute poverty are growing. The socio-economic indicators of some Melanesian countries are almost on a par with those of sub-Saharan Africa," said Winston Peters, adding that "there are no quick fixes."

US weathers Beijing's fury as Bush attends ceremony with Dalai Lama reports the Guardian

President George Bush will today defy White House tradition and official Chinese anger by joining the Dalai Lama in the US Capitol, where the spiritual leader will receive America's highest civilian honour.
The White House softened the slight to Beijing by keeping yesterday's meeting between the Dalai Lama and Mr Bush a distinctly private affair, and by previously assuring the president's attendance at the 2008 summer Olympics in China.
However, Chinese officials yesterday warned that the spectacle of President Bush standing by the side of the Dalai Lama as he is awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour could seriously damage relations with Beijing.

Finally the Mail asks

Am I cursed by King Tut?

Eight years ago I found dusty family heirlooms from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Since then, my life has been one disaster after another...
The startling sight the other day of a colossal gold statue of the Jackal-headed god Anubis sailing under Tower Bridge, heralding the return to London of Tut-Mania next month, sent shivers down my spine - but for all the wrong reasons.