Litvinenko,Mad cow disease and Tornadoes in London are this mornings top stories.

The Guardian's front page leads with

Hotel bar staff poisoned with polonium-210

Revealing that

"Health officials say they are anxious to test around 250 people who went into the bar of the London hotel where the Russian ex-spy is thought to have been exposed to a massive dose of the toxic isotope on November 1."

And that in Moscow

"one of the three Russian businessmen who met Mr Litvinenko in the bar was reported to have fallen into a coma shortly after being questioned in the presence of British police officers."

The Indy has a picture of the coffin of the Russian dissident with the headline

"On day 37 of a murder mystery; one funeral, a second murder plot and seven more people test positive for radioactivity 2

The Front page of the Telegraph headlines

The devastating 20-second tornado

"Residents of a quiet London suburb spoke yesterday of the terrifying 20 seconds when a tornado roared through their streets."

"The storm, in Kensal Rise, north-west London, injured six people, one of whom was taken to hospital.
One house was flattened and up to 150 others were damaged as the 130mph winds took the roofs off houses and bought trees down on to cars in an area covering around a quarter of a mile."

The Mirror headlines "Blown to bits"

Horrified residents said it was like a scene from the Wizard of Oz as the twister sucked up everything in its path. IT worker Chris Holt, 45, said: "Within seconds, the day went from calm and sunny to an apocalyptic pitch black. I could see roofs smashed in and debris everywhere. A house close to me was destroyed."

The Times meanwhile leads on

Infected blood threatens fresh outbreak of vCJD

"Thousands of people are at risk from an outbreak of variant Creut-zfeld-Jakob disease spread by contaminated blood or infected surgical instruments.
An analysis of the death of a third patient after a transfusion of infected blood, published yesterday, shows that the disease is very easily transmitted by blood. Nobody knows how many donors may have given infected blood in the past, or may still be giving it today."

These stories have all succeeded in knocking the Bush -Blair summit off the front pages but non the less the story is well covered.

The Indy reports that

"Differences have emerged between Tony Blair and George Bush on strategy in the Middle East, even as the two leaders agreed that a major change of course was necessary in Iraq in the wake of the devastating critique delivered this week by a high-level bipartisan panel in Washington."

A view echoed in the Guardian which reports

"George Bush yesterday rejected key recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group, revealing important differences with Tony Blair, who embraced the proposals put forward by the US bipartisan commission.
Those differences became clear after the two leaders met at the White House. "

The Telegraph takes a rather differing view

"A defiant and at times prickly President George W Bush stood alongside Tony Blair yesterday and rejected key elements of a major report on the war in Iraq, while vowing: "We will help a young democracy prevail."

Mr Bush insisted on the need to be "flexible and realistic" and to change troop levels only on the advice of military commanders, who have made it clear that they do not want forces to be drawn down yet.

The sun reports that

"TONY Blair is planning a Christmas Middle East peace mission to open the exit door from Iraq.
The gamble last night won the backing of US President George Bush.
Mr Bush said: “Prime Minister Blair informed me that he will be heading to the Middle East soon to talk to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. And I support that mission.”
The PM declared the only way of avoiding disaster in the region is to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. "

It though leads on a story first aired yesterday

Armed farces are cut to shreds!

"BRITAIN’S once-proud military services were branded the “Armed Farces” last night because of a string of penny-pinching Government measures.
The economies have left the Royal Navy torpedoed, troops living in rat-infested squalor, and RAF flights slashed due to clapped-out jets."

The Times reports on a tragic death in India

Fear stalks Himalayan haven where backpackers seek peace

"Last week a Tibetan monk found the body of Michael James Blakey, a 23-year-old British charity worker, under a pile of rocks near the Church of St John in the Wilderness, just outside Upper Dharamsala.
Police told The Times yesterday that Mr Blakey had been murdered with severe blows to the back of the head and to the throat, probably with rocks. "

The Mirror claims an exclusive

EXCLUSIVE: BROWN'S SNAP ELECTION PLAN

"Labour Party chairman Hazel Blears has revealed secret details of the Chancellor's possible surprise timetable to Party activists in the North of England. Her extraordinary letter appears to point to an election around March 2008."

The Express is delighted at yesterdays news on the Diana enquiry.Its front page headline is

Diana: Justice at last

"INQUEST hearings into the death of Princess Diana will now be held in public, it was announced last night.In a victory for justice, royal coroner Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was forced to bow to pressure to hold the hearings in open court."

Several reports in the papers about the yeultide.

The Telegraph comments on

"The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, attacked "aggressive" secularists and "illiberal" atheists yesterday for "throwing out the crib at Christmas".

"In his strongest assault yet on attempts to purge Christianity from public life, Dr Sentamu said such people were undermining the country's cultural traditions. The Archbishop's comments reflect the growing fury of Church leaders at reports of companies banning Christmas decorations and schools leaving Jesus out of nativity plays."

Jeff Randle writes in the same paper that

Christmas: crucified by do-gooders

"In the United Kingdom, this time of year is a Christian festival — as it should be. It is part of our heritage. You don't have to be a fire-and-brimstone evangelist to respect a faith that still underpins traditional British values and institutions, even though much of its spiritual message was lost long ago in a fog of consumerism. Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness. It's a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends "minorities". Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority."

The Guardian meanwhile reports on

The phoney war on Christmas

"The dead hand of political correctness is throttling the life out of the festive spirit," thundered the Sun, announcing, like the Mail, a front-page campaign to defend Christmas. (In Birmingham, the paper noted despairingly, "Christmas has been rebranded as Winterval.") Spurred on by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and by the Christian Muslim Forum, which has launched a national battle against the de-Christianising of Christmas, local leaders of three faiths wrote to Franks in Luton this week. They warned darkly of the "anger within religious communities" that might erupt if he did not "refrain from renaming the Christmas festival using another (non-religious) name".