Council tax rises to beat inflation for a tenth year
A Times survey of more than 200 authorities shows that the average bill is set to rise by at least 3.8 per cent to £1,315, up £47 from last year. The figures mean that council tax will have risen by more than 90 per cent since Tony Blair came to power in 1997, with annual bills jumping from £688 to £1,315.
The lowest rises are in the 238 districts that face elections in May, weeks before Gordon Brown is expected to take over as Prime Minister.
Local government experts said that, while this was the lowest overall rise since Labour came to power, Mr Brown was merely “holding the lid on council tax” and that rises could well be steeper next year.
The Telegraph meanwhile reports that
Families targeted to break power of gun gangs
Families who harbour young men with guns face eviction from their homes and being moved out of their communities under a pioneering police crackdown.
The idea is to be tested in Merseyside as statistics obtained by The Daily Telegraph show that at least 550 teenagers were murdered or unlawfully killed in England and Wales in the past 10 years.
The Guardian tells us
New alarm at lack of vetting for school staff
Hundreds of thousands of people working with children in schools are still not being put through criminal record checks promised by the government in the wake of the Soham murders, the Guardian has learned.
Guidance sent to schools and colleges last month explains that existing teachers and other members of staff who work closely with children do not have to be fully vetted, despite claims by ministers that the procedures would be tightened.
The government promised to close the loophole last year when Ruth Kelly, then education secretary, told parliament she was ordering schools carry out criminal record checks on all new appointments.
The move came after it emerged that 88 sex offenders had been cleared by her department to work in schools.
It also reports though on its font page of
US accused of drawing up plan to bomb Iran
President George Bush has charged the Pentagon with devising an expanded bombing plan for Iran that can be carried out at 24 hours' notice, it was reported yesterday.
An extensive article in the New Yorker magazine by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh describes the contingency bombing plan as part of a general overhaul by the Bush administration of its policy towards Iran.
It said a special planning group at the highest levels of the US military had expanded its mission from selecting potential targets connected to Iranian nuclear facilities, and had been directed to add sites that may be involved in aiding Shia militant forces in Iraq to its list.
Although the Independent headlines that
US 'plans to bomb Iran', despite denials
Bryan Whitman, the Pentagon's spokesman, said: "The US is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous."
But the American leader most identified with possible military action against Iran, Vice-President Dick Cheney, repeated in Australia last week that "all options" were on the table.
He arrived on a surprise visit last night in Oman, a Gulf state strategically located across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran.
According to the Times
Jail imams vetted by security services and Muslim books screened for code
The security services are conducting background checks on imams who provide religious and pastoral care in jails.
The vetting, part of the effort to prevent inmates from being radicalised, is in addition to the routine counter-terrorism checks conducted by the Prison Service and a further check by the Criminal Records Bureau.
A growing number of imams are being appointed to work either full or part time at prisons in England and Wales.
The checks are in response to concerns that prisons may be an ideal environment for al-Qaeda operatives to radicalise and recruit young people.
And staying with that theme the Telegraph reports of a
Al-Qa'eda 'plotted to kill Blair in front of Queen'
The risk to the Prime Minister was disclosed to a new BBC documentary by Lord Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2002. He positioned marksmen around Buckingham Palace in readiness for an attack by bombers or snipers.
Lord Stevens, talking for the first time about the alleged plot, said: "There was a threat against the Prime Minister over the Queen's Jubilee period. It was an assassination threat. There was good reason to believe that the threat was credible."
The Front page of the Mail reports that
Attack on NHS staff every 7 minutes
Violent attacks on NHS doctors and nurses have reached unprecedented levels.
An estimated 75,000 medical staff - one every seven minutes - were the victims of drink and drug-fuelled assaults by patients last year.
Most of the attackers escaped scot-free, despite the proclaimed 'zero tolerance policy' of the government and NHS management.
Most of the papers cover the Oscars from last night with many carrying front page pictures of Dame Helen Mirren receiving her awtd for best actress.
The Sun has the headline
WHAT A DAME
The Mirror exclaims
OSCAR JOY FOR QUEEN MIRREN
BRITISH actress Dame Helen Mirren was the toast of Hollywood last night, after winning the coveted best actress award at the Oscars.
The 61-year-old star was honoured at the ceremony at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles for her starring role in The Queen, in which she played the British monarch during the days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
"My sister told me all kids love to get gold stars - this is the biggest and best gold star I've ever had in my life," said an overjoyed Dame Helen after collecting her statuette.
Mirren beat off stiff opposition from fellow Brits Kate Winslet and Dame Judi Dench, who were nominated for Little Children and Notes On A Scandal respectively.
The paper also carries an interview with the rail driver at the centre of the Friday night crash,
I'M NO HERO, SAYS RAIL CRASH DRIVER
SHY train driver Iain Black yesterday shrugged off his bravery in saving 110 passengers in the Cumbrian rail crash.
He told a friend: "Don't call me a hero. I was only doing my job."
Ignoring his safety, Iain, 46, stayed at the controls holding the nine-coach Virgin tilting train on full brake for half a mile as it veered off the track at 90mph.
Eleven people were seriously hurt when the express finally rolled 40ft down an embankment.
Without Iain's action, the toll could have been far higher.
The Mail stays with that theme reporting that
Track inspectors to be quizzed by police over the Cumbria rail crash
Two track inspectors will be interviewed by police today as officials investigating the train derailment in Cumbria focus their attention on railway maintenance.
It has emerged that a second passenger train was minutes away from disaster as it narrowly avoided ploughing into wreckage from the crash.
Four vital steel bolts from a set of points that the train had just crossed were found lying at the side of the track.
John Tilley, regional organiser for the RMT rail union, said that a train travelling from Scotland to England stopped after the driver was alerted to the accident ahead.
The front page of the Independent continues to champion the attack on banks
Revealed: total cost of the great bank robbery... £7.2 billion
Banks could be forced to refund £7.2bn worth of illegal penalty fees they have levied from customers, according to City analysts, if regulators rule against the charges.
In the first authoritative study of the charges, banking analysts at Credit Suisse have calculated that high street banks rake in £1.2bn a year from penalty charges. The news will fuel a customer revolt that has taken the banking sector by storm.
According to the Mirror
BLAIR: I'LL QUIT AS MP FOR BROWN
TONY Blair plans to resign as an MP to take the pressure off Gordon Brown when he becomes Prime Minister, it was claimed yesterday.
A Labour source in the north east, where Mr Blair is MP for Sedgefield, said he would quit in the autumn after standing down as PM during the Commons' summer recess.
No 10 denied the report but the source added Mr Blair thought he should give his successor "a clear run".
The PM is said to have told his local party last week he did not want to "get in the way on the back benches".
The Guardian reports that
After 400 years, Virginia issues official apology for slavery
"The moral standards of liberty and equality have been transgressed during much of Virginia's and America's history," the resolution says. It calls the enslavement of millions of Africans and the exploitation of native Americans "the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history".
The Independent reports on the launch of another Presidential campaign in France
Le Pen tempers racism in fifth presidential bid
Moving away from blunt racism, the French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen folded a flavour of save-the-planet evangelism into his rhetoric yesterday as he launched his fifth bid for president.
But M. Le Pen, whose daughter Martine is credited with softening his image, may not be able to run in the 22 April first round. He has not yet secured the 500 endorsements from elected officials that are required before he can stand.
Speaking to 2,500 supporters in Lille, M. Le Pen, 78, for the first time brought environmental issues into his campaign, though the underlying message was still laced with allusions to the ills of immigration and the collusion against him by "the cartel of ministers and ex-ministers who have governed us for 30 years".
In an appeal to the far left, he called on France's "seven million" poor people to "wake up to the global tragedy" caused by "planetary financial capitalism led by a few predators whose only target is double-digit profit in a nation called Money". Departing from his usual anti-foreigner rhetoric, he said: "We shouldn't blame immigrants for these policies. Those who bear the exclusive responsibility are French politicians [of the mainstream parties] who are today represented by the candidates [Ségolène] Royal, [Nicolas] Sarkozy and [François] Bayrou.
Events at the Carling Cup Final yesterday are prominently covered
SNARLING CUP FINAL says the Mirror
ARSENAL and Chelsea will face the full wrath of the FA today after dramatic and disgraceful scenes at yesterday's Carling Cup final.
Didier Drogba struck a late winner to clinch the cup for Chelsea over Arsenal's kids, but the day will be remembered for more shocking reasons. Chelsea captain John Terry was stretchered off after suffering a terrifying head injury while three players were sent off after an injurytime bust-up.
Terry was left unconscious on the pitch for five minutes and needed emergency treatment before being rushed to hospital - only to later return to celebrate with his Chelsea teammates.
Arsenal defender Kolo Toure, striker Emmanuel Adebayor and Chelsea's Jon Obi Mikel were sent off after a mass brawl and the Football Association are set to launch a full-scale investigation which could lead to both clubs being charged.
It came after Mikel fouled Toure and the pair traded blows before Arsenal's Emmanuel Eboue appeared to hit Chelsea's Wayne Bridge only for referee Howard Webb to send off Adebayor in what might have been a case of mistaken identity.
Blue flags fly after red mist clears says the Times
A number of the papers report on revelations of new species in Antartica
Antarctica reveals secrets as sea ice vanishes says the Telegraph
For the scientists of the sea it was a bitter-sweet dream come true.
A 10-week voyage exploring the untouched Antarctic waters exposed by the collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and the loss of Larsen B in 2002 offered an opportunity to discover up to 19 new marine species.
Among the new species is a shrimp like no other. At four inches long it is larger than many found in temperate climes – so big, in fact, that some may wonder at its right still to be called a shrimp.
New species, warm water and whales: the Antarctic's secrets revealed by melting ice is the Guardian's headline
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