CHARGE THEM screams the Mail as police hand over the file on the cash for honours enquiry to the CPS

Police investigating the cash for honours scandal yesterday called for three key suspects to face criminal charges.
A file demanding the prosecution of Labour fundraiser Lord Levy, Downing Street aide Ruth Turner and millionaire Sir Christopher Evans was handed to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Following an exhaustive 13-month investigation, Scotland Yard detectives believe they have gathered sufficient evidence to mount a prosecution over allegations that peerages were traded for donations to the Labour Party.
If convicted, the suspects face up to two years in jail.

The Times has the same lead

Blair aides should be charged, say police

Police have recommended that two of Tony Blair’s closest allies face charges as part of the cash-for-honours scandal, in a final file submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) yesterday.
Lord Levy, the Prime Minister’s fundraiser, and Ruth Turner, No 10’s director of government relations, will wait at least three months for a decision, The Times understands.
The police have previously discussed possible charges against Sir Christopher Evans, the biotech tycoon, Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s longest-serving aide, and John McTernan, the Prime Minister’s political secretary, it is understood. However, it is unclear whether they have been recommended for prosecution.

Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall is the front page of the Guardian

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.
The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.
Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street".

The Independent meanwhile leads with a report from Donald Macintyre

Gaza: a disturbing dispatch from a no-go area

Foreigners are mainly staying away from Gaza these days. Only a handful of international UN staff are based there now, their movements heavily restricted by the use of armoured convoys and armed Palestinian security escorts. Which is not surprising, since gunmen fired 11 shots into the side of an armoured car carrying the United Nations Relief and Works Agency field director John Ging on the main north-south highway after their kidnap attempt was thwarted by the locked doors.
Lauren Aarons, a courageous 24-year-old Londoner, took the very job at the Al Mezan human rights office in Gaza that her fellow Briton Kate Burton was forced to leave after her own kidnap in December 2005.

Both the Mirror and the Sun lead on the story of what the Sun describes as

NAPPY SLAPPERS

THESE are the four vicious women who made two toddlers SLAP, PUNCH and KICK each other — and FILMED it for fun.
MUM Zara Care, 21, was named and shamed yesterday over a court case which horrified the nation.
She had ignored the screams of her son, two, as she forced him to attack his three-year-old sister.
Also named were the kids’ GRAN Carole Olver and AUNTS Sarenza and Danielle Olver — who laughed as Care videoed the ordeal.
Carole Olver, 49, even tried to defend the horrifying footage, telling cops: “I couldn’t see any harm in toughening them up. I done the same with my kids.”
All four were convicted at a previous hearing. Yesterday at Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Francis Gilbert QC lifted an order granting them anonymity — and told them: “I find it shocking to watch.
“You caused the children to hurt each other for your own pleasure.” Yet to the fury and astonishment of child-care specialists, he then let them off with suspended 12-month jail sentences and 100 hours community work each.

The Mirror compares it to another case yesterday

A MUM, grandma and two aunties who forced a pair of sobbing toddlers to brawl so they could film them walked free from court yesterday - as a man who staged DOG fights was jailed.
Cruel Zara Care, 21, who mocked her two-year-old lad and daughter, three, for weeping and screaming as they were made to trade blows, escaped with a suspended prison - sentence and 100 hours community service.
And judge Judge Francis Gilbert QC gave similarly lenient punishment to granny - Carole Olver,49, and aunties Serenza Olver, 29, and Danielle Olver, 19 - all of whom goaded and yelled abuse at the terrified children.
But in a separate case yesterday, 28-year-old Adio Clarke was jailed for four months for putting on pit bull terrier fights at his house.
Last night childcare workers and charities were horrified by the discrepancy between the two punishments.

RAPED..BY HAPPY SLAPPERS the Mirror also reports

THREE people appeared in court yesterday after a homeless woman was allegedly raped and her ordeal filmed on a mobile phone.
The 34-year-old told police she was pinned down by another woman and subjected to a violent assault by a young man as his friend took the pictures.
A source said: "I spoke to her and she was in such a state. She was covered in bruises and couldn't stop crying - she was inconsolable.
"She was so afraid because she thought the police wouldn't believe she had been attacked because she is homeless.

The papers reflect on the events in America this week

Shot to pieces, but America finds an antidote to evil in solidarity says the Times

All over America yesterday, students forsook their usual weekday attire, left their own cherished sweatshirts and baseball caps at home, and headed off for class in the maroon and gold of Virginia Tech university.
In a nation of fierce college loyalties, where alumni, children of alumni, local residents of college towns, and even those who just follow a particular university football team would rather go naked than be seen in a competitor’s colours, it was an impressive and moving act of solidarity.
At the campus of the stricken college’s oldest rivals, the University of Virginia in nearby Charlottesville, founded by Thomas Jefferson more than 200 years ago, ancient enmities were set aside. Students filed quietly and respectfully into lecture halls and canteens clad in colours that would have invited derision and animosity a week ago. Someone had painted a bridge on the college’s campus in the vivid hues of Virginia Tech and flowers were laid in memorial.

Inside the mind of America writes Matt Frei in the Telegraph

Now and again when the dream turns into a nightmare, America proves how well it can grieve. This rural corner of south-west Virginia, where housewives drive pick-up trucks with gun racks and men still swig beer out of the bottle, is not exactly known for being in touch with its feelings.But these are dark days and the local country and western station has been advertising "free psychological counselling for those of you who are hurtin' bad and want a shoulder to cry on".
Within hours of the massacre the yellow ribbons appeared around trees in Blacksburg, Roanoke and Salem. The ribbons on the campus of Virginia Tech were red and orange, the college colours. Even in grief campus etiquette needs to be observed.

The Mirror claims

CHO KEPT A HIT LIST

MASS killer Cho Seung-Hui kept a hit list of people who bullied him, claim former schoolmates.
The gunman, who shot dead 32 people at Virginia Tech University, wrote down names whenever he was the victim of cruel taunts.
Christopher Chomchird, who went to Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, with Cho, said most pupils were aware of the list.
He added: "We never saw it but everybody talked about it." Fellow student Carmen Blandon said: "Everybody just took it as a joke saying, 'Well, it's Seung'."

We're so sorry says the Mail

The parents of Virginia mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui are being kept under armed guard amid fears of a revenge attack.
Police are concerned that Cho Seong-tae and his wife Cho Hyang could become targets of a growing wave of anger in the wake of the shootings.
As more details emerged yesterday about the killer's upbringing in South Korea and America, it focussed renewed attention on the couple - still struggling to cope with the realisation that their son perpetrated America's most devastating gun atrocity.

The paper leads with

Jobless doctors 'to be shipped overseas'

the plan was drawn up by NHS managers following the botched introduction of an online appointments system, which could leave thousands of junior doctors without training places this summer.
The document, Maximising Employment Opportunities, confirmed that there was a 10,000 "excess of applicants for training posts over places".

The same paper reports on

Power lines in new link to childhood leukaemia

A leaked Government-commissioned report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer.The draft paper urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high voltage power cables to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid.

The Guardian reports that

Brown shows his hand to stifle challenge from left

Brown's campaign team for the Labour leadership yesterday released astonishing figures showing the chancellor already has the support of 217 MPs with only 35 refusing to nominate him. A further 93 are undecided.
The overwhelmingly positive response from MPs suggests Mr Brown is on the verge of obliterating any opposition.
His canvassing team also unusually released some of the names of isolated senior MPs who are still holding out against the chancellor, and revealed they were intent on stopping a challenge from the party's left wing, most likely from John McDonnell.

As campaigning comes to an end in the French elections the papers speculate on the likely outcome

John Wayne and Joan of Arc try to round up the doubters says the Times

Nicolas Sarkozy, the radical conservative, is expected to lead the field when France picks the two finalists for its presidency tomorrow.
But millions of voters are in suspense over his likely challengers, Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, and François Bayrou, the centrist. Or indeed Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the National Front, who in the last two polls has overtaken Mr Bayrou.
As the most closely fought campaign for more than two decades closed last night, opinion polls pointed to a run-off on May 6 between Mr Sarkozy, 52, the abrasive heir to President Chirac’s Gaullist movement, and Ms Royal, 53, the leftist who is promising a new style of feminine leadership.
The two front-runners rammed home their gender images yesterday. Mr Sarkozy, whose model is Napoleon Bonaparte, dressed like a cowboy and rode around a fighting-bull ranch in the Camargue flatlands. Ms Royal, who styles herself on Joan of Arc, emphasised her advantages as a woman. “France needs a head of state who sees things differently and who has understood that everything is connected,” she said.

I will protect you, Sarkozy tells France as his flame burns again on last day of campaigning reports the Guardian

On a stage facing a sea of tricolour flags stood a small figure in a pinstriped suit hailed as the greatest orator in France. Slicing the air with both hands and jabbing his finger, he waved his arms like an orchestra conductor, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as he promised a France that would no longer hate itself, that would no longer let unchecked immigrants invade its borders and burn its suburbs

The front page of the Express meanwhile maintains that

IMMIGRANTS ARE RUINING THE BRITISH WAY OF LIFE

Immigration may be threatening Britain's status as a country, it has been claimed .
A pamphlet by social policy think-tank Civitas said the UK may already have reached a "tipping point" where it can no longer be regarded as a single nation.Author David Conway said that if Britain has become a "nation of immigrants" it could lead to political disintegration.The 100-page booklet said: "Those for whom this country has always been a model of tolerance and freedom cannot but have cause for deep concern about the seemingly reckless pace and scale on which immigration has recently been allowed to proceed.

The Independent reports on a

Breakthrough as Woolmer suspect is caught on camera

A suspect in the murder of the Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer has been identified from security camera footage in his hotel, amid growing evidence that the former England player was drugged with an ancient poison.
After three weeks with little apparent progress, investigators in Jamaica announced yesterday that there were "significant developments" in the hunt for Mr Woolmer's killer or killers.
The opening of an inquest into the coach's death, due to take place on Monday, was postponed after a series of breakthroughs by the team of 30 officers working on the inquiry, including detectives from Scotland Yard.

Most of the papers carry the story of

Three sailors vanish in a modern-day Mary Celeste riddle,the Mail reporting that

When this yacht was found drifting out to sea, the engines were running, all the lifejackets were on board - and there was even a meal on the table.
However, the crew was nowhere to be found.
Rescue services are calling the discovery a "modern-day Mary Celeste mystery", after the legendary abandoned ship found off the coast of Portugal in 1872.

According to the Times

The table was set. Laptop screens flickered in the cabin and mobile phones and sunglasses were on the chart table in front of the empty chairs. But there was no crew.
“It’s almost like they just stepped off the boat,” said Trevor Wilson, pilot of the rescue helicopter sent to investigate after the catamaran was spotted drifting off the Queensland coast.
The discovery of the Kaz 11 without her three-man crew has mystified Australian rescue teams. Other than a ripped sail, everything seemed perfectly normal. The engine idled in neutral and the marine radio was on. Three wallets were on the table.

The Guardian has a royal exclusive

Earl Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, has told how he read her his controversial eulogy as she lay in her coffin at St James' Palace.

I had practised the speech to myself repeatedly over the days preceding the funeral, trying to familiarise myself with the passages that might lead me to break down, a very real possibility. I read it to Diana's coffin, in the chapel at St James's Palace, and at the conclusion heard a whisper that sounded like satisfaction in that sad, sad, place.

The Sun reports on the present day antics of the royals

Kate lets her heir down

LAUGHING Kate Middleton beams on a girls’ night out — as it emerged that she and exboyfriend Prince William have been comforting each other in a series of late-night phone calls.

Kate, 25, shrugged off the anguish of her split with the future King to go clubbing with pals till 2.30am.
Meanwhile, The Sun can reveal she and Wills have spoken at least FOUR times since we revealed their split a week ago.