Many of the papers lead this morning with the story that makes the front poage of the Times

HRT alert after more than 1,000 women die

Women were advised yesterday to think “very carefully” about taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after evidence was published showing that it has killed 1,000 women in Britain since 1991 by increasing their risk of ovarian cancer.
HRT increases the risk of the disease by 20 per cent, the biggest investigation of links between HRT and cancer has found. Although the absolute risk is low, millions of women took HRT in the 1990s and so the total impact is large: an extra 1,300 cases of the disease and 1,000 deaths between 1991 and 2005, according to the Million Women Study.

70 women 'die each year from cancer after taking HRT'headlines the Mail

More than 1,000 women may have died from ovarian cancer in the last 15 years due to taking Hormone Replacement Therapy, British researchers have claimed.
A study in the The Lancet medical journal published today claims around 70 deaths a year could be linked to the drug taken by menopausal women.
The findings will create further confusion among women reeling from a succession of claims and counter-claims regarding the safety of the treatment.

NEW CANCER WARNING FOR WOMEN says the Express

WOMEN face new fears over Hormone Replace-ment Therapy after doctors exposed an increased link to cancer.
Experts warn today that women taking HRT not only face a higher risk of getting ovarian cancer but also of dying from the disease.The study, which reveals that 1,000 females using the treatment may have died from ovarian cancer, will cause yet more confusion for millions of women over whether HRT is safe. The figure emerged from the biggest investigation of links between HRT and cancer ever undertaken.

The face of the University Killer is still prominent on the front of many papers as they show stills of him fropm a video that he released to NBC during the killing frenzy.

The Sun under the headline VIDEO NASTY reports

MASSACRE madman Cho Seung-Hui sent a chilling message to TV chiefs after slaying his first two victims.
The 23-year-old, speaking on a video clip, said: “The time came and I had to do what I did.”
The footage was part of video files in a parcel sent to NBC along with other chilling written messages.
Cho also talks to the camera about his hatred of the rich and ranting about “getting even” with them.

Virginia Tech killer's chilling video taunts says the Telegraph

Between his first and second bursts of gunfire, the Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package to NBC headquarters in New York containing photos of him brandishing guns and video of him delivering an angry, profanity-laced tirade.
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui said in a harsh, emphatic voice, in an excerpt shown on "NBC Nightly News."
"But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
NBC said the package, received in Wednesday morning's mail, contained an 1,800-word diatribe and 29 photos, 11 of them showing him aiming handguns at the camera. Much of his rant is incoherent and laced with profanity, and he rails against hedonism and Christianity, NBC said.

The Independent leads on yesterday's other main story, with a picture of burnt out ve in a Baghdad market

Hundreds killed on Baghdad's day of bombs and blood

Yesterday will go down as a day of infamy for Iraqis who are repeatedly told by the US that their security is improving. Almost 200 people were killed on one of the bloodiest days of the four-year-old war, when car bombs ripped through four neighbourhoods across Baghdad, exposing the failure of the two-month-old US security plan.
In the aftermath of the blasts, American and Iraqi soldiers who rushed to the scene of the explosions were pelted with stones by angry crowds shouting: "Where is the security plan? We are not protected by this plan."
Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose into the sky over the Iraqi capital after four bombs tore through crowded markets and streets leaving the ground covered in charred bodies and severed limbs. "I saw dozens of dead bodies," said a witness in Sadriyah, a mixed Shia-Kurdish neighbourhood in west Baghdad where 140 people died and 150 were injured. " Some people were burned alive inside minibuses. Nobody could reach them after the explosion. There were pieces of flesh all over the place. Women were screaming and shouting for their loved ones who died."

BLOODIEST DAY
191 dead and hundreds maimed as 5 bombs rock Baghdad reports the Mirror

IT was a scene of carnage in Baghdad yesterday as five bomb blasts left 191 dead and hundreds injured - the bloodiest day in Iraq's capital since the 2003 invasion.
Women and children were among the victims. Other attacks across the country killed a further 50 people.
The suicide bombs in Baghdad exploded hours after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraq would take over its own security by December

We'll be in control by end of 2007 says Maliki. In Baghdad, carnage continues says the Guardian

US efforts to subdue the insurgency in Baghdad suffered a setback yesterday when the Iraqi capital endured one of its most wretched days in four years of slaughter, with nearly 200 people killed and more than 200 injured in a volley of afternoon bomb attacks.
Some of the capital's poorest and most densely populated areas once again confronted scenes of carnage and devastation as at least five large explosions detonated within a terrifying few hours. In the worst attack, a car bomb at a market in a Shia district killed at least 140 people, some of them labourers rebuilding the marketplace from a previous attack in February.

It leads though with the story of a

Diplomatic rift as Russia says: give us Berezovsky

Relations between London and Moscow threatened to plummet to a post-cold war low yesterday amid renewed Russian demands for action against Boris Berezovsky over the tycoon's claim that he is plotting to overthrow Vladimir Putin.
The Russian ambassador to the UK warned that bilateral relations would inevitably suffer if prompt action was not taken against the Britain-based multi-millionaire, who told the Guardian that he was fomenting a revolution to topple Mr Putin by force.

The serach for candidates for a London major is reported in many of the papers

Dyke rejects offer to run for Mayor of London against Livingstone says the Independent

Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, pulled out of an ambitious plot to stand against Ken Livingstone for mayor of London after the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, vetoed an alliance with the Tories.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, went to see Sir Menzies in his private room at the House of Commons after Prime Minister's Questions yesterday in the hope of brokering a deal to allow Mr Dyke to run as an independent with the backing of both parties.
Sir Menzies rejected the plan, after making it clear that adopting Mr Dyke would breach his party's selection rules. Disappointed Tory aides accused Sir Menzies of pulling the plug on an "experiment in new politics".

The Guardian reports that

Police to be able to question suspects after charge

Police are to be given new powers to continue questioning suspects after they have been charged, the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, said yesterday.
In an interview with the Guardian, Lord Goldsmith said there would be a change in the law in a forthcoming package of measures aimed at combating terrorism.
He also disclosed that the Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether to bring the first prosecution of a terrorism suspect who is currently under a control order, using intercept evidence obtained abroad.


More medical news from the Times which reveals

Consultants given 25% pay rise for fewer hours

A pay deal that gave hospital consultants a salary increase of 25 per cent left them working shorter hours and treating fewer patients, the National Audit Office has found.
It says that the consultants deserved more money, but it was regrettable that the public and the NHS had not seen benefits in greater productivity and better services.
The contract, agreed in 2003, cost £715 million in the first three years — £150 million more than the Department of Health estimated. In that time the average consultant’s pay rose to £110,000 a year while the average number of hours worked fell from 51.6 a week to 50.2.

With the first round of the presidential election fast approaching the Telegraph reports that

Le Pen hints at Sarkozy marriage problems

The leader of the far-Right in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, dropped a heavy hint yesterday that the presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia were having fresh marital problems.With just four days to go before the first round of elections, the leader of the Front National alleged that "Paris is abuzz" with rumours about the couple. "I am pretty surprised that the press is not curious these days about Mrs Sarkozy, who could become France's first lady," Mr Le Pen said in a radio interview. It would be a sign of "normal curiosity", he said, for the press to take an interest. He did not give any details of the couple's alleged problems.

The Mirror leads with the story

TAG THE ELDERLY

OLD people should be tagged so they can be tracked by satellite, a Government minister said yesterday.
Malcolm Wicks sparked fury among campaign groups by suggesting authorities keep tabs on "the frail and elderly" with the same technology as is used on criminals.
The science minister said many families worry about "what's happening about an 80 or 90-year-old who may have Alzheimer's". He added: "Some might benefit from being monitored so that families know they are safe and secure."

UN agency confirms Iran is producing nuclear fuel says the Indy

Tension over Iran's nuclear programme heightened last night after the United Nations nuclear agency confirmed that Tehran has crossed a new threshold by producing fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant.
The confirmation, contained in a letter signed by Olli Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency's deputy director general, follows a visit to the Natanz enrichment plant in Iran by nuclear inspectors. But the country is still believed to be a year or so away from the point of no return, which Israel regards as a red line in the Iranian quest for a nuclear capability.

And staying with IRAN.according to the Sun

Iranians' hostage bid number 2

IRAN-backed rebels tried to kidnap a British officer in Iraq with chloroform three weeks BEFORE the Navy hostage crisis.
The snatch bid at an Iraqi army base was foiled by a quick-thinking soldier.
Our revelation will heap more pressure on top brass for letting 15 marines and sailors stray so close to Iranian waters.
In the earlier bid at Camp Sparrowhawk, two insurgents pounced on a Danish major they thought was a Brit at 2am.
They gagged him with chloroform and started dragging him away unconscious.

Meanwhile the Mail reports

Iran hostage forecasts new career as weather presenter

A Royal Navy officer who was among the 15 sailors held hostage in Iran hopes to quit to become a weather man.
Lieutenant Felix Carman, of Port Eynon, on the Gower in South Wales, discovered he was a natural in front of the camera when he was paraded on TV after being captured last month off the Iraqi coast.

The Times claims

This may look like a UN plane... but Sudan used it to bomb Darfur

Britain and America threatened yesterday to impose new sanctions on Khartoum after a United Nations report accused Sudan of disguising its military planes and helicopters as UN aircraft and using them to attack villages in Darfur.
The confidential report says that military aircraft were painted white — a colour usually reserved for the UN — and used to ferry arms to the janjawid militia, for reconnaissance flights and bombing missions.
The 44-page document, prepared by a panel of experts and circulated to UN Security Council members this week, accuses the authorities in Khartoum of flagrant breaches of international law and calls for tougher sanctions.

Britain and US threaten sanctions over Darfur says the Telegraph

Tony Blair called Darfur's crisis "unacceptable, appalling and a scandal for the international community". President George W Bush said the killings in western Sudan amounted to a "genocide" and pledged that America would act. Both leaders said they would press for a new United Nations resolution that would impose an arms embargo on Sudan.
It would also single out key figures in the Khartoum regime and Darfur's rebel movements for targeted sanctions, including a ban on foreign travel and the freezing of overseas assets.

Finally the Guardian reports that

China claims to have created first artificial snowfall

Chinese weather experts claim to have triggered the first artificial snow showers by releasing tiny particles into clouds over the Tibetan plateau.
The experiment was hailed as a success for the drought-stricken region, where freshwater lakes are drying up as warmer temperatures force thousands of glaciers into rapid retreat.
A spokesman for the Tibet meteorological office said artificial snowfall was created by seeding the clouds with particles of silver iodide. The fine particles encourage the formation of ice crystals in the clouds, which grow until they fall as snowflakes.



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