HEATHROW SECURITY ALERT headlines the Indpendent,the paper reporting

Five million people in peaceful environmental organisations such as the National Trust and the RSPB have become the subject of an extraordinary legal attempt to limit their right to protest.

In legal documents seen by The Independent, the British Airports Authority has begun moves that would allow police to arrest members of 15 environmental groups to prevent them taking part in demonstrations against airport expansion.

While the threat of terrorism and consequent security checks have been dominating the headlines during the start of the summer holidays, BAA has been planning a pre-emptive strike against environmentalists

The papers generally cant agree on the main news this morning,the Telegraph leads with
BROWN POLL BOOST COULD PROMPT SNAP ELECTION

Gordon Brown's dilemma over calling a snap "honeymoon" election this autumn is increased today by a YouGov survey for The Daily Telegraph showing that he has established a poll lead capable of doubling Labour's Commons majority
Labour's nine-point lead, comparable to its performance in the 2001 general election, would give Mr Brown a Commons majority of 134 over all other parties, double his present 67 working majority.
He will have to decide within weeks whether to capitalise on his advantage and call an October election before a demoralised Conservative Party can regroup - or wait until spring or later before seeking his own mandate.

According to the Times

Hundreds of doctors work with no checks

Hundreds of junior doctors, including overseas staff, will be employed by hospitals from next week without undergoing proper security checks, The Times has learnt.
Hospital trusts have been unable to investigate the criminal records of trainees because they have received their names over the past two weeks – and checks take at least 28 days.
The delay has been blamed on the junior doctors training fiasco. Hospitals will take on a new rotation of trainees on August 1.
The disclosure will embarrass Gordon Brown, who pledged to tighten checks on medical staff after foreign junior doctors were arrested in connection with the failed attacks in Glasgow and London.

The Guardian meanwhile leads with

Scientists link diabetes drugs to heart failure

Two of the most commonly used drugs for diabetes, which were taken by hundreds of thousands of mostly overweight people in the UK last year, are causing widespread heart failure, scientists warn today.
Use of the drugs, prescribed by doctors for type II diabetes, has doubled in the past three years as a consequence of a growing obesity problem. Last year 1.8m prescriptions were written across the UK, which scientists say equates to several hundred thousand patients taking the drugs which are recommended for use across the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Medical matters for the front of the Mail which reports that

Smoking just one cannabis joint raises danger of mental illness by 40%

A single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by more than 40 per cent, a disturbing study warns.
The Government-commissioned report has also found that taking the drug regularly more than doubles the risk of serious mental illness.
Overall, cannabis could be to blame for one in seven cases of schizophrenia and other life-shattering mental illness, the Lancet reports.

The Times carries news of the first interview of the widow of a 7/7 bomber

I pray for 7/7 bomber, my husband says the paper

The widow of the ringleader of the July 7 suicide bombings still prays for her husband who, she believes, was a good man until he was brainwashed.
In her first interview since the attacks, Hasina Patel, who was married to Mohammad Sidique Khan for eight years, said that she had “full sympathy” with the bomb victims.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Patel said she could not believe that the man she married could have been so “cold and calculated” to have carried out the attacks that killed 52 people and injured more than 700.
She also disclosed that police had told her recently that Khan, 32, had left her £400 to buy toys for their children, not knowing that she had miscarried on the morning of the bombings.

Back to the floods and the Sun headlines

POND LIFE

FURIOUS flood victims last night slammed yobs who ruined their emergency water supply.
Gangs of youngsters urinated in a desperately-needed water bowser and tipped bleach into another.
They also emptied one of the mobile tankers of its precious water within 15 minutes of its arrival in Cheltenham, Gloucs — then stood by laughing.
Furious locals, among the hundreds of thousands of people left without mains water, called in police community support officers to guard other bowsers on the town’s tough Hester’s Way estate.
One told The Sun: “It’s unbelievable that they think it’s funny to put people’s lives in danger.

Britain's worst floods claim father and son reports the Telegraph

A father and son died as they attempted to pump water out of the cellar of their waterlogged rugby club in Gloucestershire.
The bodies of Bramwell Lane, 64, and Christopher Lane, 27, were found in Tewkesbury RFC's clubhouse when a fellow member went to open up yesterday morning.
The club treasurer and his son are thought to have been electrocuted or overcome by fumes after taking a petrol generator to power the pump in an attempt to clear water from the club's flooded cellar

Rainfall the worst for 200 years ... in case you hadn't guessed reports the Guardian

Torrential downpours which hit last week and left swathes of England and Wales under water were officially the worst in more than 200 years of record keeping, according to figures released by the Met Office yesterday.
Rainfall was more than double the seasonal average, with the early summer months of May to July witnessing 382.4mm (15.06 inches) of rainwater, topping the previous record of 349.1mm in 1789, officials said.
Deluges in 32 counties, covering the thousands of square miles stretching from Devon to Yorkshire, broke records dating back to 1914 by more than 25mm, the meteorologists added.
Forecasters predict the weather to remain unsettled until early August, with satellite images for the weekend suggesting a further 20mm of rain are possible across parts of the south-west.

The front page of the Mirror carries the story

Executed at just 16
Boy,16, hunted by hoodie gang

TEENAGE gang victim Abukar Mahamed was blasted in the face by "ninja" hoodies as he cowered in terror behind a tree yesterday.

Somalian Abukar, 16, was cruelly hunted down on bikes by up to seven youths with their faces hidden by bandanas.
The lad, who had spent the day playing PlayStation with a cousin, died instantly.
A neighbour who was first on the scene on a lawless estate in South London said: "I saw a gang of lads on BMX bikes riding after a young lad running away.
"There wasn't any shouting. The boy was darting around looking for where to escape.
"He was running really fast and hid behind a tree. He was cornered.
"The gang surrounded him and shot him in the face. I didn't even hear him scream.

Boy shot dead after bike chase is 10th young London victim in six months says the Guardian

The murder of Abukah Mahamood, who had just finished his GCSE exams, is the 10th high profile killing of a teenage boy in gang violence in London in less than six months.
Abukah, whose family are originally from Somalia, died in the early hours of yesterday morning after residents on the Stockwell Gardens estate, south London, heard several shots ring out. Police sources confirmed his name and said his family had been informed.

The final day of Shambo the bull is covered by all the papers

Shambo goes to his death: Police finally take sacred bullock away for slaughter after day of chaos says the Mail
There is no doubt they are experts in the power of prayer. But the Hindu monks of Skanda Vale were no match for the might of the law.
Thirty police officers were sent to their retreat in West Wales to enforce the removal of Shambo, the bull under a death sentence after being diagnosed with TB.

Tears as Shambo is led to slaughter says the Telegraph

More than 20 officers arrived at the temple in the rolling Welsh hills where the Friesian, which tested positive to bovine TB, has been under the protection of Hindu monks.

The officers moved a "human shield" of more than 100 people protesting against the ruling by Welsh Assembly Government officials and the Court of Appeal that Shambo must be destroyed because of his exposure to the disease.
Police, who arrived in four riot vans, used bolt cutters to enter the Skanda Vale temple in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, shortly after 4pm yesterday.

VETS TAKE SHAMBO AFTER 10HR STAND-OFF says the Mirror

'I'm no paedophile': tearful Langham breaks down in the witness stand reports the Indpendent

It was the moment that Chris Langham must have looked forward to and dreaded. Yesterday, he took the witness stand on the 10th day of his trial at Maidstone Crown Court. It was his opportunity to refute the charges against him - but also an occasion when he had to relive his ordeal since being arrested for accessing child pornography.
"I had a terrifying six months. I just wanted to die and I tried to kill myself. I hated it, I just hated it," the actor said.
Mr Langham had come close to breaking down earlier in the day, when he denied he was a paedophile - and again as he described being sexually abused by a man when he was eight years old.

Weeping Langham: 'I was sexually abused as a child' says the Mail

Chris Lagham sobbed in the witness box as he claimed that he was abused as a boy and that looking at child pornography triggered memories of it. "I'm one of the children in the photograph. This is the problem I have with it
The bit of me that reacts is a bit of me I dont have any more.
Langham, a father of five, claims to have looked at the child pornography because he was carrying out research for the BBC2 comedy series Help.

The Guardian reports that

Congress delivers blow to Bush's European missile project by slashing funding

George Bush's plans to establish a European missile defence system suffered a big setback yesterday when a Congressional committee slashed the funding.
The House appropriations committee cut $139m (£69.5m) from the $310m the Bush administration wants for preparatory work on the missile project in Europe. It approved funds for a radar system in the Czech Republic but cut the $139m Mr Bush requested to establish a missile interception system in Poland, the most controversial part of the defence system.

David Miliband in Taliban policy split with US reports the Telegraph

Differences between British and American strategy in dealing with Taliban militants emerged yesterday during the Foreign Secretary’s first visit to Pakistan. David Miliband, the newly-appointed Foreign Secretary, emphasised that a purely military solution to violence in Pakistan’s tribal areas would not alone quash the insurgency.
“Britain has a strong interest in the stability of Pakistan, in defeating extremism and in the development of tribal areas,” said Mr Miliband after talks with President Pervez Musharraf.
“Counter-terrorism is about military force but we also need economic and social development,” he added.
Pakistani officials underscored the difference in approach between the two allies by stating that Britain understood that political agreements were also needed to bring peace.

World markets plunge as fears rise headlines the same paper

Global stock markets were plunged into fresh turmoil yesterday as a cocktail of fears over higher interest rates, debt defaults and lower earnings sent shares tumbling.In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 440 points in late trading - on course for its biggest fall since 9/11. The FTSE 100 suffered its worst day for five years while the FTSE 250 posted its biggest points fall in history.
Investors fear that the ample liquidity that has driven so much of the merger and acquisition boom in recent years has abruptly dried up.

The Times reporting that

Shares plunged worldwide yesterday as panicked investors fled stock markets amid anxieties that the flood of cheap credit that has fuelled a global boom in corporate deals is drying up.
Mounting fears that a credit crunch will end the easy lending that has fuelled a wave of takeovers, and pushed shares to record highs, sent shockwaves through markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports

High court to hear test case on 'illegal' banking charges

Britain's high street banks and the main consumer watchdog will today go to court to seek a test-case ruling aimed at resolving the uncertainty over "illegal" bank penalty charges.
A consumer revolt over allegedly unfair bank charges has gathered pace rapidly in recent months, with millions of people downloading complaint letters to send to their banks, local courts packed with customers demanding refunds, and some institutions warning that their profits may be hit as a result.

The Indy reports on

A good day to bury the news that ministerial car use has soared

The use of cars by ministers has risen by nearly 8 per cent in the past year, according to government figures, at a cost to the taxpayer of £6m.

MPs have also seen their allowances and expenses rise by an inflation-busting 5.5 per cent to a total £95m bill for the taxpayer. And as MPs packed their bags for the 10-week summer recess of Parliament, they heard that the Prime Minister had received a report recommending further increases in their salaries of £60,000, and their allowances.
The disclosures were part of an avalanche of announcements made in the last 48 hours before Parliament closed for the summer. Tory leaders accused Gordon Brown of dumping 76 announcements on the Commons to "bury bad news". The announcements ranged from the disclosure that Tony Blair had hosted dinners for celebrities at Chequers, including Charlotte Church, to the confirmation that Menwith Hill, the US listening base in Yorkshire, was to be used for the US missile defence programme.

According to the Telegraph

US candidates seek Thatcher's blessing

Republican presidential candidates are flocking to see Britain's icon of conservatism, Margaret Thatcher, in the hope that her blessing could help to secure them the presidency.
Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front runner, will become the latest 2008 candidate to kiss the former prime minister's hand when he travels to London in September to deliver the inaugural Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture to the Atlantic Bridge think tank.
He follows in the footsteps of Fred Thompson, poised to announce his presidential run and already running second in the polls, and Mitt Romney, ahead in the crucial early states of Iowa and New Hampshire







'Asbos are a failure'
EXCLUSIVE Kids Secretary Balls: Asbos are failure. I want a society that puts Asbos behind us says the Mirror

THE Asbo era must be "put behind us" insists Children's Secretary Ed Balls as he sets out plans to stop youngsters going off the rails.
In his first major interview since taking charge of all government policy affecting the young, Mr Balls said: "It's a failure every time a young person gets an Asbo.
"It's necessary - but it's not right.
"I want to live in the kind of society that puts Asbos behind us."

The Mail reports that

Teen violence is rocketing - yet only one in 50 is jailed

Only one in 50 teenagers convicted of a violent attack is locked up, despite soaring crime rates.
Official figures reveal the number of under-18s punished for a violent offence increased by 19 per cent - from 9,516 to 11,285 - in 12 months.
The average age of each thug was 15.
Despite the surge in violence, only 2 per cent of those dealt with by the justice system were sent to custody to teach them a harsh lesson.

Whilst in the Mirror

OUR PARENTS WOULDN'T LET US OUT IF THEY KNEW WHAT WE GET UP TO
EXCLUSIVE 10 TOWNS..10 TEENS..10PM.. SHOCKING MIRROR SURVEY

The paper visited

10 towns across Britain at 10pm on Wednesday night and in each quizzed 10 teens on the questions their parents - and society - need answered.

Which included

Do you take drugs or alcohol? If so, what, how often and how old were you the first time?

Among the 42 per cent who admit drug-taking, they have tried cannabis, skunk, cocaine, crack, crystal meth, ecstasy and heroin.
Charlene, 17, from Newport, admits: "I smoked my first spliff at 14, just before my first kiss."
In the same town we found David Weaver, 16, - one of the hug-a-hoodies once visited by Tory leader David Cameron.
He says: "I have been in care since I was 10. It was at that point I started smoking, drinking, doing weed. I still do the odd spliff, too."

The Express reports

VATICAN WARNS OF 'ISLAMISATION' OF EUROPE

POPE Benedict XVI’s private secretary has warned of the 'Islamisation' of Europe and demanded that the Continent’s Christian roots not to be ignored.
"Attempts to Islamise the west cannot be denied," Monsignor Georg Gaenswein was quoted as saying in a copy of the weekly Sueddeutsche Magazine published today.
"The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected with it should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respectfulness," the magazine quoted him as saying.

Feeling blue: Italy's lakes have 'sick water' says the Independent

There is nothing wrong with the appearance of Italy's magnificent lakes. The water of Como, surrounded by high peaks, is deep blue and as clear as if it has just come tumbling out of the Alps. The village of Laglio, on the west shore of the lake's south-westerly fork, has been enjoying a boom since the actor George Clooney bought two villas there. Visitors crowd the little beach, too, families squashed on to towels enjoying the heatwave, children gambolling in and out of the water. There is a sign that says "No Bathing", but no one pays any attention. What possible harm could lurk in this sparkling water? BUT

Plenty, according to Legambiente, Italy's most prominent environmental organisation. The "no bathing" sign is there for an excellent reason. Clooney has found a great house with a marvellous view, but the water is sick. And not just slightly under the weather. The latest snapshot of pollution in Italy's lakes indicates Laglio is one of the worst-polluted lake beaches in the country. Bacteria is measured in terms of "colony-forming units"(cfu), a measure of viable bacterial numbers per 100 millilitres of water. The upper permitted limit of cfu for lake water that is safe to bathe in is 100. But at Laglio the figure is 6,800 - 68 times too high

Hard day at the office, dear? Says the Sun

A SCORNED woman who found a sex video of her partner with a girl colleague took revenge by emailing its filthy images to his boss.
And her man’s humiliation was complete when her message spread like wildfire round their office.
Sarah Rees, 38, was devastated to find images of 37-year-old Martin Hardy with different naked women in hotel rooms and their own HOME.
She recognised one girl as a worker at TUI UK — owner of Thomson Holidays — where self-employed Hardy had a lucrative consultancy contract.

Finally the Guardian reports that

Drunk astronauts go from Right Stuff to the hard stuff

America's space programme suffered unexpected turbulence yesterday when a revelation that astronauts were allowed to fly on the shuttle while drunk was followed by news of sabotage to the cargo of a forthcoming mission.
Nasa officials are expected to confirm today that there have been at least two occasions when crew members were so intoxicated before their launch that they were deemed a flight safety risk.