The face of Chris Langham stares out from many of the front pages this morning

Actor guilty of downloading violent images of child abuse says the Times

The comic actor Chris Langham was under suicide watch in jail last night after being convicted of downloading child pornography.
The award-winning actor and writer had claimed that he accessed the images of horrific sexual abuse while researching paedophilia for the BBC television series Help.
But a jury at Maidstone Crown Court took less than three hours yesterday to find him guilty of 15 counts of making an indecent photograph. Each offence carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail.

The Mail describes how


The disgraced comic actor blew kisses to his three grown-up sons and patted his heart as he was led from the dock to sign the Register of Sex Offenders.


I WANT TO DIE says the Sun

Defence counsel David Whitehouse had pleaded for Langham to be freed on bail — saying he believed the judge may consider a suspended sentence after reports.
But the judge refused, saying that, because at least three of the films were of Level Five, the actor had to serve a jail term.
Langham, also a Bafta-winning writer who contributed to The Muppet Show, claimed during the trial he had viewed vile images found on a laptop computer in his bedroom to research a TV show.

The Telegraph leads with

Post Office 'blackmail' to enforce closures

Post office bosses were accused of "blackmail" after a leaked letter showed that they have warned postmasters they will lose thousands of pounds in compensation if they do not stick to the officially approved script on closures.In a highly contentious move, undercover staff will be sent around the country to check that postmasters are using the official "lines to take" when customers ask about the Government's plans to close 2,500 post offices.
The woman in charge of the closure programme spelt out the plans in a letter to postmasters, which was leaked to the Conservatives.
The letter from Sue Huggins, the director responsible for the so-called Network Change Programme, was accompanied by a two-page crib-sheet spelling out the "key messages" they must deliver if people ask about the closures.

Postmasters who speak out about closures face losing £60,000 pay-offs says the Mail

Post Office bosses turned to blackmail and spying to make sub-postmasters co-operate with their closure programme.
Postmasters were told exactly how to answer questions from worried customers - and warned that undercover PO staff would check that they complied.

The Guardian leads with

Iraq veterans suffer stress and alcoholism

Thousands of frontline veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are facing escalating mental health problems, alcoholism and family breakdown, an extensive examination of the British military has found.
Prolonged periods in conflict are linked to higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological distress and problems at home, researchers report in the British Medical Journal online.
The Ministry of Defence said it would study the findings to try to better understand mental health problems in the military, but last night there was pressure on the government to address accusations that the military is currently overstretched, forcing personnel into longer tours of duty. Opposition MPs said the burden on the military was another reason to begin phased withdrawal from Iraq.

It also gives prominence to the report on the De Menzes shooting

Cleared of lying, but still questions for Met chief to answer

Sir Ian Blair's leadership of the Metropolitan police is to face further scrutiny in the wake of a damaging report into events surrounding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
The Metropolitan Police Authority, which oversees the running of Britain's biggest force, will examine why Sir Ian was kept "almost totally uninformed" for at least 24 hours about concerns that an innocent man had been killed in south London the day after the failed July 21 suicide bombings.


Counter-terrorism chief 'misled public' over Menezes shooting says the Independent

It accused Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, the head of counter-terrorism operations, of "misleading the public" by trying to hide the fact that the dead man was not a suspect of the 21 July suicide bombing plot. His actions, says the report, "cause us serious concerns".

The report reveals that Mr Hayman had briefed crime reporters on the day of the shooting that the dead man was not one of the 21 July suspects. However, that information was "deliberately withheld" from a press release he helped to write later on. The report states: "Assistant Commissioner Hayman chose to mislead the public by his actions."

Many of the papers carry the story of the bridge collapse in America

Mississippi death toll expected to rise with 30 people still missing says the Times

Divers found more bodies in cars submerged in the Mississippi river yesterday but about 30 people were still missing as commuters told dramatic stories of the rush-hour collapse of an eight-lane motorway bridge in Minneapolis.
Dazed drivers described how their vehicles suddenly went into freefall as the 1,907ft (581m) bridge on Interstate 35 West plunged into the river 60ft below the bumper-to-bumper traffic shortly after 6pm on Wednesday.
“I slammed on my brakes and saw something in front of me disappear and then my car pointed straight down and we fell,” said Dennis Winegar, whose car fell 50ft and landed on another vehicle.

The Telegraph reporting that

A terrifying cracking sound signalled the bridge beneath them giving way as they headed home during the rush hour on Wednesday evening.
Jeisy Aguaiza, 13, was among the children who had been on a day trip to a water park in the city's northerly suburb of Coon Rapids.
She said the bus seemed to tilt as it rode the collapsing concrete towards the swirling Mississippi.
"First we thought we crashed, but then we felt us going down," she said. "I didn't look out the window. I saw dust everywhere, and people were screaming."

And the Indy reports that

though the economic cost of the loss of a main commuting, business and trucking route will be substantial and long felt in the Minneapolis region and beyond, the scale of human disaster could have been worse. Because of routine maintenance work, only two of the four lanes in each direction were open, reducing the number of vehicles.

Miraculously, all 52 students and nine adults returning from a field trip survived when the piece of highway on which their orange school bus was travelling crashed down on to the river bank. They escaped with minor injuries. But others who lived were less fortunate. A steady stream of patients arrived at local hospitals, some unconscious and others with serious head and back injuries.


The Times leads with the news that following the floods

Household insurance premiums rise by 10%

Two of Britain’s leading insurers are to put up the cost of household insurance by an average of 10 per cent after two months of devastating floods.
Norwich Union, the country’s biggest insurer with one in five homes on its books, will bring in the price rises from Monday in response to the worst floods to have hit England in 60 years.
Lloyds TSB also said yesterday that it expected to increase home insurance premiums for all customers by about 10 per cent.
The higher premiums will affect existing Norwich Union and Lloyds TSB customers who seek to renew their buildings and contents insurance policies, as well as new customers. The price increases will apply to all customers, and not just those hit by the recent flooding.

The Telegraph reports that

South Asia floods leave 20 million stranded

At least 200 people have died as major rivers burst their banks following more than 20 days of continuous rain, washing away roads, bridges and entire villages.Emergency rations and medicines are being air-dropped, at least in India, but the lack of clean drinking water could trigger disease as impoverished populations are driven from their homes, warned Oxfam.

Both the Mirror and the Express report on their front pages

Madeleine 'seen' in Belgium

The hunt for missing Madeleine McCann dramatically switched to Belgium last night.
Police said there had been a "highly credible" sighting of the four-year-old with a couple in a restaurant.
A woman claimed to have seen a girl matching Madeleine's description in Tongeren on the Dutch border.
The witness said the youngster was with an English-speaking woman and a Dutch man. All three left the restaurant as soon as they noticed the woman's interest. says the Mirror

Russia claims North Pole
Putin asserts his nation's ownership of 460,000 square miles of Arctic territory - and its huge reserves of oil and gas - after exploration feat of 'unimaginable difficulty' is the lead in the Independent this morning

Russia has taken a giant leap for the Kremlin by planting its flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole in a politically charged symbolic gesture to claim the rights to the sea bed which could be rich in oil and gas.
In a dramatic technical feat testing international law, the Russians dispatched two mini-submarines 2.5 miles to the ocean floor in what is believed to be the first expedition of its kind.
Both submersibles, with crews of three on board, completed their dangerous return to the surface yesterday after what was described as a "smooth landing".

According to the Mail

1 in 4 satellite-tagged criminals reoffends in weeks

Their offences included a rape and two more described as "very serious".
Other criminals simply ditched the equipment. One was on the run for more than 200 days.
The technology for David Blunkett's much-vaunted "prison without bars" scheme was found to be badly flawed; for instance it didn't work in the shadow of a tall building. and reports the paper

One in 11 British Muslims backs suicide bombers, says Brown aide

Haras Rafiq also told officers at Scotland Yard that up to 20 per cent of the Muslim population ' sympathise' with militants, while stopping short of being prepared to 'blow themselves up'.
His remarks underline the scale of the task facing Gordon Brown to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, only a week after he promised an extra £70million to councils and community groups to fight extremism.

1M toys recalled in poison scare says the Mirror

Dangerous levels of lead were found in 83 Fisher-Price products, including pre-school favourites Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street's Big Bird.
The toxic metal can cause vomiting, blindness brain damage and even death.
More than 94,000 of the Chinese-made toys - targeted at children as young as two - have already been sold in the UK since they reached shelves here and in the US in May.


Sun man's Great White face-off as the shark season continues

I HAVE reported from the blood-soaked streets of Somalia, tracked down the Taliban and survived a mortar attack in the Israel-Lebanon war.
But staring into the face of a Great White shark was the most terrifying moment of my life.
We were on the hunt for the ocean’s most feared killer — identical to those seen in British waters this summer — off the rocky coast of South Africa.

Finally staying with nautical themes

I took a wrong turn, says sailor stuck on a reef reports the Telegraph

A British yachtsman has described how his ambition of sailing from London to Sydney was scuppered within three days of completion when his vessel ran aground on a reef.
Stephen Landles, 55, an IT manager from Wimbledon, south-west London, set sail last September but disaster struck when he took a wrong turn and went north instead of south, hitting the reef off Lord Howe Island, 400 miles from the finishing line.
He said the worst part of his ordeal was when his 40ft yacht - which was holed and taking in water - was blown further on to the reef as the weather deteriorated.