With the A Level results out today the Independent leads with

A-levels: the class divide

Independent and selective state grammar schools are overwhelmingly responsible for the rise in A-grade passes at A-level, the head of Britain's biggest exams board reveals today. The growing divide in achievement means the gap in performance between the country's top-performing selective schools - state and private - and the rest is now at its widest for more than a decade. The trend is expected to be exacerbated following the publication of A-level results for more than 250,000 sixth-formers this morning.


Quarter of A-levels to get an A grade says the Telegraph

Leading universities said the huge surge in top A-level passes over the last two decades made it almost impossible to differentiate between average and bright candidates.The Liberal Democrats called for an independent review of the grading regime amid fears that public confidence in the tests had dipped a.nd the decline in students studying science was damaging the economy.

Support grows for alternatives as A levels fail to make the grade says the Times

Pressure for a reform of A levels has led to a surge in support for rival qualifications.
With a record crop of A-level results expected today, one of Britain’s leading examination boards has said that it will introduce a new exam in dozens of schools from next month with a view to offering it nationally from next year.
The new “AQA Bacc”, from the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, is designed to offer sixth-formers a broader range of studies than A levels so that university admissions staff can select the brightest students for their most popular courses.

The Telegraph leads with

Pressure grows for ban on drinking in street

Nearly 200 MPs now want the Government to stop supermarkets selling cut-price drink after a senior policeman appealed for action to tackle drunken youths.After Mr Fahy's powerful critique, which blamed parents for abdicating their responsibilities, the Home Office and the Royal College of Physicians blamed intoxicated celebrities for setting a bad example to children.

Meanwhile the Mirror reports

Dead..for telling thugs not to throw litter

A graduate was killed in a row with two hoodies who lobbed a chocolate bar into his car in another shocking example of how out-of-control thugs are causing mayhem across Britain.
Talented footballer Evren Anil hit his head on the ground after being punched in the face and threatened with a knife by two yobs he confronted over the litter.

Supermarkets blamed for teen thuggery as they sell alcohol cheaper than water reports the Mail

Blame for the epidemic of drunken teenage violence was laid yesterday at the door of supermarkets selling alcohol at a loss to snare customers.adding that

The stores' tactics were exposed by a Competition Commission report which revealed how the four biggest chains sold sold £112.7million of beer, wines and spirits below cost during one month last year, when the football World Cup was taking place. Tesco was by far the worst culprit.

The Maddy stories continue to dominate,staying with the Mail,it leads with

Maddy died the night she vanished

'We could be coming home without Maddy'says the Mirror

Kate McCann has hinted for the first time she may leave Portugal without her missing daughter Madeleine.
Kate, 39, spoke as forensic tests revealed that blood found in the McCanns' holiday flat did NOT come from Madeleine.
The mum - who has repeatedly said she could never return home without her daughter, four - admitted: "We know we will be going back and I guess one day we will wake up and it will be right. We never thought that we would go before she came back. Now we just don't know."

The Express headlines with

POLICE-WE KNOW WHO KILLED HER

The Guardian and the Times choose different topics for their lead stories,according to the latter

Councils told to stop clamping cars for profit

Parking wardens will be banned from clamping cars for single offences as part of the biggest overhaul of parking rules in more than a decade.
Under new regulations, councils have been told that they should not set targets for raising revenue from parking fines or the number tickets to be issued.
Clamps can only be used when a vehicle repeatedly breaks parking rules and it has not been possible to collect payment for penalties, Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, has ruled.

The Guardian lead with

Iranian guards are terrorists, US to declare

The Bush administration is preparing to ramp up its confrontation with Iran by declaring part or all of the country's Revolutionary Guard a "global terrorist" organisation and targeting its extensive financial interests.
The move is extremely provocative, given that the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard Corps is an integral part of the state rather than a group outside the law. It has its own navy, air force, and ground troops, as well as specialist wings.

Meanwhile the papers continue to report on Tuesday's atrocity in Northern Iraq

Iraq bombs: 250 die in worst terror attack says the Telegraph

Five fuel tankers were driven by suicide bombers into two crowded villages belonging to Kurdish members of the Yazidi religious sect before they were detonated almost simultaneously.
A vast number of clay-built homes in Al-Qataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah were levelled by the blast on Tuesday night which was followed by an enormous fireball.
Television pictures showed badly burned and screaming survivors, many of them children, in hospital. More than 350 are thought to have been injured.

Staying in Iraq,the Times reports

Petraeus paves the way for US troop withdrawals next year

General David Petraeus, in comments that appeared to lay the ground for his pivotal report to the US Congress next month, said that the US footprint in Iraq would have to be “a good bit smaller by next summer”. But he also signalled that the surge would continue into next year, and gave warning against a quick or hefty withdrawal that could surrender “the gains we have fought so hard to achieve”.

The Guardian reports from Germany where

A mafia feud that began with a row over a firework leaves six dead

Six Italians were shot dead in front of a family restaurant in western Germany yesterday in a dramatic spillover from a deadly mafia family feud which has simmered in a tiny southern Italian town for years. The killings marked the first time that a mafia syndicate has carried out a revenge attack on foreign soil, according to Italian authorities.
The men were gunned down outside the Da Bruno restaurant in the centre of the quiet Ruhr valley town of Duisburg after an 18th birthday celebration for German-born Tommaso Venturi, one of the victims. Venturi, an apprentice at the restaurant, died on the way to hospital.

Many of the papers have pictures of the £35m lottery winner on their front pages

The Sun leads with the story but with a twist reporting that

LOTTO squillionairess Angela Kelly celebrated her £35.4million jackpot yesterday — as a dopey dad living hundreds of miles away pretended HE was the winner.
Hoaxer Fergus Frater, 46, was blasted by duped son Jordan, 25, who was “promised” a £5million cut. Frater is now in hiding.

Sorted: how 23, 40, 42, 43, 49, 2 and 6 added up to £35 million says the Guardian

After treating herself to a new dress and her first-ever manicure, Britain's biggest lottery winner was yesterday getting used to the idea that the sudden £35.4m addition to her bank account will in future pay her more in interest each week than she has previously earned in a year at the Royal Mail's East Kilbride sorting office.
Angela Kelly, a 40-year-old single mother, separated from her husband, living in a flat with her 14-year-old son, appeared blinking into a new world of wealth, full of modest ambitions and endearingly overawed by the knowledge she is now worth more than Wayne Rooney and princes William and Harry.

The Mail reports that

Unemployment rate is six times higher than official figures

Nearly ten million people in Britain are out of work - more than six times the official unemployment rate - it was revealed last night.
The 'hidden army' of jobless accounts for a quarter of the working-age population.
Critics said the staggering numbers represented a 'huge pool of wasted talent' and fuelled concerns about the drain on the economy.

The Telegraph says that

Opposition politicians said last night that the figures exposed the true scale of hidden joblessness under Labour. They said the 7.9 million figure was the second highest total on record and more than two million of the people who are economically inactive were keen to find a job.
The scale of the figures overshadowed the fact that the official unemployment figure had dropped by 45,000 over the past three months to 1.65 million, the lowest figure for more than a year.


The Indy reports that

Record number of new restaurants were launched in London last year

The latest edition of Harden's guide concludes that the restaurant revolution sparked in London a decade ago has reached its pinnacle, with London's eateries now rivalling their New York counterparts.
Peter Harden, a co-editor of the guide, said there had been a particularly strong rise in restaurants specialising in traditional British food. "Traditional British cooking is a favourite among openings, and it is part of a general variety in London which shows a maturity of the restaurant scene that perhaps we have not seen before. London has been playing catch-up in a lot of different kinds of cuisine, but now it's quite hard to see areas where it is weak," he said.

Finally it is 30 years since the death of Elvis and the papers have a number of stories

Suspicious minds fear worst for Graceland reports the Times

A record number of British fans and pompadoured impersonators are on a pilgrimage to Graceland to commemorate the 30th anniversary today of the death of Elvis Presley.
About 1,200 Elvis aficionados have flown across the Atlantic to join tens of thousands of fans from around the world in paying tribute to “the King” despite concerns about the “Disney-fication” of the music legend’s legacy.

But adds the paper

this year’s Elvis Week has been overshadowed by fears that the new owner of his estate plans to “Disney-fy” Elvis. Robert Sillerman, an entertainment mogul, paid $100 million (£50 million) for 85 per cent of Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2005, leaving Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie, with only 15 per cent.He intends to spend $250 million to renovate Graceland and replace the nearby Heartbreak Hotel, creating a new visitor centre and interactive museum in place of the chaotic plaza that lies across the street from Elvis’s modest home, which has had attendances dip to about 600,000 a year.