The Telegraph leads this morning with

War on Independent schools

Independent schools are to be made to open their doors to more children from poor homes under guidelines announced to stop them being run as "exclusive clubs".Schools failing to meet the regulations could have bank accounts frozen, trustees suspended, buildings seized or even be closed down under a range of sanctions.In the new guidance from the Charity Commission, schools are told they should consider charging lower fees so more families are able to afford places.

Independent schools may lose £100m tax breaks says the Independent

The guidance will be welcomed by ministers such as Andrew Adonis, the Schools minister, who has been mounting a "charm offensive" aimed at persuading as many private schools as possible to sponsor one of the Government's inner-city academies. The Charity Commission's advice is likely to persuade more independent schools it would be in their interests to back academies


MoD reveals scale of brain injuries among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans says the Guardian


Hundreds of troops returning to the UK from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering brain injuries caused by exposure to high-powered explosions or minor blows to the head, it emerged yesterday.
The Ministry of Defence said that since 2003 about 500 servicemen and women had suffered "mild traumatic brain injury" (mTBI) - which can lead to memory loss, depression and anxiety. The Surgeon General, Lieutenant General Louis Lillywhite, said that more troops could come forward as awareness of the condition increased. "We have put a significant amount of effort and resources into this area in order to get ahead of the game," he said.

Israel pounds Gaza says the Telegraph

Israeli forces killed at least 18 Palestinian militants and five civilians in Gaza in the worst bloodshed since Hamas took control of the territory last summer.No Israeli forces were killed but an Ecuadorean farm hand in fields on the Israeli side of a perimeter fence died after being hit by a gunshot fired from Gaza. Fatah, the rival of Hamas in Palestinian politics, condemned Israel's action.
This in turn raised concerns that newly-launched peace negotiations between Fatah and Israel could be jeopardised. adding

"What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people," Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader and president of the Palestinian national authority, said.


Roadside bomb in Beirut leaves four dead reports the Guardian


Four Lebanese people were killed and 16 injured yesterday in a car bomb attack that apparently targeted US diplomats in Beirut as President George Bush continued his Middle East tour in Saudi Arabia.
Lebanese security officials and the state department in Washington said no US personnel had been killed in the blast in the Karantina area in the north-east of the capital, but confirmed that a locally employed driver of an embassy vehicle was slightly injured in the explosion.


Meanwhile Robert Fisk is on the front of the Indpendent

Bloody reality bears no relation to the delusions of this President

Twixt silken sheets – in a bedroom whose walls are also covered in silk – and in the very palace of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President George Bush awakes this morning to confront a Middle East which bears no relation to the policies of his administration nor the warning which he has been relaying constantly to the kings and emirs and oligarchs of the Gulf: that Iran rather than Israel is their enemy.

Iraq's healthcare left in disarray after invasion says the Guardian

The full extent of the destruction of Iraq's healthcare system and the devastating impact it has had on its people is documented today in a new report which indicts the allied invasion force for failing in its duty to protect medical institutions and staff.
The report, by an independent team of researchers and advisers from Iraq, the UK, the US and elsewhere, says the provision of healthcare "has become increasingly difficult" since the invasion. "Doctors and nurses have emigrated en masse, exacerbating existing staff shortages.

Brown says Hain is just 'incompetent' says the Telegraph

The Prime Minister, apparently trying to shore up the position of his embattled Pensions Secretary, accused him of making a mistake while insisting he believed Mr Hain would escape serious punishment.It was a mistake that was made, it was an incompetence that he has readily admitted to," Mr Brown told ITV News at Ten

The Mail describes him on its front page as

The Minister for Incompotence

The Prime Minister's astonishing admission came as he pleaded with watchdogs to spare Mr Hain's career.

Meanwhile the Sun reports that

PETER Hain suffered a fresh blow last night as it emerged that National Insurance numbers have been handed to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Damning new figures show Mr Hain’s department dished out 896,000 NI numbers to non-EU migrants between 2004 and 2007.

The Indpendent reports that

Doctors rebel over plan to prevent treatment for failed asylum-seekers

Ministers face a doctors' rebellion over plans to deny failed asylum-seekers the right to free health care while they are in Britain.
In an unprecedented move, 275 GPs have said they will defy any new law by carrying on freely treating refugees, many of whom are torture victims, children and pregnant women.

Risk assessment watchdog set up to halt march of the nanny state reports the Times

Unnecessary warnings that bags of peanuts “may contain nuts” and overly protective rules banning conker fights in schools will be targeted by a new watchdog intended to restore Britain’s spirit of adventure.
Gordon Brown is so concerned that the cotton-wool culture is denying people the freedom to enjoy themselves that he has asked the watchdog to report to him personally

strong>Brown takes lead role in battle to avoid Rock nationalisation says the Guardian

Gordon Brown has stepped up his involvement in the future of Northern Rock, demanding personal updates from the government's advisers at Goldman Sachs and discussing the stricken lender at yesterday's cabinet meeting.
The prime minister's involvement has injected a new sense of urgency into the scramble to find a solution to Northern Rock, which has been propped up with £26bn from the public purse and a similar sum in government guarantees.

House prices drop 'at fastest rate in 15 years' says the Telegraph

The report, by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), warns that the number of its members reporting falls in house prices has climbed to its highest level since the height of the last housing crash in the early Nineties.

Credit crunch wipes £40bn of UK's top companies as fears of recession loom reports the Mail

More than £40billion was wiped off the share values of Britain's top 100 companies.
The slump, which knocked 190 points off the FTSE 100 index, followed record losses recorded by the U.S. bank Citigroup for the three months to December.


According to the Times

Microsoft seeks patent for office 'spy' software

Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.
The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.

The Diana inquest continues to attract attention

Diana 'wanted William to have crown' says the Telegraph

Diana, Princess of Wales was convinced the Queen would abdicate in favour of the Prince of Wales but she believed the crown should "skip a generation" to Prince William, the inquest into her death heard.She felt the monarchy needed fundamental change and William represented the "best solution". The Duke of York would act as regent until William, 15 when his mother died, came of age.

The royal secret that never was: Diana's inquest descends into farce as Fayed QC grills Burrell says the Mail

Two hours sleep was all he managed to snatch. He had travelled overnight through the driving rain to get those crucial documents, and now the stage was set.
After an anxious 24 hours, Paul Burrell came hotfoot back to court yesterday to face the one question which continued to perplex the inquest into Princess Diana's death: What exactly was the big secret the two of them shared, the one the former royal butler swore he would never reveal?

Burrell's 'secret' exposed as sham says the Mirror

Paul Burrell was savaged yesterday as the Princess Diana "secret" he had refused to reveal to her inquest was exposed as... no secret at all.
Far from being the earth-shaker Burrell had suggested, the confidence concerned only Diana's intention to spend most of her time abroad in either the US or South Africa - information already known


Meanwhile the Express reports

DIANA’S DEATH FEARS IGNORED

SCOTLAND Yard spent six years sitting on explosive evidence that Princess Diana feared being assassinated in her car, her inquest heard yesterday.
The secret document was handed to Britain’s most senior policeman and another high-–profile officer just days after Diana and Dodi Al Fayed died in a Paris car crash in 1997


The Mirror returns to Maddy for its front page

Has Maddy maniac struck again

A major police search was underway for a missing five-year-old girl on the Spanish border with Portugal today, just 120 miles away from where Madeleine McCann vanished last year.
Mariluz Cortesa was apparently abducted on Sunday evening in the town of Huelva around two hours drive from Praia da Luz where four-year-old Maddy was snatched last May.

The Express reports on the latest weather situation

71 areas in flood threat says its front page

DESPERATE residents were last night facing a new wave of floods six months after last summer’s deluge drove them from their homes.
They were told that the next 48 hours will be critical as the number of flood warnings soared ninefold in 24 hours to 71.
Another 188 less serious flood watches were in force after huge swathes of the country were battered by gales and torrential rain – and there are days more downpours to come.

The Telegraph reports that

For many in towns like Tewkesbury, Glos, and Upton on Severn, Worcs, the fresh threat of floods could hardly have come at a worse time. Businesses have just re-opened and residents only just moved back into their homes after six months in temporary accommodation following the devastating summer flooding which forced hundreds of people out of their homes last July.
Hundreds of people in Gloucestershire are still living in caravans and yet find their homes under fresh threat.



Speaker's election victory boosts Kenyan opposition reports the Indy

Some say there are only two tribes that matter in Kenya – the haves and the have-nots. The opening day of parliament yesterday, after the disputed elections that sparked a wave of violence across the country, was a reunion for the haves. Government and opposition MPs greeted each other like old friends, vigorously shaking hands and sharing jokes.
Indeed, many of them are old friends. Some opposition MPs once supported the government of President Mwai Kibaki, while about half those now aligned with the government were in opposition a few months ago. But even friends sometimes disagree. After a deeply flawed election that left international observers and diplomats unable to say for sure who won, both sides have accused the other of inciting violence which has so far claimed more than 600 lives.


The Times reports that

Japanese whalers hold 'acid bomb' activists

A British anti-whaling protester was detained on board a Japanese harpoon ship last night after storming the vessel in an attempt to scupper Japan’s controversial whale hunt.
Giles Lane, 35, and an Australian activist, Benjamin Potts, 28, members of the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd, were held after throwing acid bombs and ropes to forcibly board the Yushin Maru No 2, Japanese officials said.

Pope pulls out of visit to Rome university after outrage at his views on Galileo and science says the Guardian

Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo.
The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to postpone" his visit.

The Sun leads again with Britney

It would be better if I was dead

TROUBLED BRITNEY SPEARS wrote a suicide note saying: “Perhaps it would be better if I was dead,” The Sun can reveal.The heart-rending letter laid bare the 26-year-old singer’s dark feelings of loneliness - and despair at being unable to live up to family and fans’ expectations.
A friend found it just before Britney’s meltdown earlier this month.


Jamie Oliver's battery egg shock reports the Mirror

A livid Jamie Oliver vowed yesterday that "heads would roll" after finding out one of his restaurants has been serving eggs from battery chickens.
The news is a major embarrassment for the chef, just days after his campaigning TV show Jamie's Fowl Dinners revealed the grim reality of battery hen egg production.





The Guardian reports on

how Britain's children eat, sleep and breathe TV

A generation of "multitasking" children are living their daily lives - including eating and falling asleep - to the accompaniment of television, according to a survey of youngsters' media habits.
The flickering of the screen accompanies most of them before they go to school, when they return home, as they consume their evening meal and then - for 63%, far more than read a book each day - in bed at night. The study of five- to 16-year-olds shows that four out of five children now have a TV set in their bedroom.


Finally the Telegraph reports that

UFO seekers flock to mystery lights in Texas

Amateur UFO investigators are to descend on a farming community in Texas where dozens of people reported seeing mysterious lights in the sky.A pilot, policeman and local business owners are among those who insist they have seen a large, silent object with bright lights flying low and fast over the town of Stephenville, 60 miles south west of Fort Worth.