Pictures of a storm hit Britain are on the front of most of the papers this morning.

Floods, hurricanes, blizzards – and there is more to come says the Times

Britain faced more severe gales after the worst storm of the winter battered the country yesterday.
Hurricanes reaching 82mph cut the power to more than 10,000 homes and caused widespread transport chaos and flooding across the country. Conditions were set worsen last night as the storm’s second surge hit Britain.

Floods and transport chaos as UK battens down the hatches says the Guardian

In the end, the weather didn't quite justify the apocalyptic early morning predictions - or, arguably, Gordon Brown calling a crisis meeting - but the storm forced well over 200 cancellations in and out of Heathrow, and 10 inbound flights to Gatwick were diverted to other airports.
Train services were delayed by damaged power lines, and trees blocked many roads. The AA said it was anticipating 16,000 call-outs, compared with 9,500 on an average day.

The Sun has a picture of a child in a buggy watching the waves crash on the shore under the headline Buggy Idiots

A DOPEY dad risks his child’s life by pushing its buggy into the path of a giant wave during yesterday’s fierce storms.
The idiot had just one hand on the buggy, with a cigarette in the other, as breakers crashed over Brighton’s sea wall.

Its lack of casualties meant that the papers had to find other lead stories.

The Telegraph reports that

Burglers addicted to drugs will not go to jail

Judges and magistrates have been told to take an offender's dependency into account when sentencing.Crimes committed out of "desperation or need" will also be considered a mitigating factor when deciding whether the offender should be jailed

.

The Express on the same theme reports

Now we go even softer

CROOKS who target the elderly could avoid prison and get away with just a community order, Britain’s most senior judge said yesterday.
They could avoid being locked up if there are “mitigating circumstances”, under new sentencing guidelines proposed by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips.
These include thieving to feed a drug addiction, gambling habit or drink prob-lem – which means junkies who prey on the vulnerable could get softer punishments.

The Guardian leads with the story on

Labour retreat over attorney general's role

The government is poised to let the attorney general retain the power to stop prosecutions such as the corruption case against BAE Systems on national security grounds, the Guardian has learned.
Lady Scotland, the current attorney general, wants the draft constitutional reform bill, to be published shortly, to spell out a statutory power for the attorney to direct the Crown Prosecution Service or Serious Fraud Office to drop a prosecution on grounds of national security or international relations

.

The Independent asks

<strong>Why are children so unhappy?strong>

Teachers are to take the extraordinary step of calling for an independent Royal Commission to investigate why so many of Britain's children are unhappy.
The unprecedented move by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers follows a welter of evidence highlighting the fragile states of mind of many of the country's seven million primary and secondary school pupils.

Homework for primary pupils 'should be scrapped' says the Times

The Mirror reports that

Hoodies are starting to wear colours like US gangs, warns Jacqui Smith

British yobs are beginning to ape the terrifying tactics of vicious American gangs, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith warned yesterday.
She said there is increasing evidence they are wearing "colours" to show allegiance - just like rival LA gangsters such as the Crips and Bloods.
And they were are also using graffiti "tags" to mark territory and warn off outsiders

.


Ahead of the budget the Times leads with

Consumer gloom as Britain's spending power fails

Restaurants, car dealers and shops are facing a bleak time as people feel the effects of a faltering economy, a survey suggests today.
More than a third of people are more worried about losing their jobs than they were at this time last year, with many cutting back in preparation for worse to come, according to a new kind of interactive poll conducted by Times Online

Darling ready to postpone fuel duty rise says the Telegraph

The Chancellor is understood to be sympathetic to concerns about the soaring cost of living.
He believes that more sophisticated environmental taxes, such as penalising "gas guzzlers", are more likely to encourage "green" behaviour.
Well-placed sources said that both the Treasury and No 10 were "minded" to delay the rise until autumn.

£580 extra to feed the family as food prices race ahead of inflation claims the Mail

Families are struggling to cope with the surge in prices and face further misery because more inflation-busting increases are on the way.
Supermarket prices of basic foods such as butter, milk and eggs have risen by up to 60 per cent over the last year, nearly 30 times faster than inflation.
It is a massive change for shoppers after years in which prices charged by fiercely competitive supermarkets have remained static or even fallen.

Many of the papers report that

Cost of fighting war on two fronts doubles despite troop cutbacks

According to the Independent

Expenditure on military operations for this financial year is due to reach £3.297bn – a 94 per cent increase on last year, according to figures released by the House of Commons Defence Committee.
The spending on Iraq will rise by 72 per cent, despite the cutback in the number of troops and UK forces leaving their last base inside Basra city for the airport. Meanwhile, the cost of the Afghan conflict, with British forces involved in near constant combat against the Taliban, will increase by 122 per cent.

The Telegraph reports on the latest political scandal from the States

NY governor Eliot Spitzer caught in sex scandal

The Governor of New York state has issued an apology to his family and the public after being linked to a prostitution ring

. the paper adds

the New York Times alleged that FBI agents had overheard him in conversation with an escort agency during a wire-tapping operation.
Mr Spitzer is alleged to have been recorded by agents as he stayed overnight during a visit to Washington last month.
The Emperors Club prostitution ring, which also operated in London and Paris, was closed down last week after a lengthy investigation. It had about 50 prostitutes who charged £500 to £2,750 an hour.

We are facing food crisis, admits Mugabe reports the Guardian

he blamed it on "racist" Britain trying to oust him at this month's presidential election.
Responding to pleas at a campaign rally in Plumtree, in the province of Matabeleland South, from local officials of the ruling Zanu-PF party "to ensure the speedy distribution of food in the province as people were running out of supplies", Mugabe accepted there was a crisis.

The Times reports on the aftermath of the Spanish elections

Hardline bishops ready to reopen hostilities with victorious Zapatero

Spaniards are bracing themselves for a renewed showdown between the Roman Catholic Church and the Socialist Government, reelected yesterday with a fresh mandate for social reform in one of Europe’s last Catholic bastions.
José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero – a scourge of the Church for having legalised same-sex marriage, introduced fast-track divorce and pulled religious instruction from the school curriculum – won a second term on Sunday, vowing to deepen his social reforms.

Monks march as Dalai Lama condemns Beijing reports the Telegraph

The march, by about 100 Tibetans, set off from Dharamsala, the seat of the government-in-exile and home to the Dalai Lama.
Its organisers are not revealing the route, but say they hope to arrive at the Tibetan border in six months time.
Indian police have banned the Tibetan exiles from leaving Kangra district, the area around Dharamsala.

The Times reports

Second care home 'torture pit' is opened

The second chamber was uncovered next to a cellar that contained traces of human blood, a pair of shackles and a concrete bath. Detectives believe that there are another two connected chambers beneath the southern wing and other underground rooms elsewhere in the building.The discovery came as detectives said that corrupt former police officers, politicians and a businessman were trying to discredit the inquiry into the Haut de la Garenne home.

The Sun puts up a 50K reward for Shannon

THE dad of missing Shannon Matthews was last night praying The Sun’s beefed-up £50,000 reward would help find her.
Anguished Leon Rose, 29, held up a copy of our poster after we more than doubled our previous £20,000 offer.

Bin bags return to the front of the Mail

Banished says the paper

Tomorrow's Budget will introduce landmark legislation to ban the throwaway plastic bag once and for all.
Chancellor Alistair Darling will set out a timetable warning retailers that unless they slash the number of bags handed out, they will be forced by law to charge for them.
It is a major victory for the Daily Mail's Banish the Bag campaign, and a powerful message to the supermarkets which are resisting pressure to impose charges

The Mirror attacks Jeremy Clarkson on its front page

Under the headline

Berk in a merc

,the paper reveals

He may know motoring laws inside out, but Jeremy Clarkson clearly has trouble sticking to them.
The loudmouth Top Gear host was snapped doing 70mph along the middle lane of a busy motorway while chattering away on his mobile phone.

A similar story in the Mail which reports

A speeding driver caught doing more than 100mph while children without seatbelts dangled out of the car window has been banned from driving for just 28 days.
Colin Goodall was caught on a speed camera at 101mph, but police were horrified when they studied the images and spotted children sticking their heads out of the window as the Audi hurtled down the road.

fake Ferrari proves $600bn industry has moved up a gear says the Guardian

Knocked up in a garage in the Thai countryside using Japanese parts, the Ferrari was about to be shipped to a European client when Thai police confiscated it.
Replicating the original in every visible detail, the car is a startling example of the genius for counterfeiting that is flourishing worldwide, eating into the aprofits of corporations and costing governments billions in lost tax revenue. It has been linked to child slave-labour in India and China, with the products being distributed from New York to Leicester.

Camilla shocked after her head of security shoots himself dead
reports the Mirror

Camilla and Prince Charles, who are on a tour of the Caribbean, were on their yacht Leander when they were told of the suicide of Sergeant Richard Fuller, 55.
A Clarence House spokeswoman said: "The Duchess of Cornwall was very saddened."
The police officer was found dead at home near Calne, Wilts, yesterday morning.

Finally the Telegraph reports

Girl Guide earns badge for 80 years' service

An 87-year-old woman has become Britain's longest-serving Girl Guide, boasting 80 years' unbroken service.
Joanne Alder, 87, entered the movement at the age of seven when she became a Brownie in 1928 in Ramsgate, Kent.