The Telegraph leads with the story this morning that

Royal Bank of Scotland in fresh cash plea

Britain's second biggest bank is to make a plea to the City to try to raise billions of pounds to help shore up its finances, which have been hit by the global credit crisis.The Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, is to launch a rights issue for at least £5 billion.It is the first major British bank to concede that it needs large amounts of extra money and it is expected to trigger a wave of others appealing to shareholders for help.

The FT also leads with the story,the paper says

A cash call by RBS would help strengthen its capital reserves, which have been stretched to the limit by its role in leading the €71bn (£57bn) break-up bid for ABN Amro, the Dutch lender, last year. That deal has looked increasingly ill-judged as turmoil in the capital markets has prompted an increased focus on banks’ balance sheets

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The Mail stays with the economy on its front page

The REAL cost of inflation

The true, devastating scale of rising prices is revealed today - by the new Daily Mail Cost of Living Index.
It shows that families are having to find more than £100 a month extra this year to cope with increases in the cost of food, heat, light and transport.
According to the Consumer Price Index, inflation is running at only 2.5 per cent.
Yet the Mail's index finds that food costs alone are rising at 15.5 per cent a year - more than six times the official rate.

The Express is also on the attack reporting that

Families have been left reeling by a £4,000 council tax bombshell under Labour, it was revealed yesterday.
Startling research exposed the true extent to which Gordon Brown has picked the pockets of hard-working Britons over the last 11 years.
Analysis shows how Middle England and Wales have had to shoulder the burden for Labour mismanagement – and is the latest evidence of how the cost of living under this Government has outstripped official inflation figures.

Gordon Brown's visit to America is well covered

A day of political speed-dating as Brown sizes up the presidential candidates

There was an unmistakable twinge of envy among European diplomats yesterday as the three American presidential candidates and their secret service details made their way up Massachusetts Avenue for separate meetings with Gordon Brown at the residence of the British Ambassador, Sir Nigel Sheinwald.

Brown and Bush reignite that special relationship reports the Guardian

Gordon Brown last night set the seal on a new phase in Britain's special relationship with the United States when he won ringing endorsements from the present and future generations of American leaders.
In a light-hearted appearance in the White House rose garden, George Bush hailed the prime minister as a "good friend" whose response to last summer's terror attack at Glasgow airport had been "brilliant".
Bush showed that he had moved on from his first frosty encounter with Brown as prime minister at Camp David last July when he joked that only a true friend earned the right to be served a hamburger at the White House.

Gordon Brown is grilled in America over Iraq

The Prime Minister faced questions over the decision for British troops not to get involved in the recent fighting in the city of Basra.On US radio, Mr Brown was repeatedly asked about the lack of British help on the ground in Basra during the violence. The Prime Minister said that troops were there to help train the Iraqis and to assist local forces with air support

Meanwhile trouble at home is well reported

Brown talks ministerial aide out of quitting over tax says the Times

In a revealing insight into his priorities, the Prime Minister rang Angela Smith, parliamentary private secretary to Yvette Cooper, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, between his separate meetings with the three presidential contenders and President Bush.
Ms Smith had been reported to be on the brink of standing down from her unpaid post rather than vote for the measure in the Commons. Mr Brown’s allies said that they hoped to keep her from quitting and blamed the Prime Minister’s enemies for leaking her unhappiness to the BBC to try to force her hand.

The Independent reports a day of

Threats, insults, and more bad polls

A Labour peer has criticised Gordon Brown for appearing "indecisive" and "weak" and compared him unfavourably with his predecessor, Tony Blair. Lord Desai, an economics professor and former Labour frontbencher, added to the pressure on the Prime Minister by describing his leadership style as "porridge or haggis" compared to the "champagne or caviar" offered by Mr Blair. He said Mr Brown came over as "solid, and maybe nourishing but not actually very appetising". He added: "Gordon Brown was put on Earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was."His colourful intervention was a fresh blow to the Prime Minister as he attempts to revive the Government's fortunes.Mr Brown's hopes that he could put his domestic troubles behind him during his current trip to the United States have proved forlorn.In recent weeks, ministers have begun to speak out about the problems engulfing Labour. Even Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, has admitted that the Government needed to "sharpen up" and give a clearer message to voters.

The Mail headlining

'Brown was put on earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was': Labour peer's devastating critique of 'haggis-like' Prime Minister

The crisis worsens in Zimbabwe,the Guardian leads with the news that

Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime

A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3m rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship's papers were in order.

Meanwhile the Telegraph reports that

Mugabe had come close to handing over power, says Tsvangirai

Morgan Tsvangirai said his Movement for Democratic Change party was approached by Mr Mugabe's envoys about forming a unity government that would include members of the ruling Zanu-PF party, only a day after the disputed March 29 election

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Education is the main concern in the Times

School ‘superheads’ to earn £200,000 a year in rewards and incentives system says the paper

Head teachers from grammar schools could see their pay double to £200,000 a year in return for also taking over the management of failing schools in their area, under plans to bring private sector-style leadership and pay rates into state schools.
Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, is asking the body that sets teachers’ pay to put forward a new system of “rewards and incentives” for 500 new “superheads”, including some currently at grammar and faith schools. The extra money would be used for pay rises, bonuses and consultancy fees to head teachers of top-ranking schools who agree to take on the management of one or more struggling local schools.

The Guardian reports that

Number of pupils due to take new diplomas scaled down by a quarter

The government's flagship diplomas policy is dealt a fresh blow today as a minister admits that the number of students due to start the courses in September has been "downgraded" by nearly a quarter amid concerns about quality.
Jim Knight, the schools minister responsible for diplomas, said original plans for up to 40,000 students have been scaled back "in order to maintain quality".

The cloning revolution Part 2 says the front of the Indy

A revolutionary form of cloning is to be used as part of a last-ditch effort to save one of the world's rarest animals – the northern white rhino – which is on the brink of extinction with only a few individuals left in the wild.
British scientists are to spearhead an attempt to preserve the genes of a rhino in captivity by using a technique that mixes its skin cells with the embryos of a close cousin, the southern white rhino, which is not so endangered. The resulting offspring will be "chimeras" with a mixture of cells from both sub-species, but it is hoped that some of them will grow up to produce the sperm and eggs of the northern white rhino and so boost the animal's dwindling gene pool.

Rhys Jones' mum weeps as she comes face to face with his alleged killer reports the Mirror

The mum of murdered schoolboy Rhys Jones broke down in tears yesterday as she came face to face with his alleged killer - who later winked at his own mother from the dock.
Melanie Jones wept and clutched tightly on to the arm of husband Stephen while the 17-year-old was led into court handcuffed to a guard. The youngster accused of gunning down their son showed no emotion.

He's a not so clever Trevor is the front page of the Sun

ELECTRICIAN Trevor Brooks planned to generate hatred like his twisted hero Omar Bakri – but today the self-styled Islamic preacher faces a possible life sentence.
Brooks, 33, was yesterday found guilty of terror fundraising and inciting terrorism overseas.
He was one of six British men convicted – all members of an extreme Muslim group known as Al-Muhajiroun, which seeks Islamic world domination.

The Telegraph adds

While western troops were fighting in Fallujah in Nov 2004 the group delivered a series of speeches at the mosque boasting that they were terrorists and exhorting followers to give donations to buy arms for the holy war in Iraq.
The speeches also coincided with a night of the Muslim festival of Ramadan known as the “Night of Power” and were recorded on a DVD lasting nearly five hours.

The Guardian reports that

Hijackings force UN to halve food aid to 3m people in war-hit Darfur

The World Food Programme is to halve food rations for up to 3 million people in Darfur from next month because of insecurity along the main supply routes. At least 60 WFP lorries have been hijacked since December in Sudan's western province, where government forces and rebels have been at war for five years. The hijacks have drastically curtailed the delivery of food to warehouses ahead of the rainy season that lasts from May to September, when there is limited market access and crop stocks are depleted.

India pulls off a peaceful Olympic torch relay, by banning the public says the Independent

Such were the concerns of the Indian authorities about demonstrators disrupting the event that the two-mile relay through the centre of Delhi effectively took place in private. The only people who managed to get a glimpse of the torch were the 15,000 police, the politicians and a couple of hundred specially selected schoolchildren. A public spectacle it most certainly was not. "There is no entry for the public," said one senior police officer on duty. "No members of the public are getting in."

Kenya finally swears in expanded Cabinet with top jobs shared says the Times

Ignoring criticism from church and civil society leaders — and the majority of Kenyans — the political leaders’ solution to the crisis was to divide Cabinet posts among their loyalists, creating more posts as the jobs ran out.
The size of the country’s Cabinet has been expanded from 34 to 41, and some ministries have been divided up, raising the possibility of infighting and power-grabbing among Kenyan leaders, many of whom do not even have office space yet — to say nothing of a job description.

The Mirror's front page has an exclusive

Trisha Goddard on her terrifying breast cancer nightmare

When Trisha Goddard was diagnosed with breast cancer last month her first instinct was to keep it a secret. Even from her husband Peter and their two daughters.
The TV chat show queen was told she had the disease after a routine mammogram. And amid her whirling emotions, her overriding reaction was to protect her family and face the terrifying battle ahead alone.

report the paper

Many of the papers carry the story of

£350m discount on Ritz Hotel that lured businessmen into phoney deal

It was known as Project Notting Hill: a tangled, yet lucrative, secret deal to sell the Ritz hotel in London on behalf of the Barclay brothers for £250m.
All businessman Terry Collins needed to do to secure this exclusive deal was provide a downpayment of £1m to a mysterious contractor working on behalf of the deeply private billionaire twins.

reports the Guardian


Finally the Mail has the story of

Medieval village accused of having tapeworm outbreak becomes latest victim of online encyclopaedia

According to many who live there, the village of Denshaw is a little piece of paradise tucked away in the Pennines.
But Wikipedia readers have been receiving a rather different message.
According to the world's most-used online encyclopaedia, its population was devastated by a tapeworm outbreak ten years ago. Those who remain relax by throwing sheep or shooting cows.
It gets no more than four hours of sunlight a day because of the surrounding hills. And the total population is four, none of whom is a "fit girl".