The Chancellor makes many of the front pages this morning

20 million given tax windfall in emergency budget says the Telegraph

After weeks of backbench unrest over the issue of the 10p tax band, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, was forced to announce a compensation package.
Effectively re-writing Mr Brown's last budget, he said that low and middle income earners would get payments to ensure that most did not lose out at all from the scrapping of the 10p rate.

It is the first time in living memory that income tax has changed within a financial year, and it has happened only two months after the Budget.

says the Times adding

Analysts pointed out that the further increase in borrowing would have to be paid for eventually by higher taxes or cuts in spending

£2.7b to end tax revolt says the Guardian

Brown was forced to spend so much money and take a risk with extra public borrowing because it was the only way the Treasury could ensure that retrospective compensation would reach most of the losers from the abolition of the rate this year. Other targeted and less expensive measures would have taken longer to reach taxpayers at a time when the government is haemorrhaging support and facing a critical byelection in Crewe and Nantwich next week.

Darling turns on a 10p says the Mail

Ministers said the U-turn also showed that the Government was listening to the concerns of families facing higher food, fuel and housing costs. And they argued they were responding to calls for personal allowances to be raised to take poorer people out of the tax net.
But later it emerged that 1.1million people - anyone earning between £6,635 and £13,355 - will still be worse off overall

The Sun headlines The Bribe minister

CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling did a historic U-turn yesterday to give millions of workers a £120 bung.

The Independent's front page concentrates on the economy,the Spector of Stagflation says the paper

A combination of stagnant output and high inflation not seen for decades is set to haunt policy makers for months if not years to come.
Even with the credit crunch, the housing market at its lowest ebb in 30 years, high street sales at their most miserable in half a decade, and industry reporting a collapse in orders, prices are still rising – and at an ever-faster rate.

Inflation hits 3pc as food and fuel costs soar says the Telegraph

It is the highest rate of price rises in more than a year and reflects what most householders will already know - that the soaring cost of oil and the current food crisis is squeezing hard-pressed consumers more than ever.
The 3pc rate is just shy of the level at which Bank of England Governor Mervyn King would have to write an open letter of explanation to the Chancellor

The Express leads with Now the Race to cut prices

BRITAIN’S hard-pressed families received some much-needed cheer last night thanks to a raft of price cuts to ease spiralling household bills.
Two major supermarkets and a leading mortgage lender lifted the gloom over the cost of living for millions with plans for a host of cost-cutting deals

Away from the economy and the Mirror leads with the news that a amn is arrested in connection with the murder of Jimmy Mizen

Police hunting the killer of schoolboy Jimmy Mizen yesterday arrested a 19-year-old after swooping on a flat following a tip off.
The suspect, named by locals as Jake Fahri, was seized after a brief struggle by a team of ten officers wearing stab-proof vests and carrying stun guns.

Victim's 'throat slit' as rival gangs clash outside Oxford Street McDonald's reports the Mail

A man stabbed to death in Oxford Street was killed after a gang brawl erupted outside a McDonald's.
The 22-year-old victim was named this afternoon as Steven Bigby who was with two friends when they clashed with four other men.
The murder took place after a row between the men escalated. It apparently began after Mr Bigby threw a glass of water over one of the suspects.

The Times reports that

A huge police operation against knife crime was launched last night in London in response to the growing number of teenagers killed on the capital’s streets in recent months.Stop-and-search teams were being deployed to boroughs across the capital last night to do “something significant in tackling the issue of knives being carried in our communities”. Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin, who promised “fairly in-your-face” policing, said: “We really have to do something about carrying weapons on the streets of London, where when you have a barney you stab someone rather than hit them.”

Storms hamper efforts to rescue quake survivors reports the Guardian

A massive rescue operation yesterday struggled with heavy rain and aftershocks in the search for tens of thousands of people who remained missing following the devastating earthquake which struck central China on Monday.
As President Wen Jiabao toured the disaster area to oversee rescue efforts, the authorities said the death toll had reached 12,000 people in Sichuan Province alone. In some towns, there were more people missing buried under collapsed homes, hospitals and schools than found alive, raising fears that the death toll could soon rise dramatically.

Bodies are found in rubble that was once a school reports the Independent

Rain turned the playground to mud as rescuers dragged the bodies of hundreds of schoolchildren out of the wreckage of the Juyuan Middle School, in earthquake-shattered Sichuan province, leaving the corpses to be identified by their grieving parents in a makeshift mortuary in the basketball court.
Each corpse claimed was marked with a barrage of firecrackers, a traditional way of sending the souls of the dead children home and warding off evil spirits. Wave after wave of aftershocks played havoc with relief efforts across the stricken earthquake zone, where the death toll has soared to more than 12,000.

More Cherie revelations in the Times,today's installment reporting that

The Blairs’ hearts sank when they learnt that George Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000 had been ratified and that he was to become President of the United States, Cherie Blair reveals in The Times today.
She tells how she and her husband watched Mr Bush on television and were concerned at his poor grasp of foreign affairs, but Mr Blair was determined to have a strong relationship with the Republican President.

Meanwhile many of the papers report the gaffe made by the housing minister,the Telegraph reporting

Caroline Flint, the Housing Minister, made an embarrassing blunder this morning by accidentally displaying Cabinet briefing notes which reveal Government fears about the true state of the housing market.

The Independent adds

House prices are set to fall by 5 to 10 per cent "at best" this year – but ministers have no idea how badly the market could slump, according to confidential cabinet documents accidentally revealed by the Housing minister, Caroline Flint.
Ms Flint unwittingly left the sheaf of papers on show as she left yesterday morning's meeting of the Cabinet in Downing Street, enabling onlookers to read their inflammatory contents

The Mirror reports that

Madeleine McCann is 'seen' on Brazil jet

Interpol was yesterday investigating an apparent sighting of Madeleine McCann in Brazil.
The child was reportedly with a man on a flight to Sao Paulo six weeks ago.
Interpol's chief in Brazil, Jorge Pontes, said: "The sighting is still under investigation so we cannot reveal details. All I can say is that we have a witness insisting they saw the child on a flight

Survey of patients shows big NHS performance gaps reports the Guardian

A big variation in the performance of NHS trusts across England is revealed today in the health inspectorate's annual survey of patients' experiences.
In some hospitals more than three-quarters of inpatients said the standard of care was excellent, compared with less than one quarter in others.
In the best trusts, staff almost invariably helped frail patients to eat, but in the worst nearly half the people who needed assistance at mealtimes said they did not get it.

The Independent reports on the explosions in India

Up to 60 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in India's western city of Jaipur, officials and witnesses said.
At least six bombs exploded in markets and near a Hindu temple in Jaipur's crowded walled city, which also left up to 150 people wounded. Rajasthan state government officials said between 50 and 60 people were killed in the explosions, the deadliest bomb attacks in India in nearly two years.

Israel may ease grip in Tony Blair deal revive West Bank reports the Times

A plan to roll back the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and create the basis for a functioning Palestinian state was unveiled by Tony Blair yesterday, almost a year after he became the international community’s Middle East envoy.
It involves the creation of a Palestinian security and economic free zone around the northern West Bank town of Jenin, where Palestinian security forces would take charge, easing freedom of movement and allowing significant investment in infrastructure projects, including an industrial park near the impoverished town of about 35,000 inhabitants.

The Guardian reports that

Barcelona forced to import emergency water

The tanker Sichem Defender arrived at the port of Barcelona yesterday carrying something far more precious than its usual cargo of chemicals.
Nearly 23m litres of drinking water - enough for 180,000 people for a day - was the first delivery in an unprecedented emergency plan to help this parched corner of Spain ahead of the holiday season

Jury sees bomb damage tests reports the Sun

A REPLICA bottle bomb destroyed a camera and cracked a protective glass panel in a filmed test explosion shown yesterday to terror trial jurors.
It has been alleged that a gang of Islamic fanatics plotted to trigger similar blasts in suicide attacks aboard transatlantic jets.

The Telegraph adds

The device, made from an Oasis soft drink bottle, had to be put together with a remote controlled arm at a government laboratory because the mixture was so volatile, a jury heard.
Keith Ritchie, a senior case office at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory said: “If the mixture reacted unexpectedly with the detonator inside it would result in the death of anybody nearby.”

The Mail finds the latest victim of bin wars

A council refused to collect rubbish from a 95-year-old war veteran who is nearly blind - because he put a ketchup bottle in the wrong bin.
Lenny Woodward, a former Desert Rat who has lived in the same house for 58 years, was confused by a new regime of fortnightly collections and rigid recycling rules.
Residents have a blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste.
Mr Woodward made the mistake of putting the ketchup bottle and a coffee jar in the blue bin when they should have gone in the green box.

The Express reports how a pale and sickly Prince Philip

looked short of breath and uncomfortable while meeting 300 guests at an official dinner in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
The coughing fit prompted new fears for his health, just a month after he spent three nights in hospital with a chest infection.

The Telegraph reports that

Microsoft unveils 'Google Earth' for space

Space, the final frontier, is about to be inundated with sightseers. Microsoft has unveiled a new website which brings the outer reaches of the universe to the fingertips of anyone with internet access and a computer

Finally the Sun reveals

UFOs hovering over Waterloo Bridge? Green men known as Elgar? This can only mean the British 'X-Files' have been opened up to the public for the first time.
The fascinating reports, taken so seriously they were documented by the Ministry of Defence, have been revealed after a Freedom of Information request by UFO researchers.