One disaster in South East Asia is replaced by another with pictures of the Chinese earthquake on the front of many of the papers.The Guardian leads with

Thousands die in China quake

Rescuers struggled this morning to reach victims of the devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people in central China and trapped thousands more in the rubble of collapsed schools, factories, hospitals and homes.
Road, rail, air and phone links to the epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude shock were cut, hampering relief efforts and the flow of information on the scale of the catastrophe. Some Chinese troops were marching up to 100 miles through the night to reach affected areas.

The Times says

In a single county near the epicentre, 80 per cent of buildings had collapsed, 3,000-5,000 people had died and 10,000 had been injured. That means about one in ten in Beichuan county, from a population of 161,000, has been killed or injured.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck at 2.28pm. Tremors rocked buildings in Beijing, sent ripples of fear through Bangkok and caused near-panic even in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. Some skyscrapers in China’s financial hub, Shanghai, swayed so violently that they had to be evacuated

The Telegraph reporting

At least six primary and middle schools were destroyed in the disaster, and 900 pupils were buried under rubble when the three-storey Jiangyan Middle School in Dujiangyan collapsed

Meanwhile the Independent reports

The first shipment of American emergency supplies arrived in Burma yesterday as aid agencies warned that the number of people in desperate need of help had risen to two million. In some camps set up by the government, whole families are being given just one cup of rice a day.

Elsewhere the papers have a mixed bag of headlines.The Telegraph leads with

Abolish Sats tests for pupils, urge MPs

Tests taken by more than a million pupils every year should be scrapped because they "distort" their education, MPs say today.
The powerful Commons schools select committee says "teaching to the test" is now endemic as children are drilled to pass exams to inflate schools' positions in league tables

The Independent tells us that

Housing market worst for 30 years

Confidence in Britain's housing market has sunk to its lowest level for more than 30 years, figures to be published today will reveal, as property prices continue to fall and mortgage lenders restrict home loan finance. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) says that 95 per cent more surveyors reported a fall in house prices in April than a rise, the worst figure it has reported since it began publishing monthly property market surveys in January 1978.

Now a tax to pay for old age says the Mail

Every working family could face paying an "ageing tax" to provide care for the elderly, Gordon Brown proposed yesterday.
It would take the form of a compulsory levy to force them to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives.
The ageing tax is a central plank of a consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly

The Times reports that

The Prime Minister said he wanted to free people from the fear that they would be forced to sell their homes to pay for care, and called the current means-testing system unfair for those who had saved. He revealed few details on how the new system might work, with his ministers saying that nothing had been ruled out except free personal care for all. That would be too expensive. They also stopped short of promising that the family home would be taken out of the equation altogether.

Meanwhile the latest problems for the Labour party are widely reported

Balls launches fiery attack on leader of Labour 10p tax rebels says the Guardian

Labour's paralysing bout of infighting continued yesterday when Ed Balls, the prime minister's closest cabinet ally, accused the leader of the 10p tax rebels in parliament of dishonourably using the issue to destabilise Gordon Brown's government and settle old scores.
The secretary of state for children, schools and families, also said Cherie Blair was talking nonsense in claiming that Brown may have played a role in leaking the details of her pregnancy, a claim she made in her autobiography.

The Independent says

Frayed nerves in the Brown camp finally snapped in the wake of the publication of the extracts and an interview in which Frank Field, the former welfare minister who led the rebellion over the 10p tax reform, predicted Mr Brown could be forced out of office by the end of the year.

The Times reveals the latest Cherie titbits

Alastair Campbell ‘literally spitting’ over Caplin

The wife of the former Prime Minister says that she was told that the Downing Street press office hated her because they had told lies on her behalf over Peter Foster, the Australian conman and Ms Caplin’s boyfriend at the time, and her purchase of two flats in Bristol.
She reveals that infighting among Blairites was just as savage as that between Blairites and Brownites.

The Mail says

Gordon Brown yesterday angrily denied claims by Cherie Blair that he had leaked the news she was pregnant.
Mrs Blair hints in her autobiography that she suspected her husband's rival was behind stories that emerged when she was expecting Leo, the Blairs' fourth child, who was conceived at Balmoral and was born in May 2000.

License to kill says the front of the Sun with a picture of a knife

THIS is the blood-covered knife used to kill a young man in broad daylight on Britain’s busiest shopping street yesterday.
The horrific stabbing came as it was revealed yobs carrying blades may only face a fine or community service.
The murder on London’s Oxford Street was one of FOUR serious stabbings — two of which were fatal — during 48 hours of bloodshed in the capital.

St Jimmy is the top story in the Mirror

The grieving mum of murdered schoolboy Jimmy Mizen said yesterday: "If anyone gets to heaven it will be him."
Margaret Mizen, 55, said: "Jimmy was a saint. He was 16 years and a day old and I never once told him off. He didn't have bad thoughts about people." She paid tribute to Jimmy as police said they were hunting for a 19-year-old from a local Turkish family.

The Guardian meanwhile reports

Police seek new witnesses to bakery killing

Detectives leading the hunt for the killer of a south-east London teenage boy yesterday appealed for fresh witnesses as they examined CCTV film of local streets.
No detailed description has yet been issued of the young male attacker, who seized an advertising board, forced his way into a bakery shop and wrecked the premises. During the onslaught on Saturday morning, 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen received a fatal slash wound to his throat. He died in his brother's arms after being attacked with a shard of glass when he refused a challenge to fight. It is not clear whether the victim knew his attacker.

Serious Organised Crime Agency abandons hunt for crime lords is the lead in the Times

The special squad set up to take on the barons of organised crime has gone back to the drawing board after failing to prosecute only a handful of the 130 figures it aimed to bring to book.
Experienced officers are leaving the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) “in droves” and the organisation’s original hitlist has been shelved, The Times has learnt.
Sources said that it had spent two years pursuing a flawed strategy on the basis of poor intelligence.

The Independent carries a report

Pride & prejudice: How the far right muscled in on middle England

It was the place he dubbed Everytown, the corner of Britain that most accurately represents the nation at large. So when the people of Maltby swung towards the BNP in this month's local elections, ex-resident Julian Baggini returned to discover how the politics of hatred took root in Labour's Yorkshire heartland

Girl of two killed by ill mother reports the Mirror

A mentally ill mum stabbed her daughter to death days after police freed her, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Galtricia Ntsimbi, 23, who arrived from Paris in 2006, knifed two-year-old Trycia Balhous then stabbed herself.
She was earlier arrested for harassing a shopkeeper and a police doctor concluded she had a "delusional disorder" and needed help.

Some other news from abroad and the Guardian reports that

Hizbullah yesterday took control of a strategic mountain-top village in Druze heartlands south-east of the capital after fierce fighting with government allies, consolidating strategic gains that analysts said would be used in confrontations with Israel.
"Hizbullah will very soon spread all over. They will not leave any strategic part of the country in the hands of their so-called enemies," said Ahmad Moussali, a professor at the American University of Beirut and an expert on Islamist groups

According to the Telegraph

A video sent by Hillary Clinton as a thank you to her supporters has fuelled speculation that she is on the verge of dropping out of the White House race, with its strikingly valedictory tone.

Putin's hardliners keep places in new cabinet says the Independent

Vladimir Putin, in his new role as Russia's Prime Minister, announced a new cabinet of ministers yesterday that appears to bear out predictions that he will remain the real centre of power in the country.
Most of the key ministers who served under Mr Putin when he was President have retained their posts, while powerful allies have moved with their old boss from the Kremlin to the White House, seat of the Russian government.

The weather continues to dominate the pages

Glorious sunshine, wildfires - and freak floods - as Britain is hit by 24 hours of extreme conditions reports the Mail

Flash floods and wildfires hit parts of Britain yesterday, with more unsettled weather predicted for the end of the week onwards.
But despite the extreme conditions in some areas, most of us simply basked in another day of glorious sunshine, with parts of England enjoying the warmest start to May since 1772.
Frustrated families were mopping up after flash floods brought misery to Wales and the North West.

Finally the Times reports

Speedboat crash-lands in Loch Lomond golf course bunker

Golfers ran for cover when an out-of-control speedboat bounced off rocks, flew through the air and crash-landed in a bunker on the Loch Lomond course in Dunbartonshire, above, where the Scottish Open will be held in July. The skipper of the Final Fling had jumped into the loch after waves from another vessel sent his craft off course. He was rescued after a short search involving a military helicopter.