One story dominates the front pages again today

Jonathan Ross paid a £1.4million price last night for the obscene behaviour which has left his career in jeopardy.
BBC director-general Mark Thompson kicked the £6million-a-year star off the airwaves for three months and gave him a final warning.
The unpaid break will cost Ross more than £16,000 a day.
Thompson acted almost two weeks after the infamous broadcast of the messages which Ross and Russell Brand left on the answer phone of actor Andrew Sachs.

says the Mail

The Sun calls it an expensive mistake

BBC bosses yesterday hit cocky Jonathan Ross in the only place that will hurt – his pocket.
The disgraced radio and TV host has never failed to seize an opportunity to boast about his £18million three-year deal.
And he infamously joked he was worth “more than 1,000 BBC journalists”.

The Times says

The BBC was forced last night to dispense with one of its most senior executives and suspend without pay its highest-profile presenter in the hope of drawing a line under the scandal over obscene phone calls.

BBC bows to its critics again says the Indy

The BBC has ordered a fundamental review of taste and decency standards across the network in an attempt to end the row about lewd prank phone calls that has engulfed the corporation.

BBC battles to calm prank storm says the Guardian

Mark Thompson, the director general, hopes the sanction will end the crisis, but some inside the BBC were lamenting the fact it was Radio 2's controller Lesley Douglas who was forced to carry the can for a lewd prank phone call by Ross and Russell Brand, who quit on Wednesday.

Away from the BBC the Telegraph reports the findings of its latest poll,according to the paper

The Conservatives' poll lead over Labour has fallen from 24 points to single figures in just five months, as Gordon Brown prospers from his handling of the financial crisis.After months of record poll deficits, the Prime Minister has seen some support return, according to the Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey, which shows David Cameron's lead has been reduced to only nine points.

Meanwhile the Times reports that House prices fall by more than average annual pay

The average home is now valued at £27,000 less than in October last year, while the national average salary is about £25,000.
House prices fell by 1.4 per cent in October, pushing the annual decline to 14.6 per cent, figures from Nationwide show. This is the biggest annual fall since comparable records began in 1991 and the number of home sales looks likely to fall to the lowest level since 1974.

The Express is worried about the price of petrol

Public backing for the Daily Express crusade for fuel price justice was gathering pace last night.
Messages of support were pouring in after an explosion of anger at “obscene” profiteering by oil giants. Shell yesterday became the latest company to disclose multi-billion-pound profits earned on the back of motorists’ misery, topping even BP.

The Guardian adds

Alistair Darling, the chancellor, yesterday demanded that oil companies move faster to pass on the fall in prices to customers on station forecourts.
Speaking on GMTV, Darling said: " A few months ago, the price of crude oil coming out of the ground was about $150 a barrel. Now it's down to about $60. I want to see that reduction passed on to the pumps as quickly as possible."

Lloyds-TSB takeover of HBOS to be rubberstamped reports the Telegraph

when ministers confirm they will waive competition laws to allow the creation of Britain's biggest bank.Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, will confirm that he is setting aside anti-monopoly laws in the national interest.
The merger, which will create the country's biggest mortgage lender, was engineered in September by ministers to avert the collapse of HBOS

The Independent reports that

De Menezes 'was killed without warning'

Scotland Yard marksmen who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes did not identify themselves as police officers before opening fire, according to three witnesses who saw the Brazilian electrician being killed.
The evidence, given by passengers who were in the same Tube train carriage as Mr de Menezes when he was shot on 22 July 2005, contradicts statements made by the Metropolitan Police. Both of the armed officers who shot Mr de Menezes have told the inquest they shouted "armed police" before firing. This claim has also been corroborated by other officers who were on the train on the day Mr de Menezes was killed.

Many of the papers report that

Light drinking in pregnancy may be good for baby boys, says study

Boys born to mothers who drank lightly during pregnancy are better behaved and score more highly in tests at the age of three than the sons of women who abstained, according to a study published today.
Researchers found there was no link between light drinking in pregnancy - defined as one to two units a week, or on occasion - and any behavioural or cognitive problems in children at the age of three.
Surprisingly, the University College London study found that some of the children of light-drinking mothers appeared to be doing better than the babies of those who abstained.

says the Guardian

The Times reports that

The rail regulator cancelled 19 schemes to remove pinch points on overcrowded lines yesterday after the Government ordered a cut in public funding for the railways.
Network Rail had proposed the schemes to increase capacity and to reduce delays on routes that have experienced record growth in passenger numbers. The Government has imposed a strict cap on the expansion of the network, however, to save about £1.5 billion a year.

Climate change at the poles is man-made reports the Independent

Changes to the climate due to human activity can now be detected on every continent, following a study showing that temperature rises in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic are the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.
It is the first time scientists have been able to prove the link between the temperature changes in both polar regions are down to human activity and it also undermines climate sceptics who believe the warming trend seen in the Arctic in recent decades is part of the climate's natural variability

Climate change of another sort makes many of the papers,the Mail says that

Ottery St Mary, in Devon, was plunged into chaos by the storm in the early hours yesterday.
First, the area was battered by an astonishing 12in of hail in just two hours. This blocked drains, which led to widespread flooding as the rain began to fall.

To the US and the Telegraph says

The looming prospect of defeat in the US presidential election is bringing out the best in Senator John McCain, who on Thursday chose a town named Defiance to make a spirited vow to fight to the end of the campaign.

According to the Times

Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.
The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

The Independent reports that

Barack and Bill bury hatchet to the delight of Democrats

A crowd of more than 35,000 waited for hours in a winter chill in this town just south of Orlando, for one of the most anticipated moments of Mr Obama's electoral odyssey – his sharing a stage, at last, with Mr Clinton, all tensions and rivalries of the past months buried for the sake of unity and victory

The Times reports from the Congo where,troops unleash wave of death on their own people

Across the city, Goma's nervous citizens hunkered down in their homes and improvised refugee camps, convinced that the final showdown between the government forces and rebel fighters loyal to the dissident General Laurent Nkunda had finally come.
After days of fighting on the outskirts of the city, most people here were expecting another upsurge in hostilities. But some of the worst violence late Wednesday into Thursday came not from clashes between the two foes but from rampaging Congolese soldiers.

The Telegraph reports that

Five people were killed and more than 20 wounded when Taliban gunmen and a suicide bomber stormed a government ministry in the centre of Kabul. Three attackers opened fire on guards in the Afghan capital's information and culture ministry before running into the building, where one blew himself up in a conference room beneath the minister's office on Thursday morning

According to the Guardian

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has asked the attorney general to investigate possible "criminal wrongdoing" by the MI5 and the CIA over its treatment of a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay, it was revealed tonight.
The dramatic development over allegations of collusion in torture and inhuman treatment follows a high court judgment which found that an MI5 officer participated in the unlawful interrogation of Binyam Mohamed. The MI5 officer interrogated Mohamed while he was being held in Pakistan in 2002.

The Telegraph reports that

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, has suggested churches with low attendance could be turned into gyms, restaurants and multi-faith centres.

There is much coverage of the opening of Westfield shopping complex,the Independent reporting that

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, opened Westfield, a 43-acre shining retail cathedral, to a fanfare yesterday. Europe's biggest urban shopping centre, which encroaches into nine west London postcodes, is certainly impressive. Westfield Group, the Australian property giant, has invested £1.7bn in the centre, which houses 285 stores and a 14-screen cinema, as well as 49 cafes, bars and restaurants.
But the timing of the opening is dreadful, as the UK hurtles into a consumer recession. Once shoppers have chopped up their credit cards after one last Christmas splurge, Westfield may find the tumbleweeds blowing through its shops. So is it destined to become one of British retail's biggest ever white elephants or will it become a Mecca for London's shoppers?

The Sun reports

THE huge Westfield shopping centre opened in a star-studded ceremony yesterday — and the first shoplifter was nicked within three HOURS.

Finally many of the papers report on the British expat becomes 'accidental' mayor of Costa Blanca

Mark Lewis, 58, has been left in charge of the town hall in San Fulgencio after the mayor, deputy mayor and four senior councillors were all taken into police custody following allegations of real estate corruption.
Mr Lewis, who lives in Spain with his wife and daughter, was given the title by default on Wednesday on the grounds that he is one of only two councillors from the ruling coalition not to be arrested.
"Mr Lewis has taken charge of the council on the grounds that he is the fourth deputy mayor. Everyone above him in the pecking order has been arrested," the source added.