School rule changes make papers

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Changes to the way schools select their pupils receive attention in some of Wednesday's papers.

The Times and the Daily Telegraph are among papers to report that schools in England will be told to select pupils at random by education chiefs.

The Telegraph says catchment areas will be scrapped and that Education Secretary Alan Johnson may ask suburban schools to draw names out of a hat.

The paper calls it bizarre and suggests academic selection instead.

'Unfit for purpose'

There is incredulity in several quarters over the latest controversy at the Home Office.

"Unfit for purpose .... part 7" is the Daily Mirror take on revelations that details of UK criminals' overseas offences were not put into databases.

"It beggars belief," says the Sun, that no Home Office chiefs have had to answer for the problems.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph says 150,000 people have signed a petition against plans for road pricing.

Global warming warning

Global warming is the familiar theme on the front of the Independent.

The paper paints a gloomy picture, based on an EU report, of vanishing fish stocks, rising sea levels, forest fires and failing crops.

A cheap new blood test could prevent tens of thousands of deaths from heart attacks and strokes, according to the Daily Express.

It describes the test, costing Â£15, as a "dramatic breakthrough" - allowing people to determine their risk.

Marlene's missing earring?

The Daily Mail gives over most of page one to a picture of a calf, with the headline: "Clone Farming Has Arrived".

It introduces the calf as "Dundee Paradise" - born in the UK, but the daughter of a clone created in an American laboratory.

The Daily Mirror is excited over what may be a gold and silver earring lost by Marlene Dietrich in Blackpool in 1934 - and now recovered.

It was found when a man-made lake was drained for a new attraction.