Newspaper headlines: 'Tea party horror' and 'strike to ground flights'

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By BBC News
Staff

A gold-coloured Land Rover crashed into the school

The crash at a school in south-west London, that killed an eight-year-old girl and left 10 other people in hospital, dominates the front pages. Many of them carry the same aerial photograph of a vehicle - lodged against the building - surrounded by blankets and chairs. "Horror at end of term tea party" says the Daily Mail. The Sun calls the scenes "horrific", while the Daily Mirror says a police officer fought back tears as she confirmed the girl had died.

"Air controller strike set to ground summer flights" is the headline on the front of the Times, which warns that industrial action in Europe could affect a third of flights on the continent this summer. British holiday makers face a nervous wait to see if they are affected, it says.

The Financial Times leads on the global sell-off of stocks and bonds, triggered by market data in the US indicating the possibility of higher interest rates. The paper quotes a bond fund manager saying "the global economy will break eventually, and the higher the rates go, the bigger the cracks will be".

The Guardian features an admission from Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock that the country failed to listen to its eastern European allies about the threat from Russia. She says Berlin had resorted to what she calls "chequebook diplomacy", a belief that political and economic integration would lead Russia to a democratic path.

The Mail features research which suggests the boom in package holidays decades ago now means significantly higher rates of skin cancer are detected in the 55-and-over age group. Cases have tripled since the 1990s, and cancer researchers believe it may be the result of holidaymakers not understanding the need for skin protection. Cancer Research UK says in the article that 86% of melanoma can be prevented.

The England women's football team set off from Heathrow for Sydney last night, and the Times reports a secret weapon in the Lionesses' quest to bring home the World Cup - LED jet lag glasses, which help them acclimatise to the time difference as quickly as possible. They allow either blue or red light into the eyes, to simulate mornings or evenings, and they're linked to an app which tells the players when to stay awake or try to sleep at the optimal times.

The Daily Telegraph uncovers a prank that briefly spread panic in Torquay, Devon, when a hoaxer painstakingly carved what looked like the two-foot dorsal fin of a great white shark out of hardened insulation foam. It was painted grey, fixed to a weighted wooden cross, and placed three hundred metres out from the coast - where it was spotted by a school teacher who had taken a group of pupils on a trip. He alerted the boat skipper, who smelled a rat because the fin remained stationary. He pulled it straight out of the water and was not amused, saying: "Pranks like this can have an effect on summer coastal businesses that are already struggling." He said people should rest assured there had never been any evidence of great white sharks in south Devon.