Newspaper headlines: 'Plan B on Rwanda' as 'MPs defy second jobs anger'

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By BBC News
Staff

Scientists at Porton Down are preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic in humans

"Remote island plan for Channel migrants" is the headline of the Daily Mail's splash. It says the government is drawing up proposals to fly asylum seekers to Ascension Island, a small British overseas territory in the South Atlantic, if its Rwanda policy fails.

The Times reports that ministers are also in negotiations with five other countries as part of contingency plans, which the paper understands would involve sending asylum seekers away on a one-way flight, rather than moving them to another country temporarily.

It is a warning to bosses who hire illegal migrants that leads the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph. Repeat offenders could face fines of up to £60,000 per employee and landlords housing migrants illegally could be fined up to £20,000 per tenant. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, denounces those he says are "enabling the business model of the people smugglers" and insists it is "only right" that fines should be "prohibitively expensive".

The i reports that scientists at Porton Down are preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic in humans. The paper says vaccines against the H5N1 strain, which has killed millions of birds since 2021, are at an advanced stage of development. Experts tell the newspaper they are already carrying out surveillance of the virus in poultry workers and are confident of a "slick and rapid response" if a new virus were to emerge.

"From Lab to Jab in 100 days" says the Times, as the paper reports Britain is working towards deploying vaccines within three months of a virus being detected.

According to the Guardian, MPs have been paid £10m from second jobs over the past year despite promises of a crackdown. The paper says the figure has been driven up largely by Conservative MPs - particularly Boris Johnson who has made £4.8m, accounting for more than half the total. The Guardian says the rise in incomes over the past year appears to be driven by a small group of Tory MPs taking on lucrative consultancy jobs, and well-paid media gigs for the right-wing GB News Channel, as well as Rupert Murdoch's Talk TV.

The Times reports on a warning that thousands of teenagers could miss out on top A level grades next week as scoring returns to pre-pandemic levels. The paper reports on analysis from an education expert, who predicts 59,000 fewer A* grades compared with last year. The Daily Telegraph also features the work of Professor Alan Smithers, and quotes him as saying candidates are going to feel "a bit hard done by" and that "at the very least there are going to be lots of appeals."

And the United States has come a step closer to unlimited clean power, according to the Financial Times. The paper reports that US government scientists seeking to harness the fusion reaction that powers the sun have done so successfully for a second time, eight months after their initial breakthrough. The experiment produced energy output roughly sufficient to power a household iron for an hour.