Focus on Conrad Black's downfall

Conrad Black, the former press baron convicted of fraud, makes the front pages of most papers.

His rise and fall is summed up in the Independent as a tragi-comedy of "arrogance and extravagance".

The Daily Mail is not alone in showing his taste for excess with a picture of him and his wife in fancy dress as a cardinal and a French aristocrat.

The Guardian meanwhile picks over the "private jets, parties and $4,000 towel warmer" as evidence of his high life.

'Stupid mistakes'

The Times reflects on how Lord Black's career took him "from swaggering tycoon to uncommon criminal".

And the Financial Times says that of all the chief executives facing jail for their crimes, he was "the most baroque and flamboyant".

Jeff Randall, writing in the Daily Telegraph - the paper once owned by Lord Black, writes how he made some "astonishingly stupid mistakes".

The worst, he says, was failing to spot shareholders turn against corruption.

Nice serve, Gordon!

The UK's "special relationship" with the US is under fresh strain, says the Daily Telegraph, after Lord Malloch Brown said they were no longer inseparable.

The Foreign Office minister tells the paper he hopes for a more impartial foreign policy in the future.

Several papers feature in a sequence of pictures of the prime minister showing a previously unknown talent for tennis.

Clunking serve, Gordon! says the Daily Mail, while the Sun suggests he looked rather uncomfortable playing in a full suit.

'Roger and out'

The Daily Mirror marks the arrival of the Beckhams in the US under the headline "American Idols".

The Sun compares the Los Angeles welcome for David Beckham, who joins LA Galaxy soccer team, with the US hysteria for the Beatles in the 1960s.

And it is goodbye to the police sign-off "Roger and out" as a new list of standardised words is introduced.

Officers will now have to respond with "acknowledged" or "received" to keep communications concise, says the Sun.