Brown in Washington adorns papers

Gordon Brown's trip to Washington features heavily in the broadsheets.

The Prime Minister is pictured chatting and smiling with the three presidential hopefuls, walking with each of them in turn down the same corridor.

The papers are agreed the meetings were a coup for Mr Brown, as all three had to take time out from busy schedules.

The Sun analyses the body language and concludes he was in harmony with Barack Obama, tried to impress John McCain, and Hillary Clinton was uncomfortable.

Costs 'underestimated'

Worries about the cost of living dominate the front pages of the Daily Express and the Daily Mail.

According to the Express, council tax bills have doubled under Labour, amounting to an average £4,000 extra for a Band D property.

The Mail says it is launching its own cost of living index to tell the truth about soaring prices, which it says the government has wildly underestimated.

It says government figures focus more on luxury items than basics like food.

Job losses

The Times leads with an interview with the Schools Secretary Ed Balls about so-called super-heads.

He is considering giving grammar school heads up to £200,000 a year if they bring their skills to the state sector and take charge of failing schools.

The Financial Times, meanwhile, reports on more gloom in the financial sector.

It says Citigroup plans to cut its costs by 20%, deepening fears the City and Wall Street are about to be hit by tens of thousand more job losses.

Rickrolling

The Independent reports that the Nerdic language, spoken by technology fans or geeks, is Europe's fastest-growing.

It cites the example, "me and my android were trying to surf on the Milton Keynes wimax the other day when somebody rickrolled my email".

The Mail looks further west to reports from New York where J K Rowling is in a court battle over an unauthorised Harry Potter encyclopaedia.

The judge said he found the books complex and filled with strange names, the paper reports.