What the papers say

Journalist Keith Baker takes a look at what is making the headlines on Thursday

The Irish News leads with a theme that's all too familiar: suicide among young people. The paper looks at the death of a teenager mother, 18-year-old Bronagh Gallagher from Twinbrook.

Her family believe her death could have been prevented with proper mental health care, and tell the Irish News how she tried to take her life before.

The paper says Bronagh is believed to be the third young person from west Belfast to have died from suicide in the past week.

The Belfast Telegraph wonders how the smoking ban is going.

It reports that officials have visited businesses right across Northern Ireland in the first eight days and have found a staggering 99% of them smoke free.

The paper says we appear to have "slipped seamlessly into the new nicotene-free era".

The News Letter reports on the annual meeting of senior police officers, the Superintendents' Association.

It says they want the governement to call a halt to the current system of re-examining our troubled past.

According to the paper, they think the future of the province is being hindered because the system focuses disproportionately on police actions and elevates republican demands unfairly.

The association's president is quoted as saying "there's a hierarchy of victimhood based on political pressure."

Several papers report on the death of Vera McVeigh, whose son Columba was one of those known as 'the disappeared'.

He went missing from his home in Tyrone in 1975 when he was 17.

The cross channel papers report widely on the hunt for little Madeline McCann, and Radio Ulster's Stephen Nolan comes under fire in The Sun from Michael Parkinson.

The subject of his anger is a phone-in in which callers discussed whether Kate and Gerry McCann were bad parents for leaving the child alone in a room.

The Express says the McCanns are suffering new anguish because of a report in a Portuguese paper accusing them of routinely leaving their children alone during their holiday.

The Mirror has an interview with Kate McCann's mother who says the are horrified by the suggestion that they are somehow to blame for what happened.

But of course the big story is the impending departure of Tony Blair.

There's acres of coverage of the Blair era and no doubt more to come tomorrow.

What lies ahead? Well, The Times reports he'll bid farewell with a world tour, starting on Friday with a trip to Paris to see the new French president.

The Mail can't wait to see the back of him, saying that we're at "the fag end of the Blair years" and his resignation can't come a day too soon.

The Daily Telegraph says this has been the "longest farewell in political history".

The Sun notes one spin-off from Mr Blair's resignation will be the departure of the Deputy Prime Minister Minister John Prescott.

Break out the champagne it says, "he's on his way at last".