What the papers say

Journalist Fionola Meredith takes a look at what is making the headlines in Tuesday morning's newspapers.

The planned strike by Aer Lingus pilots, over what they say are moves by the airline to employ pilots on less favourable terms and conditions at its new Belfast base, tops both Dublin papers, as well as the Irish News.

The wider fallout of that Aer Lingus move to Belfast takes up many column inches.

The Irish Independent says the government must show their concern for "the anguish in the mid-west region".

The Irish Times says there is no point blaming the airline, which, as a newly-privatised company, just acted in accordance with its commercial mandate and Belfast offered better prospects.

"You get what you vote for," says the paper's Fintan O'Toole,

"The people of the broad mid-west region voted in their droves for the parties that implemented and supported the privatisation of Aer Lingus.

The people of the broad mid-west region voted in their droves for the parties that implemented and supported the privatisation of Aer Lingus The Irish Times

"The decision about flights from Shannon to Heathrow was an utterly predictable consequence of privatisation."

Meanwhile, the News Letter is not convinced that the planned strike is borne out of concern over pay rates, and wonders whether it's really a "backhanded dig at employers for their decision to relocate from Shannon to Belfast".

Gap year students "should forget" taking part in overseas aid projects. That's the claim on the front of the Times.

The warning comes from Voluntary Service Overseas, or VSO, which says that gap year projects cost thousands of pounds, and often do nothing to help developing countries.

Princes William and Harry are perhaps the most high profile overseas volunteers, but VSO says the whole thing is turning into a kind of "voluntourism", with "badly planned and spurious projects" springing up across Africa, Asia and Latin America "to satisfy the demands of students rather than the needs of locals".

"Bush's brain has finally left the building," is the theme of several papers reflecting on the departure of Karl Rove, President Bush's closest political friend for the last 34 years.

The Guardian describes how Mr Rove, who had a reputation as one of the most cynical and ruthless operators in US politics, was overcome with emotion as he made his farewell speech.

The Irish Times thinks he was "a brilliant campaigner who raised dirty tricks to a political black art form".

Ordering a salad seems wimpy, insipid, childish New York Times

The Guardian says Mr Rove set out to make the Republicans the natural party of government for decades to come, but he leaves with Mr Bush "at near-record lows in polls, the US bogged down in Iraq, and no significant legislation as a legacy".

Also in the Guardian, a report on a teenage girl who was rushed to hospital after having an overdose - of coffee.

Seventeen-year-old waitress Jasmine Willis experienced "hyper-ventilation, uncontrolled sobbing and a rocketing temperature" and all because she "had guzzled too many espressos" - seven double-espressos, to be specific.

Filter coffee has much higher caffeine levels than the bog-standard instant variety apparently.

Luckily Jasmine has made a full recovery.

The Times has a definitive answer for women wondering what to eat when they go on a date, and it comes courtesy of what the paper calls "the world's savviest daters" - New York women.

"Red meat is the way to go," according to the New York Times.

According to one Manhattan dater, it shows you are "unpretentious and un-neurotic", while ordering a salad, by contrast, "seems wimpy, insipid, childish".