What the papers say

Journalist Liz Kennedy takes a look at what is making the headlines in Friday's morning papers.

Knife crime is in the headlines again.

"One wrong word, one wrong look - all it takes for a precious son to be murdered" is the headline in the Daily Mail.

It is one of many to focus on Thursday's conviction of three men for the murder of Ben Kinsella.

The Daily Telegraph pictures the teenager's sisters outside court, listening to their father's "outrage" at the knife crime culture "embedded in the heart of Britain".

And another tragic teenage death locally, in the Belfast Telegraph this morning, with a 14-year-old found hanged in Hillsborough Forest Park yesterday.

The Dromore High School pupil's social networking page is quoted as saying how much Kerry Moulds had been looking forward to the summer, but now her rural community has been "plunged into grief".

Taking over the front and back pages this morning, the man who's made footballing history.

Ronaldo "thinks the pitch is a swimming pool; he's always diving".

That's the opinion of one person polled in the street by the Belfast Telegraph about the man who is everywhere this morning. It's the costliest transfer deal in football history for the 24-year-old who's leaving Manchester United for Real Madrid.

"But is the £80m man worth it?" asks the News Letter.

It contrasts the struggle that's going on for everyone else economically with the astronomical amount involved.

But George Best's sister Barbara is quoted in the paper, deciding that the late east Belfast soccer star would have been worth at least £100m in today's terms, when he was in his prime.

The Daily Mail calls Ronaldo the Lily Savage of football for his bizarre fashion gaffes. The Daily Express dubs him an £80m "mummy's boy," as she apparently advised her son to go to Spain.

She may not be so happy with the pictures of the footballer in the Sun and Mirror this morning.

They both show Ronaldo out on the town in LA, with Paris Hilton.

And the Irish Independent speculates that Ronaldo may pull on the Real Madrid shirt for the first time against Shamrock Rovers, as the Spanish giants will play a friendly at the new stadium at Tallaght in July.

Air routes are the focus in the Irish Times.

The paper's lead is that Aer Lingus is cutting all its flights from Shannon to Chicago and New York this winter and that what it calls the "controversial decision" will be announced at lunchtime today.

It says the "decision to downgrade" Shannon is likely to cause considerable anger, particularly the direct link with New York's JFK airport, which was always seen as symbolic at Shannon.

The paper recalls the controversy in 2007, when the airline cut its daily flights from Shannon to Heathrow and switched the valuable slots to Belfast International instead.

And finally, an answer to one of the big questions of the day.

Why does drizzle make you just as wet as a downpour?

The Daily Telegraph has the answer. Apparently, small raindrops fall faster than large ones.

Researchers in America and Mexico have spent three years studying 64,000 raindrops and have come up with all kinds of data about "terminal" speeds and "super terminal" drops, which are to be published in a scientific journal.

It leaves only one unanswered conundrum, however. If they were going to study rain, why didn't they come here?