Mikaeel case dominates headlines - newspaper review
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The hunt for missing three-year-old Mikaeel Kular appears on many of Saturday's front pages. The Sun claims to have an exclusive interview with a van driver who believes he saw the boy on the morning he vanished. The paper is also offering a £25,000 reward for his return. 
Several papers, including the Independent, use pictures of searchers combing fields and beaches for Mikaeel. The Independent's lead story says a coalition of charities is urging David Cameron to accept the UK's "shared responsibility" for Syrian refugees "and join a UN scheme to welcome those fleeing the conflict". 
The Guardian uses the same image as the Independent, but its main story concerns announcements by President Barack Obama of new restrictions on the use of surveillance. The changes, of course, follow revelations in the same paper by US whistleblower Edward Snowden. 
The i also leads with the hunt for Mikaeel and a picture of searchers. It says police now have "grave concerns" for the boy. The paper also reports that "Downing Street retail tsar" Mary Portas has closed the lingerie factory in Manchester she opened for the TV series Mary's Bottom Line. 
Mary Portas appears on the front of the Financial Times too - her factory was designed "to illustrate how manufacturing could be revived", it says. The paper also reports on US surveillance "curbs", but says President Obama "was defiantly defensive of the security agencies". 
The smiling face of Zara Tindall appears on the Daily Telegraph's front page after she gave birth to a girl. Nick Clegg also tells the paper David Cameron must be "honest and up front" about plans for two new garden cities in Kent and Buckinghamshire. The cities would both be in "Conservative heartland," it adds. 
The court case involving Bill Roache - aka Ken Barlow - is the lead in Saturday's Daily Mirror. It reports evidence from the court room in which it was claimed he "groped" a 14-year-old girl on the set of Coronation Street. The actor denies all the charges against him. 
An interesting lead for the Times - Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor says "some minority communities are operating their own justice systems with offences as serious as murder going unreported to the police". He adds that "such alternative systems were not run by criminals but by 'law-abiding people'". 
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge "have secretly set up firms to protect their 'brand' and intellectual property rights," reports the Daily Mail. It says the move is "more often associated with celebrities such as David and Victoria Beckham". The paper also has a picture of Rosie Kular, mother of missing Mikaeel. 
A twist in Celebrity Big Brother, according to the Daily Star. Show "bosses" are "ready to cause chaos by putting man-eating minx Jasmine Waltz back in the TV house" after she was voted out. 
Finally, it's weather again for the Daily Express. "Britain faces at least another fortnight of flood misery as this winter shapes up to be the wettest on record," it reports. The paper also has a photograph of Zara Tindall, pointing out that the "no-fuss" royal had her 7lb 12oz baby on the NHS. The hunt for missing three-year-old Mikaeel Kular appears on several of Saturday's front pages after police said they now had "grave concerns" for his safety.
In happier news, the birth of Zara Tindall's daughter - as yet unnamed - also makes headlines, with the Daily Express noting that the "no-fuss" royal used an NHS hospital.
The Guardian and Financial Times both lead with President Barack Obama's speech announcing curbs on US surveillance powers.
The Times, meanwhile, has an interview with England's chief inspector of constabulary who tells the paper "some minority communities" are running their own parallel justice systems.
The Google contact lens, which could help diabetics by monitoring glucose levels in tears, appears in many papers Discussing the papers for the BBC News Channel, Alison Phillips, weekend editor of the Daily Mirror, commented on the way the Guardian has handled an interview with Victor Spirescu, the Romanian immigrant who hit the headlines after being met at Luton airport by politician Keith Vaz.
"This is a typical Guardian piece pouring scorn on the fact that all the other papers have been interviewing this bloke, and making a media character out of him, when in actual fact that's exactly what they're doing as well," she said.
Broadcaster Alice Arnold said all the focus on one "poor single bloke" was "not fair", adding: "He's just one individual."
If Ed Miliband was hoping to find fulsome backing in the papers for his plans to curb the power of the big banks, he'll be disappointed.
The Daily Mirror is the only one that could be described as entirely supportive, arguing that "by taking on the banks, Ed Miliband is guaranteed popular approval".
The Guardian's view is: "Right target, wrong weapons of choice". Nils Pratley says the Labour leader has cut across an ongoing inquiry looking at competition in the industry, and his plan for two new challenger banks - made from branches given up by existing big banks - "looks a dog's dinner".
Similar sentiment in the Financial Times. "Few would argue with Mr Miliband's basic proposition..." it says, but "If he is serious about fostering competition, [he] must be more imaginative."
The reaction elsewhere is pretty scathing. The Sun says the ideas are "bonkers" - "if you make banks offload branches, they'll simply close them. How does that serve customers?" It adds: "We also believe wealth-creators and investors will run for their lives."
"His anachronistic statism displays sheer economic illiteracy," complains the Daily Mail's leader column. It says it's likely to be branches in deprived areas that will go.
The Times feels the plan is part of a wider push for "a less free and more co-ordinated form of capitalism", but that it is a push in the wrong direction: "A more equal but lower level of prosperity is in nobody's interests, but it is where Mr Miliband will end up."
The ongoing court cases of William Roache and Dave Lee Travis continue to receive considerable coverage Several papers compare the births of Prince George - the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's son - and the baby daughter of Zara and Mike Tindall, born on Friday.
Mike and Zara Tindall married in July 2011 in Edinburgh "Her mother Princess Anne is famously one of the most no-nonsense members of the Royal Family," writes the Daily Mail. "So perhaps it was no surprise that only six hours after giving birth... Zara Phillips was back at home enjoying a cup of tea and phoning friends to tell them the news."
The Daily Mirror compares the futures of the two children. Victoria Murphy says George faces a life of "constant scrutiny, as well as the comforts of lifelong wealth and status". His cousin "will have no title, no guards and no royal duties". She adds: "Baby Tindall may envy Prince George's world. But it's more likely that he will envy hers."
The Daily Express writes: "Given her dad is a world cup-winning rugby player and her mum an Olympic equestrian medallist, nobody should bet against her picking up a title or two of her own - on the sports field".
The Daily Telegraph says bookies have made Elizabeth, Emma and Anne the favourites for a name, while the Times says Charlotte has the shortest odds.
"The force, or something akin to it, is with Australia now," says Stephen Brenkley, in the Independent. How else to explain the "astonishing loss" in the second one-day match?
After setting a target of 300 and getting their opponents to 244 for 9, England seemed destined to win at last.
But alas England found "a new and yet more painful way to lose a match", as the Guardian puts it. "If there was an element of farce to the final knockings, there was also something jarring about [batsman Eoin] Morgan's insistence that England would 'take the positives' from their seventh consecutive international defeat on tour."
John Etheridge, writing for the Sun, is unimpressed that after the defeat, captain Alastair Cook "was kept away from the written media by overprotective England officials". He adds: "Win or lose - well, lose, normally - the captain should always talk after matches."
"Nobody felt the pain more than Alastair Cook," believes Jim Holden, in the Daily Express "and his own mistakes in the nerve-shredding finale were at the heart of why England were beaten".
"Alastair will be asking questions of himself about the bowling changes he made and why he did not says something to help his bowlers deliver their skills better," thinks Cook's predecessor Michael Vaughan, writing in the Daily Telegraph.
News of Prince Harry's decision to hang up his wings and take a desk job in London prompts the papers to speculate that things could get more serious with girlfriend Cressida Bonas President Barack Obama has announce some curbs on the collection and use of personal data by the US National Security Agency.
President Obama's plans follow revelations by Edward Snowden The Independent feels they "go some way towards correcting matters". "Espionage is, and always has been, a dirty business," says the leader column, but "even if the NSA's snooping has helped protect the country, that gain must be set against the damage inflicted on both America's international reputation and on the commercial interests of the long-dominant US hi-tech companies".
Glenn Greenwald, who brought whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations to the public in the Guardian, tells that paper the changes are "cosmetic", "tactical" and just what he would expect from President Obama. "He prettifies the ugly; he drapes the banner of change over systematic status quo perpetuation; he makes Americans feel better about policies they find repellent without the need to change any of them in any meaningful way," he writes.
The FT agrees. The speech may have been "touted as a blueprint for fundamental reform", but it ended up as "a robust and slightly tetchy defence of the country's spy agencies".
The subject of size appears in Saturday's papers in various guises.
The Sun thinks it's "terrifying" that some two million people in Britain are so obese they qualify for bariatric surgery, according to Imperial College London. It argues that "a quick fix under the knife gives many an excuse not to tackle the root cause of their overeating", and what they really need are "smaller portions, more exercise".
Just because we cannot be "beanpole slim", as in our teens, "that doesn't mean having to surrender to obesity," says the Daily Express. "And neither does it necessitate using the NHS as a substitute for self-control."
There has been some consternation at news that fashion chain Mango is launches a plus-size range beginning at a size 12, but Alice Jones, in the Independent, thinks "the high street cut itself adrift from reality years ago".
Giles Coren, in the Times, thinks Mango has "responded to a health crisis as you would expect any money-making enterprise to respond - by exploiting it", but we shouldn't celebrate news that we're all getting big enough to allow them to do it.
Guardian - Body found in hunt for missing Mikaeel
Financial Times - How Japan stood up to old age
Daily Mirror - Francois Hollande finally visits First Lady a week after she was taken ill following cheat revelations
Daily Telegraph - Dolphins see the world in the same way as humans do according to research
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