Today's Papers

PAUL GASCOIGNE, the England footballer, has admitted beating up his former fiancee Sheryl Kyle. In a lengthy and emotional interview with the News of the World, he says: 'I hit her because she wasn't paying me any attention, so I thought she didn't love me.' Gascoigne, 27, told the paper he slapped her and pulled her hair, leaving her with heavy bruises.

British scientists have developed a drug that could eliminate the need for bone marrow transplants, reports the Observer. The chemical, known as a stem cell protector, could also protect cancer and leukaemia sufferers from the effects of chaemotherapy.

The Sunday Mirror reports that the vet who inspired the television series All Creatures Great and Small suffered a broken leg after being attacked by a flock of sheet. Alf Wight, 77, who wrote the James Herriot novels, was walking into his garden in Kirkgate, Thirsk, North Yorkshire when the animals knocked him over.

The Mail on Sunday claims that rapists, armed robbers and drug dealers could soon win their freedom. The paper says that sentences, handed down by six unnamed crown court recorders, are invalid because, due to an administrative error, the Lord Chancellor's department did not give them authorisation to sit.

British pilots have broken a UN embargo by shipping millions of pounds' worth of arms to the Bosnian Muslims, according to an exclusive story in the Sunday Express. The paper's reporters claim to have watched a flight with 40 tons of arms land at a deserted airstrip on a tiny island off the Croatian coast, outside the UN's jurisdiction.

Britain's vintage steam locomotives are in jeopardy because of new safety rules drafted in Brussels, reports the Sunday Times. The paper claims that EC proposals, aimed at protecting drivers and footmen, will lead to steam and hot surfaces being covered up, forcing a radical redesign of locomotive classics.