Tuesday’s front pages are dominated by the news that British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among the six people missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. The Metro has the headline “Tycoon missing in yacht horror”.
The Daily Mirror leads with the story of Charlotte Golunski, a British mum who saved her baby’s life as the yacht sank in the storm. The 36-year-old said she briefly lost sight of her baby but then managed to grab her and kept her afloat “with all my strength”.
The Daily Telegraph reports that Mr Lynch is “feared dead” and that the trip was to celebrate the end of a legal battle. The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006. In June, he was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to an £8.64bn sale to US company Hewlett Packard.
The Financial Times calls Mr Lynch a “vindicated tech baron” after his acquittal in June. Following the verdict, it says he was “elated” and was “looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field”.
The Daily Express has a large photo of the yacht, along with an inset picture of Mr Lynch and his wife, Angela Bacares, who survived the tragedy.
The Times features a photo of Jonathan Bloomer, the British chairman of Morgan Stanley International, who was on the yacht and is missing with his wife, Anne. It also has a story on how mortgage rates have fallen to their lowest level since the aftermath of Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
The Guardian also leads with the superyacht sinking, reporting that its chef was confirmed dead. The paper also has a story on how the number of foreign social care staff in the UK reporting that they are trapped in exploitative contracts has risen six-fold in the last three years, according to data from the Royal College of Nursing.
The Daily Mail leads with a claim from a new biography of the Queen that says she said former US President Donald Trump was “very rude”. The monarch reportedly “particularly disliked” the way he looked over her shoulder as if “in search of others more interesting”.
More bad news for Donald Trump comes from the Daily Star which says that fans oif Taylor Swift are “at war with Trumpers”. And the paper’s lead story reports that Christmas trees are already cropping up in shops despite the summer still being in full swing. “It’s too soon” declares the article, which has the rather exasperated headline “Oh baubles”.
Finally, the i has a story on how suspected criminals are able to remain free due to a prison system “in crisis”.
Most of the front pages reflect the the search for survivors after the sinking of a yacht in Sicily that happened to be carrying some of the best known names in Btritish financial circles.
“Hero mum saves baby in sea hell” is the Daily Mirror’s headline, accompanied by a photo of Charlotte Golunski – named as one of the survivors. The image on the front of the Guardian shows rescue workers bringing a body ashore. The paper says the UK Foreign Office is providing consular support to “a number of families”.
Lin Ronald whose daughter was onboard and survived, tells the Daily Telegraph that the purpose of the trip was to celebrate the end of Mike Lynch’s recent legal battle in the US.
The Times reports that the government is sending four marine safety inspectors to Palermo to carry out an initial assessment into the sinking of the yacht. A former member of staff to Mike Lynch, tells the paper that the multi-millionaire businessman “clearly had a lot of pride” in the yacht and had decorated the walls of his west London home with photos of it.
According to a report in the i paper, at least 136 people on remand were held in police stations yesterday as part of emergency measures to reduce overcrowding in jails. It says the figures come from the Ministry of Justice. A defence solicitor, who isn’t named, is quoted as saying “I’ve never seen anything like it in 28 years”.
“Queen said Trump was “very rude” is the headline in the Daily Mail. The claims are made in a new biography of the late monarch by the writer and satirist Craig Brown. In his account, serialised in the Mail, the Queen is said to have “particularly disliked” the way the former president looked over her shoulder “as if in search of others more interesting”. Her remarks are said to have been made to a guest at a lunch, weeks after Mr Trump visited Britain. The Queen also reportedly mused that Mr Trump “must have some sort of arrangement” with his wife Melania.
A few papers feature a recommendation by scientists that primary school pupils should have ice lollies to help them learn about how temperature works. According to the Guardian, it’s one of a number of proposals that could become part of an updated curriculum. The Times carries a quote from Aylin Ozkan, a policy specialist from the Royal Society of Chemistry, who says “What better prop is there than an ice lolly?”
