UK Newspaper Covers: 26 March 2022

Hollywood star George Clooney wants to buy Derby County football club – currently managed by Wayne Rooney, according to The Sun.

Boris Johnson and the boss of P&O Ferries appear as pirates on the Star’s front page as it reports on the PM agreeing that he should quit over the illegal sacking of 800 staff.

On the front of the Daily Express is JK Rowling hitting back at the Russian president after he cited her during a rant about cancel culture.

As many as 300 people died in last week’s bombing of a theatre in Mariupol, reports The Guardian.

The assessment comes from the city council and the paper says it makes the attack the deadliest of the Ukraine war.

The Telegraph is one of several papers to report comments by a senior Russian official that appear to suggest the country is scaling back its ambitions in Ukraine and may be satisfied with controlling only the eastern Donbas region.

Free speech will get legal supremacy over other rights to stop debate being eroded by “wokery” and “cancel culture”, Deputy PM Dominic Raab tells the Mail.

He says there are plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights.

Russia is “retreating” to the east of Ukraine, says the Times.

It comes after a defence ministry official said the country’s military was set to “focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal – the liberation of Donbas”.

The paper says it’s an “apparent admission that attacking Ukraine on multiple fronts was no longer achievable”.

The i looks at Ukraine’s captured Chernobyl nuclear power plant and says one worker claims that staff have been working 24-hour shifts amid “safety challenges”.

Russia is to refocus its war in Ukraine on consolidating control of the Donbas region, suggesting it may scale back attacks elsewhere, the FT reports.

Boris Johnson has agreed the boss of P&O should quit after he admitted the sacking of 800 staff was illegal, the Daily Mirror says.