Newspaper headlines: Manhunt ends and last-minute Christmas shopping By BBC News

Staff Published duration 24 December 2016

The death of Berlin market attacker Anis Amri following a police shooting in Milan is reported across the front pages on Christmas Eve.

The Times Guardian and the i have pictures of the body of Amri, covered by a sheet on the street.

But the Guardian says the authorities have been left with tough questions about how an armed suspected terrorist had been able to travel hundreds of miles on public transport before being caught.

image copyright EPA

The Sun says the officer who shot him was still on probation , having joined the force in October. It says the officers who stopped Amri for acting suspiciously did not know he was the suspect wanted for the Berlin attack.

'Click-mouse day'

The record spending, the paper says, "is tipped to push £1bn".

image copyright EPA

However the Times reports an Opinium survey suggesting shoppers have less appetite for the Boxing Day sales this year after an extended period of discounting by struggling retailers.

Flood heartbreak

The Daily Mail highlights an appeal from health chiefs for people to isolate themselves if they fall ill over Christmas to stop the spread of bugs and ease pressure on hospitals.

Figures released on Friday apparently show hospitals are already 95% full, with the situation likely to worsen when GP surgeries close and patients turn to A&E.

The paper says more than 1,200 families stretching from Greater Manchester to Aberdeenshire who were swamped by storms Desmond, Eva and Frank in 2015 are yet to return to their damaged homes.

The figure comes from Freedom of Information requests, but the paper says the true extent of the heartbreak could be worse as some councils do not have any data.

The Daily Mirror's front page lead is the announcement by supermarket Co-op that it is recalling 165,000 chocolate Santas, after small batteries were found inside two of them.

According to the paper, metal detectors are used to check the chocolates as they leave their German factory so there is suspicion of tampering in the UK.

'Bloated list'

The paper says the list has grown so bloated it even includes the names of a three-year-old member of the Royal Family and a leading historian.

It says its analysis has found that people can be included on the World-Check list partly on the basis of unverified blog posts or because they are relatives or friends of minor public figures.

World-Check owner Thomson-Reuter tells the paper: "Any individual can contact us if they believe any of the information held is inaccurate, and we would urge them to do so."

'Shook the world'

As the year edges towards a close, some of the editorials reflect on what has been and what may be to come.

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"It would be wrong to pass a verdict before there's any evidence," the paper says, "yet the world can be justifiably fearful. Never before has a candidate tried so hard to make America hate again."

For the Daily Mail, "2016 will go down as the year voters opened a truly exciting chapter in our nation's story... the electorate resolved to break free from an undemocratic Eurocracy which for 40 years had been tightening its grip around the country's throat".

Christmas messages

About 2.5m people attend Anglican Christmas services, three times the average Sunday total.

A similar spike occurs at Christmas in other denominations too, the paper says. Some churches have apparently found that afternoon services on Christmas Eve are so popular with families they need to run two of them back-to-back to meet demand.

Church leaders also spell out their Christmas messages.

In the Daily Telegraph, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, draws hope for peace in the Middle East from what he calls an "unheralded" meeting few weeks ago involving Jewish, Christian and Islamic leaders.

image copyright AP, Reuters

They produced a joint declaration calling for a dignified co-existence, and describing the violence in the region as a desecration of God's name.