First a recession starts and there are a lot of personal recession features. Then everyone gets bored and there are no personal recession stories. Now, they're back! Along with some war, a sad President and more on Fort Hood.

The Wall Street Journal has made the quirky recession tale its own so far this week. It's been one great look at how the death of, you know, everything, has affected people after another. The Times weighs in with a fairly straight, but well-reported piece, on the impact an unemployed father can have on a family. The Fort Hood story rumbles on, with a new angle - on whether a different police officer actually shot him down. Pretty well everyone runs with the story that the US ambassador in Afghanistan cautions against troop levels, and the Washington Post and the New York Daily News are both concerned for our sad President.

Disclosure: I freelance write and report for newspapers that are included in this roundup. Where there is a direct conflict of interest I will make it clear.

The New York Times: continues the rise in new recession stories with a piece on the emotional and psychological impact the bad economy has on families - one in Texas in particular. There's an investigation into a former ambassador who stands to make hundreds of millions from advice he gave to Iraqi Kurds - it's similar in tone to the kind-of Al Gore conflict of interest story a couple of weeks ago and makes you think how much it would suck to get a call from a newspaper saying they're investigating you. It's a big day for ambassadors - the story that made some TV headlines last night, about the current holder of that post in Afghanistan cautioning against troop increases, makes A1 too. That troop decision is partly dependent, says Helene Cooper, on how much leverage the US has over President Karzai. The Fort Hood story of the day goes to this, about who really shot him. It is notably single-sourced though. China's draconian swine flu measures are working, and there's still hope for Coney Island. If you like that sort of thing.

The Washington Post: opens with a touchy-feely political story about Obama's struggles with his wartime presidency. He bears the burden and is skipping meals, says the story, which is similar in tone to the Daily News cover story today. A rare synergy. Stories about about the ambassador to Afghanistan resisting troop increases, and more on the Fort Hood shootings, make a nice counterpoint - here's a worried man, here's what he's worried about. The local Catholic church are throwing their toys out of their stroller over a same-sex marriage bill, and threatening to stop helping with adoption, homelessness and healthcare unless they get their own way. And a hippo gets frisky.

The LA Times: has almost exactly the same stories as everyone else. They've been pretty original of late, so I suppose they're allowed one day of Fort Hood, Muslims in the military and Afghanistan troop levels. They also make room for an 80-something DJ, an amusing picture of an man arrested wearing a Spiderman costume and something about misappropriated pension funds that you have to be Californian to understand.

The Wall Street Journal: runs with a headline that makes it sound as if the world is going over to the dollar's house and telling it it's pretty and that everyone likes it and that it shouldn't listen to mean people. The Afghanistan story gets front page play here too, Americans are inventing things again, judicial reform, union battles and the Mexican opposition leader is a bad loser.

The New York Post: sometimes the Post's ignoring of the major news to run with odd stories is annoying. Today it's refreshing - the woman who had her face ripped off by a chimp revealed to Oprah that she bears no bitterness towards the ape despite her injuries. No Afghanistan troop levels story! Joy!

The Daily News: has a first-person account from a reporter who ran into President Obama at a military cemetary. It's very similar in tone to the Washington Post's piece on the burdens of office. And NY is bad at math.

Stars and Stripes: the military newspaper has surprisingly subdued coverage of veterans' day, leading instead with a story on the increasing importance of Zabul province in Afghanistan (which seems worthy of a follow-up in the broadsheets).

The Natin (Barbados): life seems simpler in Barbados. None of their ambassadors is dominating the news with dissent on a war. Their President is probably not that sad. But they are having drainage difficulties.