Today the Post columnist opines on the woman who was disfigured by a chimp. See if you can guess in which way she gets it subtly wrong and is slightly enraging to read.

At the opposite end of the spectrum most of the papers run healthcare stories. Which caused me to sigh slightly. It is, however, the definition of public interest reporting. Our politicians are either too busy or too disinclined to lift up every rock to look at every corporate worm trying to wriggle back into the dark days of pre-existing conditions and fat bonuses. The examples reported today, one would hope hold someone accountable and actually add something to the debate.

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: buries a scoop behind their lead headline. Apparently Obama is set to approve a troop level increase in Afghanistan as part of a strategy that asks more of Pakistan. The headline only refers to half of the story. Sometimes I wish that the corporations involved in healthcare reform would not always do the soul-destroying, bottom-line enhancing thing. But here they go again, in the form of the drug companies. News that the wonderfully orange Charlie Crist, Republican governor of Florida, is in danger of being Scozzafava-ed runs alongside a piece on the intransigence over climate change legislation. The front page is rounded out by two nice pieces of editorial thinking: one is on the Mexican families sending money to support loved ones in the US. The other is about the problems that the Fort Hood shooter's defense team will face in court.

The Washington Post: also has a strong showing in terms of good editorial thinking. Through various chicanery they got a reporter in Yemen to interview the cleric at the center of the rabid backlash against Muslims. Like the other broadsheets they're still picking through the debris at Fort Hood for different story angles - today there's one about the measures the base has taken against combat stress. In a piece on the mutual-fear-brings-peace relationship between the US and China, the paper reports that Obama told a group of Chinese students the two countries are close, though he did use the phrase "tumultuous winds," during the speech. Perhaps he ate a bad spring roll. The Post also have depressing healthcare news. A bunch, frankly, of appalling self-interested fuckers are putting together a report to try and discredit any reform. May they rot in hell along with the drug companies in the New York Times report. Finally, the taxpayer may be on the hook for more bailout money.

The LA Times: seem not to have read this excellent piece by Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post on drug smuggling in Guinea-Bissau last year. Because they've just recreated it, at great expense, to no obvious purpose. It's fine and all, but it's not new. And it doesn't even reveal anything new. And it must have cost the salary of a junior reporter for a year. By contrast their local news is reliably good - they lead with a story about a new train line in East LA, and report on the battle for a philanthropist's art largesse. The US and Russia are united in scolding Iran, which might have a direct bearing on the growth in demand for specialist translators, and yet another way in which companies will screw patients over if healthcare reform passes.

The Wall Street Journal: only has one fun story today, about people hacking calculators. The rest, appropriately for a Monday, is business. China criticize US economic policy, which there's not really much arguing with, corporate bankruptcies slow, GE are money-chasing leprechauns, if you believe this headline and India goes green. There's the news here too that there is unlikely to be a climate change pact at the UN.

The New York Post: has a story which is either a nice exclusive on a potential rise in healthcare costs for New Yorkers, or a flammed-up misinterpretation of a reasonable healthcare proposal. I can't tell which. Andrea Peyser, who seems to have a unique knack for slightly misreading any situation, comments on the lady who was disfigured by a chimp. She compares her to another woman who was attacked by an animal - "unlike French face-transplant recipient Isabelle Dinoire, who was stoned when she was mauled by her dog, Charla did nothing to contribute to her maiming." I was unaware this was a common danger of marijuana usage and I can't believe Isabelle was so selfish as to bring this on herself. Thanks for the insight Andrea.

The Daily News: reinforces its middle-brow credentials by making the argument against bringing the 9/11 plotters to trial in New York.

Southtown Star: there's nothing like a good, solid, piece of parochial local reporting. I once covered a sale in a bed store. Compared to which this scoop, about a local lady who likes contests, signs up for stuff and thus receives a lot of junk mail, is Watergate.

Delovoy Peterburg: seems to be conducting an interesting experiment in typography in the tradition of El Lissitsky and the Russian supremacist art movement. Or, alternatively, this is an eye chart.