Today's Front Pages Analysis

A bombing linked to al-Qaida in Algeria was the big international news story of the day, but many U.S. editors downplayed it for local news and feature stories.

“Algeria’s 12/11: Al-Qaida bombers kill 26, hurt 177” said Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star, and the Stars and Stripes likewise played the story big.

But on a local level, editors employed some smashing photos to illustrate other stories:

• • The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., used a stark scene to follow up Sunday’s church shooting: “Gunman killed by his own bullet.”
• • Waterbury, Conn.’s Republican-American used a poignant photo of a man caring for his dying mother for “Activist brings mother home.”
• • A dramatic Arctic-scape by the Associated Press illustrates the Tampa Bay Times’ “CHILLING/The Arctic’s ice is vanishing at a much faster rate than even Al Gore told us.”
• • At the other end of the globe, the Chicago Sun-Times featured rugged-looking “Dinosaur hunters’ amazing search for new beast at the end of the earth.”
• • The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World has icicles dripping from the nameplate to illustrate “Storm ices Midwest.”
• • In Nebraska, the Lincoln Journal Star took a similar approach, but below it was a lovely view through icicles of a woman and her horse in “Ire & Ice.”
• • The Des Moines Register used a trio of photos that deftly told “70,000 lose power in storm.”
• • A photographer for California’s Santa Barbara News-Press was surf-side when “Passer-by saves man from ocean.”
• • A steely-eyed soldier “Lying in wait” for insurgents in Iraq commands attention in the Stars and Stripes — Mid-East edition, published in Washington, D.C.

On a much lighter side, The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., reports “Fat & Jolly/Santa’s high-tech operation results in sedentary lifestyle.” Who knew?

Patty Rhule is a project editor for the Newseum.