What the papers say – August 20

The front pages on Thursday concern the latest on exam results and the drowning of a teenager attempting to cross from France to England.

The Times says the Education Secretary was “warned directly” six weeks ago about problems with the A-level and GCSE grading system.

Regulator Ofqual was warned “at least a month ago” of flaws in the exams algorithm which led to A-levels chaos, according to The Guardian.

A last-minute decision by one exam board to delay publishing vocational results means tens of thousands of students will not get their grades today, The Independent reports.

The Daily Telegraph estimates a larger amount will be hit by the decision, with the headline “Hundreds of thousands told: You won’t get your results today”.

Metro says a 16-year-old migrant who drowned after falling from a dinghy while trying to cross the Channel from France “didn’t stand a chance”.

“Now will we wake up to this tragedy?” asks the Daily Mail following the Sudanese teenager’s death.

The Daily Mirror refers to Manchester Arena “bomb plotter” Hashem Abedi as “the coward” and the families of his victims as “the brave” after he “hid in his cell” during sentencing.

Brexit trade negotiations have hit a “road block” after Brussels threatened to curb British truckers’ access to European roads, the Daily Express reports.

Apple’s big day leads the Financial Times, which says the technology firm has “hit a 2 billion dollar (£1.8 billion) market capitalisation just two years after it became the world’s first trillion-dollar company”.

And an expected battering across the UK from Storm Ellen, which made landfall in Ireland overnight, fills the Daily Star‘s front.