America's two biggest hip-hop magazines, the Source and XXL, are engaged in a tit-for-tat confrontation that has resulted in ads being withdrawn, strategic delays in publication and a feud over the racial dynamics of Eminem's success.

Lord Foster, the British architect whose design for a building to replace the World Trade Centre was one of the most popular with New Yorkers, has been all but ruled out of the competition.

The symposium on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman was to be held by the first lady, Laura Bush, on February 12.

A British citizen who defiantly reiterated his support for Osama bin Laden, Reid had to be restrained by six armed guards as he was taken from a court in Boston shouting abuse at the judge.

Eight out of 10 countries who have spoken at a closed session of the United Nations security council are refusing to bow to pressure from Washington, and are arguing that the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq need more time. The remaining five, including the US and Britain have yet to speak.

One intelligence source in Washington said the Iraqi secret police had infiltrated the inspectors' offices in Baghdad and Mosul, and that intercepted communications proved that the Iraqis often knew in advance exactly where the inspectors planned to mount a search.

The planes landed on Tuesday at the Harir airfield near the town of Shaqlawa in the western part of an autonomous Kurdish zone, an area not controlled by Saddam Hussein since 1991.

Americans travelling on small aircraft will be asked to weigh themselves as well as their luggage for the next month in response to concerns that the nation's growing girth may be jeopardising air safety.

The information would help gauge how many terrorism investigations and intelligence warrants field offices across the United States could reasonably be expected to produce, the FBI's executive assis tant director told a closed briefing of Congress last week.

The New England state of Vermont is the unlikely location for what British child protection agencies regard as a model of good practice in child protection.

Outside, protesters declaring themselves "people united to stop the war", waved placards insisting 'No blood for oil'.

The relatives accuse the fund's administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, of being autocratic, arrogant and having "alienated and disenfranchised the very constituency he was appointed to serve".

Frank Murkowski is a principled opponent of affirmative action, with a voting record to prove it. Like most Republicans, he believes there is no need to address inequities based on race and ethnicity. Like most right-minded people, he believes the best person should get the job. In the case of the Alaska's seat in the US Senate, that person just happened to be his own daughter.

The move comes ahead of today's first report by Hans Blix, the UN inspections chief, on the first six weeks of inspections, which is expected to be inconclusive.

The legal net was closing around America's domestic diva Martha Stewart yesterday, after investigators claimed they had "sufficient information" to file charges against her, and her lawyers pleaded with them to let her off with a fine in the civil courts rather than push ahead with criminal proceedings.

In a letter explaining his withdrawal, Jerry Thacker, who had also railed against "the sin of homosexuality", claimed his reference to a gay plague was made when "describing the historical context" of Aids and was taken out of context. He advocates abstinence programmes and "reparative therapy" to treat "aberrant" homosexual behaviour.

No one can doubt how diplomatically close Britain and America are at the moment, but a difficult, cultural test has emerged for that "special" transatlantic relationship.

The difference in median net wealth between the top 10% income group and the bottom 20% leapt 70% between 1998 and 2001, the Fed announced in its consumer finances report. Meanwhile the gap between white and minority ethnic group Americans grew by 21%.

The French president, Jacques Chirac, said the UN chief nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed El Baradei, had asked for a delay of "several months" to allow work to be completed.

As pro-choice demonstrators planned a candlelight vigil outside the supreme court in Washington, all six Democratic presidential contenders used their first joint appearance to pledge to defend abortion rights. But 50,000 anti-abortion protesters held a "march for life" addressed by President George Bush.

Thanks to higher birth rates and immigration, the Latino population stood at 37 million, compared with 36.2 million for black Americans, according to the US census bureau. Between 2000 and 2001 the number of Hispanics in the US grew by 4.7% and now comprises 13% of the population, compared, to a rise of 1.5% among black and African-Americans, who total 12.7%.

Ann Godoff, the president of Random House Trade Group, who edited Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and was responsible for buying Zadie Smith's White Teeth, and The Alienist by Caleb Carr, was fired on Thursday.

Mr Powell, the highest-ranking black American in the cabinet, said in a television interview that while he believes President Bush is "committed to diversity" he took a different view.

As the 81-year-old was laid to rest with a picture of her son pinned inside her coffin, the issues which propelled both of them into the spotlight in the civil rights era remained very much alive.

Welcome to urban planning, New York style - a mixture of people power and group therapy for those determined to influence the rebuilding of the site where the World Trade Centre once stood.

In New York, the home of hip-hop, rap is a serious business. This is the city that is home to the place (Sugar Hill, Harlem) that produced the group (the Sugar Hill Gang) that produced the record (Rapper's Delight) that made rap so mainstream that, more than 20 years later, the track would provide the inspiration for The Ketchup Song. Not only does rap generate a huge amount of money for a small number of artists and entrepreneurs, but it has also managed to elevate itself beyond the status of a music genre to the level of a viable modern state. New York is the capital of the hip-hop "nation", which is ruled by the hip-hop "generation", whose turf wars are resolved at hip-hop "summits", during which the hip-hop "community" get together to promote and protect hip-hop "culture".

For as they rolled into town, a reception committee of residents was there to meet them. Every route was blocked by a mob of angry locals, telling the young Roma couple to go back to India and that they were not welcome. The demonstration had been encouraged by the mayor, who had told the local people not to sell their flats and houses to the Roma.