First there was Sean Combs, the private school-educated middle-class boy from upstate New York.

Standing in line for his photographic keepsake was the Washington Post reporter and author, Bob Woodward, whose investigations into the Watergate scandal had played a central role in bringing down President Richard Nixon.

An American television network last night was due to plumb new depths of prurience in the Princess Diana industry by broadcasting photographs of the dying princess in the wreckage of the Paris car crash which killed her nearly seven years ago.

The United Nation's security council unanimously approved Paul Volcker's inquiry into the scheme that US legislators say allowed billions of dollars in illegal oil revenue to flow to Saddam Hussein.

At one pharmacy in Queens Aids patients receive a free fax machine and a $20 travel card each month.

These are claims that would have been relatively difficult to air in the US just a couple years ago, but are now fairly common currency. "When I first thought of writing it I wondered if anyone would publish it," Singer says. "In the period im mediately after 9/11 you couldn't say anything critical of the United States. But by the time it came out, the problem was whether it could find room among all of the books criticising Bush."

Mr Bush was on his 33rd visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, at the Easter weekend, where he has spent 233 days or almost eight months since his inauguration, according to a tally by CBS news. Add his 78 visits to Camp David and five to Kennebunkport, Maine, and he has spent all or part of 500 days out of the office while in office.

According to the arrest report, a Pasco County sheriff's deputy found the black-and-white rabbit, Oreo, hopping around in the girl's living room. She was read her rights and taken away in a patrol car.

But a week after Susan, 48, arrived in the country with treats for her son, a bemused radio operator called him from the gates of the compound with a message: "Hey, Nick. Your mum's here."

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit health organisation, has found that in 2001 roughly 67% of black women with Aids had contracted the virus through heterosexual sex - up from 58% four years earlier.

Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee said the security situation in some cities was a shambles.

In the worst incident at least 20 Iraqi protesters and two soldiers - one American, one Salvadoran - were killed and more than 200 people injured in Kufa, near Najaf, during a demonstration to denounce the closure of a militant Baghdad newspaper and the arrest of an aide to the hardline Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee said the security situation in some cities was a shambles.

The legislature chose instead to endorse "civil unions" - which gives gay people similar rights to married couples but denies them the title of marriage. "It's terribly wrong to think that God would be pleased," said one man. "If we recognise gay marriage there will be more attacks on this country, chemical, biological, terrorist."

In the early 90s late-night talk show host Jay Leno hid himself in a closet at the NBC studios so he could eavesdrop on the network executives discussing his future on the nation's longest-running entertainment programme - the Tonight Show. His ratings were falling and there was talk of offering the Tonight Show to his principal rival, David Letterman, who was trouncing him every night on CBS.

Marjorie Alexander, 43, was discovered at a motel in Long Island with a plastic bag taped over her head. Several suicide notes were found.

"A lot of what is written down is literal and a lot of it is happening today. I definitely believe that," she says. "The seasons are meshing together. One day in January it was 75F and the next day it snowed. The world has gone down so quickly."