"At 400ft they see a big black man and they cross the road to avoid me," he explains. "At 200ft they cross back because they realise that I'm a professional basketball player and they want a closer look." But recently, he says, they have come a bit closer and then crossed again. "At 50ft they recognise me as the gay bloke who just came out and then they cross back across the road again."

Lewis Hamilton, who currently leads the 2007 Formula One World Championship, has been driving the whole world to distraction recently. Last weekend he won the Canadian Grand Prix. Last month he came second in the Spanish. The month before he came second in Bahrain. He's 22, good-looking and charming. This is his first season. And he's already set three records.

Brandon Martell Moore left the world in a shower of bullets followed by deafening silence. Brandon, 16, was looking at video games at National Wholesale Liquidators on 8 Mile Road in Detroit the Sunday after Thanksgiving when an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard kicked him and his friends out of the store, claiming they were not accompanied by an adult. The altercation that followed did not involve Brandon but ended in his death.

Homeland security and immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) agents claimed the raids were prompted by an inquiry into identity theft. But less than a quarter were charged with using false security cards - the rest were deported. Ice's assistant secretary, Julie Myers, said Operation Wagon Train had dealt a major blow in the "war against illegal immigration".

As he left the bank, he called his girlfriend, Yamil Mejia, to say he thought a car was following him. Soon after, she heard a struggle over the phone and then the line went dead. At home, his mother had just finished decorating the Christmas tree when she got a panicked call from Mejia, asking if Gerardo had made it back yet. When his mother rushed out to look for him, she found his bloodied body lying in the street a few blocks away. He had been shot in the back. Someone who lived across the street found him with his eyes rolling and blood bubbling from his mouth and nose. The bullet had punctured his lung.

Organisers of the CNN Democratic presidential debate placed the three "top-tier" candidates - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - front and centre on Sunday.

Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist and feature writer based in the US. He was formerly the paper's New York correspondent. His most recent book is Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States; he is also the author of No Place Like Home, published in 1999.

Fred Thompson's decision to consider a run tells us more about the weakness of the Republican field than it does about his strengths. The fact that he would enter such an expensive race at this stage is just more proof - if it were needed - that the party has yet to produce a viable presidential contender.