Two people accused of attempting to extort $25m (£16m) from John Travolta following the death of his son are to walk free after a judge in the Bahamas dismissed the case against them, apparently at the actor's request.

Charges against two people accused of trying to extort money from John Travolta after the death of his teenage son in the Bahamas were dropped by a judge today.

Tyler Perry's comedy-drama about a group of black middle-class American friends on vacation in a fancy Bahamas retreat splits right down the middle, the first half comedy, the second half drama.

A tropical depression moving quickly toward the Gulf of Mexico last night raised pressure on BP and the US government to decide whether to evacuate dozens of ships at the site of the company's ruptured Macondo oil well.

Spanish actors Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz have joined the ranks of Oscar-winning married couples after tying the knot in the Bahamas earlier this month, according to several celebrity magazines.

A teenager who allegedly stole cars, boats and planes to dodge US law enforcement for two years has finally been captured in the Bahamas, bringing an end to exploits that made the "Barefoot Bandit" a folk hero.

Federal agents have been itching for months to get their hands on a certain Colton Harris-Moore, a 19-year-old fugitive from the law whose home was coastal Washington State near Seattle. That he may have pitched up – or rather crash-landed – in a tourist isle in the Bahamas was not what anyone expected.

Every week we invite competing companies to give us their best deal for a specific holiday. Today: a seven-night holiday in the Caribbean out of season. Prices are per person, based on two travelling together in mid-July.

A drug lord imprisoned in the US has written a letter to the Colombian President asking for help in returning home.

But first the hair. Nick's was the youngest, tousled as from afternoon sex. Young people will like that, and it helps project his policy on Europe. Cameron's hair hadn't set properly, there was a bold sweep at the front but then it went flat the further into it you went. I wonder if that means anything. And Gordon's! The poor fellow, his hair is only going in one direction. Soon he'll have fulfilled Blair's promise of being "whiter than white". He should prepare for the next debate with 36 holes in the Bahamas. That advice is so good I may send him a bill (he'll have a spare £100m for emergencies if I know him).

The writer John Storm Roberts opened up new vistas of music, notably with his books Black Music of Two Worlds (1972) and The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States (1979). In their way they were as ground-breaking and revelatory as A.H. Fox-Strangways' The Music of Hindostan must have been in 1914 for India's music traditions.

A distress signal from the 60-foot yacht BT in the Transat Jacques Vabre sent a French navy frigate, with a helicopter onboard, racing to the rescue of Sebastien Josse and Jean-Francois Cuzon today as the Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Falmouth also swung into action. The pair was lifted off by a Portuguese Air Force helicopter about eight hours later and was being flown to the Lajes Field air force base of Terceira in the Azores.