An 18-year-old was sentenced to five years in a young offenders' institution today after causing the deaths by dangerous driving of a mother and daughter while they were out for a Sunday stroll.

In 1951 Henrietta Lacks, a poor 31-year-old African-American woman living in Baltimore County, died from cervical cancer. This would normally have been the simple end of a personal tragedy but the tumour that killed her proved unusual. Tissue removed without her knowledge was shown by Dr George Gey at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, to have the power of eternal reproduction, immortality. Henrietta's cell line, known as HeLa, has spawned a vast body of research. Its first dramatic use was in testing the Salk polio virus in 1952 and it has contributed greatly to mapping the human genome. As genetic knowledge has increased we can see how remarkable HeLa is: not really a human cell line at all, because it involves a genetic fusion of a papilloma virus and Henrietta Lacks's cervical cells. The hybrid has its own stable genome and attempts have been made to have the cell line recognised as a species in its own right. It is interesting to compare the case of HeLa with the news that the US biologist and entrepreneur Craig Venter has created an artificial bacterium. Apart from some fancy additions of DNA puzzles and an email address inserted into the genome, Venter's bacterium isn't new at all, just synthetic. The HeLa genome, on the other hand, is a novel cell line that has reproduced faithfully over 60 years.

Director Gregory Doran presents Thomas Malory's prose romance in a lucid, revelatory stage production. In a playing time of just three-and-a-half hours, we have the stories of the sword in the stone, the vision of Excalibur in the misty lake, the defeat of King Lot, the love triangle of Arthur, Guenever and Launcelot, the fellowship of the Round Table, the search for the Holy Grail, the jousts at Winchester, the usurpation of Mordred and the final battle.

The US property tycoon Donald Trump played down protests over his planned golf resort on a visit to the site today, telling supporters the ribbon would be cut on the new course in 18 months.

A huge private collection of memorabilia celebrating Winston Churchill, from diary entries and letters to an unsmoked cigar, is set to raise £1m when the first part of it is sold next month.

Manchester United are investigating how a full list of the club's hospitality facility users has been published on the internet as part of a campaign of resistance to the Glazer family's ownership of the club.

Following last week's Q&A with Sean Forbes of Rough Trade shops, next up in our preview to May's Camden Crawl weekend of gigs in London is Simon Raymonde, founder of Bella Union records, one of the UK's most interesting independent labels.

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks has lost his billionaire status, according to Forbes magazine's latest rich list.

One of the country's former top policemen is to head a team of investigators who will travel to Iraq to interview witnesses of the alleged murder and torture of civilians by the British Army.