America was a nation plunged into disappointment yesterday as all but three citizens realised their raids on the penny jar to buy tickets in a lottery with a jackpot of $656m (£409m) had come to nought.

Mitt Romney last night solidified his aura of inevitability in the race for the Republican nomination by easily away putting away the Illinois primary, showing strength in a heartland state and the home of President Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney faces an important test in Illinois tonight, with the former Massachusetts governor pinning his hopes on a win in the latest round of the Republicans' presidential nominating contest.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney swept to a big win in his party's primary in Puerto Rico yesterday, bolstering his position as front-runner in the race to determine who will face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

After a round of fundraising in New York, Mitt Romney was yesterday pouring money into television advertising in Illinois, whose primary on Tuesday he cannot afford to lose as he struggles to fend off Rick Santorum, his main conservative rival for the Republican presidential nomination.

Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois, began a 14-year jail term in Colorado yesterday. The one-time golden boy of Democratic Party politics in Illinois was found guilty of corruption. His immediate predecessor, George Ryan, was jailed for the same reason.

In this gruelling Republican primary season, many a battle has been termed make or break, only for hostilities to resume the day after with the balance of forces virtually unchanged. But next Tuesday's contest in Illinois could be the exception.

Dorothea Tanning was the last of a group of women – including Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Frida Kahlo – who were active in surrealism during the mid-20th century. Tanning herself eschewed the labels of "woman artist" and "surrealist" labels and her work has defied the boundaries of gender and artistic movements.

Maybe that devout Catholic, Richard M Daley, had a point, apropos of the corruption for which his home town and state are legendary. "Look at our Lord's disciples," Chicago's former mayor, who attended Mass daily, once declared. "One denied Him, one doubted Him and one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn't have perfection, how are you going to have it in city government?"

The jailing of Rod Blagojevich marks a new low point in Chicago's murky political history

Judging by their before and after photographs, US presidents appear to age before our eyes, adding wrinkles and grey hair with each year in office. But their time in the White House does not appear to shorten their lives, and most live longer than their peers, a new study has found.

Ruth Stone, who has died aged 96, was an award-winning poet whose life spanned the 20th and 21st centuries. During her lifetime she was compared by her contemporaries to Sappho, Dante, Christine de Pizan, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Kate Chopin and Anna Akhmatova. She bequeaths a literary legacy to be reckoned with for the remainder of this century.

Jim Rathmann, who died on 23 November aged 83, was a racing driver whose win in the 1960 Indianapolis 500 made him a star. A regular on the IndyCar circuit from 1949-63, he had had to settle for second at Indianapolis in 1952, 1957 and 1959. Then, in 1960, he finally broke through in what was probably the greatest two-man battle in the history of one of motor racing's biggest events.