Republican voters have given a thumbs-up to Condoleezza Rice as their preferred choice as running mate for Mitt Romney as he gears up to challenge Barack Obama.

The French Quarter of the city was moulded by its history of piracy, slavery, royalty – and ghosts

Frequently in danger of slipping into heritage-artist cruise-control, on Locked Down Dr. John has received an energy transplant from producer Dan Auerbach, singer/guitarist with The Black Keys.

Rick Santorum won the Louisiana Republican presidential primary, beating front-runner Mitt Romney in the race to challenge President Barack Obama.

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.

The novelist Jonathan Franzen has called Twitter an "irresponsible medium" which has become the enemy of writers and readers.

Popular music may be a young person's game but from time to time older performers come tonational attention long after what might be regarded as their sell-by date. Gordon Haskell, Ted Hawkins and Seasick Steve are good examples, and so too is the blues singer and slide guitarist, Louisiana Red. He had been a journeyman musician for many years before he triumphed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1975 and soon was seen as an elder statesman of the blues.

BP will start one of the biggest fights in its 104-year history next week as the US Government sues the oil giant for the devastation caused by the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Before the Twilight series engulfed her, Kristen Stewart was shaping up to be an interesting actress and she's convincing here as Mallory, a 16-year-old New Orleans prostitute in Jake Scott's low-key drama.

Oil giant BP has fired the latest shots in a legal battle over the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, claiming contractor Halliburton should pay all of its billions of pounds of costs.

BP is accusing Halliburton of destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement that went into the Deepwater Horizon well that exploded, killing 11 people and causing America's worst offshore oil spill.

Afro-pop folk band Givers don't have a slogan, but if they did it would be "It's nice to be nice". The singers, Taylor Guarisco and Tiffany Lamson perform with the emphatic smiles of drama school children in panto. Their music is uplifting; to watch them is like watching happy Muppets dancing around, on ecstasy. They're aggressively happy – they bounce, and wiggle and gyrate and smile a lot. They even use the break between songs to tell us how much they love London ("I love that you drive on the left here. I really do," says Lamson).

BP will no longer have to clean up oil on the Gulf Coast unless officials can prove it is from last year's Deepwater Horizon spill, according to a plan approved by the US Coast Guard.

Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Lee were falling in southern Louisiana and pelting the US Gulf Coast yesterday as the storm's centre trudged slowly towards land, where businesses were already beginning to suffer on what would normally be a bustling holiday weekend. With floods from the storms of last weekend's Hurricane Irene still evident in New England, Lee could bring up to 20 inches of rain to some areas.