There's something effortless about Harry Connick Jr's songwriting on Every Man Should Know, which may be a side-effect of having emulated Frank Sinatra for so long: one suspects that he even has a smoke and a Scotch to hand as he's penning the slinky jazz groove “One Fine Thing” or “Being Alone”, the track on which his Sinatra phrasing pays off best, aided by Wynton Marsalis's trumpet.

A large ball of flame and thick column of smoke could be seen coming from the plant

Police in New Orleans have vowed to track down gunmen who shot 19 people at a Mother's Day parade in an attack.

The renowned classical pianist and National Medal of Arts winner, Van Cliburn, has died aged 78. His publicist and friend Mary Lou Falcone said he had died at home in Fort Worth, Texas.

And now, in nice-man news, Mo Farah has run to the defence of an interviewer ridiculed for not realising she was talking to a double Olympic champion.

Mo Farah has been asked many questions by journalists since rising to fame by winning two gold medals at the London Olympics in the 5,000m and 10,000m. But none will have been as ill-researched as those posed by LaTonya Norton of New Orleans station WDSU.

First he succeeded in turning LA's Staples Centre vegetarian. Now former Smiths frontman Morrissey has refused to appear on an American TV chat show because his fellow guests are "animal serial killers".

BP has poured cold water on the prospects of settling a crucial court case due to begin in New Orleans on Monday that would determine its level of responsibility for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Isn't he the next Republican presidential candidate?

If US presidential politics is largely about being in the right place at the right time, then Marco Rubio most certainly is.

A woman called Sarah Childs in Denham Springs, Louisiana has erected a giant Christmas light display in the shape of a hand flipping the bird.

Proof, if proof were needed, that Britney Spears has been spending too much time hanging about with Simon Cowell on the latest series of US X Factor.

The city was decimated by Katrina, but now it's blazing a recovery trial

Authorities are investigating several attacks on dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico after some were found with gunshot wounds, cuts and missing jaws.