Safety investigators said today the US Airways jet that crashed into New York's Hudson River had a compressor failure two days earlier.

Janet Evan-ovich, inventor of the sassy-girl crime caper, has written over 18 novels and novellas featuring New Jersey bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum.

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Moisturisers used by millions every day may be increasing the risk of common skin cancers, scientists have warned.

As a genre, the jukebox musical can be relied on to throw up more junk than most. The back catalogue of no pop group or artiste is now safe from theatre producers hungry to make a lazy buck.

It was the moment that dignity would be returned to state government. Eliot Spitzer, felled by his sex-for-cash improprieties, was no longer Governor of New York and David Paterson was taking the reins. A pity then that by yesterday we were hearing of new slap-and-tickle naughtiness – from Mr Paterson no less.

When Sam Duckworth – better known as Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. – sidled, suited and booted, on to this Brighton stage, it was for the first time in 11 months. Duckworth has been busy writing and recording his new album, Searching for the Hows and Whys, and putting the legwork in to his own fledgling recording company, Mannequin Republic. The lack of recent live performances proved a stumbling block for Duckworth, as he scrabbled his way through the first few songs of his UK tour.

Lean faced and sinewy, the versatile actor Roy Scheider reached his career peak in the Seventies, when he received two Oscar nominations, as best supporting actor for his role as police partner to "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) in The French Connection (1971), and as best actor for his uncompromising performance in Bob Fosse's autobiographical All That Jazz (1979).

Dogma (18) Kevin Smith; 130 mins

Sir: Further to Tony Glynn's letter (17 November) pointing out that Alcock and Brown's 1919 flight across the Atlantic preceded that of Charles Lindbergh in 1927, I feel I should add that sadly Lindbergh was not even the third to cross. Also in 1919 the English dirigible R34 with 31 men on board crossed from Scotland to America (and returned). In 1924 the German ZR3 flew from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst, New Jersey with a crew of 33. Lindbergh was the sixty-seventh.