World record-holder Paula Radcliffe has pulled out of next month's London Marathon because of a broken toe.

At the end of the first act of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, J. Robert Oppenheimer – harbinger of mass destruction – is suddenly confronted by the enormity of what he has created.

13th president - 1850-1853

12th president - 1849-1850

The United States is a big country: the amount of ground between New York and Los Angeles is such that entire states can be off the beaten track. Take New Mexico: clearly, a beaten track runs through it, since Gallup, New Mexico features in "Route 66"; but what goes on beyond its verges is a bit of a mystery.

The crime writer Tony Hillerman won critical acclaim as well as professional awards – from the Crime Writers of America (CWA) and the Western Writers of America (WWA) – for his vivid, lyrical and absorbing novels featuring Native American (in his case Navajo) sleuths at work in contemporary America. However, probably the honour he was most proud of was that of "Special Friend of the Dineh" which was conferred on him by the Navajo Nation in 1987 in recognition of his honest portrayals of Native Americans and their culture in the modern world.

The Nobel literary committee today infuriated the bookies, delighted the bookish and thumbed its nose, again, at the American book industry. The 2008 Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, a half-British French novelist and philosopher, who lives in America and champions the "lost" wisdom of non-Western cultures.

Well, it's timely at least. Kevin Costner stars as a shiftless, divorced dad in smalltown New Mexico who wins overnight celebrity when his vote becomes the decider in the US presidential election.