The death of Mary Richardson Kennedy has once again thrown the spotlight on the goldfish bowl that is life in America's most famous family

The curse of the Kennedy family has struck again after Mary Richardson Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F Kennedy Jr, was found dead today.

Jeremy Tigue, the fund manager behind the £2bn-plus Foreign & Colonial (F&C) investment trust, yesterday said profit and dividend growth from the companies it invests in is set to slow down in 2012 alongside fewer takeover bids.

Sonia Pierre, a human rights activist who had fought discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent since she was a child, died on 4 December following a heart attack at the age of 48. For decades her activism had made her the target of threats in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but it earned her recognition from overseas as a defender of human rights, including an award from Amnesty International in 2003.

History

Time, for Philippe Parreno, is of the essence. The Algerian-born artist, who rose to prominence in the 1990s as part of a group of artists with a preference for collaboration and artistic deconstruction, has treated his first major UK exhibition, at the Serpentine Gallery, more like an event than a gallery show. Though the exhibition comprises mainly film works, one can't wander around and stop for a few minutes watching films as you please. The experience is carefully choreographed at around 25 minutes: only one film is on at any one time, and you are led towards it by window blinds that automatically lower and lift, and the coaxing sounds of speakers that beckon you, spellbound, in the right direction.

Ted Sorensen was not just the sole remaining survivor from the innermost circle of the Kennedy White House, a last knight of America's mythical 20th century Camelot. Nor was he only perhaps the greatest and most influential presidential speechwriter of any era. In fact, as was conveyed by his official designation as special counsel and adviser to JFK, Sorensen was far more than a wordsmith, however exceptional. At moments of crisis, when fateful choices had to be made or bold decisions taken – be it the civil rights struggle, the climax of the Cuban missile crisis or the mission to send a man to the moon – he was involved.

Did Aristotle Onassis really conspire in the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968? And did he do so out of cultural envy, sexual jealousy, business tactics, in deference to the PLO (with whom he safeguarded his commercial airline), or mere spite?