THE Duchess of Kent has ME - myalgic encephalitis and has had to pull out of all her official engagements, her spokesman said yesterday.
The public confirmation of the debilitating illness came on the day the Duchess would normally have attended the annual awards of the children's charity, Childline. It is organised by Esther Rantzen, whose 18 year old daughter also has ME.
The 63 year old Duchess is resting at her St James's Palace home on the advice of doctors.
A New York federal judge has ruled that British composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber failed to establish a counterclaim in a music plagiarism case.
In a 26 page opinion, US District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram found that Sir Andrew had not established that Ray Repp, the folk music composer who wrote the religious song, Till You, copied his Close Every Door from the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
John Wayne Bobbitt, who had a painful break up with his wife, said he was ordained yesterday as a minister. Bobbitt, who became a household name three years ago when his wife severed his penis said he was ordained in an effort to "get rid of the bad boy image".
The move came at the suggestion of his agent, but Bobbitt denied he was motivated by the money he could make from the marriage industry in Las Vegas.
Czech President Vaclav Havel's recovery from surgery to remove a small malignant tumour from his right lung has been complicated by "slight pneumonia," one of his doctors said in Prague yesterday.