British comedian Ernie Wise was last night seriously ill in an American hospital after suffering two heart attacks within a week.
He was described as extremely frail by relatives, but was just well enough yesterday to be moved out of intensive care, after three weeks spent fighting for his life.
Wise fell ill in Florida last month, a few days after returning from a Caribbean cruise to celebrate his 73rd birthday with his wife, Doreen, and friends.
The entertainer, who became famous alongside Eric Morecambe with their long-running comedy double act, has suffered a series of strokes over the past five years which have left him extremely frail. The 40-year partnership ended with Morecambe's death from heart failure in 1984.
A new book about the case of British nurses Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan concludes that - despite their denials - they did murder fellow nurse Yvonne Gilford in a Saudi Arabian hospital dormitory two years ago.
Mick O'Donnell, one of Australia's leading investigative journalists, argues in the book, Mercy, published in Australia this week, that although the women did not have a fair trial, the circumstantial evidence on which they were convicted was convincing and that their defence did not "stack up".
A Japanese skier who injured his head on the slopes of Sweden's top ski resort got the surprise of his life when the first people to come to his aid were King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Silvia. "The queen held my friend's head on her lap and she stopped the wound from bleeding by putting pressure on it with her fingers," Tadashi Sakaguchi told Swedish daily Aftonbladet. The accident happened at the resort of Aare on Saturday.
Poet and broadcaster Pam Ayres worked at top-secret RAF intelligence bases before turning her hand to show business, it emerged yesterday.
Ayres, who has her own show on BBC Radio 2, was employed as an aerial photograph plotter at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (Jaric) at RAF Brampton near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. But she denied she had been a British spy.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, eager to be active after a long illness, might visit Poland this month, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said yesterday.
Poland is being "considered" as a destination for the Russian leader, Kwasniewski told national radio. Yeltsin's health troubles led him to postpone a Polish visit in mid-December last year.
In a rare interview, suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden tells Time magazine that two suspects arrested in connection with last year's bombings of US embassies in Africa are innocent.
"America, and in particular the CIA, wanted to cover up its failure in the aftermath of the events that took place in Riyadh, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Capetown, Kampala - and other places, God willing, in the future," bin Laden is quoted as saying.