LEADING international journalist Dusko Doder yesterday won £175,000 damages at the High Court in London over a 1992 article which accused him of accepting money from the KGB.
His solicitor, Mark Thomson, told Justice Moore Bick chat Mr Doder, a US citizen who was chief of the Moscow bureau of the Washington Post from 1981 to 1985, had settled his action against Time magazine and Time International who now "accept without reservation that any disparagement of the plaintiff's reputation and professional integrity is withdrawn".
Two of the top names on British TV, Robbie Coltrane and Helen Mirren, will have powerful roles in new ITV dramas. The pair are best known for the hugely successful series Cracker and Prime Suspect.
But now Coltrane (46), will star in The Butcher as a Scottish private detective in New York with a night job in a deli. Mirren (50) will play the mother of a young soldier killed by a landmine in Angola who travels there in Perfect Soldier.
Philanthropist John Paul Getty II has donated £50,000 to an appeal set up to stop a painting going to the Getty Museum in California which is named after his father.
The money will help boost a £2.04 million appeal set up by the National Galleries of Scotland to buy a masterpiece by the Italian artist Il Guercino titled Erminia Finding the Wounding Tancred. In 1994 Mr Getty contributed £1 million to keep Canova's famous statue The Three Graces in Britain.
Princess Margaret's daughter Lady Sarah Chatto left London's Portland Clinic yesterday cradling her newborn son. The 7lb 12oz baby - 14th in line to the throne - has not yet been named.