The personal assistant of Camilla Parker Bowles resigned yesterday after an inquiry into the leak of information to the press that Prince William had met his father's long-time love.
Amanda MacManus said: "As the person responsible for this unhappy train of events, I cannot with honour remain in this position."
MacManus's husband James, who is managing director of Times Supplements, added: "I mentioned to a trusted third party, unconnected with journalism or News International, certain information which was then, to my great regret, passed on to the Sun."
Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks won a restraining order that bans a mental patient, who believes she has the power to heal him, from coming near the singer. Ronald Anacelteo, who was released from a mental hospital in Colorado last week believes "that Nicks possesses a spiritual healing power that will enable him to get along with others and find a woman to marry," said a spokesman from the Arapahoe County sheriff's department. A staff member at the hospital said Anacelteo (38) had vowed to kidnap Nicks and have sex with her if he got the chance.
A corporate lawyer from Boston was proclaimed the winner this week for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel.
Bob Perry (46) was runner-up last year in the detective category of the contest named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a 19th-century English novelist whose book Paul Clifford begins with the line: "It was a dark and stormy night." Perry's winning entry was: "The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of piquant, ancho chili glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelised onions and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil." The contest is run by the English department at San Jose State University in California.
Tazio Secchiaroli, whose work as a freelance photographer chasing celebrities inspired Federico Fellini to create a key role for his 1959 film La Dolce Vita, has died in Rome. He was aged 73.
In La Dolce Vita, Fellini named one of the photographers chasing Anita Ekberg "paparazzo," a contraction of papagallo (parrot) and ragazzo (guy), which has since become a byword worldwide.
Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, one of the most photographed women in the world, has retired from the catwalk, she was reported as saying yesterday. In an interview with the Express newspaper, Christensen said: "I've stopped working for around three months now. I just made the decision and stopped. It's a job you can only do for a certain amount of time. You get to a point where you can't take it any further - the challenge wasn't there for me any more, it didn't excite me."
Prince Andrew impressed the US navy as a "really funny guy" when he joined dignitaries to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the world.
After joining in a soggy ceremony in Boston, where ships from the US and around the world paraded past "Old Ironsides" in a rainstorm, he attended a reception aboard the USS Leyte Gulf, a Navy missile cruiser.