A yacht captain says he lied to investigators about Hollywood actress Natalie Wood’s mysterious death 30 years ago and blames her husband, Robert Wagner, for her drowning in the sea off Southern California.

The disappearance of a US marine who was feared to have been kidnapped by extremists in Iraq could be a hoax.

White House allies and Republicans investigating the September 11 attacks pressed to hear open testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, with one commissioner calling her refusal a “political blunder of the first order”.

Friends favourite Matt Le Blanc will be paid less than half his Friends salary of a million dollars an episode for starring in his own spin-off series Joey - but he will earn a greater share of the show’s profits, according to the NBC TV network.