New Zealand broadcaster Paul Holmes, who gained notoriety for calling United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan a “cheeky darkie”, has quit his top-rating television current affairs show.

AN AMERICA’S CUP jury will meet today to hear a New York Yacht Club request that Seattle’s OneWorld Challenge be expelled from the premier sailing event for breaches of sportsmanship and fair play.

BRITAIN were defeated in their historic first return to the America’s Cup stage in 15 years, as they lost to Team Dennis Conner’s vastly experienced crew on Stars and Stripes in the first showcase race of the 31st America’s Cup series.

THEY MAY have been jousting there for the last two months, jostling, sandbagging and sprinting to see whose latest boat has the edge, and whose despite the millions invested in research and development may yet be ‘off the pace’, but the real 2002/3 America’s Cup story starts to unfold in earnest next Tuesday.