Van Morrison turns 70 today. There should be a lot more going on to pay tribute to somebody whose contribution to music and popular culture has been spectacular, suggests Michael Clifford

Blues pioneer BB King was remembered in the Mississippi Delta as a man whose talent was equalled by his generous spirit.

Eric Clapton has paid tribute to legendary blues musician BB King, who has died aged 89.

Author and poet Maya Angelou, who rose from poverty, segregation and violence to become a force on stage, screen and the printed page, has died. She was 86.

Robert Plant has got his "big voice" back again.

The Flaming Lips have set a new world record.

Actor Morgan Freeman and his business partner are ending their 10-year run as owners of an upmarked restaurant in the heart of the impoverished Mississippi Delta.

Floodwaters from the bloated Mississippi River and its tributaries spilled across farm fields, cut off churches, washed over roads and forced people from their homes in the poverty-stricken Delta region.

THE Mississippi River crested in Memphis at nearly 48 feet (14.6m), falling short of its all-time record but still soaking low-lying areas with enough water to require a massive clean-up. To the south, residents in the Mississippi Delta prepared for the worst.

The Mississippi River crested in Memphis today at a height just inches short of the area’s all-time record but still soaking low-lying areas with enough water to require a massive cleanup.

PARTS of the Mississippi Delta were flooding yesterday, forcing people to flee their homes while thousands of others were trying to decide whether to stay or go as the river continued to swell.

Parts of the Mississippi Delta were flooding today, forcing people to flee their homes as thousands of others were trying to decide whether to stay or go as the river continued to swell.

Rough seas generated by Hurricane Alex pushed more oil from the massive spill on to US Gulf coast beaches today as clean-up vessels were sidelined by the storm.

OIL from BP’s out-of-control Gulf of Mexico oil spill could threaten the Mississippi and Alabama coasts this week, US forecasters said yesterday, as public anger surged over the nation’s worst environmental disaster.

ONE day it was the flowing locks on a client’s head; the next it was being stuffed in women’s nylons and on its way to help soak up the oil that has begun to wash ashore on the US Gulf Coast.

A 100-ton concrete-and-steel box was being lowered towards the undersea blown-out US well today in a pioneering attempt to stop most of the crude oil pumping out into the Gulf of Mexico.

An oil spill that is threatening to eclipse the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control and started washing ashore along America's Gulf Coast early today.

Tornadoes ripped through the US Southeast, killing 10 people, including three children, and injuring more than a dozen others.

The woman in the passenger seat on the night Morgan Freeman crashed her car was partly to blame for the accident, the actor’s lawyer said.

Actor Morgan Freeman was discharged from hospital today as his lawyer confirmed the star and his wife were set to divorce after 24 years together.

Heavy rain may have been the cause of a car crash which left actor Morgan Freeman critically ill in hospital, according to US reports today.

Morgan Freeman is in “good spirits” in hospital after breaking his arm and elbow in a car crash, his spokesman said.

Morgan Freeman was critically ill in hospital today after the car he was driving overturned several times, US authorities said.

Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Samuel Bowers died yesterday in a US state penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta.

The suffering of New Orleans, long a culturally rich city, is being felt across the entertainment world.

US FEDERAL investigators have unearthed a concrete vault containing Emmett Till’s casket at a suburban Chicago, Illinois cemetery, hoping to find clues into his 1955 slaying in Mississippi that became a key event in the civil rights movement and inspired the movie Mississippi Burning.