Felicity Spector

Racism – or just clowning around? Missouri State Fair says sorry after a clown in an Obama mask was paraded before baying crowds, and calls the behaviour “unacceptable”.

President Obama breaks off from vacation to speak on the Egypt crisis – declaring America’s traditional co-operation “cannot continue while civilians are being killed in the streets”.

He is not just a politician. He is a celebrity, a superhero – even a meme. Meet Cory Booker, charismatic mayor of Newark and now the hot tip to become New Jersey’s next senator.

It’s clearly getting to him. New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner rounds on an ITV reporter on a campaign stop in Harlem – as the sexting scandal sends his poll ratings through the floor.

From check-ins to checkouts – easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is setting up a budget supermarket chain to take on the might of cut-price grocery giants Aldi and Lidl.

Fast food workers in cities across America have walked off the job to demand better pay, saying they are fed up with earning less than $10 an hour while top executives’ bonuses soar.

Former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn is charged with aggravated pimping in connection with organised sex parties at a French hotel. His lawyer calls the charges “as false as they are absurd”.

He now admits sexting up to three women after he resigned from Congress. New York’s mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner slumps in the polls as the scandal over his online encounters refuses to go away.

The economy has grown for the second quarter in a row, as the chancellor says it is finally “on the mend”. Channel 4 News asks some small businesses if they now feel more confident about the future.

He texted lewd photographs of himself to a young woman – after resigning from Congress for the very same thing. But New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner says he’s staying in the race.

Three of Silvio Berlusconi’s former aides are found guilty of procuring prostitutes for sex orgies at his Milan mansion, in another legal blow against the beleagued tycoon.

In a surprise speech at the White House, Barack Obama makes the most personal comments on race of his presidency, saying that Trayvon Martin “could have been me”.

The cover of the latest Rolling Stone magazine, which features Boston bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev, has caused a storm of outrage. Is it glamourising his alleged crime?

Unemployment down, job vacancies up: good news for some, especially the food industry which is now Britain’s biggest private sector employer. So why is it so hard to get businesses off the ground?

One of the six women on the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman of murdering the black teenager Trayvon Martin speaks out for the first time.