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Harmony Korine This article is more than 10 years oldLetterman banned Harmony Korine from his show in the 90s for trying to steal from Meryl StreepThis article is more than 10 years oldTalkshow host reveals how he once found the Spring Breakers director going through Meryl Streep's purse backstageUS talkshow host David Letterman has revealed he banned director Harmony Korine from The Late Show after finding him going through Meryl Streep's purse backstage.

How to believeScience and nature books This article is more than 11 years oldLucretius, part 1: a poem to explain the entire world around usThis article is more than 11 years oldEmma WoolertonThe subject of Lucretius's six-book poem De Rerum Natura was not war, love, myth or history – it was atomic physicsLucretius (full name Titus Lucretius Carus) lived in the first half of the century BC, probably from 99 to 55 BC.

A red-figure terracotta cup, 5th century, showing slave girl Briseis pouring libation for Achilles’ tutor Phoenix, in a scene from the Iliad. Photograph: AlamyA red-figure terracotta cup, 5th century, showing slave girl Briseis pouring libation for Achilles’ tutor Phoenix, in a scene from the Iliad. Photograph: AlamyHomerNew translation of the Iliad by Caroline Alexander – extractRead a short section from the latest edition of Homer’s great epic of the Trojan wars – the first English translation by a woman

BooksReviewby Owen HatherleyThe increasing urbanisation of the globe is frequently discussed and worried over. This is ironic, as there has seldom been a period less preoccupied with how to create the city as a positive, active, collective polis rather than an atomised, accidental antheap. Libertarian bores uncritically hail sprawl, the megaslum or the megacity depending on the occasion, and an environmentalist left seems terrified of the city and all it implies.

OpinionWorld news This article is more than 12 years oldA history of cannibalismThis article is more than 12 years oldRichard SuggHistorically, visitors to cannibal tribes often seem to have been safe – like the mafia, such people usually only killed their ownThe death of German sailor Stefan Rami has prompted sudden interest in the remote Polynesian island of Nuku Hiva. Prompted by the past cannibalistic traditions of Melanesia and Polynesia, authorities suspect that Rami's local guide, Henri Haiti, not only murdered him, but ate him before burning his body.

Northern IrelandObituaryAlan McDonald obituarySteely centre-half for Queens Park Rangers and Northern IrelandAlan McDonald, who has died suddenly aged 48, was a member of the last Northern Ireland squad to reach the World Cup finals, in Mexico 1986. Though the team did not progress past the group stage, reaching the finals for the second consecutive tournament was a huge achievement for the tiny nation, until 2006 the smallest country ever to qualify.

ShortcutsBody imageShop-window dummies with enlarged breasts, tiny waists and unnaturally sculpted rears are catering for the national obsession with implants and plastic surgeryThey do things differently in South America. While women's clothes stores in Scandinavia are earning widespread praise for using "normal-shaped " size 12 mannequins to model lingerie, and our very own Debenhams recently put a dozen size 16 dummies on display in its flagship Oxford Street store, the new shop-window favourite in Venezuela is apparently a fibreglass model sporting a dramatically enlarged bust, an unnaturally sculpted rear, a tiny wasp waist and never-ending, super-skinny legs.

Illinois This article is more than 3 months oldLandlord accused of killing six-year-old Muslim boy and stabbing motherThis article is more than 3 months oldJoseph Czuba, 71, charged with hate crime after attack allegedly driven by Israel-Hamas war A 71-year-old man in Plainfield, Illinois, has been charged with murder and a hate crime after allegedly stabbing a child and his mother because they were Muslims. “Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the Will county sheriff’s office said.

10 of the bestPop and rockFrontman Phil Lynott’s biographer charts the band’s rapid progress from melodic heartfelt ballads to raw, thunderous rock’n’roll 1. DublinDuring his apprenticeship as the singer in Dublin bands the Black Eagles, Skid Row and Orphanage, Philip Lynott almost exclusively sang other people’s material. When he made his first forays into composition, the results were more Astral Weeks than Waiting for An Alibi: on early songs such as Dublin, Saga of the Ageing Orphan, Remembering and Shades of a Blue Orphanage, he reimagined his home city with the same impressionistic nostalgia Van Morrison used to conjure up postwar Belfast.