1. Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, appears satisfied that an athletics warm–up track sufficiently close to the stadium – a prerequisite of IAAF meetings – is integral to London‘s plans after 2012.

2. "These are places I would want to live if God were to put our planet around another star" Margaret Turnbull, Carnegie Institution, Washington Turnbull and her colleagues initially set out to select a dozen stars that were the most promising and sufficiently close to the Earth‘s solar system.

3. According to Miller, he had never been "under Communist discipline," although "there were two short periods –– one in 1'40 and one in 1'47 –– when I was sufficiently close to Communist Party activities so that someone might honestly have thought that I had become a member." In an essay published in 1''', Miller recalled that "practically everyone I knew stood within the conventions of the political left of center; one or two were Communist party members ... and most had had a brush with Marxist ideas or organizations.

4. A year ago, Mr King was in danger of having to put pen to paper when inflation dropped to 1.1%, and analysts said that the subdued level of prices in September 2004 would add to the upward pressure this year, pushing the CPI close to 3%. Neville Hill, economist at CSFB, said: "It is extremely likely that CPI inflation will rise further in September – we expect it to rise to 2.8%, which would be sufficiently close to 3% for there to be some speculation about the governor needing to write a letter to the chancellor." The dramatic rise in oil prices over the past month caused transport inflation to rise to 5.4% – the highest since August 1''7.