President Yeltsin has had enough of hospital and is urging doctors to let him out as soon as possible.
"Doctors can hardly restrain the president from leaving the hospital," his chief-of-staff, Oleg Sysuyev, was quoted as saying.
Mr Yeltsin (67) has been in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital since November 22nd with pneumonia.
Celebrity wrestler Giant Haystacks - famous for his battles with Big Daddy - has lost his two-year fight against cancer. The wrestler, whose real name is Martin Ruane, was at home with his family in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, when he died yesterday.
The wrestler (50) had surgery and chemotherapy to remove a tumour in his abdomen and his weight had plummeted from his trademark 49 stone to 24 stone during his illness.
In his prime, Giant Haystacks would attract a TV audience of up to 16 million and would eat a box of Weetabix, 3 lb of bacon, a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread for breakfast.
Australian poet Les Murray said yesterday he would go to Buckingham Palace to collect Queen Elizabeth's Gold Medal for Poetry for 1998.
"It would be a sin against anthropologists to not go and see the head of state," the poet said from his home near Newcastle, New South Wales.
"They're much rarer than some birds, there's not many monarchs left."
Murray (60) joins a list of previous recipients which includes W.H. Auden, Siegfried Sassoon, Philip Larkin and Robert Graves.
He was recommended for the medal by a committee chaired by the late poet laureate Ted Hughes.
The award was instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the then poet laureate John Masefield.
French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis is expecting a baby by US actor Johnny Depp, who recently made the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the French weekly magazine Voici says. The pair are not married but have thought about tying the knot, the magazine claims. Vanessa, who will be 26 later this month, has just finished shooting Une fille sur le pont (A girl on the bridge) by Patrice Leconte, while Depp (35) is starring in Roman Polanski's latest film The Ninth Gate which is being shot in London.