IT might be an overreach to suggest that the worldwide network of Carnegie libraries were the internet of their time but not by much. 

BRITAIN’S chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne led the United Kingdom into a small but growing club of countries when he introduced his eight budget on Wednesday. Mr Osborne announced that Britain would impose a sugar tax on soft drinks from 2018 to try to slow the obesity epidemic threatening millions of individuals and the economic sustainability of public health services.

IT is gratifying to learn that wiser heads have prevailed in the Luas strike in Dublin and that tens of thousands of people will be able to enjoy the St Patrick’s Day celebration in the capital without having to go to extraordinary measures to attend them.

TOMORROW we will celebrate St Patrick’s Day. Most of us will do so with enthusiasm. 

THOSE who fought the long-ago battles for women’s equality hardly imagined that huge numbers of their sisters would end up with two jobs — their paid and demanding job and the equally, if not more so, demanding one they face when they go home after a day in the hospital, office, shop or classroom.

DISTURBING data released by Nasa, earlier this week, showed that, last month, global temperatures smashed records. The figures brought a new urgency to warnings of a climate emergency, but whether they provoke the change needed to slow this escalation remains to be seen.