The premature death yesterday, at 51, of James Gandolfini, the actor whose Emmy-winning portrayal of a Mafia boss in The Sopranos was a reminder of how magnificent, how very well written that series was.

The comments in the Dáil yesterday by Independent Deputy Clare Daly about the welcome accorded to President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two children — Sasha and Malia — were as offensive and ill-judged as they were contemptible.

Research published by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) highlights reasons for persistent and chronic absenteeism among Irish primary school children. The reasons are many and varied.

Coping with the death of a loved one is hard enough in ordinary circumstances, but it is utterly different when they are the victim of murder.

Fifty years after Ireland’s love affair with US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the country is now in thrall to yet another Irish-American president, Barack Obama, and today’s first family of the US — wife Michelle and their daughters, 14-year-old Malia and 12-year-old Sasha.

Symbolically, two faces of Ireland, one positive the other negative, were reflected in yesterday’s historic visit of President Barack Obama to Belfast and the opening of the G8 summit in Co Fermanagh.

Companies can ill afford to ignore the scathing criticism by the Pensions Board of the poor level of pension administration which it says is a form of neglect which can put the well-being of thousands of pensioners at risk.

It would be foolish to underestimate how corporate ambition limits the potential of politics to change things.

A Department of Foreign Affairs audit has uncovered out-of-control excess, expenditure and maladministration in renovation projects at Irish embassies.

Caught in a pincer movement driven by static economic growth and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the East, Europe and America are trying to reconcile trade, cultural and philosophical differences to their, and hopefully our, mutual benefit.