Tom Clancy, whose hi-tech, Cold War thrillers such as The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games made him the most widely read military novelist of his time, has died in the US aged 66.

Twitter has become the latest victim in a number of high-profile cyber-attacks against media companies, saying hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users.

EVERYBODY on their way to work in our office last Thursday passed an odd combination of a couch and the broken-up elements of a wooden bed on the footpath, neatly stacked against a fence.

I fully endorse the sentiments expressed by John Tierney (Letters, Jul 14) when he rightly criticised our appalling record in caring for our animals.

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor has warned that the game is heading for anarchy unless the FA step in to sort out Luis Suarez’s feud with Patrice Evra.

An obituary littered with errors has been corrected 112 years later in an American newspaper.

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney will head up a celebration of Tara at the controversial site of the M3 motorway, organisers said today.

THE rest of the country may have been preoccupied with the Lisbon Treaty, but in Kerry the topic of conversation this week was the brainstorm that seized Paul Galvin when he threw a tantrum and slapped the notebook out of the hand of referee Paddy Russell.

Escalating criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners raised new questions today as to whether US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would hold on to his job.

THE Washington Post said yesterday its editorial columnist Michael Kelly was killed in an accident involving a Humvee vehicle while travelling with US troops in Iraq.