Des O'Driscoll shares the latest from the entertainment world.

Here are five things to do this week.

Our Arts Editor selects his highlights of the year...

The former Exxon Mobil oil giant boss has more influence than most presidents and knows how to cut a deal. He would be an able secretary of state, says Amir Handjani

Ted Cruz, who knew all the election rules of the GOP, failed to top Trump, while Hillary Clinton was almost toppled by a socialist. The rules are changing and so are the voters, writes Ross Barkan

Former US president George HW Bush has criticised one-time defence chief Donald Rumsfeld and former vice president Dick Cheney in a new biography.

The armed forces seem to be reassuring themselves that the violence they inflict — and the violence the enemy inflicts in return — is definitely worth it, according to David Axe

The habit of giving nicknames has been around a long time and can say a lot about the recipient — or not. Dave Kenny does some research

US president Barack Obama and congressional leaders believe he does not need authorisation from Congress for some steps he might take to quell insurgency in Iraq, the Senate’s top Republican and congressional aides have said.

The Obama administration accidentally revealed the name of the CIA’s top official in Afghanistan in an email to thousands of journalists during the president’s surprise weekend trip to Bagram Air Field.

THE date most closely associated with the Secret Service isn’t its founding, in 1865. It’s not 1902, when it assumed full-time protection of the president, following William McKinley’s assassination.

While he was vice-president in the previous US administration, Dick Cheney repeatedly insisted the US needed to bomb the Iranians to snuff out their nuclear ambitions; so did senator John McCain and innumerable other politicians — Republican and Democrat, domestic and foreign.

The last illusions about what was called, until recently, the Arab Spring may have vanished.

The UK will pay its final respects to Margaret Thatcher today as friends and foes continue to row over her legacy.

When the Bush administration decided to go to war in 2003, David Frum found himself at the centre of a daunting messaging effort. He looks back on the fraught times that followed Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech

Doctors treating US secretary of state Hillary Clinton for a blood clot said today they were confident she would make a full recovery, after locating the damage.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney looked for a boost at a campaign fundraiser sponsored by former Vice President Dick Cheney, a figure who divided the country but is lionised by many conservative Americans.

Former US vice president Dick Cheney has been released from hospital 10 days after undergoing a heart transplant.

Doctors say it is unlikely that former US vice-president Dick Cheney got special treatment when he was given a new heart that thousands of younger people were also in line to receive.

Former US vice president Dick Cheney had a heart transplant, after five heart attacks over the past 25 years and countless medical procedures.

At a time of economic crisis, just like the one we are in right now, it’s easy for short-term decisions to be taken that have the potential to have dangerous long-term repercussions.

Dick Cheney played a pivotal role in the war on terror, and the US, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan paid a high price, writes TP O’Mahony.

THERE is real irony in the fact that as America marks the greatest terrorist outrage of modern times President Obama needs his Congress’s approval for a €325 billion plan to try to reduce his country’s 9.1% unemployment rate.

FORMER US vice-president Dick Cheney has said there is no contrad-iction in advocating harsh interrogation tactics against suspected US enemies and opposing those practices when used against its own citizens.

WATERBOARDING and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, leading Republican Senator John McCain insisted last night.

EVEN though the US presidential election is more than 12 months away, support for President Barack Obama has soared following the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was released from a suburban Washington hospital following heart surgery last month.

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has been admitted to the hospital after experiencing discomfort, the latest health scare for the 69-year-old Republican leader who has a long history of heart disease.

Insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault today against the giant US-run Bagram Air Field, the second Taliban strike at Nato forces in and around the capital in as many days.

One of Dick Cheney’s daughters said the former US vice president was recovering well from the mild heart attack that saw him taken to hospital last week.

An aide to Dick Cheney said the former US vice president was in George Washington Hospital after experiencing chest pains.

British Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw hit back today at claims that he ignored legal advice that the Iraq war would be unlawful without further United Nations backing.

US troops in Afghanistan suffered a further eight losses today, turning October into the deadliest month for American forces in the country since the conflict began in 2001.

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney accused the White House of dithering over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and urged President Barack Obama to "do what it takes to win".

THE decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama so extraordinarily early in his presidency — less than nine months after he took office — was as unexpected as it is unprecedented.

A MAN has been charged over an alleged plot to blackmail US chat show host David Letterman over sexual relationships he had with female employees.

US chatshow host David Letterman was the victim of a $2m (€1.37m) blackmail plot after having affairs with female employees, he revealed today.

AL-QAIDA leader Osama bin Laden described President Barack Obama as “powerless” to stop the war in Afghanistan, and Americans’ inability to grasp why the September 11 attacks occurred has “cost you a lot without any result whatsoever”.

In a tape released by al-Qaida’s media wing, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden said President Barack Obama is “powerless” to stop the war in Afghanistan.

SLEEP deprivation, “insult slaps”, water dousing and “walling”, or slamming a detainee’s head against a wall, were techniques used by CIA interrogators to “break” high-value detainees, according to an agency memo.

US Justice Department officials have urged President Barack Obama to reinvestigate CIA prisoner abuse cases, raising the prospect of a damaging political sideshow, as Obama seeks to focus on healthcare and climate change.