Ben Bradlee, the hard-charging editor who guided The Washington Post through its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal and invigorated its newsroom for more than two decades, has died.

Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall has died aged 89, the estate of her late husband Humphrey Bogart said today.

GIVEN the weather we’ve been enduring here lately, you have to envy the Australian lifestyle. They can plan open air events with confidence, and if you were thinking of celebrating the first months of 2014 down under, then Sydney is the place to head for, where on Feb 1 you can enjoy Opera in the Domain free.

At a time when the media in the US and elsewhere is under attack, check out All The President’s Men Special Edition (Warner, €24.99), the dramatic media probing by Woodward and Bernstein (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) which, aided by Deep Throat, stripped away a layer of conspiracy and cover up that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.