ONCE, California Democrats led the way to a year of the women. Now, nearly two decades later, Republicans hope that it’s their turn.

SHORTLY before he died, according to his son Seán, Charlie Haughey said: “I never broke my word in politics.”

Charlie McCreevy had the courage to move a ‘no confidence’ motion in Charlie Haughey’s leadership in October 1982, but the great majority in the parliamentary party did not have the vision, the guts or the integrity to support his motion, so Haughey survived.

BY NOW Fianna Fáil loyalists will have begun to come to terms with the shock of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s Wednesday announcement.

Heavy snow covered the Northern California mountains and rain and wind hit the US West Coast as a third day of winter storms left at least three people dead and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in California, Oregon and Washington without power.

As the search for missing aviator Steve Fossett enters its sixth full day concern is growing as the unprecedented effort drags on with no clue about his possible location.

CHARLES J HAUGHEY was the sixth of our retired leaders since the foundation of the State to die, and the real debate on his legacy is likely to begin today.

DR JIM MCDAID has apparently decided to quit active politics with immediate effect. He has stated that he is already concentrating on his medical practice.

GROWING up in the 1950s one often heard rantings from the pulpit about slave labour camps in atheistic Russia.

THE late Captain James Kelly, who died during the week, seemed almost obsessed with clearing his name for having supposedly conspired to import arms illegally in 1970. He was cleared in court, along with Charlie Haughey and two others, but some people were never prepared to accept that verdict.

THE former army intelligence officer at the centre of the arms crisis in the 1970s, Captain James Kelly, was an innocent man, the Taoiseach said last night.

The former Progressive Democrat leader Des O’Malley is responding in depth to allegations about his involvement in the tampering of evidence in the 1970 arms trial.

Pressure intensified in Dublin today for a new inquiry into the circumstances of a trial more than 30 years ago that rocked the Government .