NELSON MANDELA will be remembered as the person who, more than any other, brought an end to apartheid, the heartless policy of “separate development” in which white, black, and South Asian South Africans were obliged to live apart.

TED KENNEDY was both the most loved and one of most hated and divisive politicians in the United States. Republicans frequently depicted him as the embodiment of evil and amorality, as well as a relic of the self-indulgent liberalism of the 1960s.

PUBLIC opinion polls in the United States seem to suggest it is all over bar the shouting. If Barack Obama does not win on Tuesday, it will be the biggest surprise since Harry Truman retained the Presidency exactly 60 years tomorrow.

The five-year-old son of singer James Brown and his partner Tomi Rae Hynie is not included in the will read to six of the entertainer’s children, lawyers for the Godfather of Soul say.

THE longest-running US senator, Strom Thurmond has died at the age of 100. He was in the Senate for 48 of his 100 years.