George Jones, the peerless, hard-living country singer who recorded dozens of hits about good times and regrets and peaked with the heartbreaking classic He Stopped Loving Her Today, has died. He was 81.

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton declared she was “no Tammy Wynette” in an apparent coded reference that she would not stand by her Cabinet colleague James Reilly unquestioningly.

WITH a holiday home in Florida and a sprawling property in east Belfast, Peter Robinson, 61, enjoys the rewards of a life lived in the political spotlight.

Veteran Green Patricia McKenna today stoked up her fiery relationship with the junior coalition partners by standing against them in the European elections.

A COUNTRY and western fan has been hit with a noise ban after her passion for Dolly Parton classics such as Nine to Five sounded a sour note with her neighbours, a council said yesterday.

GREEN PARTY leader Trevor Sargent promised voters eco-action, not tax auctions, if his party gets into government.

NOW the focus is firmly on the next occupant of the White House. A certain reading of the current US scene suggests that for a significant number of Americans, Democratic and Republican, the choice for 2008 is as simple as ABC (Anyone But Clinton).

Country Music Television has come up with its own list of the 100 greatest love songs, topped by Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You which she took to number in the country chart 30 years ago.

POLITICIANS take advice from spin-doctors, pollsters, psychologists, football team managers and business leaders.

June Carter Cash, the Grammy-winning scion of one of country music’s pioneering families and the wife of country giant Johnny Cash, has died of complications from heart surgery. She was 73.

IF you listen closely enough, you should be able to make out the angry words above the din: a cacophony of female voices raised to the rafters with one common message for their menfolk.

WHEN the 1995 referendum lifted the ban on D.I.V.O.R.C.E. (as Tammy Wynette sung it so as not to upset little J.O.E.), the letters were supposed to spell freedom.