HUMANS have changed the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and all of its oceans. We impact on 83% of the world’s land and have permanently altered a third of it.

A couple of years ago, a publisher asked your columnist about potential GAA books: what would be a hot property, and what would be interesting, that kind of thing.

A gunman wanted for murdering eight people in a house then firing at a police helicopter surrendered today after a huge manhunt.

The first Mardi Gras parade since Hurricane Katrina marched through the French Quarter of New Orleans pulling carts with blue tarpaulins, effigies of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco and floats with themes such as “Give Me That Mould Time Religion".

A nationally televised performance by a skimpily-dressed Beyonce at the Manhattan site where Ulysses S. Grant is entombed has been denounced as “inappropriate” by the head of the Grant Memorial Association.