USA - The "fighting Irish" is the nickname for sporting teams at Notre Dame, America's largest Catholic university. When President Obama gives a speech there on Sunday, the man who was elected promising to bring an end to the so called "culture wars" will be hoping his views on abortion do not re-ignite hostilities.
LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday parliament must do more than clean up its expenses system to restore public trust, after his ruling Labour party suspended a second lawmaker in a damaging perks scandal.
JERUSALEM - Irael's defense minister says he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will endorse the creation of a Palestinian state during his upcoming visit to Washington. Netanyahu has been reluctant to back a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis despite pressure from the United States.
GERMANY - New poll shows 70% of Germans want the Lisbon Treaty to be re-negotiated. Neues Deutschland reports that there is some speculation that judges in the German Constitutional Court might decide to call for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
USA - The Chinese yuan is preparing to overtake the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, economist Nouriel Roubini has warned. Professor Roubini, of New York University's Stern business school, believes that while such a major change is some way off, the Chinese government is laying the ground for the yuan's ascendance.
ISRAEL - Pope Benedict XVI has finished his eight-day pilgrimage to the Middle East, calling for an end to fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. At a farewell ceremony, attended by Israeli leaders, he called for "no more bloodshed, no more fighting".
UK - The UK government has signed a deal to secure up to 90m doses of H1N1 flu (swine flu) vaccine by December. Health Secretary Alan Johnson said Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline will begin production as soon as possible.
WESTMINSTER, UK - "The bloodfest has got to stop," the then justice minister Shahid Malik said after details of his expenses were splashed across the front of Daily Telegraph. Within a couple of hours he resigned. A standards advisor is investigating his rent arrangements, and whether, as a minister, he should have declared them.
UK - People who have concerns about the adoption of children by gay couples ARE 'RETARDED HOMOPHOBES', the state-funded national adoption agency said yesterday. Those who protest over controversial gay adoption laws are merely 'whinging', according to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.
UK - Apart from religious objections, there are other reasons why many benevolent and intelligent people have doubts about encouraging gay couples to adopt. One is the child's instinct to conform. Inevitably, there's a risk that a child with two same-sex parents will feel uncomfortably set apart from more conventionally brought-up schoolmates.
BRUSSELS - The European commission adopted economic reports on Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Romania signalling that the EU executive now considers their budget deficits in 2008 to have been in breach of EU rules known as the stability and growth pact.
USA - President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending "unsustainable," warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
USA - The Federal Reserve apparently can't account for $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions. When Representative Alan Grayson asked Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions about where the trillions of dollars that have come from the Fed's expanded balance sheet, the IG didn't know.
GREECE - Every year since 1954 a club of about 130 senior or up-and-coming politicians gather at the fireside of a secluded hotel with top bankers and a sprinkling of royalty to discuss burning issues, to trade confidences and just stay abreast of the I-know-something-you-don't-know circuit.
AUSTRALIA - Almost half of Australia's wine industry is facing disaster as a drought caused by climate change and the overuse of Australia's biggest river system is threatening to turn its vines to dust. Lakes that scores of growers have relied on for years are almost empty and the remaining water is now too salty to use.