Irish Journos: Analysts Warn U.S. Economy Becoming Overly Dependent On Anne Hathaway

The death has occurred of

Cathal O'Shea

Mount Merrion, Dublin / Blackrock, Dublin

O’Shea, Cathal, 21st April 2026 – Mount Merrion, Blackrock and formerly of Sunday World Newspaper. Cathal passed away after a short illness, he is predeceased by his brother Des and sister Deirdre.

 

He will be hugely missed by his wife Emer, sons Ruaidhri and Cillian and his darling grandchildren Jack, Brian and Katie, his sister Geraldine, his daughters-in-law Susana and Veronica, nephews Jordi, Gary and Fergus, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law. Cathal will be sadly missed by his good friends Joe, Tony, Sam and Shane and all his extended family, neighbours and many wonderful friends. A special thank you to Jenny and Breda.

 

May Cathal Rest Peacefully.

 

Cathal will repose at Massey Bros. Funeral Home, Goatstown, D14 X348 on Sunday, 26th April from 2pm- 4pm. Funeral Mass will be held at the Church of St Thérèse, Mount Merrion on Monday, 27th April at 10am, followed by cremation at Mount Jerome Crematorium, Harold’s Cross, D6W HY98 (The Victorian Chapel) at 12:15pm.

 

House private.

 

Family flowers only.

 

To leave a private message of condolence, please click here or alternatively on the condolence section below.

Dennis Howard Marks (13 August 1945 – 10 April 2016)

Paul Williams (born 1964) is an Irish journalistwriting mainly about crime. He has worked for the Irish Independent since 2012, and previously for the Sunday World (1986–2010), the Irish News of the World (2010–2011), and the Irish Sun (2011–2012). He has also written books and presented television programmes.

Analysts Warn U.S. Economy Becoming Overly Dependent On Anne Hathaway. “We estimate that Anne Hathaway films currently account for a staggering 63% of all U.S. exports.” Zendaya is the other 37%.

2,200-year-old Roman shipwreck reveals ancient waterproofing secrets Science Daily 

Chinese stem cell therapy reverses heart failure in 90% of patients in landmark trial South China Morning Post

How to make a good Star Wars movie for once. “Stop making stuff that’s so self referential and start focusing on projects that once again are bringing things from the outside and putting them in a Star Wars container.” Fan service is bad storytelling.

Jodi Ettenberg on living grief and a serendipitous discovery. “Living grief lacks the tapestry of rituals, language, and social permissions around grieving that a person is offered with death.”

The old English village developed gradually, which explains much of the irregularity we now find so attractive, as lanes bend around ancient property boundaries, houses turn slightly toward the road, cottages appear at unexpected angles, and small spaces open between buildings where paths, gardens, wells, greens, and churchyards accumulated over generations.

A straight road gives you the whole view immediately, while a winding village lane reveals itself slowly, allowing a church tower to appear above one roof before disappearing behind another, then bringing a cottage into view at the end of the street before the road turns again and opens onto something completely different.

 How did the English build such beautiful villages?

What a great idea for a book: Cookbooking: A Fan’s Guide. “An eclectic, visually stunning pop-history, Cookbooking explores the most influential and beloved cookbooks through photographs, listicles, graphics, and snappy writing.”

Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training

404 Media: “Last week we published a story that revealed an Amazon warehouse where the company scans and destroys thousands of books for AI training data. The following is an interview with one of the Amazon employees at this warehouse. We granted this employee anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.  

The employee worked at Amazon’s VGT3 warehouse, which is housed in the same facility as LAS8, where Amazon operates its print-on-demand business. Both operations are part of a larger complex of Amazon facilities in Las Vegas, Nevada. We discovered that VGT3 was used to destructively scan books for AI training data by placing a tracking device in a shipment of rare books that a bookseller suspected was being acquired by an anonymous AI company. 

We saw the shipment travel across the country before finally landing at VGT3. Online, Amazon employees who worked at VGT3 described the work of receiving shipments of books, cutting the spines off of them, and scanning the loose pages. The Amazon employee I talked to described what that operation looks like from the warehouse floor.

Bluesky confetti - I never saved anything for the swim back

Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, hold the truth and defend the truth until death.
— Jan Hus

Libraries are the last proof that the richest things in life are free.

 I never saved anything for the swim back:

⭕️

Post like no one’s reading.

⭕️

Women always call me ugly until they find out how much money I make. --- Then they call me ugly and poor.

⭕️

Apparently, as a person I only had a fifty year warranty.

Had to dig my son up for talking down to his wife yesterday, I’m very disappointed, as it’s not how he was brought up. To be fair, he took on board what I said to him and he’s promised me, he’ll never tell her he loves her, while standing at the top of a step ladder, ever again.

⭕️

Sometimes I am stupefied By how difficult I find it To just Be kind.

Memories of Cathal O'Shea

 I came across a photograph of Mr O’Shea from roaring 1980s

A fearless journalist and passionate advocate, Cathal O’Shea made a lasting mark on Irish media and public life.

Cathal O'Shea, one of the foundational investigative reporters for the Sunday World newspaper since its launch in 1973, passed away this year, following a short illness. 

Cathal was part of the original reporting team when the Sunday World was established in Dublin in 1973, known for fearless investigative journalism and major exclusive stories. 
Cathal is remembered by former colleagues as a legendary journalist, a great character, and a supportive mentor in the newsroom. 
Cathal is survived by his wife Emer, sons Ruaidhri and Cillian, and three grandchildren

Tribute by Eddie Rowley

This week at the Sunday World we were shocked and saddened by the passing of two former and much-loved colleagues, Cathal O'Shea in Dublin and Jim McDowell in Belfast.

Two legends in journalism, they were both fearless investigative reporters and editors.

Cathal was one of the first reporters on the Sunday World when it was launched in 1973.

I joined the paper a decade later in 1983 working in the Dublin office and Cathal was one of the team who supported me in those early days as a young reporter. From then on we became friends.

Cathal was always great fun, a great character.

My deepest sympathy to the families of Cathal and Jim at this extremely sad time in their lives.

Your brain is a gambling addict that bets on reality

 “Your brain is a gambling addict that bets on reality. It doesn’t wait for information. It guesses what should happen and adjusts when surprised. Most bets win. But when they don’t, you run into walls.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Cruise experts reveal 10 foods you should never eat on board — and most passengers eat them anyway

Most Physical Activity Is Tied to Lower Dementia Risk, but This Type May Raise It Medpage Today

Monopoly Round-Up: Living in an Age of Cheating Means Having Your Time Stolen Constantly Matt Stoller

Logging In Was Never Supposed to Be This Complicated

The Atlantic – gift article: “Lately, the process of accessing apps and websites has grown dizzying. “I’m in password hell,” a colleague confided to me recently. “Every login attempt is playing the lottery.” The problem is not just the sheer number of digital accounts, all of which require their own password, ideally unique and unguessable (which usually also means un-memorizable). 

It’s the pileup of solutions to that problem: all of the different layers of software offering to remember your passwords, the six-digit codes sent to your phone, the authenticator apps, the passkeys. Browsers and operating systems compete with third-party password managers to generate, store, and autofill your credentials. Most of my logins live in 1Password, but others are stored in Apple’s Passwords app (usually by accident), and still others were created via “single sign-on” features such as those offered by Google and Facebook. 

I vaguely recall certain apps—Facebook is one—prompting me many years ago to copy down a set of “login recovery codes” that would become extremely important should I ever get locked out of my account. Whatever device I stored them on was probably wiped and sold long ago. Logins have always been a hassle. In the 1990s, forgetting your password sometimes meant mailing a postcard to your service provider and waiting a week or two for it to mail you a new password. 

In the early 2010s, hackers learned to steal massive troves of logins and then reuse them on other services to steal people’s identities. Things spiraled from there; services started requiring unique, complex passwords with arbitrary requirements. These days, the user experience of logging in is “probably worse than ever,” Troy Hunt, a cybersecurity expert who runs the website Have I Been Pwned, told me. 

“There’s just no consistency.” Password managers promised a way out, but they often don’t work as seamlessly as you might hope. I click to autofill my password somewhere, and a 1Password authorization appears, only for an iCloud Keychain authorization to pop up directly over it, preventing me from clicking on the 1Password one. 

When I manually enter a login I thought I remembered, my browser prompts me to remember it; only after I hit “Save” (pro tip: Do not do this) does the website inform me that the password was not recognized. Even when you log in successfully, there’s the tedious dance of waiting for a six-digit authorization code to appear on your phone or in your email, which defeats the concept of a single password for everything. And if you’re somewhere without cell service or you’re sharing a login with someone who isn’t around, you might just be out of luck…”

Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover

Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover 404 Media

Trump made more than 1,000 trades in June totaling millions, financial disclosures revealIndependent

Trump’s Family Joins a Rush to Start New BanksBloomberg

Independent bookstores are struggling to meet customer demands after one of Australia's largest book distributors experienced a cyber attack six weeks ago.

The cyber attack against Alliance Distribution Services (ADS) has left Australian authors unable to provide sufficient stock for events.

What's next?

Hachette Australia, which owns ADS, says restoring full operations securely remains its top priority

Cyber attack targeting Hachette Australia subsidiary hurts bookshops and authors

Francesco Ernest Sartor among all other role was a Clerk to NSW Public Accounts Committee between 1983 and 1986 …

Former Labor heavyweight emerges as surprise figure in Bathla collapse

Max MasonCourts and crime correspondent

Aug 27, 2026 

Former Labor heavyweight Frank Sartor has emerged as a key figure in the collapse of property development giant Bathla, contacting insolvency and communications specialists Teneo weeks before the company collapsed owing more than $3.5 billion and leaving thousands of homes in limbo.

Sartor, a former planning minister and Sydney lord mayor, had been engaged to provide Bathla with “advice and assistance on planning matters” before financial stress pushed the company into administration, according to filings with the corporate regulator late on Wednesday.

DHS said it had “no plans” to send agents to the polls. But they’re already meddling — remotely

Miles Taylor Defiance.org: “…Last night, The Washington Post revealed that hundreds of federal immigration officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including the specialists who vet immigration applications for fraud and security threats, have been pulled off their day jobs and reassigned to monitor voting lists for supposed noncitizen voters. 

This places DHS agents directly into a role that was never envisioned when the Department was created and which has ominous implications for the midterms and future elections. Despite this effort being carried out in the dark, the Trump administration expects Americans to trust that they are merely hunting for “illegal” registrants. 

Yet the operation raises urgent questions about potential abuse, oversight, and whether DHS agents will play a larger role in unlawfully purging American citizens from voter rolls. The newly disclosed effort adds to an already sweeping undertaking by Trump’s lieutenants to influence the midterm elections. Since returning to office, Trump has converted the Justice Department’s Voting Section from a shield for voters into a weapon against them. 

His administration has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia to extract voter roll data, ordered federal agencies to build “approved” lists of voters, and as we speak, is still moving ahead with plans to control the delivery of ballots in the mail. 

Thousands of DHS agents and a growing number of federal prosecutors are being marshaled away from their actual responsibilities and pointed at America’s elections by a president simultaneously trying to seize control over who is allowed to cast a ballot. Nothing in American history looks like this. At all. Yet there are plenty of examples of regimes around the world mounting election takeovers that look very similar. Students of history would call it authoritarianism. 

Again, the Trump administration continues to assert that all of its efforts are focused on the phantom menace of “noncitizen voters.” But the pretext is collapsing under its own weight. Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claim they’ve found roughly 278,000 noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote in the United States. 

But when Nevada pressed the department on Mullin’s claim of 16,000 in their state, DHS admitted it had confirmed just 185… then refused to hand over the names so the state could investigate…”

The NACC is refusing to release its investigation into millions of dollars in Meals on Wheels contracts, instead telling the whistleblower she is confused about the outcome.

Exclusive: NACC letters gaslit Meals on Wheels whistleblower

The National Anti-Corruption Commission completed an investigation into almost $9 million worth of federal government contracts to a private consulting firm that tore apart Meals on Wheels services, but when asked for the required public report changed its mind and gaslit the woman who referred the matter.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) refused to release a public report on nearly $9 million in federal Meals on Wheels contracts, instead backtracking on its own completion notice and telling the whistleblower she was confused due to personal pressures. 

Key Details of the NACC Controversy

The Investigation: The watchdog examined almost $9 million in federal contracts tied to the "Future Fit Program", which aimed to overhaul Meals on Wheels services ahead of aged care reforms via consulting firm Miles Morgan Australia.
The Backtrack: Deputy Commissioner Ben Gauntlett initially wrote to the whistleblower on July 17 stating the corruption investigation was complete. When asked for the final report, the NACC reversed stance, claiming it never actually finished an investigation and had instead abandoned it.
The "Gaslighting": NACC general manager of legal Rebekah O'Meagher wrote to the referrer implying she was confused and pointing to "pressures" in her personal life. The agency later issued an apology for its "mistake". 
Broader Context: Reported by Rick Morton in The Saturday Paper, this adds to intense scrutiny on the NACC's handling of major investigations and high staff turnover, following earlier criticisms by NACC Inspector Gail Furness.