‘First it was the fags, now it’s the drink,” came the murmur from the street corners outside Ireland’s pubs this week. With smoking banned from bars, drinkers are braced for a different government crackdown after statistics revealed a country killing itself with alcohol.

Martha Stewart, who built an empire teaching Americans how to cook, garden and entertain, is facing a very different lifestyle after being told to report to a prison in West Virginia by October 8. The United States bureau of prisons on Wednesday turned down a request by Stewart to serve her five-month sentence closer to her home in Bedford, New York, and her elderly mother.

For singletons and insomniacs, he is proving the ideal partner. This is a man who does not snore or fidget in bed, and who is happy to wrap a reassuring arm around his nearest and dearest until morning arrives. He does exist, but — inevitably — there is a catch. This man comes without a head and is stuffed full of foam. He is the pillow-shaped man, the latest sleeping aid from Japan.

A Johannesburg pet shop owner and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) were at odds on Wednesday over whether snakes should be fed live rabbits or not. NSPCA Inspector Phillip Roberts said he was ”disgusted, repulsed, and very angry” when he went to the pet shop and saw live rabbits in the snake containers.

After months of exchanging insults from a distance, George Bush and John Kerry will finally face each other tonight in a debate that is likely to be the challenger’s best chance to turn the election around before the November 2 poll. The debate is the first of three, but it will have the biggest audience — up to 50-million Americans — and it deals with the issue at the heart of this presidential election: national security, Iraq and the ”war on terror”.

The Gaza Strip was bracing itself for an Israeli military assault on Wednesday night after a Hamas rocket attack on an Israeli town killed two children, one an infant. Ariel Sharon vowed to respond ”with severity” to the attack on the town of Sderot, which wounded another 20 people, some of them children. Late on Wednesday night, missiles ploughed into the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing two Palestinians, one a policeman.

Most of the historic Wanderers cricket clubhouse in Johannesburg was destroyed by fire on Wednesday night. By 9.30pm flames were still raging in one corner of the building — three hours after the fire first began. Emergency services said the situation was under control, although less than a third of the building was still intact.

Ken Bigley, the British engineer who has been held hostage in Iraq for two weeks, appeared in chains on a video on Wednesday night begging for his life but saying for the first time that his kidnappers did not want to kill him. Bigley (62) appeared haggard but unhurt. He frequently broke down and sobbed as he spoke, at times grasping his head in his hand.