The beach for most Australians is not just a place to cool off on a hot day, it is a place for the tentative dips of the toes in the shallows of early childhood and a place where teenage rites of passage played out.

BBC: Shore thing: Australia��s beach obsession

In Maine, there is a bridge that is in such bad shape that pieces of it were literally falling off the other day.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama��s News Conference on the American Jobs Act

Now BP says they are siphoning off 5, 000 barrels a day, but it is still gushing out.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

It is a feeling that I still have to this day, albeit the edge has been taken off by the medication I now take.

CNN: Down the rabbit hole: Depression in the Premier League

From Austria to New Zealand, I have scoured the map for examples of easy-drinking bottles that will pair well with whatever you serve, whether it is turkey, ham, wild game or fish, or simply to round off a memorable day.

WSJ: Will Lyons on Wine: Christmas Cheer From the Cellar

Not many animals have enough charisma to pull off a wildly popular television series watched in 164 countries, but it is all in a day's work for South Africa's goofy meerkats, whose behaviour and cooperative social structure make these mongoose cousins unique.

BBC: Lonely Planet's top five wildlife parks in South Africa