May the God of Heaven, in His justice and mercy, grant thee more prosperous fortunes, and in His own time, cause the sun of Freedom to shed its benign radiance on the Emerald Isle.

WHITEHOUSE: East Room

Is it time for the Commonwealth to shed its imperial trappings, personified by the role of the queen, and turn itself into a sort of democratic club, specialising in trade and human rights?

ECONOMIST: The Commonwealth

Knowing how that process has changed over time may shed light on the evolution of humans' superior intelligence, which relies on a long childhood.

ECONOMIST: An ancient child has been discovered

He feels lucky most of the time, though sometimes, he can't shed the melancholy that blankets him.

CNN: Poverty tours: A learning experience or simply gawking?

It takes some time, but it will allow you to shed a good deal of the misinformation sloshing around in your head and body currently and become a better-focused human dynamo capable of sustained achievement.

FORBES: How To Master Yourself, Your Unconscious, And The People Around You: Part 6

That's a lot for a boat that might sit in the shed for years at a time, waiting for the right conditions of smooth, thick ice.

FORBES: Shiver Me Timbers

It has shed 14, 000 full-time-equivalent jobs (5% of headcount) over the past 12 months and has disposed or closed 11 separate businesses since the start of the year.

ECONOMIST: Business this week

Industrial production in the EU remains more than 10 per cent below its pre-crisis peak from 2008, while manufacturing companies have shed 3.4m of the 35.4m workers they had at the same time.

CNN: Alarm over skills shortage in Europe

There were some public displays of emotion by former members of the papal staff: his chauffeur shed a few tears as the pontiff entered his Vatican limousine for the last time and a group of nuns also wept publicly - but Benedict himself remained dry-eyed.

BBC: The day Benedict XVI's papacy ended