Show me the way to Vermont

Pictured last week in the Yarra Valley, near Melbourne in Australia:

Phoebe Prince

This is a story which has got no attention in the Irish press, although it concerns an Irish girl who recently moved to Massachusetts (South Hadley) from County Clare, went to school in South Hadley, and then killed herself as a result of bullying there.

Speaking as someone who moved from Ireland to Massachusetts also, the whole "US High School" thing is very confusing and I can only imagine what it would be like to move from a small village in Clare into a US high school.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/03/30/standing_up_for_phoebe

Ireland leaves the PIIGSty

Ireland famously was included in the "PIIGS" group - Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. But now Ireland may have exited the group, having implemented tight budget controls:

“Ireland has left the pigsty for the time being and it has come out smelling of roses,” said Stuart Thomson, who helps oversee more than $100 billion as chief market economist at Ignis Asset Management in Glasgow, Scotland. “It doesn’t face the same problems that the southern Mediterraneans face this year.”

From Bloomberg this morning.