In The News

Defying pre-election predictions, and even exit polls, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and his right-wing ultra nationalist bloc is set to have the biggest number of seats in the 120 seat Knesset but will not reach a majority. In this week’s Israel election, with few votes yet to be counted, he has 54 seats, while newcomer Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc has 49. Neither is on track to reach the 61 seat...

Liberty Recycling is a well-known Irish charity associated with second-hand clothes and the bulk export of rags, not luxury goods. But all that changed last week when the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau revealed that it had carried out raids on several premises associated with people involved with the charity and seized Rolex watches, jewellery, luxury cars and Louis Vuitton handbags. It emer...

It’s been a week of dramatic electoral upsets that show that right-wing waves moving across Latin America and Europe can be stopped. Lula’s dramatic comeback to win Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil has put a halt to the right-wing advance across Latin America. At the same time in Serbia, what started as a student protest against corruption, became a political force capable of toppling Alek...

On the morning of Monday, March 31st, 2003, a woman answered the door of her house in south Dublin. A man purporting to work as a TV technician was standing on the doorstep. The attack that followed shocked the city and prompted a lengthy Garda investigation. But it has remained unsolved. Earlier this month, a man was arrested and charged with rape, aggravated burglary and false imprisonment. Cono...

One of the world’s most recognisable faces in entertainment, Russell Brand, is on trial in a London court. He has pleaded not guilty to seven charges. Three of rape, three of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The cases are historical, dating as far back as 1999, when Brand was 24 years old. Who has the trial heard from, how is Brand conducting himself on the way into court each day...

‘You hack her phone then you kill her – that’s what one Israeli intelligence officer told Naza director Yuval Abraham about their tactics in Gaza. The shocking and disturbing film, comprising interviews with 24 Israeli military-intelligence officers and soldiers, reveals the systems behind the mass slaughter of civilians by Israel during the continuing assault on Gaza. Made by Abraham and Rachel S...

The four-month dispute between criminal defence solicitors in the free legal aid system and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan took a turn for the worse this week, with an escalation in both action and rhetoric. Solicitors have now withdrawn their services to include people held in custody and cases involving children. As the backlog in the courts grows, the Minister accused protesting solicitor...

In recent months, a disturbing social media trend has emerged online in Ireland. Groups of masked teenage boys are stealing cars, taunting Gardaí, driving at high speeds and in some cases, against oncoming traffic. Recently Irish Times social affairs correspondent Kitty Holland spoke to the father of a young teenage boy, who has become part of a group stealing cars and sharing the footage online....

In Paris and beyond last weekend, half a million people took to the streets in protest. Those highlighting the cost-of-living crisis joined the ongoing student protest over the state of the French public education system. But the anti-Government sentiment turned violent on Saturday, with historic public buildings set alight, shops destroyed and looted, and over two thousand arrests being made. Wit...

In Texas last week, Elon Musk told an invited audience they were about to “see some crazy stuff tonight”. It turned out to be a new version of Tesla’s Roadster sports car, this one equipped with thrusters to make the electric car fly. As the audience gasped, the Roadster sped up a steep ramp, took off, did a spin and then fell to the ground aided by air jets. There was no driver at the wheel. His...

A man once regarded as one of the most feared loyalist paramilitary commanders of the Troubles now lives a largely quiet life in Scotland. But the legacy of Johnny Adair remains one of violence and intimidation. At the height of his power in the 1990s, Adair was blamed for dozens of killings and viewed by both the British and Irish governments as a serious threat to peace. Feared by republicans, n...

Ammi Burke, a young solicitor from Castlebar, Co Mayo, was dismissed by Arthur Cox Solicitors in November 2019 and is now on her third legal challenge to her dismissal. In the Labour Court in Dublin this week, her former employer s laid out its reasons for the dismissal and the events that led up to it that action . Burke rejected Arthur Cox’s assertions , and more will be heard from her when the...

Bestselling author Sally Rooney has announced that her publisher will no longer supply her books to the UK market. Why? Books editor Martin Doyle explains. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Tuesday morning, the country awoke to news that a house fire in Waterford had claimed the lives of four members of the same family. Within hours of the blaze, Gardaí ruled out an accidental cause and upgraded the investigation to a murder inquiry. Though the investigation is at an early stage, detectives believe the attack was related to a drug debt. It’s thought a petrol bomb was thrown at the...

US president Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed an “energy ceasefire” effective immediately, warning either side against breaking the deal. The only problem was that the warring neighbours, who have made attacking each other’s energy plants a key plank of their attack strategy, appeared not to have even heard of the agreement. The statement came after another torri...

On Wednesday Ireland is facing the biggest coordinated public sector strike since 2009. To find out what it is about, why it hasn't been averted despite the Government's offer to talk with unions and whether it still could be called off, we talk to Irish Times work correspondent Emmet Malone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before the summer court recess George Gibney (77), former Irish Olympic swimming coach, was found guilty of sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s. The jury found him guilty of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape of children. One of Ireland’s most notorious paedophiles, he was extradited from Florida last year where he had escaped justice for decades. Due to r...

For years Victor Spaggiari was a familiar sight on the streets of Galway. A homeless man, he lived in the Cope Hostel and spent his days sitting on a bench in the city. He spoke little, caused no trouble and seemed content. When he died in 2024 aged 65, his funeral was small and he was buried in the city, far from his Italian birthplace. Then, when his will went to probate it emerged that Victor w...

It’s a story that could have come straight out a John le Carré thriller. The retired German spy chief accused of selling classified information amounting to thousands of secret documents; an alleged act of treason that continued for years and was only uncovered during a kidnapping investigation involving a steakhouse heiress and ex-Israeli spies. August Hanning, head of the BND foreign intelligenc...

Jack Horgan-Jones has the latest on a row that has blown up in the aftermath of Tuesday's Budget, reopening RTÉ's rolling funding crisis and leaving questions unanswered about why Minister for Media Patrick O'Donovan "reneged" on a funding commitment to the broadcaster. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain to protest the country’s worsening housing crisis. The demonstrations were triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Maria del Carmen Abascal, from her home in Madrid. Known in Spain simply as Maricarmen, she had lived in the same apartment for more than seven decades and was evicted after it was sold...

Christa Pike spent 30 years in jail in Tennessee on death row, waiting for the day the state would kill her. When that day finally came, last week, she was first given a lethal injection, then a second one when the first dose failed. She survived that too and the 50-year-old convicted murderer was taken to hospital where she was placed on life support. So who was Colleen Slemmer, her teenage victi...

Ministers Simon Harris and Jack Chambers have been explaining how the Government will tax and spend in the year ahead. They have promised to deliver changes we will feel in our daily lives. But will you really feel a difference in your daily life? Consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope has been listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wicklow businessman Brendan Kavanagh (61) has an entrepreneurial skill for building connections and seeing gaps in the market. That has led him to set up multiple businesses including the successful education-technology focused Olive Group. But what happens when some of his high profile business relationships turn sour? TV sports pundit and psychotherapist Richie Sadlier has a tale to tell; so too...

At the Labour Party conference last week, British prime minister Andy Burnham surprised delegates by putting the prospect of rejoining the EU firmly on the political agenda. In a rousing speech he said the Brexit vote in 2016 had left the country weaker and failed to allow Britain to “take back control” of its borders and rules, as promised by the Leave campaign. “Brexit has done more harm than go...