In The News

Malachy Browne heads up the New York Times’s visual investigations unit where he and his team investigate key events, from breaking news at home to war atrocities abroad, to piece together second-by-second what really happened. The work exposes the truth of events, particularly ones that are shrouded in misinformation, conspiracy theories and official denials. He and his team have won two Pulitzer...

On Wednesday, British prime minister Rishi Sunak stood in the rain outside 10 Downing Street and called a general election. But why? The Tories are performing poorly in the polls and his party is divided. Six weeks out from election day on July 4th, the odds of him winning look slim. By Irish standards, the campaign is long, so is there anything he can do in the run up to election day to change th...

A pair of trainers for the price of a sandwich; a Dyson-dupe hair straightener for a fraction of the real thing – just about everything you can think of buying, and random, bizarre things you couldn’t even imagine exist, are for sale via Temu, the ecommerce app that is taking over the online shopping world. With millions of bargains, it promises buyers can “shop like a billionaire”. In January 202...

On Tuesday, a leaked report revealed the Housing Commission’s criticism that the Government has not resolved the “fundamentally systemic” failures in the State’s housing system. The report from housing experts also suggests there is an underlying housing deficit in Ireland of up to 256,000 homes. Irish Times political correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones joins the podcast to discuss the most significan...

On Sunday afternoon, a helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and several of his delegates, including the country’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, crash-landed in a remote part of northwest Iran.  President Raisi was returning from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where he had officiated the opening of two dams, alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.  Three h...

Later this year, UK citizens will cast their votes in a general election. And, with polls showing Labour well ahead of the Tories, it appears Keir Starmer is set to become the next prime minister. This week, Mr Starmer pledged to “rebuild Britain” and set out what he called his first steps in government if his party wins the election, making it clear that Labour is ready to govern Britain. To most...

New Yorkers have been given a window into how some Dubliners behave in front of a camera. The portal is the city's newest public art installation; a two-way, real-time live stream between North Earl Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan's Flat Iron district. Except some lewd behaviour on the northside has got it shut down... twice! In The News producer, Declan Conlon, spoke to observers enjoying the...

The Government this week flagged its intention to further reduce the financial supports available to Ukrainian refugees. There will also be a review of supports for those seeking asylum under the international protection system. But after months of cuts, how much further can the Government go? Is Ireland's welcome for refugees over, and how much of this is about signalling to voters ahead of local...

A major new investigation by The Irish Times has uncovered details of the Kinahan cartel's property empire being secretly sold off in Dubai. Most of the real estate had been purchased in the name of Caoimhe Robinson, the wife of Daniel Kinahan, who is not accused of any criminality. The organised crime group has been put under pressure by sanctions imposed by US authorities two years ago, resultin...

On today's podcast, In the News producer Aideen Finnegan explains what we know about a proposal from Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21. The move comes as Ireland's efforts to curtail smoking have plateaued, with smoking even increasing among male teenagers. But will such a new law be workable in practice? Then we hear from Averil Power of t...

From cute dance videos to antifeminist and racist ones, the social media app is a growing part of young people’s lives. There are concerns, though, about sleep deprivation, mental health, attention span – and the messages these young teenagers they are being relentlessly fed. Irish Times parenting columnist Jen Hogan and journalist Patrick Freyne spent time with a group of teenagers, looking over...

Donald Trump had to sit in front of Stormy Daniels in a New York courtroom this week, as the former adult film star spoke in excruciating and very frank detail about her sexual encounter in 2006 with the former US president. It was a key week in the trial, ongoing since April, in which Trump is accused of hiding “hush money’ payments to Daniels in 2016 in a bid to influence the presidential electi...

On Monday spirits were lifted in Gaza when Hamas issued a statement declaring it would accept the terms of a ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar. But joy was short-lived. Israel quickly announced the deal did not go far enough towards releasing the hostages captured on October 7th. At the same time Israeli defence forces began their takeover of a crucial border crossing between Egypt and Ga...

The murder of a 20 year-old man in a chaotic gun attack on Dublin's southside may be a harbinger of a new gangland feud. Ballyfermot man, Josh Itseli, was gunned down in what's believed to be the first gangland shooting of the year. Three young men are in garda custody after Itseli's car was rammed to a halt and came under fire in Drimnagh in the early hours of Monday morning. He died at the scene...

Over the last twenty years or so, the funerals of significant criminal figures in Ireland have tended towards the extravagant. Last week's sober church service marking the passing of notorious heroin kingpin, Tony Felloni, was in sharp contrast to the modern day culture of gangland funerals. But quite apart from their eye-catching floral tributes and ostentatious shows of mourning, these occasions...

When "Niamh" began house-hunting in Dublin's suburbs, she soon noticed that viewings were often attended by agents who were using phones to live-stream the property to potential buyers in China - some of whom then outbid her. Estate agents have confirmed that it is now commonplace for wealthy Chinese nationals to bid strongly on houses in South Dublin. But why? The answers lie in the details of a...

On Wednesday, a multi-agency operation got to work, moving up to 290 migrants who had been sleeping in tents outside the International Protection Office (IPO) on Dublin’s Mount Street. Buses and taxis brought the men to centres in Citywest, Crooksling and Swords. The streets were cleaned, the tents removed and barriers erected. But there was no room on the buses for 30 men, and as Irish Times repo...

Nearly one billion Indian citizens are eligible to vote in a lengthy election that began on April 19th and runs until June. Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks set to retain power, in part thanks to the economic transformation that has lifted millions of Indians out of poverty on his watch. But Modi himself is an enigma. For her podcast series Looking for Modi Australian journalist Avani Dias set o...

Grocery inflation over the past 12 weeks was running at just under 3 per cent. During the same period last year it was almost 13 per cent. So our shopping baskets are still getting more expensive – but at a slower rate. So that is some of sort of good news, isn’t it? Energy prices are down from their peak, interest rates are set to fall and new entrants are expected to drive down prices in the ban...

A major diplomatic spat has erupted between the Irish and British governments over migration. It began when Minister for Justice Helen McEntee stated that more than 80 per cent of recent international applicants came to Ireland from the UK across the border with Northern Ireland. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made political hay with this 80 per cent figure, saying it proves his Rwanda scheme is d...

Snapshot, an Irish Times poll with Ipsos B&A, captures the issues that citizens are taking notice of. Every month, 1,000 people, over the age of 15 and from all around the country are asked an open-ended question on what they’ve noticed about the Government’s actions – and given space to add their own comments. The results, tracked since last July, are published every month in The Irish Times....

A group of 400 Irish artists have signed an online petition calling on singer Bambie Thug to boycott the Eurovision. The Macroom performer was chosen to represent Ireland in the upcoming competition in Sweden. But there have been persistent calls to refuse to take part as long as Israel is included in the line-up. The middle eastern country's participation has been described by protesters as 'art-...

Three decades ago, on April 7th 1994, the genocide and State-sponsored extermination of Rwanda’s minority Tutsi minority began. The country was gripped by a wave of unprecedented violence that lasted 100 days and resulted in the deaths of 500,000 men, women and children. “Here you had neighbours killing neighbours, priests killing parishioners, doctors killing patients, teachers killing students,”...

Convicted drug dealer, David Waldron, played a senior role in the Finglas-Cabra crime gang following the deaths of Martin 'Marlo' Hyland in 2006 and Eamon 'The Don' Dunne in 2010. But rather than attracting press attention in the way his associates had, Waldron flew under the radar to build his drugs empire out of the limelight. Last week, his lavish lifestyle was laid bare after he lost his four...

2024 had the hottest March ever recorded. And it was the 10th month in a row to break its record. On one day in March, the Antarctic was 38.5 degrees warmer than the average. Climate change is a terrifying reality. Even if that heat measure proves to be an anomaly we’re still in big trouble – because of the level of emissions we pump into the atmosphere. As climatologist and director of NASA’s God...