In The News

This week, Australia became the first country in the world to impose a social media ban for children aged 16 and under. Welcomed by parents there but criticised by big tech and some free-speech advocates, the ban will see companies such as Facebook , Instagram and TikTok face massive fines if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the social media accounts of Australian children. And to stop...

The M in M50 stands for motorway – multiple lanes, fast speed limits and easy access to a network of national roads. More than 30 years ago it was designed as a modern piece of infrastructure to get the country moving. Now for many motorists for long stretches of the day - it’s a car park. So are there any quick fixes? Are more roads the answer, more tolls? Better public transport certainly is the...

The Department of Housing is an unexpected source of top tips for young adults on how to behave. “Help out around the house”, it advises, “Set house rules” and “Communicate with your family”. All generally sound advice but widely perceived as tone deaf as it is in an information campaign aimed at young people forced to move back into their family homes, to once again sleep in their childhood bedro...

Gardaí have opened a double murder investigation after a young boy, Tadhg Farrell (4) and his great-aunt Mary Holt (60) were killed in a suspected petrol bomb attack on a house in Co Offaly . Tadhg’s grandmother, who was also in the house on Saturday evening, is in critical condition in hospital having suffered extensive burns in the blaze at Castleview Park, Edenderry. The house has been attacked...

A leak of documents, including photographs, from the regime of Bashir al Assad has laid bare the bloody inner workings of his regime. More than 33,000 photographs of detainees, mostly believed to have been taken in 2015-2024, show the extent of the degradation and torture inflicted on them by Assad’s regime. For some families, the leak to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (...

The latest round of Ukraine-Russia peace talks have been the most complex and lengthy since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia began in February 2022. The latest round of talks started two weeks ago with a leaked 28-point draft peace proposal which alarmed Ukrainian and European officials who said that it was weighted too much in Moscow’s favour. The proposal would have seen Ukraine cede...

Uniformed gardaí are being issued with Taser guns as part of a six-month trial. It has long been a point of pride in Ireland that the police force are not armed unlike their European counterparts. And while these guns fire electric shocks and not bullets, this is change in how the gardaí police the streets. So does this move bring closer the day when the Garda will be an armed force? How will it c...

In a major military operation that began in September, the US administration continues to put pressure on Venezuela with navy warships massing in the Caribbean Sea. US president Donald Trump claims the air strikes on boats in the region are not acts of aggression but enforcement operations to prevent alleged drug trafficking. To date it is estimated that 83 people have been killed but it has not b...

New figures from the Residential Tenancies Board are stark: the number of eviction notices issued by landlords in the third quarter of this year increased by 35 per cent on the same period last year. This at a time when rents have never been higher. The reason given most frequently by landlords is that they are selling up. Why? New rent regulations which improve the rights of long-term tenants are...

Gerry Hutch, also known as The Monk, is eyeing up the Dáil seat left vacant by the resignation of Paschal Donohoe. Already it is believed that the convicted criminal, encouraged by his near success in last year’s general election, is using what will be a long build-up to next year’s byelection to get his campaign in order and to register hundreds, even thousands, of new voters in Dublin’s north in...

By Friday, the death toll in the Hong Kong apartment complex inferno had reached 128 with many more people unaccounted for. A blaze that began in one 32-storey apartment block on Wednesday quickly spread to seven of the eight towers in the densely populated complex. So how did one of the city’s deadliest ever blazes spread so quickly. The Kwong Fuk Estate, a public housing development, was undergo...

Ireland has been slow to name its airports after people. Streets and housing estates, yes, but as Ronan McGreevy points out, the State is more inclined to honour those who died for Ireland rather than those who lived for it. A Bill to rename Dublin Airport after former taoiseach Seán Lemass has been brought forward in the Dáil. It is not the first time the suggestion has been made; four years ago...

Heart disease is the leading causes of death of women in Ireland but yet, many of us still consider it a male illness. Cardiovascular disease claims more women’s lives than breast cancer, while women are more than two times more likely than men to die after a heart attack. The risk of heart disease substantially increases during menopause and yet, women and their doctors often underestimate the se...

Black Friday – a Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza imported from the US – isn’t just one day any more. Retailers, both online and in the shops, started advertising their Black Friday deals as soon as the Halloween decorations came down. And it’s set to continue into December. Irish shoppers have taken to bargain hunting with enthusiasm: a survey by PwC, which looked at Black Friday shopping habit...

This is an episode of our new sister podcast, Early Edition. It's in your feed this morning because -as a listener of In The News, we thought you might like enjoy it. But don't worry, you'll still find In The News in its usual spot. If you enjoy Early Edition - four of our top stories in ten minutes - please give it a follow on your podcast app. “Flying blind” and “budgeting like there’s no tomorr...

Denmark’s immigration laws have evolved over the past 20 years but the intention underpinning them is the same: only asylum seekers who have been invited should come to the country. Danish immigration rules are strict. In 2013, the Danes instituted a so-called “jewellery law” whereby jewellery and valuables could be taken from refugees entering the country to pay for their keep. And while the meas...

Pharma giant Eli Lilly manufactures the ingredients for its weight-loss drug Mounjaro and its diabetes drug Zepbound in Kinsale, Co Cork. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) has found that the unprecedented surge in Irish exports this year (exports to the US rose by 153 per cent to €71bn between January and May) was almost entirely driven by shipments of these ingredients. Ifac tracked about...

We're happy to share an episode Early Edition, a new podcast from The Irish Times that brings you four of our top stories in under ten minutes. Find it in your podcast app and hit follow to get updates each morning from Monday to Friday. On today's episode: The Minister for Justice and the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces must hand over the names and contact details of people who may have...

In 2024 the Criminal Assets Bureau seized assets and money totalling just over €17 million and sold 20 houses that had been bought with the proceeds of crime. The sale of 20 forfeited homes – the highest number to date in any one year – took in early €5 million. And next week, in an auction timed for Black Friday, a haul of designer goods, ranging from Canada Goose jackets and Chanel handbags to R...

So now we know, the World Cup play-off fixtures have been announced: Republic of Ireland will play Czech Republic away on March 26th, and if they win, they will play Denmark or North Macedonia in Dublin on March 31st. Northern Ireland will play Italy away, and if they win, they will be away again to Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina. The playoffs are knockout matches so it could all end on March 26t...

The Epstein files are a vast cache of documents which include legal files, witness testimonies and flight logs, collected during an extensive US Justice Department investigation into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his now jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein died in prison while awaiting trial having been charged with running a network of underage girls fo...

There has been a sense for some time that Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe’s next move was never going to be to some other role in Leinster House. Instead it has long been expected that his side gig as President of the Eurogroup since July 2020 would lead to a top job on the financial world stage - the IMF was mentioned regularly. The question was when might he hand in his notice. Yesterday Do...

Like a whole generation of young Irish men, John Mackey emigrated to the UK in the 1950s in search of work. At 87 and living alone in north London, the Kilkenny man who never married was sociable, charming and always dapper in his trilby hat. He was beloved by his nieces and nephews. On May 6th he headed to his local supermarket for some shopping and, as he’d increasingly stopped cooking for himse...

We're happy to share an episode Early Edition, a new podcast from The Irish Times that brings you four of our top stories in under ten minutes. Find it in your podcast app and hit follow to get updates each morning from Monday to Friday. On today's episode: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris asked his Polish counterpart for help in resolving a child abduction case involvin...

For generations, Irish speakers north and south of the Irish Border have fought to keep their language alive. And today, what was once dismissed as a fading tongue is undergoing an exhilarating and vibrant revival. The Republic’s newly elected president Catherine Connolly has made it clear the Irish language will play a central role during her time in office and says she wants to see the native to...