There was a time - not so long ago, though it already feels sepia-tinted - when London was the sort of place that tourists arrived in with stars in their eyes and left with shopping bags cutting off circulation at the fingers. Harrods bags, Selfridges bags, Mulberry bags, the bright yellow of Fortnum's peeking out of a suitcase being sat on in a hotel lobby. Europe's favourite grown-up playground; Manhattan's chic transatlantic sibling; Tokyo's idea of European swagger with better tailoring and more chaotic restaurants.
German and Romanian fighter jets scrambled on November 25 to track the latest in a series of drone incursions into Romania's airspace as Russia continues to attack targets just across the Danube River in neighboring Ukraine. Two drones entered the NATO-member's airspace and six were reported in Moldova, where one fell on the roof of a building but did not explode. This follows an incident last week when a Russian drone hit a Turkish LPG tanker moored on the Ukrainian side of the river.
The shape of the 2026 football inter-county season will become clearer in the coming days with the four provincial championship draws taking place in Croke Park on Thursday night, followed by the adoption of the national fixtures plan by Central Council at the weekend.
Image source, Getty Images Newcastle Red Bulls have signed Saracens hooker Samson Adejimi on loan for the rest of the season. Adejimi, 23, has scored eight tries in 14 games for Sarries, as well as 12 in 27 appearances for Championship side Ampthill. The English hooker will provide cover in that area for Newcastle after an injury to Italy international Hame Faiva in the Prem
"Heartbroken to share that Joan, my wife and partner for 50 years, has passed away," Branson, 75, wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. "She was the most wonderful mum and grandmum our kids and grandkids could have ever wished for. She was my best friend, my rock, my guiding light, my world. Love you forever, Joan x." No cause of death has been disclosed.
Despite backup generators, Airbus faced a critical fuel shortage. The company scrambled to order more diesel, but fuel suppliers were overwhelmed with calls from other affected customers. "We were a few hours from a datacenter shutdown," Jestin said. The stakes were high. Without datacenter access, production workers couldn't retrieve documentation or instructions. Even warehouse operations would have stalled if automated parts retrieval systems went offline. "Probably we could have survived one day," Jestin added, noting that the company resorted to manual workarounds.
Weather-beaten, biscuit coloured buildings; a magnificent Abbey; antiquated streets lined with bakeries, galleries, coffee shops; tardis-like antique labyrinths... Sherborne is a treasure trove destination. Beyond the streets, two castles (old and new) once owned by Sir Walter Raleigh, gaze wistfully at one another across an 18th-century lake and, beyond them, cattle-grazed meadows and forests roll on, and on into pure, West Country rural idyll.
The original concept, which looked more like an open-air, plant-filled pavilion, has been hit with a big dose of reality and replaced with a conventional "shed" at the same locations as the existing ones. However, rather than white plastic, the replacement security sheds will be clad in stone and steel, which will be less visible and less of an intrusion into the space.
It was Nawrocki's first trip to Prague since his election in June and came just under a week before a summit of presidents of the so-called Visegrad Group of Central European countries in Esztergom, Hungary, on December 3. The two men were keen to emphasize in the press briefing after their meeting that they were very much on the same page on most of the issues facing Europe, notably the war in Ukraine.
Zaporizhzhia, a city in southeastern Ukraine, at 8:48 P.M. the night before. About sixteen hours later, after travelling more than five hundred miles, it made a stop in Lviv, where I boarded. Milchenko and I were both bound for Poland. I was going to Kraków, on a hastily planned vacation. Milchenko was en route to Wrocław, where his mother lives. I planned to return to Ukraine in ten days. Milchenko didn't know if he would ever go back.
A report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has highlighted "serious governance issues" with the Department of Culture's oversight of state bodies, after the Arts Council's failed IT project.
The guidance from Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, to combat misogynist abuse, coercive control and the sharing of intimate images without consent comes into force on Tuesday and includes recommendations to prevent women being harried online. The measures suggest tech companies enforce limits on the number of responses to posts on platforms such as X, in a move that Ofcom hopes will reduce pile-ons, where individual users are deluged with abusive replies to their posts.
The big questions are: Why were Ireland under the cosh for so long against South Africa? Why was their discipline, not just at the scrum, so poor? And why did they compound so many sloppy errors?
A "massive" Ukrainian drone attack hit Russia's Krasnodar border region on Tuesday, injuring several, the region's governor said. Northward in the port city of Taganrog, Ukrainian strikes killed one person and wounded three others, Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said. Meanwhile in Ukraine, Russian drones and missiles bombarded the capital Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, triggering fires in at least two residential buildings, Ukrainian officials said.
The Taoiseach has backed Gráinne Seoige over her insistence to the Sunday Independent that she was not a "parachute" candidate imposed by him or Fianna Fáil headquarters.
Europe's leaders cannot stop talking about democracy. President Emmanuel Macron says he wants to kickstart a democratic resurgence, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, has warned of an axis of autocratic states targeting liberal democracy in Europe. Having promised to fight for what she calls European values, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has just announced a new democracy shield and a Centre for Democratic Resilience to prevent foreign interference and deal with external threats.
An apprentice electrician who was cleared of murder has received a wholly suspended sentence for assaulting a man while two others beat that man's friend to death on a Dublin street.
Argentina have lodged a complaint and called for an investigation into the alleged tunnel scuffle involving the England flanker Tom Curry and their head coach, Felipe Contepomi, after Sunday's game at Twickenham. In an extraordinary press conference after England's 27-23 victory, Contepomi described Curry as a bully and accused the flanker of shoving him in the tunnel and telling him to fuck off.
The New York space opened in October 2023, after undergoing an extensive and costly renovation, with an exhibition by Deborah Roberts. It has since hosted shows featuring international artists including Anne Rothenstein, Sarah Ball, Denzil Forrester and Andreas Eriksson. The artist and indigenous activist Santiago Yahuarcani currently has her first New York show in the venue (until 17 January).
Kaunietis was due to fly to Lithuania and was at the Ryanair gate at 7am but the gate was closed He smashed computers and glasses from a nearby bar and rolled a barrel table down a walkway A man who caused more than €9,400 worth of damage at Dublin Airport after he missed his flight has been jailed for one year. Lukas Kaunietis (29) pleaded guilty to three counts of criminal damage at Terminal One on March 17, 2025.
