Barack Obama will make history today when he is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States – the first black American to hold the post.

THE Irish exchange plunged further into negative territory yesterday while the Far East markets dropped significantly and the US was closed for Martin Luther King Day.

New Orleans’ controversial mayor has been forced to apologise after claiming Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the war in Iraq and predicting the city would be “chocolate” again.

US stocks were little changed today as a slowdown in retail sales and profit warnings from Lucent Technologies and Tyco International Ltd. kept Wall Street investors from building on earlier gains. The major indexes finished the week flat.

Confident US investors, buoyed by positive earnings reports from the financial sector and bullish corporate outlooks for 2005, returned to the market today after weeks of uncertainty, pushing stocks sharply higher.

Former SDLP leader John Hume has received another academic honour, an American university announced today.

Falls in banking and oil stocks weighed on the London market, keeping the FTSE 100 Index at three-month lows.

Falls in banking and oil stocks weighed on the London market today, keeping the FTSE 100 Index at three-month lows.

Trading on the London market was lacklustre today despite the battle for Safeway hotting up with the emergence of a fifth potential bidder.