The ethics watchdog said it ordered Irish organisations to return overseas donations because the donor said the funds were for political purposes — despite the claims of the Irish groups themselves.

A group campaigning for the repeal of the constitutional amendment that prohibits abortion has confirmed it returned funding it received from an international organisation following correspondence with the ethics watchdog.

Uruguay’s Senate has approved the world’s first national marketplace for legal marijuana – an audacious and risky experiment that puts the government in charge of growing, selling and using a drug that is illegal almost everywhere else.