When Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud — MbS — assumed power in Saudia Arabia, he did so without the endorsement of an election. The idea is unknown in this family-run kingdom, where power is inherited and uncontestable.

Michael Clifford Taxpayers will probably foot the bill for ‘campaign of calumny’ against Maurice McCabe, writes Michael Clifford.

As Rally Portugal begins in earnest today, Craig Breen scarcely needs reminding that he is the only driver from within the top echelon of the World Rally Championship yet to win a round of the series.

Nick McCarthy says he’ll be ready to rock if he’s selected by Leinster in next month’s Champions Cup final in Bilbao.

Think the squabbles between ‘The Grand Tour’ presenters are just for show? Think again. Georgia Humphreys finds that out first-hand as she discusses the second series of their show with them.

Paul Rouse tackles the wage packets of some of your beloved, and less so, soccer stars and whether or not they deserve the kind of money they make.

All the week’s entertainment news

Claudio Ranieri has always been a modest man, as well as a family man.

Bosnia & Herzegovina 1 Republic of Ireland 1: After the fog of Zenica, we’re guaranteed clarity in Dublin on Monday night, with this European Championship play-off against Bosnia still finely poised.

The man behind a pantheon of villains made his name as a ‘rough and muscular’ update of Dracula

The McLoughlin brothers Luke and Jack starred as Summerhill College Sligo saw off brave Presentation Brothers Cork 72-54 in the Boys U16A All Ireland School Cup final yesterday.

Comedy and classical music aren’t mutually exclusive, as a pair of virtuoso players will prove at the NCH tonight, writes Jo Kerrigan.

To find Marian Keyes eating the face off Marian Finucane on Twitter is like finding your budgie savaging your alsatian.

English singer-songwriter Jessie Ware and London electro remix duo Gorgon City will headline MTV Crashes Cork, a one-off event later this month in City Hall.

Franck Ribery could face a suspension if he refuses to represent his country again, according to Uefa president Michel Platini.

ELECTRIC IRELAND MFC ALL-IRELAND SEMI-FINAL

I chanced upon an early morning softball game in a park near where I live on Sunday.

Astronomers announced that they had discovered what many consider the holy grail of their field: ripples in the fabric of space-time that are echoes of the massive expansion of the universe that took place just after the Big Bang.

It hardly carried the glamour or gravitas of an induction into Cooperstown or Springfield, it wasn’t like there was a Larry Bird to welcome his Magic Johnson into this particular Hall of Fame, but there was something particularly pleasing about seeing Ronnie Whelan being honoured at the FAI International Awards on Sunday.

The western world has not seen an empire collapse as spectacularly as the Catholic Church since the Habsburg and British empires began to lose their unquestioned — and unquestionable — power just over a century ago. On this historical scale the relatively brief terror of communism is irrelevant.

Two of the world’s superpowers are to battle it out on Irish soil — for the coveted ancient title of High King of Ireland.

Leinster 44 Biarritz 16

Kerry footballer and former teacher Paul Galvin and the board of management at St Brendan’s College, Killarney, have paid €8,000 to a pupil who sued them jointly after being allegedly struck by a blackboard duster in a classroom three years ago.

Cristiano Ronaldo held his hands above his head almost in apology; in fact he looked almost as forlorn as when Denis Law scored against his beloved United back in 1974. But we always knew it was going to happen.

Ireland centre Gordon D’Arcy has conceded this evening’s clash with South Africa is a must-win game in the wake of four Test defeats in a row.

Suddenly, on Tuesday afternoon, those feelgood Olympic aspirations about inspiring a generation felt a little parochial and complacent.

The widower of honeymooner Michaela McAreavey called out at the trial of two men accused of her murder to brand a defence lawyer a liar.

Wojciech Szczesny suffered a hugely disappointing start to his Euro 2012 campaign as he was sent off in Poland’s incident-filled draw against Greece in the opening match.

This is as good a day as any to throw in the ball and announce, with a suitable fanfare of mixed metaphors of course, that the much-anticipated summer of sport has begun.

TO her credit, Imelda May has achieved the improbable, attaining mainstream success as a rockabilly artiste.

CON SHEEHAN (Clonmel BC),the defending champion, andthe new pretender to the throne, Tommy McCarthy (Oliver Plunkett, Belfast), served up the best performance of an action packed weekend when they met in the quarter finals of the heavyweight division at the Elite national boxing championships at the National Stadium on Saturday night.

PROTESTERS and regime supporters skirmished in a second day of rock-throwing battles at a central Cairo square while new lawlessness spread around the city.

No matter how many months he had been sober, no matter how, objectively, he knew that drinking was the road to hell, the visceral craving for alcohol overcame his resolution and he repeatedly relapsed.

ONE of the most damning indictments of Scolari’s reign was that even Nice Bloke Wilkins was more capable of changing a game than the World Cup winning boss as he demonstrated at Watford last Saturday.

A BIT like the man himself, I was guilty of a bad miss the other night, only catching up with RTÉ’s Champions League coverage from Madrid when the Atletico-Liverpool match was all over and the panel were already in gloves and masks performing what looked like a pretty grisly post-mortem on Robbie Keane.

TWO Irish volunteers who rescued a severely disabled young boy from certain death are now sponsoring him to live at a home for children with special needs in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

Among the middle classes and the affluent, cocaine is the recreational drug of choice. In the aftermath of this week’s trial in Cork Allan Prosser looks at its history, its place in popular culture, and the threat it poses to society.

The Examiner’s football correspondent Liam Mackey likes a good argument when he hears it, and he’s got strong views of his own.

THE mother of the teenage gunman who killed eight people at a busy shopping centre earlier this month apologised yesterday for her son’s crime and said she did her best raising him.