Bonfires were lit in loyalist areas across the the North last night as a traditional prelude to the annual July 12 Orange parades.

A bullet has been sent to the home of a Sinn Féin candidate standing in tomorrow's Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

A youth survived a gun attack when the weapon jammed, police said today.

The PSNI is investigating claims that a Sinn Féin activist was threatened with a gun while playing in a Gaelic football match in Co Derry over the weekend.

A list of Sinn Féin supporters was posted in a town today hours after two Catholic homes were targeted in sectarian petrol bomb attacks.

Sinn Fein has selected a former RUC reservist and Protestant lay preacher as its candidate in East Derry for the upcoming British general election.

Sinn Féin has selected a former member of the RUC as a Westminster candidate.

Sinn Féin has selected a former police officer to stand in the next Westminster elections, it emerged tonight.

A FORMER police officer in the North who served with three colleagues shot dead by the IRA has become the first SDLP councillor to join Sinn Féin since the Assembly elections, it emerged yesterday.

A councillor in Northern Ireland today became the first member of his party to switch allegiance to Sinn Féin after the Assembly election.

The nationalist SDLP was rocked today by the resignation from the party of one of its councillors.

DR BILLY LEONARD has worked as a democratically elected representative on Coleraine council in Co Derry.

A car carrying Martin McGuinness was attacked by loyalists today, Sinn Féin claimed.