Timothy L O’Brien says describing Donald Trump’s racist baiting of four new Democratic congresswomen of different ethnic backgrounds as ‘strategic’ gives him too much credit.

26,000 migrants here ‘have no papers’ and they work for much less than the minimum wage, with no access to social welfare or health care. They are filling labour market gaps and so the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland wants their status regularised. Joyce Fegan reports.

With the longest shutdown in US history officially over, here's a look at how the federal government will get back to regular business:

The Probation Service and Rape Crisis Network Ireland have backed draft laws regarding the disclosure of information, electronic tagging and restricting foreign travels of convicted sex offenders.

German chancellor, Angela Merkel’s government has for the first time vetoed a possible Chinese takeover of a German company. This signals a toughening stance toward investments from that country.

A contingency fund should be set up to ensure sub-contractors are paid what they are owed after massive delays and liquidations of two main firms involved in a school building public-private partnership (PPP), some TDs and senators believe.

Seven people have been arrested in a British-Irish operation targeting a criminal gang suspected of smuggling Georgian nationals into Britain through Ireland.

Garda operations against feuding gangs and roaming burglary groups are believed to be driving a surge in the number of people being held on remand in prison.

New laws diverting fine defaulters from jail have driven a 40% drop in the number of committals to prison.

A bill which would reduce the voting age for local and European elections to 16 is due before the Seanad today.

Vladimir Putin was one of the first of 107.3m voters across 11 time zones to use one of 97,000 polling stations to vote in Russia’s faux presidential election yesterday.

Seamus O’Connor will be Ireland’s flag bearer tomorrow morning as the coldest Winter Olympics in decades gets underway with the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

President Donald Trump questioned the impartiality of the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who is planning to retire from the bureau in the months ahead after being buffeted by attacks over alleged anti-Trump bias in the agency.

Leo Varadkar’s €5m Strategic Communications Unit has been branded a “dangerous development” which was politically driven.

Latest:The Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history stockpiled weapons and ammunition over decades.

In this extract from the Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Michael Foy writes that Michael Collins’s intelligence operations had a reputation for omniscience and, though this was not the case, the myth became a political weapon.

Penal reformers have expressed concern over reported degrading ‘initiation’ rites for young adults in prisons, involving urination and defecation.

Financial advice from Grainne McGuinness

More than 11,000 young people across the country are long-term unemployed, according to the latest figures from the Department of Social Protection.

US president Donald Trump’s planned 1,600km barrier would transverse a Native Indian reservation, threatening its sovereignty and risking protests, says Bette Browne.            

Ireland's Ambassador to the UN will be questioned over our country's record on women's rights today.

A runaway tanker carrying volatile gas has slammed into other vehicles and burst into flames on a major road in Kenya, killing at least 39 people and injuring 10, officials said today.

The public are being encouraged to get trained in CPR and how to recognise cardiac arrest this CPR Awareness Week.

Charities have today called for a restoration of funding for community services and supports.

Uncertainties caused by Britain’s vote to leave the EU will cause eurozone economic growth to decelerate to 1.4% in 2017 from 1.6% this year, and downside risks are piling up, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday.

The State’s employment rights watchdog had a 20% increase in the number of calls to its customer service line last year and also increased the number of prosecutions carried out against employers.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan was minutes away from announcing a crucial plan to burn bondholders to the Dáil in March 2011 before then ECB president Jean Claude Trichet phoned him to insist he drop the measure.

Seven people have been charged after a cache of weapons including automatic rifles and machine pistols was recovered in the largest seizure of its kind in Britain.

A group that works with marginalised young men has said that the Portuguese model of not criminalising people for possessing drugs would have a “positive impact”, especially for those trying to overcome their addiction.

Pulsed light technology, a radically new method of ultraviolet disinfection, is an effective way of eradicating a diarrhea-causing parasite from Irish water systems, according to research.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defended the appointment of a pro-fracking company to lead a research study into the practice in Ireland.

Italian Davide Formolo was rewarded for going it alone with victory on stage four of the Giro d’Italia.

Comments made by Finance Minister Michael Noonan about people on the dole has provoked a backlash from social and unemployment groups and opposition parties.

Conservative party members have accused the Fianna Fáil “power elite” of turning their backs on “seriously minded Christians” by supporting the referendum on marriage equality in order to secure the general election “pink vote”.

Al-Jazeera English reporter Peter Greste has left Egypt after the president approved his deportation following more than a year behind bars in a case that was widely condemned by rights groups.

Four senior officials have been fired and seven others disciplined over the Shanghai New Year’s Eve stampede that killed 36 people.

US health officials are recommending an end to the nation’s lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men.

EastEnders villain Janine Butcher pushing her new husband Barry Evans off a cliff has been named as the best soap opera exit of all time.

US government workers cleaning out an old storage room at a research centre near Washington have made a startling discovery — decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box.

Unions and management at Bausch and Lomb in Waterford have asked for the Labour Relations Commission to intervene in their dispute.

A new telemedicine centre in Cork University Hospital (CUH) will help save lives and offer a better level of care to people in accident situations, especially at sea.

Twenty years ago, it is said, one person died every 10 seconds over 100 days as genocide gripped Rwanda, says Hannah McNeish.