US President Barack Obama’s hopes of preserving the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers were dealt a setback when Chuck Schumer, a top Democrat in the US Senate, said he would the oppose the agreement.

The burden of responsibility on midwives when assisting at home births is too great for them to be on their own, a coroner has said.

A couple who prepared for what they hoped would be an idyllic home birth experienced a nightmare instead, an inquest has heard.

Germany 4 Kazakhstan 1

Ireland’s Group C rivals Germany eased past lowly Kazakhstan 3-0 last night without deploying any strikers for the first time in a competitive match under coach Joachim Loew as they stayed top of the group.

An American journalist has been missing in Syria since he was kidnapped more than one month ago, his family said today, less than two years after he was held by government forces in Libya while covering that country’s civil war.

Ear To The Ground returns for a 20th series, Thursday on RTÉ One. Presenters are Helen Carroll, Darragh McCullough and Ella McSweeney.

Property editor Tommy Barker rounds up some of Munster’s, and the country’s biggest house movers in 2010.

YOU couldn’t grow trees like these in a lifetime, says the international selling agent for one of the most exceptional slices of Gulf Stream and west Cork coastline, some 96 acres, five houses – one as large as 10,000 sq ft – and a golf course.

THE views are the thing with a Kinsale bungalow/site for sale, with a €1.4 million price guide.

The White House has called on NBC News to set the record straight on “deceitful” editing of an interview with President George Bush, in which a correspondent asks whether comments about the president of Iran were directed at Barack Obama.

Friedrich Engel, a former Nazi SS officer involved in the massacre of Italian prisoners in the Second World War, has died. He was 97.

An former SS major known as the Butcher of Genoa was sentenced to seven years imprisonment today for a wartime massacre but, because he is 93, Freidrich Engel will not have to spend a minute behind bars.

Jerzy Engel has been sacked following Poland's poor showing at the World Cup.

The trial has resumed of a 93-year-old former Nazi SS officer who has denied ordering the shooting of 59 Italian prisoners more than 50 years ago.

Engel admitted his players let their heads drop after conceding the second goal in the 65th minute.

Austria has refused to deport a former SS officer to Italy where he is accused of being involved in the murder of more than 300 civilians.