Survivors and victims' families have returned to the site where 32 people died when the Costa Concordia ran aground a year ago today.

THE captain of the wrecked cruise ship that hit rocks off Italy sailed close to land to “show the ship to the port”, the liner’s owners said yesterday.

The number of people missing from a shipwreck off Italy rose to 29 tonight, as the captain was accused of sailing close to land to “make a salute”.

OPERATING profits at the Brown Thomas retail group more than doubled last year to €5.3 million, in spite of a drop in revenues.

A Premier League footballer walked free from court today after admitting lashing out at four people in a nightclub.

Wales 25 France 13

Wales are hoping to make it three from three in this year's U-18 Six Nations Festival in Cork but the young Welsh players will be sternly tested by France who are on the hunt for a first win.

Wales and Italy have named their sides to play each other at the Mardyke this Saturday at 2.30pm in the U-18 Six Nations Festival sponsored by the Bowen Group.

Police forces around the world are beginning to recognise bioterrorism as a serious threat despite sceptics who doubt that preventive measures are needed, the head of Interpol said in Singapore today.

Surgeons have placed a shunt in one of the formerly conjoined Egyptian twins to drain spinal fluid, and the two-year-old’s condition was downgraded today.

Doctors in New York have successfully completed the first of at least three operations on 18-month-old Siamese twins from the Philippines.

Two-year-old twin boys from Egypt who had been joined at the head spent their first night apart after 34-hour separation surgery and a doctor said today they were “in good shape.”