A 22-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his mother at their Mayo home while he was high on drugs.

A man has told a Mayo murder trial that he was having his morning tea, when a half-naked teenager approached his kitchen window and told him he had been abducted by aliens.

Well, fancy that. Copper's, that landmark Irish institution on Harcourt Street, is named after a real man.

IT was difficult leaving Cork last Saturday afternoon given the magnificent autumnal sunshine and the twin attractions of a good old fashioned dogfight between Cork Con and Young Munster in the AIL followed by the seasonal offering of jazz. At least the alternative had its attractions.

WITH the World Cup about to start, people will inevitably regret that Ireland are not there. “France are going to the World Cup,” as Roy Keane rather infamously said, “get over it!”

WITH the growing international tension over Georgia some have been bemoaning the lack of strong statesmen. George W Bush professes to be an ardent admirer of Winston Churchill who was man of the century for a great many people.

Dwain Chambers is likely to decide in the next few days whether to challenge his lifetime Olympic suspension by taking legal action against the British Olympic Association's by-law.

Drug cheat Dwain Chambers has been told to come clean over what he knows about the use of banned substances by athletes in order to help in the battle to eradicate it from the sport.

THE Scarlets scored five tries to secure Magners League victory over Welsh regional rivals the Dragons at Stradey Park.

THE golden jubilee of the Cork Business Association will be celebrated with a concert next month.

Charlotte Church turned to her rugby player boyfriend Gavin Henson after discovering a stalker outside her Cardiff, Wales, home last week.

OVERSEAS coaches recruited to work in British sports are set to be screened to ensure they are not tainted by drugs.

DEEP water trawling is causing widespread damage to cold-water coral reefs of Ireland and Britain, it was claimed yesterday.

ARE the British learning, or is the charging of the British soldiers with war crimes in Iraq just a cosmetic exercise? In this country it seemed the British did not learn from their mistakes.

A high-speed train derailed in eastern Australia, injuring more than 120 passengers as its carriages slammed into trees and ploughed through fields alongside the tracks.

Britain’s 271 Olympic competitors are each to be given a medical pack of ’safe’ drugs to treat minor ailments while they are in Athens and warned not to buy off-the-shelf products from local chemists.

FA CHIEFS were yesterday quizzed by MPs over why Rio Ferdinand is still being paid a “massive salary” by Manchester United despite being suspended for eight months for missing a drugs test.

Football will be allowed to opt out of several key parts of the worldwide code on drugs in sport, it emerged today.

Rio Ferdinand’s former West Ham manager Harry Redknapp has labelled the eight-month drugs ban meted out to the Manchester United and England defender “harsh”.

Rio Ferdinand’s eight-month suspension for failing to take a drugs test is either “very draconian” or very light – depending on which expert observer you listen to.

Hundreds of promotional posters for the new Star Wars film have been stolen by film fans.

An unemployed man was charged with two counts of murder today in connection with the gruesome killings of Fiji’s Red Cross chief and his companion.

Police are hunting the killers of Fiji's Red Cross chief, who played a major role in aiding hostages during last year's nationalist coup.