Saracens’ trophy hunters may not have achieved greatness yet, but Billy Vunipola believes they are striving to bring Barcelona-esque levels of domination to European rugby.

Eddie Jones insists the key to defeating Fiji and extending England’s winning streak to 12 Tests is to “bore them to death”.

IAAF president Seb Coe is in favour of erasing world records in international athletics set by suspected drugs cheats, according to UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner.

Des O’Sullivan says La Gommeuse is from the fabulous Koch collection.

Scotland’s Catriona Matthew will make her eighth Solheim Cup appearance next month after being handed a wild card spot.

Get a slice of Big Apple style with inspired use of colour, savvy use of space and soft

Julie McCarthy produced a sensational homeward half performance in her second round at the Scottish Girls U16 Championship at Strathmore yesterday to storm to the title and fire an early- season warning to her rivals.

A Norwegian man who purchased €17.4 worth of bitcoins and then promptly forgot about it for four years, was able to buy an apartment in central Oslo thanks to massive appreciation of the virtual currency.

Poland’s Catholic Church has said it will not pay compensation to victims of priests who sexually abused children.

A Good Day To Die Hard (15A) arrives to mark the 25th anniversary of the original Die Hard (1988), and while Die Hard 4.0 nudged John McClane (Bruce Willis) into James Bond territory, it remained good, clean, trashy fun, not least when Willis launched a stolen cab at a helicopter.

Former New York mayor Ed Koch, the combative politician who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during three City Hall terms, has died aged 88.

Germany’s central bank sharply cut its 2013 economic growth forecast to 0.4% today, while poor industrial production figures underlined expectations of a weak winter for Europe’s biggest economy.

The Dinner

The verdict is in: Global warming is real and greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity are the main cause.

President Barack Obama’s re-election team plans to spend $25m (€19.15m) on advertising this month, a dramatic escalation of its media presence in a handful of states that could determine the outcome on Nov 6.

Millions of German TV viewers saw a man seriously injure himself trying to jump over a car on a live show.

IRELAND’S U21 side suffered a disappointing 1-0 loss to Switzerland in a UEFA Championships qualifier they could have won in Lugano.

OWEN GARVAN played a captain’s role by popping up four minutes into injury-time to seal a precious point for the Irish under-21 team against Switzerland at the RSC last night.

Jude Law has become a father for the fourth time.

FC Zurich 2 Real Madrid 5

General Motors, which turned the concept of a “car for every purse and purpose” into a global icon, will file for bankruptcy protection today, US government sources said.

Royal XV 25 British and Irish Lions 37

THE British and Irish Lions will face a team made up mainly of players from the GWK Griquas and Platinum Leopards in their opening tour match on May 30. A Royal XV side, which the Lions will face at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Phokeng, will be led by flanker Wilhelm Koch.

Receding water revealed widespread damage today in Iowa’s second-largest city, Cedar Rapids, caused by a record flood peak, while other Iowa cities faced rivers that were still rising, following a series of storms that left at least 15 people dead.

Rapper Foxy Brown has parted ways with her manager Chaz Williams, accusing him of compiling her new album "without her approval" during her time in jail.

Lorena Ochoa maintained her recent fine form with a seven-under-par 66 in the first round of the Corona Championship.

Austrian police today said they were "quite sure" a young woman found this week was Natascha Kampusch who vanished on her way to school on March 2, 1998, when she was 10.

Scottish pair Janice Moodie and Catriona Matthew, winning Curtis Cup team-mates nine years ago, took Europe nearer a third Solheim Cup victory in Sweden this evening.

MOTHER-TO-BE Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Suzann Pettersen, the baby of the team, kept Europe in front after day one of the Solheim Cup match in Sweden yesterday.

Mother-to-be Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Suzann Pettersen, the baby of the team, kept Europe in front after day one of the Solheim Cup match in Sweden today.

THE loss yesterday of the bowler/batsman John Power for the Royal Liver Senior Cup tie against CYM was disappointing news for a Cork County team intent on rewriting history in the competition.

THE Cork County cricket team are heading into their first second-round game in the Royal Liver “with a degree of optimism” after their historic first victory in the competition last week.

SCIENTISTS have confirmed the identity of the virus that causes the lethal new disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, marking an important step toward developing new drugs to combat the disease.

Tee-off times in the second round of the World Golf Championships-Accenture match play championship at La Costa, Carlsbad, California, on Thursday

A teenager upset by complaints about his driving shot four neighbours, killing two of them, then went on a 20-mile shooting spree, apparently targeting people at random, police said.

A TEENAGER apparently angered

A US teenager went on a shooting spree in eastern Oklahoma that left two people dead and at least seven wounded.

THE niece of US president George W Bush was led away in handcuffs yesterday after a judge sentenced her to 10 days in jail for violating the terms of her drug treatment programme.

Four of the six policemen who admitted setting dogs on three black men in South Africa have been found guilty of assault.