A senior Ulster Unionist was tonight replaced as chief whip amid claims from the DUP he was sacked after clashing with his party’s would-be partners – the UK's Conservative Party.

Northern Sports Minister Edwin Poots will face tough questions at Stormont today over plans to build a £240m (€318.9m) stadium project at the former Maze paramilitary prison.

An Irish-language commissioner should be appointed to oversee the development of a strategy to protect the language in the North, the Culture minister was told today.

Unionists are fed up with having the Irish language thrown in their faces at the Assembly, Stormont heard today.

A SISTER of the late soccer legend George Best yesterday described him as a person that could never say no.

PLANS to build a multi-sports stadium at the former Maze prison site cannot go ahead until questions over Windsor Park’s future are resolved, it was claimed yesterday.

Northern Ireland international David Healy is to head up a memorial trust for George Best.

Soccer hero George Best is to be immortalised on a million commemorative £5 bank notes, it was announced today.

George Best sister’s French holiday home has been destroyed in an arson attack, it was revealed today.

George Best’s coffin will be brought to Northern Ireland tomorrow by a private plane.

Ulster Unionist Party education spokesman David McNarry has welcomed the British government decision to backdate teacher's pay in Northern Ireland with a funding package worth £6.5m (€9.3m).

At the end of the first count in the Ulster Unionist leadership battle there was 29 votes between Sir Reg Empey and Alan McFarland.

Three candidates bidding to succeed David Trimble as Ulster Unionist leader were facing a packed meeting of their ruling council in Belfast this evening to pitch their vision for the party.

Assembly committees should be established to scrutinise the work of direct rule ministers in Northern Ireland, the British government was told today.

A senior Ulster unionist has hit out at a speech made by leading anti-agreement MP, Jeffrey Donaldson.

SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams yesterday brushed aside claims that his party is glorifying violence by advertising IRA t-shirts on its new website.

Ulster Unionist Party members were reviewing their security tonight after a mail bomb sent to leader David Trimble partially exploded.

The offer of an electoral pact between parties supporting the Good Friday Agreement remained open today as the Northern Ireland parties prepared to nominate Westminster candidates.

Republicans need to up the pace over the issue of arms decommissioning, Ulster Unionists claimed today.