On an overcast Kilkenny afternoon about this time last year a seemingly bog standard two-year old maiden race was run at Gowran Park. Of the sixteen starters, most were unexposed types and although they represented many of our high profile training operations it didn’t quite feel like one of those golden maidens that hid unrevealed secrets for a sparkling future. Looks can sometimes deceive.

The Government should “regulate mosques” and gardaí should have the power to conduct random, unannounced checks on them, according to a Muslim cleric.

Saudi Arabia yesterday identified the suicide bomber who struck outside the US consulate in Jiddah as a Pakistani resident of the kingdom who arrived 12 years ago to work as a driver.

Two Turkish opposition journalists have been jailed for two years for publishing French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's controversial cover featuring a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

Iran has vowed to take international legal action against Saudi Arabia’s rulers over the crush of Muslim pilgrims at this year’s hajj, which killed at least 769 people, including 136 Iranians.

Some months ago, a pastor in Northern Ireland mangled an attempt to talk about Sharia law. He was ridiculed and laughed at, naturally.

Pamela Geller said she planned similar contests.

IS has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Texas exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in which the two gunmen were killed.

Retail recovering on Irish high streets, Cork's oldest gay bar closes, Bingham wins World snooker championship and Bressie writes about marriage equality. These are some of the latest and most read news stories on irishexaminer.com this morning.

People being investigated in a counter-terrorism investigation in Italy may have been planning an attack against the Vatican, one of the prosecutors leading the probe said.

Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist understood to have been a primary target of one of last weekend’s deadly Copenhagen shootings, has rounded on Danish police, whom he claimed had vastly underestimated the terror threat posed to the city.

A suspected gunman killed by police after two deadly shootings in Copenhagen was 22 years old and had a background in criminal gangs.

A man has died after at least one gunman opened fire on a cafe in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, which was hosting a freedom of speech debate.

At least as many anti-Muslim acts have taken place in France since the terror attacks this month as for all of last year, a leading Muslim group has reported.

Tens of thousands have marched through the Chechen capital to protest the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which again put a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on its cover.

At least 10 people have been killed in violent protests in the west African nation of Niger over French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.

Widening a European counter-terrorism dragnet, Greek authorities detained four terrorism suspects today, including a man believed to be the ringleader of a Belgian jihadi cell.

Nine insurgents have been killed during a raid by Afghan security forces backed by local citizens in the country’s north, an Afghan official said.

At least four people have died and dozens have been wounded in violent protests in Niger against French newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

A press photographer has been shot in Pakistan during a demonstration against Charlie Hebdo.

Hundreds of Irish readers have been left disappointed after the first edition of Charlie Hebdo since the Paris massacre was not delivered to newsagents as expected.

Paris police evacuated the Gare de l’Est train station today after a bomb threat, as authorities across Europe pressed on with efforts to prevent new violence after the worst terrorist attacks in decades.

Pakistani politicians have protested against the publication of images of Islam’s prophet in the satirical French magazine attacked by extremists last week.

France has ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism as it announced that 54 people had been arrested for those offences since the Paris terror attacks.

The first edition of Charlie Hebdo published after last week’s deadly attack by Islamist gunmen sold out within minutes at newspaper kiosks around France, with readers queuing up for copies to support the satirical weekly.

Je ne suis pas Charlie. 

The attacks in Paris last week, far from silencing debate or dissent, have in fact led to a greater than ever belief in freedom of speech among the public, writes Dan Buckley

The debate over the freedom of expression continues.

Charlie Hebdo's defiant new issue sold out before dawn around Paris, with scuffles at kiosks over dwindling copies of the paper depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

A top leader of Yemen’s al-Qaida branch has claimed responsibility for last week’s attack on a Paris newspaper when two masked gunmen killed 12 people.

Newsagents have said they “cannot act as a censor of what people want to access” after it emerged the current edition of Charlie Hebdo, containing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, will be on sale in Ireland.

One of the surviving members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff said the cover of the first edition since the massacre should help “open the door to forgiveness” for the terrorists who killed her colleagues.

Charlie Hebdo is releasing a new version of its irreverent and often offensive newspaper, defiantly putting a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover that drew immediate criticism and threats of more violence.

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo is publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover of its first issue since Islamic extremists killed 12 people at its offices.

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo is publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover of its first issue since Islamic extremists killed 12 people at its offices.

The editor in chief of French magazine Charlie Hebdo said he hopes this week’s edition makes people laugh despite the terrorist attack which claimed the lives of nine of its employees.

Liberty, equality, and fraternity have defined the French people for centuries. These values cannot be diluted in the face of terror, writes Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan

When adherents of a faith insist on privileged status for them and them alone, like the Pope in 1870 and some followers of Islam today, it is more than problematic, writes TP O’Mahony

The shooting of a jogger in a Paris suburb on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo massacre has been linked to the gunman who killed a policewoman and four hostages at a kosher supermarket, a prosecutor said.

As the French hostage crisis came to a bloody end last night with the loss of 20 lives, al-Qaeda claimed it had directed the attack against the satirical magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris "as revenge for the honour" of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Ó Ríordáin ‘expects’ referendum on blasphemy this year

They pushed boundaries, one cartoonist said. They were “absolutely crazy”, said another.