The family of an Irish woman killed in the Malaysian air crash are still waiting for information on her remains.

A monitor looking at Apple’s anti-monopoly policies can resume his work but must stick to strict limits spelled out by the judge who appointed him, an appeal court panel has said.

Shots have been fired at a Hawaii school, causing injuries and prompting a lockdown.

A commuter train is likely to have been unmanned when it crashed into another train outside Chicago during Monday’s morning rush hour, officials said.

A Cork secondary school has described a fight between two young female pupils that went viral as “appalling and unacceptable” as three students were suspended last night and more face similar sanctions.

EXCESSIVE homework is a pointless exercise that is eroding family life, an education expert has claimed.

Airlines started flying a backlog of thousands of stranded passengers to and from Australia’s second-largest city today after an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano began to clear.

Two men on a flight from Chicago to Amsterdam were reportedly facing a terror charge today after US officials found a mobile phone taped to a medicine bottle, a knife and a box cutter in checked luggage.

ETHNIC violence in southern Kyrgyzstan has displaced 400,000 people, the UN said yesterday, dramatically increasing the official estimate of a crisis that has left throngs of desperate, fearful refugees without enough food and water in grim camps along the Uzbek border.

Tornadoes ripping through central Arkansas have killed at least three people, injured 25 others and destroyed several homes, authorities said today.

RYANAIR has been warned that it must comply with EU regulations and fully compensate passengers affected by the severe disruption to air travel.

Toyota is to recall its flagship Prius hybrid in Japan, it was reported today.

Six people were injured in an explosion inside the offices of the UN World Food Programme in the Pakistani capital today, police and witnesses said.

Canada became the third country to confirm human cases of swine flu as global health officials considered whether to raise the global pandemic alert level.

Health officials said today that they are concerned about a flu-like disease that has killed 57 people in Mexico, and that the outbreak could be linked to a new type of flu infecting people in the US.

Canadian rescuers searched freezing waters for 16 missing people after a helicopter heading to Atlantic oil fields reported mechanical problems and ditched in the sea off Newfoundland.

A plane crashed into the Hudson River in New York today, sending passengers fleeing for safety in the freezing water.

HIKERS in northern California have found clothing and personal items belonging to millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who went missing a year ago, police said yesterday.

TEN children ranging in age from one to 17 were left at hospitals on Wednesday under Nebraska’s unique safe haven law, which allows caregivers to abandon not only infants but also teenagers without fear of prosecution.

UN and private aid agencies today raced to prepare aid for victims of the devastating cyclone in Burma, but were awaiting a go-ahead from the ruling junta.

MOTORISTS have been warned against complacency in their attitude to speeding and drink-driving after new figures show that Ireland has entered the top 10 best performing EU countries in terms of road safety for the first time.

Pupils and staff at a nursery school are being offered screening for the dangerous E.coli stomach infection over fears a young girl may have contracted the bug.

Clouds of concern gathered for tonight’s lift-off of the US space shuttle Discovery as Nasa downgraded launch chances to 40% due to weather.

The European Commission today urged EU governments to live up to international commitments to cut back fish catches to sustainable levels, and help ensure the future survival of stocks.

Indonesia’s president begged the international community today to help fight the bird flu virus that has killed 30 people in his sprawling nation – with five new deaths and one infection confirmed this week alone.

Preliminary forensic results were not able to confirm if a captured black bear was responsible for killing a six-year-old girl and injuring her mother and brother, officials in Tennessee said today.

Indonesia said a 27-year-old woman died of bird flu as it prepared to scour the capital for infected poultry, while Malaysia and India expanded culls of chickens to try to contain the H5N1 virus.

Iranian and European officials today said they were eager to find a diplomatic solution to resolve the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear energy programme, which Iran’s foreign minister insisted was not being used to develop weapons.

An overcrowded minibus fell through ice after the driver took a shortcut across a frozen river, killing six passengers and injuring the other nine people on board, Russian emergency officials said today.

A British laboratory has found that two Turkish teenagers who died earlier this week had bird flu, authorities said, and a health official in Geneva said scientists were closing in on identifying the virus as the deadly H5N1 strain.

Conservation workers and volunteers used a high tide today to refloat about 110 pilot whales from a beach where they became stranded a day earlier on New Zealand’s South Island. At least 15 others died, a conservation official said.

Global trade talks next week risk bypassing the needs of the world’s poorest countries, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned today.

The elusive alligator discovered in a Los Angeles lake has become quite the celebrity, so a theme park in Florida wants to help the city capture it and maybe give it a little star treatment.

Conor Keane, Business Correspondent

Hundreds of thousands of people in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia will need food handouts in the coming months while a measles epidemic looms in the hardest-hit province, aid officials said today.

A small plane crashed into a house bordering a golf course in suburban Austin, Texas, and burst into flames, killing the six people aboard. Three people inside the luxury two-story home escaped unharmed.

Seven people were killed and 26 were injured today when a container of fireworks exploded, detonating a gas tank in a crowded market in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

Entertainment giants Disney has cancelled a trip by their cruise ship Magic after dozens of people contracted a flu-like stomach illness – the vessel’s second voyage in a row where passengers fell ill.

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.

The EU has appealed to consumers not to panic after evidence surfaced that mad cow disease may be more widespread than previously believed.