We warmly welcome the re-election of Barack Obama as president of the US.

THE Vatican has entered into an unusual partnership with a small US biotech company to promote using adult stem cells for treating disease, rather than focusing research on embryonic stem cells.

The human remains found at Dysart, Portlaoise on the January 23, 2008 have today been formally identified as those of Tommy Thompson.

Gardaí say the remains discovered in a shallow grave in the Midlands have still to be formally identified.

GARDAÍ were quizzing a man last night in connection with the death of plasterer Tommy Thompson, whose remains were found in a shallow grave this week.

Gardaí in Portlaoise have arrested a man in connection with the disappearance of Englishman Tommy Thompson last year.

A post mortem is due to be carried out today on a body found in a shallow grave near Portlaoise in Co Laois yesterday.

TWO members of a lifeboat crew were airlifted to hospital yesterday, having been injured when a freak wave struck their vessel.

Gardai have stepped up their search for a 59 year old man who has been missing for nearly nine months.

Gardaí in the midlands have tonight called off the search for an Englishman missing since April and now feared to be dead.

Searches are continuing for a 59-year-old man who went missing in the Midlands eight months ago.

Gardaí in Portlaoise are carrying out searches for a 59-year-old man who has been missing from his home since April.

GARDAÍ are set to make a major appeal for help in solving the disappearance of plastering contractor Tommy Thompson, who has been missing from his home in the midlands since last April.

THE US government, alarmed by Americans’ increasing weight, has issued radical new dietary guidelines advising them to exercise for about an hour a day, eat more fruits and vegetables and slash their intakes of the fats found in processed foods.

His second term secured, President George Bush is reaching out and asking the 55 million people who voted to oust him from office to get behind the ambitious agenda he’s laid out for the next four years.

As public health officials scramble to find more flu vaccine and experts debate how to increase the US supply, presidential candidate John Kerry hopes voters will come to one conclusion – the severe shortage the United States now faces is President George Bush’s fault.

ANTI-WAR and human rights campaigners yesterday protested over a visit by US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson to Ireland.

The Bush administration is to ban the sale of diet supplement ephedra early next year.

The US government today banned the sale of ephedra, an herbal supplement used for weight control that has been linked to a number of deaths and harmful side effects.

Tens of thousands of Aids activists and health workers rallied worldwide today to mark World Aids Day and officials announced new initiatives and millions of pounds in new funding to combat the disease that has infected 40 million people, and kills more than 8,000 sufferers everyday.

Two UN agencies are launching a €4.9bn campaign to provide three million HIV-infected people in poor countries with the latest drugs available by the end of 2005.

Micheál Martin will witness the operation of New York’s ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants this week, just months before an identical ban is enforced in the republic.

HEALTH MINISTER Micheál Martin will get first-hand experience of the operation of the smoking ban in New York next week.

WITH only 29 days to the Special Olympics, Health Minister Micheál Martin is under intense pressure at home and abroad to reverse his controversial ban on teams from SARS hotspots coming to Ireland.

While China was confident about beating SARS, the outbreak worsened in Taiwan, and the US said it would back the island’s disease-fighting efforts by pushing its bid today for status in the World Health Organisation – something opposed by Beijing.

WORLD Health Organisation experts were being sent to a crowded province in China where SARS is spreading fast, while research published yesterday suggests the illness is much more deadly than other respiratory diseases.

THE World Health Organisation has warned that a highly contagious and deadly pneumonia-like illness of unknown cause is fast becoming a worldwide health threat.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced a $200m (€184m) grant today to help identify and solve the “grand challenges in global health” that the private sector has little financial incentive to tackle.

IRELAND should take measures to prepare for a series of likely bio-terrorist attacks, a top Bush administration official warned yesterday.

INITIATIVES to expand trade and investment and create US-Irish partnerships between the United States, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland were announced at the US-Ireland summit in Washington DC yesterday.

More high school pupils in the United States are keeping their virginity following a government-backed campaign urging teenagers to avoid pre-maritial sex, it was claimed today by family values campaigners.

ACTIVISTS trashed the European Commission's exhibition stand at the world AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain, yesterday demanding the European Union contribute more to a global fund against AIDS.

Tens of thousands of letters mailed around the US could have picked up trace amounts of anthrax while passing through a contaminated postal centre, the nation’s top anthrax investigator has said.

The US Government is to buy enough smallpox vaccine to treat the country's entire population as fears grow of new bioterrorism attacks.

George W Bush is coming under fire from his own party for his handling of the anthrax crisis.

The number of Americans taking anthrax antibiotics at the Government's advice is nearing 10,000.

US officials are today trying to calm mounting anthrax fears after two more cases of the desease were confirmed.

US President George Bush sternly rejected a Taliban offer to discuss handing over terror suspect Osama bin Laden to a third country as US jets began a second week of bombing.

A man was today in custody after raising fears of bio-terrorism when he sprayed a mystery substance into the air on a subway just outside the US capital, Washington DC.

A man of British descent has died after being diagnosed with a rare form of anthrax, hospital authorities said.

A man left fighting for his life in an American hospital after contracting a rare form of anthrax was not believed to be linked to a possible bio-terrorism attack, the US health secretary has said.

US President George W Bush will stand by his decision to limit federal funding for embryonic stem cell research regardless of what scientific breakthroughs may occur, two administration officials say.