IT’s any footballer’s dream – an opening game in the World Cup finals against Brazil. And that’s exactly what is in store for Ireland’s U17 Women’s team when they travel to Trinidad and Tobago next month.

A strike by Spirit Airlines pilots has shut down the budget carrier, stranding thousands of travellers.

The hero pilot who landed a jet safely on the Hudson River, saving scores of lives, is retiring after 30 years – and plans to campaign for better flight safety.

Anger and desperation was mounting today as unused aid stacked up inside quake-shattered Haiti.

THE world’s biggest cruise ship – boasting its own open air park and amphitheatre – was officially unveiled yesterday.

Banking giant UBS will pay US$780m (€619.8m) and turn over once-secret Swiss bank records to settle claims that it conspired to defraud the US government of taxes owed by thousands of American clients.

Janet Jackson has been forced to cancel three more concerts on her North American tour as she continues to battle a mystery illness.

Singer Janet Jackson has postponed three more shows because of an undisclosed illness.

A woman convicted of killing her three-year-old son by plunging him into scalding water as punishment for soiling his nappy has been sentenced to 60 years in prison.

A MAN smuggled a monkey onto an plane, stashing the furry, fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official said.

Anna Nicole Smith’s estranged mother today asked a Florida appeals court to overturn a judge’s decision over who controls where the starlet should be buried.

Anna Nicole Smith’s estranged mother told a judge tonight she wants to exhume her grandson – buried in the Bahamas – and bring his body to Texas to be buried along with his starlet mother in her home state.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH wanted to be buried in the Bahamas next to her son, her companion said yesterday as he made his court debut in the battle over the former model’s body.

JACK ABRAMOFF, the disgraced lobbyist at the heart of a Washington influence-peddling scandal that has rattled top Republicans, was sentenced to nearly six years in prison yesterday for fraud in the purchase of a Florida casino cruise line.

A bus carrying tourists from a cruise ship plunged more than 100 yards into a mountain ravine in northern Chile, killing 12 Americans and seriously injuring two others.

Backed by enlarged photographs of terrified prisoners at Abu Ghraib being menaced by dogs, a prosecutor in the court martial of a US Army dog handler said today that the defendant violated two tenets of his training: to treat prisoners humanely and to use the minimum amount of force necessary to ensure compliance.

The former US military intelligence chief at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison says he regrets not setting “appropriate controls” there, where detainees were bitten by dogs and assaulted and sexually humiliated by guards.

The court martial of a US Army dog handler charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq could help clarify who approved the harsh treatment that human rights advocates say amounted to torture.

A small village in Co Tipperary will be the location of a showbiz wedding later today as rocker Marilyn Manson marries dancer Dita Von Teese.

Rockers Depeche Mode have scrapped the first date of their US comeback tour due to power problems created by Hurricane Wilma.

Renee Zellweger has stunned Hollywood by marrying her country sweetheart Kenny Chesney.

A British student, who is an outstanding American footballer, is set to be deported from the US after a sex assault plea bargain kept him out of prison.

THREE Cubans making a treacherous trip on a rickety raft made with inner tubes and a hand-held sail were rescued by the Coast Guard and beach-goers.

Three Cubans making a treacherous trip in a rickety contraption made with inner tubes and a hand-held sail were rescued by the Coast Guard and beachgoers.

GUNMEN opened fire on an opposition rally in Haiti yesterday, killing at least six people, including a journalist, and wounding 34 more, as Haitians awaited the naming of a government.

Prosecutors could bring criminal charges over the gangplank collapse which killed 15 people trying to board a flagship British cruise liner, it emerged tonight.

Flags flew at half-mast throughout St Nazaire in France today as the industrial port city mourned the deaths of 15 people killed when a crowded gangway leading to the docked luxury ship Queen Mary 2 suddenly collapsed.

THE shape of ships to come was revealed yesterday as Cunard displayed the nearly completed Queen Mary 2, the world’s largest and most expensive cruise liner.

AN executive with the company that claims to have produced a human clone has been summoned to appear in court, and the company ordered to disclose the whereabouts of the baby girl and her mother.

An executive with the company that claims to have produced a human clone has been subpoenaed to appear in court, and the company ordered to disclose the whereabouts of the baby girl and her mother.

A 68-year-old man has been charged with manslaughter for allegedly punching an older man as they stood in a line for cinema tickets.

US motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson's stock price is holding up even as the overall market plunges.

Paul McCartney has announced a two-day concert stop in Las Vegas during his ‘‘Drivin’ USA’’ tour.

Paul McCartney has announced a two-day concert stop in Las Vegas during his upcoming ‘‘Drivin’ USA’’ tour.

Supermodel Niki Taylor is critical with severe liver damage after a car she was riding in crashed into a pole in Atlanta.