A list of US candidates who made history in the midterm elections

What is Environment Minister Denis Naughten’s problem with deposit-refunds on bottles, cans and plastic bottles, and a ban on cups and tableware that can’t be composted or used again?

Irish Coast Guard volunteers are set to get the keys to a US city after marching in its St Patrick’s Day Parade this weekend.

Two Republican senators have said that President Donald Trump would be wise to keep a public silence on an independent investigation into his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia in the wake of news reports he sought to fire the special counsel.

Brutally cold conditions are expected to envelop the US east coast for most of the weekend, prompting wind chill warnings from Virginia to Vermont.

Bone-chilling cold has gripped the middle of the US, putting paid to some new year's celebrations and leading to at least two deaths attributed to exposure to the elements.

Forecasters in the US warned of sub-zero arctic air and dangerously cold wind chills across much of the country as snow continued to pile up in one city which already has nearly 63ins on the ground.

President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation to scale back two sprawling national monuments in Utah, pledging to "reverse federal overreach and restore the rights of this land to your citizens".

Two more women have accused former president George HW Bush of groping them.

A second actress has accused former president George HW Bush of inappropriate touching.

As the film IT scares a whole new generation, Ed Power looks at why Stephen King’s stories are as popular as ever

The sister of Irish businessman Jason Corbett testified that her brother told her several times, starting a year before he died, that he wanted to move back to Ireland.

Failure to repeal Obamacare has exposed the fault lines in the US party, write Stephen Peoples and Thomas Beaumont

Senators in the US have rejected a measure to repeal parts of former president Barack Obama's healthcare law after a night of suspense, dealing a serious blow to President Donald Trump's agenda.

The latest Republican effort to repeal "Obamacare" was fatally wounded in the Senate when two more party senators announced their opposition to legislation strongly backed by President Donald Trump.

Áilín Quinlan rounds up the best new releases to pack in your suitcase this summer

Elizabeth Strout tells Sue Leonard about how she has created a collection of short stories which build on the world inhabited in her last novel by Lucy Barton

Business tourism is a burgeoning industry, worth €11.5m to the Cork economy in 2016. Pádraig Hoare hears from the Cork Convention Bureau that it can be worth infinitely more in the future

The Government now has to “step up to the plate” to rescue tourism from the impact of Brexit in the wake of the UK election because it is “much too important to the regional economy to be taken for granted”, according to a national industry body.

Five months pregnant with two toddlers already, Grace Holland is a 1940s housewife, trapped in a loveless marriage.

Canadians are expected to be able to smoke cannabis legally by July 1, 2018.

The US senate has confirmed school choice activist Betsy DeVos as education secretary, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie.

Former President George HW Bush has been released from a Houston hospital where he received treatment for pneumonia for more than two weeks.

Thousands have rallied across America to attack Republican efforts to repeal Barack Obama's health care law.

The world's second-largest credit ratings agency has agreed to pay nearly $864m to settle US government and state claims that it gave inflated assessments to risky mortgage investments in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

An Irishman’s colourful obituary has gone viral after being published on Sea Coast Online.

A man in the US state of Maine, charged with posting cyanide to a suicidal man in England, has been found guilty by a federal jury.

Hurricane Matthew has gone from the US, but the disaster its rains unleashed will be felt throughout the week as rivers across eastern North Carolina rise to levels unseen since Hurricane Floyd struck in 1999.

USA: A Pennsylvania man who believed sap from a tree next door was ruining his car chopped the tree down, causing the tree to crash into an apartment building he owns, damaging it so badly it had to be condemned.

Hillary Clinton’s one-time rival in the White House race, Bernie Sanders, is launching a national movement to help propel progressive candidates into power in the US general election.

A live camera overlooking an osprey nest on Hog Island, Maine in the US captured an utterly astounding moment on Monday.

 

Growing number of politicians from both parties believe action needed to prevent more massacres.

Democrats may win seats with their hardline stance on gun control, but compromise is vital or things are destined to remain deadlocked in this polarised politics, writes Adam Skaggs

Fallout 3 veterans must remember their time at Point Lookout. It was a DLC addition to the main game and, on top of being genuinely tough, it was also a hideously atmospheric ride into ruin. Now Far Harbor is taking us down a similar path.