Irish and British General Elections could yet run in parallel before the end game, most likely a Customs Union deal, writes Eddie Hobbs

I can’t remember the first time I heard Bob Dylan or Van Morrison or even Lightnin’ Hopkins, but I remember the first time I heard Dolores O’Riordan, writes Michael Clifford.

A massive winter storm, dubbed a bomb cyclone, swept from the US East Coast on Thursday, dumping snow along the coast and bringing strong winds that will usher in possibly record-breaking cold.

SOME islands are synonymous with writers: JM Synge with Inis Meáin; The Great Blasket with Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

Met Éireann is predicting that “in general”, the winds which Storm Brian brings to the country this weekend will not be as severe as Ophelia.

The father of one of four crew members who died when the Cheeki Rafiki capsized mid-Atlantic has told a court of the "harrowing" moment when he found out his son had been lost at sea.

Just when you thought the European Union was down, it’s delivered a blow that shows you can’t count it out, writes Ian Wishart.

"I'm hoping to get back there soon," says Tommy McNamara.

A six-year-old girl who braved hours in the ocean amid 10-metre (33ft) waves after a yacht sank in the mid-Atlantic later died, Portuguese authorities said.

The animation industry is in rude health globally and especially in Ireland with Cartoon Saloon up for an Oscar next week. Ed Power asks some well known faces what cartoons they lived for as kids.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting the labour market continued to strengthen.

One of the world's leading oceanographers says the waters off the west coast of Ireland have huge economic potential for this country and the globe.

Big banks weighed on the US stock market, tugging major indexes back from record highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed at an all-time high as the good narrowly outweighed the bad for the stock market.

The Grand Budapest Hotel ****

THE other day I got a chance to talk to a marine biologist who’s an expert on conger eels.

Signs of a slowing economy combined with comments from a Federal Reserve official helped pull the US stock market down yesterday.

Hurricane Sandy is threatening 50 million people on America's heavily-populated east coast today and forecasters warned that New York could bear the brunt of the one-of-a-kind superstorm.

Close to 400,000 people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas in the north-eastern US as cities and towns were braced for the onslaught of a “superstorm” threatening some 60m people along the country’s most heavily-populated corridor.

Americans dipped into the water, went to the cinema and took tube trains just to have air conditioning relief from unrelenting heat that has killed at least 30 people across half the country.

Tiger Woods held firm to beat Bo Van Pelt to the AT&T National title at Congressional and move second on the all-time list of PGA Tour winners.

Asian stocks plunged today after discouraging US economic reports unnerved investors already worried about the stability of the 17-country eurozone.

The United Left Alliance is calling on Irish people to send a "rocket across the boughs of the Government" by rejecting the EU Treaty.

Asian stock markets fell today as strong US company earnings failed to calm investor nerves in the face of economic reports that suggest the world's number one economy is struggling to maintain its recovery.

They may be thousands of miles from home but the players and supporters of New York GAA are able to maintain their links with Ireland through Gaelic Games, reports Brendan O’Brien

More than 100,000 residents have been ordered to move away from a flood-swollen river in Pennsylvania as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the US north east.

Hurricane Irene has smashed into the North Carolina coast, forecasters said.

World stock markets plummeted today amid signs of a possible US recession and renewed worries over the health of Europe’s banks.

France’s air accident investigation agency says an undersea search has located the flight data recorder from the 2009 Air France flight that went down in the mid-Atlantic.

SIX weeks ago, on January 16., an 84-year-old Englishman set out on a raft, built here in La Gomera in the Canary Islands, to drift 2,800 miles across the Atlantic to Eleuthera Island in Bahamas, tracing the route upon which a ship’s 18-foot long jolly boat carried the survivors of the 41 crew of an English cargo vessel sunk by a German ship disguised as a merchantman (but then drawing back the deck-cowlings to reveal cannons and machine guns) during World War 11.

A band of frigid weather snaking its way up the east coast of the United States threatens to bring blizzards and a foot of snow to New York City and New England, while several states to the South made emergency declarations as the storm caused crashes on slick roads.

BBC viewers voted Winston Churchill as ‘Britain’s Greatest’. He is remembered as the man who saved them during the Second World War, but he was undoubtedly one of Ireland’s greatest scourges. As Minister for War in 1920 he was the politician most responsible for the Black and Tans.

A Royal Navy destroyer intercepted a yacht carrying £4m (€4.87m) worth of cocaine, it was revealed today.

THE ISEQ index fell a further 46.5 points yesterday to 2,756.12 in line with bourses throughout Europe and the world.

US stocks closed slightly lower today as investors’ pessimistic view of the economy deepened.

Markets tumbled today after poor employment and manufacturing reports in the US renewed investors’ concerns about the pace of global recovery.

DESPITE an ash cloud 2,100 miles long and 1,400 miles wide hovering off the west coast, Irish airports will be open for business for much of today, allowing airlines to operate a near-normal service.

Further flight disruptions were expected in European airspace today as a plume of volcanic ash snaked its way through southern France, Switzerland and northern Italy, the European air management agency in Brussels said.

FRENCH investigators probing last year’s mysterious crash of an Air France jet in the mid-Atlantic off the coast of Brazil are gearing up for a third search for the plane’s black boxes and an explanation for why it plunged into the ocean.

M&T Bank saw its fourth-quarter earnings rise by 34%, beating analysts’s estimates, as the company’s bad debts fell.

A blizzard-like storm has rocked the Mid-Atlantic and North-eastern US states, crippling travel across the region and causing hundreds of thousands of power cuts.

Passengers said they thought they were going to die as they were hurled over seats and slammed against luggage bins when turbulence hit their flight from Brazil to the US.

FOUR more bodies were found yesterday in the ocean near the spot where an Air France jet is believed to have crashed a week ago, bringing the total number of bodies plucked from the water to six, Brazil’s military said.

THE lightning and turbulence that may have hit an Air France jet flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris are rarely the cause of plane crashes, analysts say.