Direct flights from Cork to Cornwall begin next month. Just an hour away, it has scenery, activities and luxury indulgences aplenty for a memorable short break, writes Joyce Fegan

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

Visit Santa

A man has died after being swept out to sea while he was at the beach with his family in England.

Community spirit and generosity made a little boy’s wish come true for his birthday.

Some of the stranger stories from around the world.

ENGLAND: It was one small ban for mankinis, one giant step for a seaside resort town.

Nick Clegg said he was confident of remaining an MP despite a poll putting Labour ahead by two points in his constituency.

Two men and one woman have died in a surfing tragedy at a coastal beauty spot.

Bantry to Drumclough loop of the Sheep’s Head Way

Tune in to UTV at 8pm tonight for a new six-part series featuring Warwick Davis and his family as they travel around the UK in their trusty camper van.

Six men, including at least three Crewe players, have been arrested in connection with sexual assault.

A mother and her three children are being treated in hospital for serious injuries following a speedboat accident which killed her husband and daughter.

Winds and torrential rain left one person dead and forced hundreds from their homes — as David Cameron promised the Government would “ensure everything is being done to help”.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are reportedly planning to purchase a romantic retreat in England.

Unseen footage of The Beatles' captures the "fabulous world" of the band "perfectly".

INVESTIGATIONS are under way into the cause of a light aircraft crash which injured a flight instructor and his pupil yesterday after the craft plunged 2,000 feet from the sky.

A passenger aircraft had to make an unscheduled landing last night in Dublin after the pilot noticed a crack in the windscreen.

A DRIVER who was inside her car as it plunged over a cliff was rescued after she spent a night perched on the face of the 300ft precipice.

WITH two opinion polls last night still pointing to a hung parliament, Labour’s election supremo Peter Mandelson said the Tories had failed to recover the lead they enjoyed at the start of the campaign.

Flights to and from a regional airport will be suspended or diverted elsewhere when it closes temporarily tomorrow in a scenario which Ryanair has slammed as a “farce.”

A couple in Britain are to divorce after one of them had a virtual reality “affair”, it was reported today.

The low-cost airline Jet2.com has announced plans to create 50 new jobs in the North.

Air Southwest, which is to launch its summer service from Cork to Newquay and Cork to Plymouth city from Monday, April 28, has said it would be introducing a range of value-added extras for customers.

Aer Lingus was Cork Airport’s biggest customer last year, carrying 1.2 million passengers, according to the airport’s end of year report.

Cork Airport was flying high today after it announced a record 3.2 million passengers passed through its new terminal last year — a 6% jump in traffic on the previous year.

Ryanair has announced a string of new routes to European destinations out of six British airports.

British Airways is to start four new services from Gatwick while axing three routes from the West Sussex airport.

An environmental pressure group is encouraging air passengers to boycott a new British Airways domestic service by offering those booked on its first flight free rail tickets instead.

I READ with sadness all the criticism of the new Cork airport in your letters columns recently.

Cork Airport continues to record significant passenger growth with further impressive monthly figures released today.

Irish airline Aer Arann today launched a new service from Cork to Nantes.

Aer Arann today announced that it will begin operating a double daily service from Dublin to Cardiff on Monday, May 1.

A 43-year-old fisherman has been rescued after getting into difficulty during bad weather in Galway Bay yesterday.

Ryanair is reviewing its twice-daily service from London tothe Cornish town of Newquay.

The English coastguard has rescued the crew of a sailing vessel that disappeared shortly after leaving Kenmare Harbour in Co Kerry nine days ago.

Ryanair is to face a new competitor on its London to the West Country route.

Ryanair carried more than one million passengers last month for only the second time in its history, the budget airline said today.

James Bond director Lee Tamahori and a team from Eon Productions are filiming the next Bond flick, starring Pierce Brosnan, at the world’s largest greenhouse, which lies in a former clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall.

Ryanair has launched a new service from London to Newquay - at twice the price of a ticket to Rome.