A court in southern Germany has convicted a 32-year-old woman of killing her boyfriend and severing his head with a circular saw.

On a sunny, mild day, guests sat outside the monastery on Vatican City grounds where Benedict has lived since he became the first pontiff to resign in 600 years.

Munich may be known for its beer halls, but it has much more to offer, writes David Linnane.    

A river cruise ship carrying nearly 230 people has struck a bridge in southern Germany, crushing the wheelhouse and killing two crew members, authorities said.

A suitcase exploded near a reception centre for migrants in southern Germany yesterday, but the blast may have been caused by an aerosol can inside it, and there was no evidence of explosives being involved, police said.

Update 6.11pm: The so-called 'Islamic State' group has claimed responsibility after a Syrian blew himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, injuring 15 people.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

A woman charged with murder after the remains of eight babies were found last year at her home in southern Germany has admitted killing several infants.

Rivers in Europe have burst their banks from Paris to the southern German state of Bavaria, killing six people and trapping thousands more in homes and cars.

It may have been raining cats and dogs yesterday in Killarney amid howling winds — but it was shelter from the summer sun that worried a meeting of the local council.

Prosecutors believe the head-on train crash in southern Germany last week which killed 11 people was caused by "human error" by the train dispatcher.

Emergency workers have started removing the wreckage from the head-on train crash that killed 10 people and injured dozens in southern Germany, after police said they are no longer looking for another victim.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

AS European justice ministers meet in Brussels today to sign off on the number of refugees each country will take, the sheer scale of coping with the enormity of this appalling crisis is finally dawning on even the most welcoming of nations. That became clear over the weekend when a huge influx of migrants into southern Germany threatened to swamp the city of Munich.

Thousands of refugees yesterday streamed into Germany — many travelling through Austria from Hungary where they had been stranded against their will for days — while EU governments argue over how to respond.

Dynamic Coupé on the way: The first versions of the new Mercedes GLE Coupé have begun to be sold Ireland and over the coming weeks between now and September, deliveries will begin to arrive in greater numbers.

US president Barack Obama said G7 leaders meeting in the Bavarian Alps yesterday would discuss standing up to Russian aggression in Ukraine amid an upsurge in violence there that monitors have blamed on Moscow-backed separatists.

German central banker Carl-Ludwig Thiele cited economic data, freedom of choice and even Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in a passionate defence of banknotes and coins, rejecting the rising concept of a “cashless society”.

A bus has crashed in central Germany, killing at least four people and injuring another 38, police said.

Would it surprise you to know that south of a line from Dublin to Kenmare Ireland’s potential for solar electricity generation is as good as that of Germany’s? 

Karl Albrecht, the reclusive German businessman who became one the world’s wealthiest people after co-founding the Aldi discount supermarket chain in the 1960s, has died. He was 94.

Two German motorcyclists were injured yesterday, one seriously, after they collided with a rental car in Co Clare.

Former Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has started serving his prison sentence for tax evasion.

With river cruises reaching the cities and countryside ocean-going ships cannot, it’s little wonder they’re enjoying a boom, says Pól Ó Conghaile

Three people have been killed and five wounded following a shooting in southern Germany, police have announced.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has visited the remains of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in southern Germany, where more than 43,000 people were killed by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945.

Thousands of homes have been evacuated along Germany’s River Elbe after waters threatened to break through levees protecting several towns.

Fatherhood. These guys are doing it right.

The swollen River Danube is approaching Budapest, where soldiers and volunteers are building flood walls, officials said.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in a region of eastern Germany where the Elbe river has flooded and burst through a dam, while a swollen Danube was approaching Budapest where soldiers and volunteers are building flood walls, officials said yesterday.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in a region of eastern Germany where the Elbe river has flooded and burst through a dam, officials said.

The crest of the flooded Danube River is expected to reach Budapest late today but defences should keep the water out of most of the capital, according to Hungarian officials.

More than 70,000 firefighters and 11,000 soldiers are on duty fighting the most dramatic floods in Germany in more than a decade.

Central Europe’s worst floods in over a decade claimed a 12th victim as torrents of muddy water surged down rivers through the Czech Republic and into Germany, flooding villages and forcing evacuations.

A raging flood wave that inundated parts of Prague is now heading north towards Germany, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and leading to concerns about the safety of chemical plants.

Pope Benedict XVI has a reputation as a charming and shy man who is also deeply conservative in his outlook and teaching.

At least 30 children were injured, some of them seriously, when the bus they were travelling in overturned on a major road in southern Germany today.

Rescue experts who reached a helicopter that crashed in Peru’s Andes said there were no survivors among the 14 people on board, including eight South Koreans and three Europeans.

Adolf Hitler’s favourite commander Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox” who relentlessly fought allied forces across North Africa in the Second World War, was a hopeless romantic, extracts from love letters published in a German newspaper reveal.