Tommy Barker checks out two homes, side-by-side, on Langford Row in Cork City. 

A mutation in some obesity-prone dog breeds might reveal new risk factors for obesity in humans — and perhaps, says Roxanne Khamsi, give rise to new drugs

Beef farmer has been involved in the arts since the 1960s and now he works as an artistic director.

An Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin was forced to divert to an airport in Canada this morning after a passenger was reported to have fallen ill.

Newfoundland feels like Ireland 20 years ago, when people left their doors unlocked, hitchhiked without fear and took time to stop and chat. Jennifer Hough feels right at home in the Canadian province.

We take a look at some of the quirkier stories from around the world.

FOR several years Sean McGinley has been heading across the Atlantic from June to December to shoot a crime series on CBC, Canada’s national television station. 

GERALDINE Hollett feels like she’s come home. It’s an overcast afternoon in Dublin and, gazing at the grey Liffey from her hotel room, The Once’s lead singer has a sense she’s crossed an ocean and yet not travelled all that far.

Private investors are being invited to become ‘King of the Castle,’ as a Tralee town centre bank, occupied by Bank of Ireland on Castle Street, is being touted for sale, with an attractive rental income of €277,000 pa.

Appalling conditions at the emergency department of a major hospital are threatening patient safety, increasing risk of infection and compromising cleanliness, a damning watchdog report has found.

A judge found that a male nurse who put surgical tape on a patient’s mouth was overworked and under serious stress with inadequate management support in a HSE hospital.

A Canadian airline is to start low-fare transatlantic crossings to Dublin with prices for return flights starting at just over €300.

Irish and Canadian scientists will conduct fisheries research onboard Irish national research vessel RV Celtic Explorer, which has set sail from Galway bound for the Labrador and Newfoundland Seas.

The Parish priest at a 19th century church in Kerry said the woman who donated €100,000 to it, did so because she was fulfilling a commitment.

GET out the best teaset, run a bath, iron her clothes for the day, clean the fridge — most mums are easy to please.

THE head chef disliked me from the off.

A Limerick hospital has raced past its surgery targets under objectives set down earlier this year, it emerged yesterday.

The first major coarse angling competition of the 2012 season was held at the Inniscarra Lake last month using the Garden Centre Stretch, Rooves Bay and St John’s sections.

A landmark castle will have to celebrate its 800th birthday a year late.

HOSPITALS in the north-east and mid-west are being closely monitored by the state’s health safety watchdog following a “flurry of concerns”.

IT started on Wall Street five weeks ago when tens of thousands of people gathered in solidarity to express their anger towards the failed policies which led to a global financial meltdown.

Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons in Rome today as violent protesters turned a demonstration against corporate greed into a riot, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles.

NURSES at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick yesterday staged a third walkout over what they claimed were dangerously overcrowded conditions in the emergency department (ED) as a union leader insisted they were not for turning on the issue.

A line of violent thunderstorms roared across middle America, killing six people in two states, with several tornadoes touching down in Oklahoma and high winds pounding rural Kansas.

DOUGLAS, CORK

EMERGENCY services at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital are at crisis point with frontline staff struggling to manage patient numbers, it has been claimed.

A VAN LOAD of toilet roll has been donated to a school which was forced to ask pupils to bring their own paper in an effort to save on its scarce resources.

SOME Christian Brothers who formerly served in St Joseph’s Industrial School, Tralee, are expected to be at the centre of a new Garda probe into sexual and physical abuse at the school.

THERE is an old saying that a picture tells a story better than a thousand words, and it is true of James O’Mahoney’s harrowing illustration of the Great Famine.

AN unconscious man rushed to the A&E department in the Mid-Western Regional Hospital had to be treated on a trolley as no ward bed was available.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has launched an Irish website during his St Patrick’s visit to the United States.

Canadian rescuers searched freezing waters for 16 missing people after a helicopter heading to Atlantic oil fields reported mechanical problems and ditched in the sea off Newfoundland.

Rescuers were searching freezing water today for 16 people missing after a helicopter reported mechanical problems and ditched into the Atlantic Ocean.

A nine-year-old boy accused of methodically shooting dead his father and his father’s roommate pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.

A MAN and a teenager have been charged with the murders of a British couple who were shot in their resort cottage on the last day of their honeymoon in the Caribbean.

Mick Jagger took time out from The Rolling Stones' South American tour to surprise his son at his school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, yesterday.

A 22-YEAR-OLD Limerick man fell from a third-floor apartment window and suffered horrific injuries yesterday.

HAVING waited most of her life for the man of her dreams, 86-year-old Limerick bride Mary McGrath did not keep her 83-year-old groom waiting too long at the altar on Saturday.

Renee Zellweger has jumped to the defence of her estranged husband Kenny Chesney, after intense media speculation over her citing of "fraud" as the reason for their marital meltdown.

Renee Zellweger, who has filed for an annulment from husband Kenny Chesney after just four months of marriage, says the couple “hope to experience this transition as privately as possible".

Renee Zellweger has jumped to the defence of her estranged husband Kenny Chesney, after intense media speculation over her citing of "fraud" as the reason for their marital meltdown.

Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney have split - just four months after marrying in the Caribbean.

There are almost 5,000 patients on surgery waiting lists at seven of the country’s major hospitals, it emerged today.