Your Tuesday evening catch-up

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

TOP STORY

LIVE UPDATES: A Russian pilot whose plane was shot down by Turkey was dead upon landing, a spokesman for the rebel group that captured him has claimed. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman later said that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has cancelled a planned trip to Turkey in the wake of the incident.

IRELAND

Fine Gael TD Sean Conlan announced his shock resignation from the Fine Gael party on radio this afternoon. Mr Conlan announced his resignation from the party live on the Wider View Programme on Northern Sound radio.

Residents at Longboat Quay apartments in Dublin have been given 18-months to complete almost €4m worth of vital fire safety modifications. The court order stalls the threat of evacuation hanging over approximately 600 residents from the 298 apartments in the Dublin docklands.

Nurses in accident and emergency units in the country’s hospitals are going on strike over the decade-old overcrowding crisis. The Taoiseach has called for fresh talks between the HSE and nurses.

A Dublin man, who claims he faces the “bitter winter months” homeless on the city streets, is to ask a judge to pay him out money from a €1.5m trust fund partly left to him by his late mother.

The prime minister of New Zealand has said the Irish Examiner’s tribute to Jonah Lomu shows the country needs a new flag.

WORLD

Barack Obama and Francois Hollande have opened talks about expanding the international campaign against Islamic State, an effort likely to be complicated by Turkey’s downing of a Russian war plane. The French president’s trip to Washington is part of a diplomatic push to get the US and other nations to bolster efforts to destroy the militant group that has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people.

A total of 124 people have been handed preliminary charges in France since a state of emergency was declared hours after the Paris attacks, the French interior minister has said.

An explosion has struck a bus carrying members of the presidential guard in the Tunisian capital, killing at least 11 people.

SPORT

David Haye admits a sense of unfinished business has lured him back to the ring, with his sights firmly set on becoming world heavyweight champion once again.

In the wake of the Galway hurling player’s forcing out manager Anthony Cunningham, Kieran Shannon writes that when it comes to players wanting management moved on, there are lot more nuances and paradoxes at play than meets the eyes and headlines.

BUSINESS

German prosecutors have widened their investigation of Volkswagen to include suspicions of tax evasion linked to the emissions cheating scandal. Prosecutor Birgit Seel said the probe was focused on five Volkswagen employees but did not release their names.

Large businesses could cut costs by 70% through better technology, a director at Google has said. Europe’s first Google Innovation Lab has been opened in Belfast, aimed at encouraging more firms to use the company’s software products.

ANALYSIS

Nobody can be neutral in the face of merciless terror or injustice, says Fergus Finlay. You help, in whatever way you can

LIFESTYLE

Gráinne McGuinness offers consumer advice on getting a pet and warns that while a furry friend brings many rewards, there are costs involved.

VIDEO

The ostensibly violent manner in which Marian Horgan, a mother of three, died in her home appears radically at odds with the normalcy of her life.

VIRAL

A Canadian company was forced to take down an ad and apologise after a huge backlash on Twitter.

Just 4.9 seconds. That’s all it took for Lucas Etter to solve a Rubik’s Cube. So while you probably didn’t do anything particularly ground-breaking with your weekend, this teen from the US has set a new Guinness World Record.

TECHNOW

GAMING: Some Black Ops 3 players are getting permanently banned from parts of the game for creating offensive graphics in their custom paint jobs or emblems.

MOVIES: In the latest CG animated film from Disney, Jason Bateman stars as a wily fox out to clear his name for a crime he didnt commit, in Zootopia

TECH: Google Street View is a pretty amazing thing, and the latest update lets you explore the isolated ruins of Petra.

SHOWBIZ

Black Mass stars Dakota Johnson and Julianne Nicholson have revealed that despite the ageing prosthetics and heavy make-up, Johnny Depp still looks sexy on screen. Fifty Shades Of Grey star Dakota admitted seeing her co-star on set gave her “the shivers”, because of his likeness to his alter-ego.

MOST READ RIGHT NOW

A Russian pilot whose plane was shot down by Turkey was dead upon landing, a spokesman for the rebel group that captured him has claimed. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman later said that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has cancelled a planned trip to Turkey in the wake of the incident.