Marathon bombing accused fails to have trial moved from Boston
The man accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings has failed in this third attempt to have his trial moved out of Boston.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 30 charges relating to the April 2013 bombings which killed 3 people and injured more than 200 others. A police officer was killed in an altercation that occurred in the days after the bombings.
Lawyers for the 21 year old had argued that the early stages of jury selection had proved that it would be impossible for the young man to get a fair hearing in Boston.
Teachers unions agree to bring forward dispute proposals
The two unions representing secondary school teachers have agreed to allow the Chair of talks between them and the Department of Education to bring forward proposals aimed at resolving the dispute over Junior Cycle reform.
During talks earlier this week, the Department of Education had asked that Dr Pauric Travers be allowed to draw up proposals that would be "fair and equitable".
The executives of both the ASTI and the TUI have approved this request, although the unions want any proposals from the chair to be non-binding and negotiable.
Man catches arm in pasta machine in workplace accident
A man has been airlifted to hospital after he was injured in a workplace accident in Co Clare this afternoon.
The man in his 20s is believed to have caught his arm in a pasta machine during the incident at Randaddy's restaurant on the sea front in Lahinch at around 1.30pm.
Fire brigade personnel had to use cutting equipment to free the injured man, while ambulance paramedics treated the casualty before he was transferred to the Shannon -based search and rescue helicopter.
The man was transferred by stretcher by ambulance and fire personnel before being airlifted to University Hospital Galway for emergency surgery.
Sinn Féin events to mark centenary of 1916 rising
Sinn Féin has launched its own programme of commemorative events to mark the centenary of the 1916 rising.
The planned events include an exhibition called "Revolution 1916", which will run from February 2016 in the Ambassador Theatre.
The exhibition will detail the background to the rising as well as including "ordinary stories of volunteers".
There will also be a projection of images on the GPO nightly from 24-29 April.
Mexico police find 61 bodies in ex-crematorium
Mexican police have found 61 bodies, including children, in an abandoned crematorium in the Pacific resort of Acapulco, authorities.
"We are working on identifying how many children, women and men" were in the building, Guerrero state chief prosecutor Miguel Angel Godinez said, without giving details about the cause of death.
Acapulco has been beset by drug gang violence but it was not immediately clear whether the bodies were murder victims dumped by a gang, or whether the crematorium's operators left corpses there when the facility closed down.
"We can't say for now that there is an indication that organized crime participated in this, but we can't rule it out," Mr Godinez said.
Redunancies at Westmeath car parts plant
A spokesperson for car parts manufacturer C&F Automotive trading as Iralco has said the company has made six people redundant from their plant in Collinstown, Co Westmeath.
C&F Automotive, which rescued Iralco from liquidation in 2008 employs over 800 people across Europe with 450 people working at the Collinstown plant.
The spokesperson said the remaining workers have not been put on reduced hours and says it has secured a major new contract that will keep the plant open up to at least 2024.
Harvard bans sex between staff and students
Harvard, one of America's most prestigious universities, has told professors not to have sex with students following a review into sexual harassment policy.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Committee said it was prohibiting "romantic or sexual relationships" regardless of whether a faculty member was teaching or supervising the student in question.
The ban applies to undergraduate and graduate students, and has been ushered in as part of a review of policy on sexual misconduct.
The review "determined that the existing language on relationships of unequal status did not explicitly reflect the faculty's expectations of what constituted an appropriate relationship."
Tackling drugs in prisons a 'difficult challenge'
The Director of the Prison Service, Michael Donnellan, has said they are facing a "difficult challenge" in tackling drug misuse in Irish prisons.
His comments come as the Prison Service announced new measures to tackle the drug problem in jails following the recent deaths of two inmates from suspected drug overdoses.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Donnellan said ten people, including staff, have been prosecuted over the past two years for bringing contraband into prisons.
Mr Donnellan said he hopes that a standard search procedure will be implemented within the next six months to stop this.
