US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin may have violated the law by failing to report his recent hospitalisation to his boss, but likely only faces a reprimand from US President Joe Biden, despite some calls for his resignation, two legal experts have said. What did Austin do? Mr Austin, 70, …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet Israeli leaders in his quest to prevent the Gaza conflict from spreading in the Middle East, as the Israeli military said its fight against Hamas would continue all year. Mr Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv late yesterday to brief Israeli …

South Korea’s parliament has passed a bill to end the eating and selling of dog meat, a move that would outlaw the controversial centuries-old practice amid growing support for animal welfare. Eating dog meat was once seen as a way to improve stamina in the humid Korean summer. But it …

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said it could not yet tell whether a recovered cabin panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane in mid-air last week had been properly attached. The comments came after Alaska Airlines and the other US 737 MAX …

US authorities detained a person who crashed a vehicle into an exterior gate of the White House complex, the Secret Service said. President Joe Biden was out of town at the time of the incident. Security officials did not say whether it was a traffic accident or intended as an …

Christmas came early for a group of conservationists in Co Down thanks to an extremely late winter brood of barn owls. The discovery of four chicks in November – one of the latest recorded in Northern Ireland to date – surprised and shocked conservationists from Ulster Wildlife, who inspected the …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet Israeli leaders in his quest to prevent the Gaza conflict from spreading in the Middle East, as the Israeli military said its fight against Hamas would continue all year. Mr Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv late yesterday to brief Israeli …

300 new jobs are to be created by an Irish pharmaceutical medicine development group in south Dublin. The Medicine Accelerator Campus is to invest €100m in expanding its facilities in Cherrywood. The centre, which is home to pharma research and development business APC and its sister manufacturing firm VLE Therapeutics, …

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency after a dangerous narco boss escaped from maximum security detention and unrest broke out at several prisons in the violence-plagued country. Mr Noboa, in office since November, announced a 60-day mobilization of soldiers in Ecuador’s streets and prisons as a manhunt …

Ireland’s nursing home sector is increasingly reliant on a small number of profit-driven international operators. That’s one of the main findings from a new report carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute. The report, which looks at developments in the sector since the Covid-19 pandemic, shows that 38% …