Politics (Page 557)

Almost half of Ireland’s adult population has now received a Covid vaccine booster, the Taoiseach has said. The update from Micheál Martin came as the HSE warned the country could soon be recording 20,000 confirmed cases a day in a worst case scenario. Mr Martin said, as of Thursday, 49.9Continue Reading

A protester calls for the release of journalist, who covered the initial outbreak of COVID in Wuhan in 2019 and 2020 and was sentenced to four years in prison. EPA-EFE/Miguel Candela Hundreds of journalists killed or arrested, rising numbers of female media workers targeted, floods of misinformation and hate speechContinue Reading

The American actor Richard Gere is one among several witnesses scheduled to testify at the high-profile trial of the Italian politician Matteo Salvini, Italy’s former interior minister. Salvini is facing charges of kidnapping after allegedly blocking the humanitarian ship Open Arms carrying 147 migrants from docking at the Sicilian portContinue Reading

shutterstock The collection of data on a person’s sex – that is, whether they are male or female – has become controversial in recent years, and a number of public bodies have moved away from collecting data on sex as a result. For example, Scotland’s chief statistician recently issued guidanceContinue Reading

Updated at 13:40 Virology expert professor Gerald Barry has called for booster vaccines to be given to people who have had Covid following a shorter time frame. At present the recommendation is a six months period between the last dose and the booster for those who had Covid-19. The durationContinue Reading

Having seen off plans by the Government to scrap HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, Luke Pollard, the MP for Devonport, has been pressing Ministers for news of their replacements. For the past few years, the threat to Devonport’s largest ships has been real. HMS Ocean, the Royal Navy flagship, andContinue Reading

The Omicron strain of Covid-19 is now dominant in Ireland as public health officials confirmed it now makes up more than half of new cases. A further 5,124 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the State today. The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) said that the “S gene targetContinue Reading

The Conservative Party’s poor performance in North Shropshire byelection was not unexpected, despite the rural seat having been a Tory stronghold for nearly 200 years. The Liberal Democrat candidate Helen Morgan overturned a massive Conservative majority of nearly 23,000 in North Shropshire to win the seat vacated following Conservative MPContinue Reading