HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid has said Ireland has exceeded the peak level of the first wave of the pandemic, with 921 people now in hospital.

The Cabinet will today consider a raft of tighter public health restrictions, including stricter rules for travellers flying into Ireland and the closure of non-essential construction.

Consumers are beginning to see the introduction of additional charges and taxes when shopping with British retailers, following the implementation of new rules due to Brexit.

Democrat Raphael Warnock has ousted an incumbent Republican in the first of two critical runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the US Senate at the outset of Joe Biden's presidency, US networks projected.

An expert mission to China to find the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has stumbled before it even began, with the head of the WHO complaining that Beijing was blocking the team from entering the country.

Members of the US Congress will meet today to formally count the Electoral College votes and confirm Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election.

The Minister for Social Protection is expected to ask the Cabinet to approve the retention of the current PUP rates until the end of March, rather than reducing them on 1 February as was originally planned.

Whatever the reasons for the recent surge of the virus, the reality is that it is spreading quickly and the Government has been forced to tighten restrictions for the third week in a row.

The BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition has moved online for the first time in its 57-year history due to the pandemic.

The Cabinet will today consider a number of tighter public health restrictions as Covid-19 cases continue to rise - follow the latest developments with our live blog.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has admitted the country's economic development plan has fallen short in "almost all areas" as he opened a rare congress of the ruling Workers' Party, state media reported.

A new database of female contributors for broadcast media has been launched by Women on Air, an organisation that campaigns for greater gender balance on programmes.

There is plenty of pomp and ceremony, but the official counting of the Electoral College votes by the US Congress is usually just a procedural, rubber-stamping exercise.

Hong Kong police have arrested dozens of democracy supporters under a security law imposed on the city last year by Beijing.

The United States has broken its own record for the number of daily deaths from Covid-19 recording 3,936 fatalities in 24 hours, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

CervicalCheck has said GPs and community clinics are under more pressure as a result of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

No police will be charged in the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man who was left paralysed in an incident which sparked unrest in the US city of Kenosha in August, the prosecutor announced.

The Department of Health has been notified of 5,325 new Covid-19 cases and 17 further deaths.

Travel - people moving freely across the porous border and travellers arriving at ports and airports - has been a contentious issue since the pandemic began.

A Marine Scotland patrol boat has blocked a Donegal fishing vessel from entering the waters around Rockall in the North Atlantic.