The Cabinet will meet today to consider the latest advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team in response to the rise of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Representatives of the hospitality sector said it would be devastating if the Government heeded the advice of NPHET and ordered the earlier closing time of pubs and restaurants.

The Department of Education has repeated that there are no plans to change the school break at Christmas.

Follow the latest developments as the Cabinet meets to consider the latest NPHET recommendations amid 'exceptional concern' over the spread of the Omicron variant.

Four children have died in a house fire in south London after firefighters battled to save them as the blaze tore through the building.

Handcrafted robins are winging their way around the world from a tiny corner of Co Leitrim which has been hit hard by the pandemic.

The UK's Liberal Democrats have overturned a huge Tory majority to win the North Shropshire by-election in a seismic victory that will pile further pressure on Boris Johnson.

The World Health Organisation has published an update on the Omicron variant, with Covid-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove addressing a number of common questions about the virus in a short video.

New figures from the Residential Tenancies Board show that rents in the third quarter of this year saw the highest national growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2017.

The European Union is set to announce proposals to ensure medicines can continue to flow unimpeded from Britain into Northern Ireland.

A search warrant has been issued for actor Alec Baldwin's mobile phone in the investigation of October's fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of his Western movie Rust, according to court documents filed in the case.

EU leaders have said that vaccinations and booster shots would be vital to counter the Omicron coronavirus variant as countries stepped up restrictions to slow its startling spread.

Permanent TSB has formally agreed to acquire €7.6 billion worth of assets from Ulster Bank Ireland.

North Korea has marked the 10th anniversary of the death of leader Kim Jong Il with a memorial service attended by thousands, including his son Kim Jong Un, state television footage showed.

The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year uprooted trees, toppled power lines and flooded villages as it barrelled across the archipelago Friday, leaving at least five people dead.

At least 27 people were feared dead after a fire swept through a clinic in the Japanese city of Osaka, with media reporting that police were investigating the possibility of arson.

Deep underground in an exploratory drill hole in a mining region of Australia, scientists have discovered a "marvel of evolution," a remarkably elongated blind millipede possessing the most legs - 1,306, to be precise - of any known animal.

The "strongest and most pre-emptive strike" the HSE can make in relation to the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is the vaccine booster programme, and getting more people boosted in a quicker period of time, Health Service Executive CEO Paul Reid has said...

Afghanistan's finance ministry under the new Taliban government has prepared a draft national budget that, for the first time in two decades, is funded without foreign aid, a spokesman said.

The US has unleashed a volley of actions to censure China's treatment of the Uyghur minority, with lawmakers voting to curb trade and new sanctions slapped on the world's top consumer drone maker.