Russia has launched a major offensive into eastern Ukraine, authorities in Kyiv say, opening a new phase of its invasion after being thwarted in efforts to capture the capital.

Welcome to live coverage from the 55th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, is in New York where he will address a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Minister for Education Norma Foley will address primary school teachers in Killarney in what will be her first in-person address to a teacher trade union conference.

A US federal judge has struck down the Covid-19 mask mandate for public transportation imposed by the administration of President Joe Biden, prompting major airlines to quickly drop the requirement.

China has reported seven more deaths from Covid-19 in Shanghai, after hundreds of thousands of cases in the metropolis during a weeks-long lockdown.

Israel carried out its first air strikes on Gaza in months overnight in response to a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave.

At least six people were killed after three blasts hit a boys' school in a Shia Hazara district of the Afghan capital, police said.

Cristiano Ronaldo and his partner Georgina Rodriguez have announced that one of their newborn twins has died.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex says his government will tender its resignation if Emmanuel Macron is re-elected president, in a bid to provide a "new impetus" for Mr Macron's centrist party ahead of parliamentary elections in June.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will face angry MPs today for the first time since being fined for breaking the law, as the "partygate" scandal continues to plague him.

A new Omicron variant is about 10 to 20% more transmissible, according to sequencing data from the UK, where more than 1,000 cases have been identified.

A man in his late 20s has died in Donegal after the motorcycle he was driving was involved in a collision with a car.

Tributes have been paid to Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee as the two men were laid to rest following separate funerals in counties Sligo and Roscommon.

A planned hijab ban if French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is elected would come "little by little" and be determined by politicians, her allies said today, marking a shift in tone less than a week ahead of the final presidential vote.

A cruise ship has docked in Sydney Harbour for the first time in more than two years, after a ban imposed in 2020 sparked by a mass Covid-19 outbreak was lifted.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is working to hold his fractious coalition together after a split on the right and an Arab-Israeli party's threat to quit over violence in Jerusalem.

40-1 shot Lord Lariat has won the Boylesports Irish Grand National for trainer Dermot McLoughlin and jockey Paddy O'Hanlon.

Profiles of each of the 18 constituencies in the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian forces had begun the "battle of Donbas" after senior officials said Moscow had begun a new offensive push along most of Ukraine's eastern flank.