The past decade has been defined by truly historic and significant social progress, enabling Ireland to break with out-of-date preconceived ideals and emerge as one of Europe’s most inclusive societies. The nature of a government-promoted commitment to socially reformative policies is that there is a constant necessity that the electorate confronts and considers fundamental moral […]

Exactly three years ago, as Donald Trump was about to become commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force that has ever existed, the rest of the world pondered how he would wield such power. It was not only the US’s enemies and rivals who worried. During the campaign which preceded his election, Trump showed time […]

My father was a man who could turn his hand to any task – any task bar cooking, that is. On this date, January 6, his annual venture into the uncharted realm of the culinary arts was always identified by a lingering aroma of badly burned bacon in our house. Being the only day of […]

The only question now is whether the election will be as early as February or as late as May. Nobody, but nobody, believed after the last election on February 26, 2016, that it would take four years before the next one came around. But this minority Coalition led by Fine Gael, propped up by various […]

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – A rise in large mergers and acquisitions (M&A) helped offset a plunge in cross-border deals in 2019, and many dealmakers say they expect subsiding geopolitical risk to embolden companies to pursue more tie-ups across regions in 2020. The value of M&A globally totaled about $3.9 trillion in 2019, making it the […]

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – A rise in large mergers and acquisitions (M&A) helped offset a plunge in cross-border deals in 2019, and many dealmakers say they expect subsiding geopolitical risk to embolden companies to pursue more tie-ups across regions in 2020. The value of M&A globally totaled about $3.9 trillion in 2019, making it the […]

No denying, 2019 was a Year of Trump. His outsize personality, capricious decision making and tumultuous management style consistently put him center stage. The year’s news was capped by Mr. Trump’s becoming only the third president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Alas, Ukraine and impeachment don’t lend themselves to charts, […]

PARIS/HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Tencent-led consortium is taking a 10% stake in Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, valuing the music label that houses Lady Gaga and The Beatles at 30 billion euros ($34 billion) and giving the Chinese firm a global backstage pass. The deal allows both companies to expand in a recovering global music […]

Video by Alexander Stockton, Leah Varjacques and Taige Jensen Title IX, passed in 1972, transformed American sports — it decided girls deserved the same opportunities as boys to play sports. From then on, men and women in college had to receive equal treatment on the playing field and equal funding for their athletic programs. Now […]

PARIS (Reuters) – A consortium led by Tencent agreed to buy up to 20% of Vivendi’s (VIV.PA) Universal Music Group (UMG) in a deal that values the world’s largest music label at 30 billion euros ($34 billion) and increases the Chinese company’s clout on the global market. French media conglomerate Vivendi said it had finalised […]