A FORMER assistant of JK Rowling accused of fraudulently using her credit card for spending sprees was a “good liar”, according to the Harry Potter author’s husband. He told a court in Scotland they were taking action as a “point of principle”. Dr Neil Murray said Amanda Donaldson was employed to organise his wife’s business […]

PARIS (AFP) – Here is a timeline of the “yellow vest” movement in France, from the first online rumblings against a fuel tax hike to nationwide protests that led to the worst Paris riots in decades. A new day of high-risk demonstrations is planned on Saturday (Dec 8). So far, four people have died and […]

ROME — Rarely have expectations for a tree been so high. For weeks now, Romans have been breathlessly awaiting the presentation of the Italian capital’s official Christmas tree, a year after the resounding social media debacle that felled last year’s fir. That tree, a Norway spruce that immediately lost its needles, had been nicknamed Spelacchio, […]

In a statement, he said the “accusations of the past week have raised some very serious and upsetting issues”. It was “only right that the board should investigate fully”, he added. Dozens of current and former Ted Baker employees have accused the 62-year-old of implementing a regime of “forced hugs” and harassment. More than 60 […]

Students at University College Dublin (UCD) have apologised for making offensive comments during a broadcast on college station Belfield FM. ‘Keepin’ It Country’ features a number of Agricultural Science students who put out a weekly show with agricultural news and commentary. The show came under fire after a number of lewd comments were allegedly made […]

Cocaine and cannabis worth almost €4m was seized by gardaí in three separate operations in Dublin last night. A handover of some 35kg of cocaine – with a street value of €3m – was intercepted by gardaí, with support from the specialist Drugs and Organised Crime Unit, at a car park in Liffey Valley in […]

LONDON — Luxembourg is a small country with big traffic jams. So when Prime Minister Xavier Bettel was sworn in for a second term on Wednesday, his governing coalition promised free mass transit for all, which would make the country the first to offer such a benefit. Luxembourg is barely larger than a city-state, with […]

A party invitation which went viral on Facebook ended in rioting and injury after thousands of revellers descended on a small town in the Netherlands. Haren had been braced for trouble all week after what should have been an invite to a small-scale celebration was passed on to 30,000 people. The girl whose 16th birthday […]

Angela Merkel has announced she is stepping down as German chancellor in 2021, bringing an end to a political career which, by that point, will have spanned more than three decades. It is a career documented in pictures at every turn: from visiting fishermen during her earliest campaigns, to talks at the White House, and […]

UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending nearly four years of civil war in Yemen are due to begin in Sweden. A UN team will work alongside delegations from the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels at Johannesbergs castle outside Stockholm to enable informal talks due to last a week. The war has caused the world’s […]