In The News

When two TDs left for bigger gigs last year it triggered elections to fill their places.

Fine Gael’s Pascal Donohoe left for a big job at the World Bank and Independent TD Catherine Connolly left for a bigger job in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Voters tomorrow will be faced with long ballot papers but the Irish Times IPSOS B&A poll suggests the early emergence of a small number of clear favourites in both constituencies.

But who are? How did the candidates perform in the last week of canvassing? And will the Government have a bad day at the polls?

Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy gives his take on what’s happening in these two large constituencies and predicts who will win.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Friday at about 5pm, Yves Sakila(35) was pursued by security guards on Dublin’s Henry Street. He was suspected of shoplifting. As he ran down the street, it is believed he collided with an elderly man.

What happened next was witnessed by several bystanders and by thousands of others because of a distressing video posted on social media. It shows the Congolese man’s last minutes as he lay face down restrained by several security men.

When gardaì arrived on the scene, Sakila had been held on the ground for at least five minutes. The injured man, in his 80s, was also on the ground a few metres away.
Both were taken to hospital where Sakila was pronounced dead and the older man was operated on.

So what happened? The incident is being investigated by both the Garda and by Fiosrú, the police ombudsman. How will these investigations proceed? Sakila had lived in Ireland since he was a teenager, what else is known about him?

Irish Times crime and security editor Conor Lally explains.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was first published in February 2026.

On the night of his second birthday in May 1991, Seamus Daniel Howell’s mother Lesley was murdered by his father, Colin Howell, and his father’s lover, Hazel Stewart.

The pair also killed Stewart’s husband Trevor Buchanan.

They left the two bodies in a garage in Castlerock, Co Derry, staging the scene to make it look as if they had taken their own lives.

The pair had committed the perfect murder so they could be together. And they had got away with it.

That is until 2009 when Colin Howell, a respected dentist and devout evangelical Christian, walked into a police station out of the blue and confessed to the killings. He and Stewart were convicted of the murders and jailed for a minimum of 21 years and 18 years respectively.

Seamus grew up being told that his mother had killed herself, until the truth came out. By then he was a medical student in England. Now a doctor in New York he tells In the News what it was like growing up in the Howell house and how his discovered that his father was a murderer. He explains how it impacted on his life, and how it has made him acutely aware of injustice which now for him includes advocating for Palestine.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan and Suzanne Brennan.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Betting on the results of an election is not unusual but Polymarket is not a typical bookies. It allows punters to take and then change their position on all manner of events, from when the Strait of Hormuz might open to whether Taylor Swift will be pregnant before she gets married.

So when Irish Times investigative reporters Conor Gallagher and Rachel Lavin noticed almost €1 million had been wagered on the upcoming Dublin Central byelection on Polymarket, it raised enough red flags for him to delve deeper.

Bets on Gerry Hutch accounted for the bulk of the spend by punters. And while the amount of money involved is significant, it was the activity of the Polymarket users once they’d placed the bets that was unusual. And where did all this money come from?

Gallagher explains how Polymarket works, why the Dublin Central byelection has proved such a magnet and what experts say the activity around the bets on Hutch point to.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday night for a two-day visit that both the United States and China hope will stabilise their relationship and prolong a truce in the trade war that began over tariffs last year.

The state visit – with all the pomp and ceremony that entails – had been scheduled for April but was deferred because of the war in Iran.

There is a lot on the table and, in the shorthand favoured by analysts, they are: the three Ts (Taiwan and Tehran and trade) and the three Bs (beans, Boeing and beef).

On day one, Trump flattered Xi Jinping but was that reciprocated? And what about the two superpower’s key interests outside trade and tariffs: Trump wants China to help open the Strait of Hormuz; Xi considers Taiwan as the most important issue in the relationship between China and the United States?

Is the fact that the meeting happened at all the real win for the two countries following a period of fraught relations.

Irish Times China correspondent Denis Staunton is in Beijing.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.