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Only son of late Duke of Westminster inherits £8bn estate at age 25
After the death of the Duke of Westminster on Tuesday, his 25-year-old son is likely to become one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors. He will inherit the £8.3bn estate. Hugh Grosvenor is the only son of Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, who died after being transferred from his Abbeystead Estate to the Royal Preston Hospital, in Lancashire. A spokeswoman for the family said the cause of death is not yet known, but police said the duke became ill while walking in the Trough of Bowland, a local beauty spot, and there are no suspicious circumstances. The 64-year-old father-of-four was worth around £8.3bn, according to Forbes, making him the 68th richest person in the world, and the third in the UK.
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Gym bans women from swimming pool while on their periods
A sign that appears to ban women on their periods from a swimming pool in Georgia is causing a storm. The notice at The Vake Swimming Pool and Fitness Club in Tbilisi, the country’s capital, reads: “Dear Ladies! Do not go to the pool during periods.” Sophie Tabatadze posted a photo of the sign on Facebook and wrote: “Vake Swimming Pool and Fitness Club, do you even realise how offensive this is? And by the way, since according to your rules we are not allowed to use a swimming pool 5-6 days each month, do we get preferential price compared with men? #mysogyny #mysogynyinaction” Many (but not all) have shared Sophie’s outrage, but the club insists it is just protecting its members. The club said
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Greenland’s EU exit exposes Brexit timetable illusions
There’s a man in the EU who has already led a country out of the bloc. His name is Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. He’s a former foreign minister of Denmark who handled negotiations on Greenland after its citizens voted to leave the EU in 1982. With a population of just 56,000 and a GDP of about €2.25bn, Greenland still took three years to exit. Mr Ellemann-Jensen says any notion in Britain all it needs to do is trigger Article 50 and two years later it will be out is illusory. “Negotiating Greenland’s exit was a fairly simple task that resulted in a relatively simple and easy to understand protocol,” Mr Ellemann-Jensen, 74, said in an interview. “That took three years. Britain will take much longer. It’s
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Minister Paschal Donohoe asks public to get new ID card
People are being urged to sign up for a public services card which can be used to access Government services and reduce the risk of fraud. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe has said the card, first rolled out in 2012 to allow people claim social welfare payments and State pensions, is being expanded to include other services. Everyone over the age of 18 can use the card and Mr Donohoe said millions of euro have already been saved through fraud prevention since its introduction. The minister said: “The public services card acts as a key to more efficient and better-run public services. It enables the State to provide new and enhanced services to the public while also
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This girl left her Debs to play a GAA match
For some, the Debs is one of the most important days of their lives so far. But others have different priorities. Emma Finlay had got herself glammed up for her Debs - dress, hair, make-up - but she didn’t think twice about leaving halfway through. You see, the Laois People’s First Credit Union Intermediate Championship semi final was on and Emma’s GAA team, Shanahoe needed her on the pitch. And they won, beating Graiguecullen 3-11 to 0-01. The Shanahoe Ladies Football Facebook page posted a side-by-side photo of Emma kitted out in her Debs gear and another of her ready to play the match, congratulating her on the win: "Emma played a starring role at corner back. Hats off to Emma for her commitment
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Rio 2016: Fiona Doyle fires parting shot as she bows out
Maybe someday in the rest of her life Fiona Doyle will look back on her Olympic experience through bright eyes and not through tears. Only definitely not on this day, her swimming interests in Rio ending with a second straight elimination, this time in the heats of the 200m breaststroke. And just like in her preferred event last Sunday, the 100m breaststroke, the presence of the Russian Yulia Efimova, who wasn’t supposed to be let anywhere near the Olympic pool in Rio, cast a shadow over not so much the outcome but certainly the mood. While Doyle finished second in her heat in 2:29.76, nine places short of qualifying, Efimova came out in the final heat to qualify comfortably for the semi-final:
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Are you over 40? Working more than 30 hours a week is bad for you
How much work is too much work? According to a recent study from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, working full time after the age of 40 is too much, for your brain at least. The research, which involved collecting data from 6,500 people, found that doing more than three days a week once you reach 40 can damage your ability to think. While working up to 30 hours a week is good for the brains of over-40s, if you were to work 60 hours a week your cognitive ability would be worse than that of someone who didn’t work at all. The researchers used data from more than 3,000 men and 3,500 women who completed the national Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia
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Incredible results as paralysed patients report feelings in legs after using brain-controlled robotics
Eight people with spinal cord injuries have regained some feeling in their legs after training with brain-controlled robotics, in a result nobody, not even the lead neuroscientist, expected. The “surprising” clinical results from the Walk Again Project in Sao Paulo, Brazil, show patients have some sensations and muscle control in their legs, and researchers believe it could offer hope to people who have suffered spinal cord injuries, strokes and other conditions where they will need to regain strength, mobility and independence. Scientists, led by neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, of Duke University in North Carolina, US, used a virtual reality system which worked with the patients’ own brain activity to simulate control of their legs during the long-term training programme.
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'The intertwining of religion and state is a thing best avoided'
WE ARRIVED in Ireland in October 1992. Neither my sister nor I spoke more than a couple of words of English, writes Roja Fazaeli My vocabulary consisted of the words: boy, girl, apple, and orange. We had come to Ireland from Iran for my Mum to study for her PhD. That first week, her supervisor was good enough to take us to the school where we were to register. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we got lost en route to the school. But on arrival we were welcomed warmly and registered on the spot. We were even given our green uniforms and some books. The next day we were ready to go to school. Later in the week, however, my Mum’s supervisor got a call. It was from a school principal wondering where her
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Berkeley survivor Aoife Beary: ‘I miss my friends so much’
Aoife Beary who survived the balcony collapse in Berkeley, California, last summer has told a US state committee hearing her birthday would forever mark the anniversary of the death of her friends. In a highly emotional testimony, she told California politicians she could never have imagined how her summer would have ended when tragedy struck on the night of her 21st celebrations. “I miss my friends so much. I have known them since we started school together at four years of age,” she told the State Capitol Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. “We had grown up together. And now my birthday will always be their anniversary.” The collapse killed six students, five of whom were on J1
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‘I want world to know Daniel existed’
Mary Watters’ son Daniel died after 36 hours of life last July. One year later, she is a mother to five-week-old Elizabeth Danielle, as well as two older boys. From Castlebellingham, Co Louth, Mary has found the maternity services in Ireland to be both good and bad. “Elizabeth is our fourth child. I have two sons at home, Vincent and Paddy, and we have an angel in heaven, Daniel. “Daniel was born on July 11, 2015. Daniel was born at 28 weeks after a heterotropic pregnancy which is where there are two babies, one ectopic (where a foetus develops outside the womb, typically in a fallopian tube) and one in the womb,” says Mary. She explains that what happened next defied the odds and that Daniel
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Donald Trump denies advocating violence against rival Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump is blaming faulty interpretations and media bias for an uproar over his comments about the Second Amendment. He’s insisting he never advocated violence against Hillary Clinton. The latest controversy to strike Trump’s campaign arose, as they often do, out of an offhand quip at a boisterous campaign rally. Claiming falsely that Clinton wants to revoke the right to gun ownership guaranteed in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, Trump said there would be “nothing you can do,” if she’s elected, to stop her from stacking the Supreme Court with anti-gun justices. Then he added ambiguously: “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is — I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what: that
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Driver squeezes in overnight Kerry stay due to pier pressure
He boldly drove where no car drove before and in doing so, unwittingly shifted the limelight from Skellig Michael to An Blascaod Mór. A disorientated Clareman looking forward to a spot of camping in the Kingdom took a turn for the worse around 9pm on Tuesday when he decided to drive down the pier in Dunquin from where the ferry departs for the Blasket Islands. Within minutes, both driver and Hyundai found themselves wedged in a spot so tight that neither car nor Clareman could find a way out. And so they remained overnight. His plight was discovered early yesterday when the crew of Blasket Island Ferries came upon what looked like a movie scene. “Other cars have managed to get a third of the
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Why the tax system treats co-habiting couples unfairly
A recent survey looked at the tax treatment of Ireland's modern family units.
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Manager awarded €10k over dismissal
A sales manager chased his chief executive out of his home telling him he would kill him after the manager had dropped a suspension letter through the man’s letter box. That is according to the chief executive of an Irish-based online ticketing sales firm who told a Workplace Relations Commission hearing that during the incident last October, the sales manager made a shooting action, putting his fingers to his head. As a result the chief executive went to a Garda station to make a complaint of assault. Less than two weeks later, the sales manager was sacked from the firm after the directors carried out a Google search of the man’s name and found a 2009 newspaper article which “shocked them and
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Shooter becomes first ever independent athlete to win Olympic gold
Fehaid Aldeehani made history at the Deodoro shooting range in Rio by becoming the first athlete competing under the International Olympic Committee flag to win a gold medal. The 49-year-old Kuwait-born shooter took men's double trap gold in a competition that saw Britain's Steven Scott claim bronze. Kuwait are currently banned from taking part in the Olympics due to government interference in the country's Olympic movement. The Olympic flag was raised at the medal ceremony for Aldeehani, who has won two bronze medals at previous Games, with the Olympic anthem also played. Independent Olympic athletes had previously claimed two bronze medals and one silver - all in shooting, and all at the 1992
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Deacon dad does it all for wedding
A man has become the first deacon in the Catholic Church in Ireland to perform a wedding ceremony for his daughter. John Taaffe walked his only daughter Amy down the aisle of St Mary’s Church in Drogheda, then nipped into the vestry, donned his clerical garb, and re-emerged to conduct the ceremony as Amy married long-time sweetheart David Cunningham. A deacon in Louth town’s St Peter’s parish, John said: “It was emotional when I walked Amy down the aisle. I was, like any father would be, in a bit of a state — my emotions were all over the place. “When I went in to change into my robes it actually took me a while to settle down and get my thoughts together. That was only natural, I suppose. It’s
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Great Famine victims’ teeth contain evidence of starvation
Scientific evidence of starvation has been extracted from the teeth of people who died in the Famine in the 19th-century. It is the first time analysis of the stable isotopes of nitrogen and carbon in human teeth has been used to establish markers for starvation. Some of the individuals studied by Julia Beaumont of the University of Bradford and Janet Montgomery of Durham University had survived earlier periods of famine before the Great Famine of 1845-52, when the Irish potato crop on which the poor were dependent totally failed in successive years. Others died of malnutrition after trying to survive on a diet of imported American maize, the main ingredient distributed in food aid, and used
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Top 100 tech billionaires see their fortunes grow
Microsoft founder Bill Gates remains the richest man in tech with a personal fortune amounting to $78 billion (€69.74 billion), while Hong Kong-based Zhou Qunfei is the richest woman with an estimated net worth of $6.4 billion. Ms Qunfei, the majority owner of Lens Technology, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of screens for mobile phones and tablets, is one of just five women to feature on the Forbes top 100 tech billionaires list. Mr Gates tops the rankings, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with a personal fortune of $66.2 million. Others in the top five include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with an estimated net worth of $54 billion, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison with $51.7
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Hosts, healing... and heating with the Cistercian nuns
These devout Cistercian nuns usually don’t covet the limelight but needs must, says Donal O’Keeffe “Our life is devoted to prayer, to God,” says Mother Marie Fahy, Abbess of St Mary’s Abbey in Glencairn, Co Waterford, Ireland’s only Cistercian monastery for women. “Seeking God, seeking to know who God is, who we are, how we are in relationship with Him and allowing the richness of the relationship to shape our lives.” The Abbey is located at the end of a long, gently-winding avenue and its grounds are bordered by woods overlooking the Blackwater River. A centuries-old evergreen oak tree stands guard by the church. This is, as soon as you arrive, an obviously very tranquil place. Mother Marie
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