Talks begin on airport strikes

TALKS to resolve the airline workers' dispute at Dublin airport got under way today -- but there was little to indicate any immediate progress.

Unions and management from Aer Lingus and the Dublin Airport Authority agreed to meet this morning to discuss proposals by the LRC chief executive Kieran Mulvey on the €700m shortfall in the airline pension scheme.

The row has the potential to close down the country's three main airports with strikes possibly taking place as early as Monday.

Mum killed and hid five babies

A 28-year-old woman in Germany killed her five babies shortly after giving birth in secret, and hid their bodies, officials say.

She was worried her husband would leave her if she had any more children.

The woman, who has been arrested on five counts of manslaughter, made a "comprehensive confession" to the killings after turning herself in to end a six-year investigation, said Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt, the head prosecutor in Flensburg.

Four workers die in shooting

POLICE say the gunman who opened fire inside a Minneapolis sign-making business killed four people before fatally shooting himself.

Minneapolis police said the bodies of four victims were found at the scene yesterday afternoon.

Four other people were wounded, including three critically, in the shooting at Accent Signage Systems in the city's north side.

Neither the gunman's name nor the names of the victims have been released.

Islam film-row man in custody

THE man behind the anti-Islamic video that inflamed parts of the Middle East is a flight risk and must be detained, a judge in California said today.

US Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula should be held in custody after officials said he broke his probation from a 2010 fraud conviction.

Assistant US attorney Robert Dugdale said Nakoula was a flight risk, partially because of the uproar over the film.