Thursday's strike action by Luas drivers will go ahead after SIPTU and Luas operator Transdev failed to reach an agreement over a long running pay dispute.

Talks between the two sides, which began at 4pm, were adjourned - after Transdev and SIPTU couln't agree over pay levels for drivers.

Earlier, the three non-driver grades at light rail service voted to accept the latest pay offer from Transdev.

Revenue protection officers voted to accept by 75%, while their supervisor grade voted to accept by 85%.

An LGBT activist who was the youngest elected mayor in the country two years ago, has convincingly topped the polls in the Seanad Cultural and Educational Panel elections.

Sinn Féin's Fintan Warfield, who became the mayor of South Dublin at 22 in 2014, was elected to the Seanad on the first count and with 200 papers for 200,000 votes, he was safely above the 187,167 quota.

Speaking after his election, Warfield said that being elected in the same year as the Easter Rising, brings an added significance to the honour.

"I am immensely proud to have been elected to the Seanad and to have received such a large vote. To have been elected on the centenary of the Rising is a massive honour and privilege and I look forward to working with the rest of my colleagues in Leinster House to fight for the type of change promised in the Proclamation."

The Hillsborough inquests jury has reached decisions on all questions related to the deaths of 96 football fans.

The jury has also reached a decision on the question of whether the fans were unlawfully killed.

Last week they indicated they were unable to reach consensus on that question, but the coroner said on Monday he would accept a majority verdict instead, and the jury have since indicated that seven of the nine members agree.

The decisions will be announced after 11.00am on Tuesday, 26th April) so that all the families are able to make it to the Warrington court room. 

Police in Bangladesh have reported that two people, one of them the editor of the only LGBT magazine in Bangladesh, has been hacked to death.

Xulhaz Mannan, who was killed in a flat in the capital city of Dhaka, worked at the US embassy and was the editor of a magazine called Roopbaan.

Another person was also left injured as a result of the attack. These fatalities occurred just two days after a university teacher was hacked to death by suspected Islamist militants.

Since February, there have been several reported deaths of secular or atheist writers, as well as members of religious minority groups. Islamic State claimed responsibility despite the fact that the Banladeshi Government insists that no IS presence exists in the country.

The driver of a bus was rushed to hospital, and a group of secondary school students were lucky to escape injury, after a fire broke out at the front of the vehicle in Cork today.

The students, from Ennis, were evacuated after the bus caught fire in Buttevant, Co Cork. Eye witnesses told local radio station, RedFM, that the bus was carrying the students to a match.

The Irish Examiner reports that all of the students are safe and well and were taken to a nearby school to be medically examined by ambulance personnel for shock.

Fire brigade units Charleville and Mallow dealt with the fire along with the assistance of the gardaí.