A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Paracetamol link to child asthma claim
The use of Paracetamol for young children has been linked to increased rates of asthma, according to a report released yesterday.
The report, by a team of New Zealand based researchers, appeared in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Allergy.
It found children given the drug before 15 months were more than three times as likely to be sensitised to substances which can provoke an asthma attack.
The Asthma Society of Ireland has said the drug’s use should not be totally avoided. Nurse Frances Guiney said “the benefits . . . far outweigh the allergy risk”.
Irish-linked author in novel sex win
AN AUTHOR with strong Irish connections has beaten former spin doctor Alastair Campbell and poet Craig Raine to win Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award, writes Charlie Taylor.
The award, established by Auberon Waugh in 1993, celebrates crude, tasteless or ridiculous descriptions of sex in modern literature.
Englishman Rowan Somerville, who has family connections in Co Donegal and has lived there until recently, was given the award for his second novel The Shape of Her at the In Out (Naval Military) Club at St James’s Square, London, on Monday night.