The Big Story

An Offaly musician says she turned down Dancing With The Stars twice. Tolü Makay, who topped leaderboard in week two of the competition, had never seen the show before she became a contestant on it. Last Sunday night, her performance with her professional partner earned 32 points for their American Smooth to Olivia Dean’s 'Man I Need', securing the first 9 of the season. Actor Michael Fry was the first celebrity to be voted off the show. Tolü has been speaking with Midlands 103's Will Faulkner and says she is thrilled with the support she is receiving:

A retired surgeon is recalling the long battle to establish a cancer support service in Laois in his new book.  Peter Naughton says he met years of health service red tape and funding refusals before the Cuisle Centre opened in 2007. Mr. Naughton says the generosity of the local community helped deliver a service that now supports hundreds of patients each year.

Students across the Midlands have scooped up prizes at this year's Stripe Young Scientist Exhibition. Leaving Cert student at Portlaoise CBS Joshua Corbett is this years runner- up with his project ‘There’s Plenty of Room to Breakthrough at the Bottom’. It looks at the use of AI to tackle pre-clinical failures and advance brain drug delivery - while Mr. Corbett was named the overall category winner for chemistry, mathematics and physics. It's his second award after finishing second in the Senior Technology individual category last year. Moate Community School's Rachel Coughlan gets the Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award for creating a biogradeable chewing gum. While Tullamore College's Killian Dromey and Rachel Carroll take home the top prize in Health & Wellbeing's Junior section. Their winning entry focuses on how the natural pH of cabbage juice can be used to detect and track infections. The students have been speaking with Midlands 103's David Hollywood about their projects,

A Midlands woman is fundraising so she can undergo surgery for a life-threatening condition. Offaly's Abi Markey suffers from Amelogenesis Imperfecta, which means she has no enamel on her teeth and is in constant pain.  After years of failed treatments, she had her remaining teeth removed in 2023, and now faces the collapse of her jawbone without urgent specialist surgery. A CT scan revealed her upper jawbone is dangerously thin, and only Zygomatic implants anchored in the cheekbone can save her. This procedure is unavailable through the HSE in Ireland, and the family is seeking treatment in Germany. Her mum, Sarah Finane, has set up a Go Fund Me page to help keep Abi smiling.  Abi and Sarah have been speaking with Will Faulkner on the Midlands Today show.

A midlands mum, with two children who have autism, says the hundreds of children waiting to be assessed by the HSE will be "lost" because of a lack of access to the appropriate supports. Athlone's Hilda Duignan believes children frozen out of the assessment of need system will miss out on early intervention, and ultimately, vital therapies. New figures from the HSE show the vast majority of young people in the region who received their assessment of need were not seen within the legal timeframe of six months. Ms Duignan has been speaking with Will Faulkner on Midlands Today and says the delays will have massive consequences: