Five things you need to know today

Rent control, Pat Hickey’s homecoming, and another headache for Yahoo

Rent control talks break down without agreement: Talks between the Government and Fianna Fáil on proposed rent control plans broke down without agreement on Wedesday night.

Minister for Housing Simon Coveney Coveney and his Fianna Fáil counterpart, Barry Cowen, held talks to try to solve a dispute over proposed rent controls for Dublin and Cork.

Risk of Irish men and women developing cancer levels off: The chance of Irish men and women developing cancer has plateaued after over 20 years of continuous growth, a new report suggests.

The rates of the top three cancers for men – prostate, colo-rectal and lung – are now declining or static, according to the latest annual report from the National Cancer Registry.

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Pat Hickey on his way back to Ireland from Brazil: Pat Hickey is on his way home to Ireland, after four months in Brazil, after his dawn arrest at his hotel in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympic Games, on allegations including ticket touting, ambush marketing, and money laundering.

The former Olympic Council of Ireland president, who has resided in beachside Leblon, on the south side of Rio de Janeiro, since his release from Bangu maximum security prison, went through the security gates of Rio’s international airport at 8.15pm on Wednesday night (10.15pm Irish time).

Evacuation begins in eastern Aleppo, Syrian official says: An operation to organise the departure of fighters from eastern Aleppo in Syria has started, according to a Syrian official.

A ceasefire in the last rebel-held pocket of eastern Aleppo was to take effect early on Thursday morning, opposition forces said, after a first failed attempt at a truce left tens of thousands trapped in the besieged area.

Yahoo says over one billion users may have been hacked: Yahoo said on Wednesday that it has identified a new breach that occurred in August 2013 and involved data associated with more than one billion user accounts, double the number affected in a different breach disclosed in September.

Yahoo said it believed the latest incident was likely distinct from the breach disclosed in September, when it said information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen in 2014.