NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Claire Byrne arrives at the High Court as part of a High Court defamation action by former Sinn Féin councillor Nicky Kehoe. Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• The government’s Ireland 2040 capital expenditure plan was launched to much fanfare in Sligo. Here are the main points.
• As part of the plan, the government pledged to double current housing output over the next 10 years.
• A murder investigation was launched into the death of Joanne Lee, whose body was found in Ranelagh yesterday.
• One of the four men facing charges arising from the alleged rape of a woman in Paddy’s Jackson’s Belfast home told police she was “staring at and fixated on” the rugby player.
• Four men were arrested after man was stabbed in Portarlington, Co. Laois.
• The country’s first supervised drug injecting centre will be operated by the Merchants Quay Project in Dublin.
• A body found on a Welsh beach in November was confirmed as missing 71-year-old  Irishman Brendan Burke.
• A man in his early 20s died following a workplace incident in a Kildare meat-processing plant.

WORLD

Mourners leave the funeral of Meadow Pollack, one of the victims of of Wednesday's school shooting in Florida. Gerald Herbert / PA Images Gerald Herbert / PA Images / PA Images

#SCHOOL SHOOTING: Teenager Nikolas Cruz confessed to gunning down 17 people at his former high school in Florida. It also emerged that the FBI had previously received a tip-off about the 19-year-old gunman.

#MEDDLING: US Special Counsel Robert Mueller has announced the indictments of 13 Russian nationals and three companies for alleged interference in the 2016 election.

#MEDICINE: The first scientific case study has been published describing how a US transgender woman was able to breastfeed her adopted infant by taking hormones that induce lactation.

PARTING SHOT

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Ahead of this weekend’s episode of Ireland’s Got Talent, US TV personality RuPaul tweeted in Irish to “mo chailín Michelle Visage”. We really want to know the story behind this one.

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