EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s biggest stories, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

• The bodies of two men have been found on neighbouring farms in Co Carlow. An investigation into the deaths is underway. Gardaí said this evening that Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis has visited both of the scenes.
• The government is to sell off some state assets including parts of Bord Gais to raise €3 billion. The state asset sale plan has been heavily criticised by the opposition of making “no economic sense”.
• Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik have been killed during heavy shelling in Homs, Syria today as government forces continue their violent crackdown.
• At today’s Seanad discussion on media standards, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbit criticised what he termed the descent of media “from excessive deference to corrosive cynicism”. Meanwhile, Independent Senator David Norris claimed that a tabloid editor told him that negative stories about him were ‘payback’ for the senator standing up for victims of invasion of privacy.
• A 26-year-old man has been sentenced to serve at least 35 years in prison for the rape and murder of a heavily pregnant teenager in south Wales last year.

Residents of southern Puerto Aysen, Chile clash with riot police today as they protest the high cost of fuel, poor public education, poor infrastructure, poor health services, low salaries and high unemployment. (AP/PA Images)

• Bank of Ireland says it has received mortgage applications worth €264 million for a fund set up at the start of this year. The bank had announced in December that it would make €1.5 billion in funding available for mortgages in 2012.
• At least 49 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in a train crash in Buenos Aires this morning.
• The EU trade commissioner has called on the European Court of Justice to rule on whether the controversial ACTA legislation is in breach of EU law.
• Users of a chat service linked to the YouPorn website have had their personal information compromised after a third-party service provider failed to secure the data, according to the site.
• In this evening’s column, William Campbell says that we need to get rid of local authorities because of their dismal performance record.
• Get set for Google glasses.
• The winner of today’s caption competition featuring Enda Kenny? God’s Horse with: “Hello hello..is is that the internet…”
• Brit Awards organisers have apologised to Adele for cutting the singer off during one of her acceptance speeches last night – after which she was caught on camera flipping her middle finger to the crowd.
• Have you seen today’s bizarre publicity photo of the day yet?
• Check out the subzero training of these South Korean troops:

(Video via Storyful; video uploaded by diagonaluk)

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