The 5 at 5: Wednesday

The 5 at 5 Five minutes, five stories, five o’clock…

EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, The Journal brings you five of the biggest stories of the day.

1. #ABORTION SERVICES: The Health Committee has heard that the Government is in need of “strong leadership and courage” to make the changes to the abortion act that have been recommended by barrister Marie O’ Shea.

2. #CRASH: A teenage girl has died after a road traffic incident involving a tractor in Co Cavan.

3. #OVERCROWDING: The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called on the HSE to take “immediate corrective measures” to deal with hospital overcrowding after it revealed that 11,856 people were without hospital beds this month.

4. #BELGOROD: Russia said it would evacuate hundreds of children from villages due to intensifying shelling in the border region of Belgorod, where the situation was deemed “alarming” by the Kremlin.

5. #FORECOURTS: Excise duty rates will increase by 6 cent per litre of petrol and 5 cent per litre of diesel at midnight tonight as rates begin an incremental return to their levels before a cut came into effect last March.