EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. #GROUNDHOG D-DAY: The House of Commons voted last night to back an amendment seeking to replace the Irish backstop with unspecific “alternative arrangements”. The Irish government and the EU are adamant there will be no renegotiation.

2. #REACTION: The British papers have been giving their two cents on the proposed new tactic this morning. The Times says a confident Theresa May has “united Tories behind fresh talks with Brussels”, the Daily Express goes with “She did it” while the Daily Mirror reckons “May’s deal back from the dead…for now”.

3. #STRIKE Nurses and midwives at hospitals and private clinics across the country will be out on the picket line today as a 24 hour strike begins. A poll published in TheJournal.ie this morning has found just under three quarters of people support the action. 

4. #WEATHER Motorists have been urged to take extra care on roads today amid an ongoing national snow-ice warning. There was snowfall overnight in a number of areas and there’s frost with icy stretches on untreated surfaces.

5. #RIP James Ingram, a Grammy winning singer known for his soulful R&B hits, has died. Ingram is probably best known on this side of the Atlantic for his duet with Linda Ronstadt, ‘Somewhere Out There’, from the 1986 animated film An American Tail.

6. #AUSTRALIA: Police in Australia have raided the stables of one of the country’s leading horse trainers, arresting three men in a probe into alleged racing fraud, the BBC reports this morning. There have been no charges. Local media named one man in custody as stable owner Darren Weir. 

7.#VENEZUELA: The country’s top court has barred opposition leader Juan Guaidó from leaving the country and has frozen his bank accounts amid an escalating struggle for power. 

8. #NOTORIOUS: A notorious section of the N4 from Collooney to Castlebaldwin in Sligo, which is just 15 kilometres long, is to be upgraded at a cost of €150 million. The local county coroner has described the stretch of road as possibly the worst in Ireland. 

9. #NO CARS GO: Dublin City Council will next month begin a six-week trial of pedestrianising Suffolk Street in Dublin city. The council confirmed that the trial would begin on this Saturday and last for six weeks.

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