LAST UPDATE | 4 Jul 2025

GOOD MORNING. 

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start the day. 

Greenhouse gas

1. Ireland’s greenhouses gas emissions fell by 2% last year, according to data released by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, the EPA warned that the rate of reduction is still far off what’s needed to reach national and EU targets.

Countdown to tariffs

2. US President Donald Trump has said he plans to start sending letters informing countries of their tariff rates as soon as today, as the EU’s trade commissioner said there had been no breakthrough on negotiations ahead of the 9 July deadline. 

Áras election

3. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said Fianna Fáil’s preference for the presidential election “is not so much the party, it’s the office should be filled by a person who will carry it off with distinction”.

Carndonagh

4. A mother and daughter who died after a road traffic collision in Co Donegal on Wednesday evening have been named locally as Natalie McLaughlin and her 6-year-old daughter Ella.

No-traffic zone

5. Parliament Street in Dublin City has become pedestrianised under the latest phase of the Dublin City Transport Plan.

Diogo Jota

6. Mourners are set to gather to honour Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota at a wake in Portugal this morning, after he was killed in a car crash alongside his brother Andre Silva in Spain yesterday. 

Gaza

7. Tánaiste Simon Harris told the new US ambassador to Ireland at a Fourth of July celebration last night that “we want the bombs to stop” falling in Gaza and that a ceasefire agreement must be reached between Hamas and Israel.

RIP

8. Michael Madsen, who was best known for starring in a number of Quentin Tarantino films including Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs, has died aged 67.

Welcome to jail

9. A virtual tour of Midlands Prison which aims to inform and reduce anxiety among incoming prisoners and their visitors will be unveiled today.