LAST UPDATE | 6 Jan

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news that you need to start your day.

Weather warnings

1. 41,000 homes remain without power, many schools are due to shut this morning and hospital services across Munster and Leinster have been affected, as the country remains in the grip of icy weather conditions.

Met Éireann has warned of dangerous travelling conditions as a Status Yellow warning for low temperatures and ice remains in place for the entire country.

Colin Farrell

2. Colin Farrell has won Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television at the Golden Globes in California last night for his role in the DC Comics adaptation The Penguin.

Farrell beat out fellow Irish actor Andrew Scott, who had ben nominated in the same catecory for his role in Apple TV’s Ripley series.

Littering

3. While the number of cans and plastic bottles on streets has fallen since the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme, overall litter levels did not reduce last year.

That’s according to Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL), which finds Dublin North Inner City bottom of the pile for littering, with Dublin City Centre just one position above it.

Death notices

4. Online death notices are no longer an Irish monopoly – three separate platforms are officially launching in the coming weeks to allow funeral directors to place death notices on their websites.

They are seeking to capitalise on the decision by the industry leader Rip.ie to begin charging funeral directors €100 for the submission of each death notice on its website.

Public transport cancellations

5. Bus Éireann announced a series of full service cancellations due to adverse weather conditions, including on route 13 from Tralee to Limerick via Listowel, route 40 from Tralee to Cork via Killarney and all route 270 services.

Selected services have also been cancelled this morning on several other routes including routes 233, 236, 237, 239, 245 and 257, 275 and 279 in the south of the country. Dublin Bus, meanwhile, confirmed its 44b service is unable to serve Glencullen in south Dublin.

Russian oil spill

6. Dozens of sea mammals have been found dead since last month’s Russian oil tanker spill in the Black Sea, a dolphin rescue centre has said.

The spill began on 15 December, when two ageing Russian tankers were caught in a storm off the Kerch Strait linking Crimea to southern Russia – one sank and the other ran aground, pouring around 2,400 tonnes of a heavy fuel oil into the surrounding waters.

South Korea

7. South Korean investigators trying to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol said they would seek an extension to an arrest warrant that expires at the end of Monday.

Dozens of anti-corruption agency investigators and assisting police officers attempted to detain the impeached president on Friday, but retreated from his residence in Seoul after a tense five-hour standoff with the presidential security service.

US winter storm

8. More than 60 million Americans are in the grips of a huge winter storm that could bring the heaviest snowfall and coldest temperatures in over a decade

A state of emergency has so far been declared in seven states – Kansas, one of the worst-hit areas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Arkansas and parts of New Jersey.

 Irish protestor jailed

9. The Department of Foreign Affairs has said that it stands ready to offer consular assistance to a 77-year-old environmental campaigner and Irish citizen Gaie Delap, who was returned to jail over Christmas in the UK due to electronic ankle tag issues.

Gaie was sentenced to 20 months in jail in August last year for her involvement in a Just Stop Oil protest that blocked a motorway in the UK in November 2022.