LAST UPDATE | 18 Oct 2023

GOOD MORNING. HERE are the top stories as the day gets underway.

1. Biden visit

After a Gaza hospital explosion left hundreds dead yesterday, protests took place across the Middle East. Joe Biden is set to arrive in Israel today for talks. You can follow the events in the Israel-Hamas conflict via our live blog. 

2. Healthcare hires

Leo Varadkar has said that no public body, including the health service, should hire staff it doesn’t have the money for. The Taoiseach made the comments in the midst of the ongoing controversy about the funding of the health service.

3. Junior Cert 

Results will be available for over 71,000 Junior Cert students this morning at schools. Students will also be able to access their results on the State Examinations Commission’s (SEC) website from 4pm this afternoon.

4. Joe Drennan

The funeral of Joe Drennan, the young journalism student who was struck by a car and killed on Friday night, is to take place at 3pm this afternoon in St Fergal’s Church in Camross, Co Laois. 

5. Israeli goods 

Opposition parties have called for trade unions to support workers who refuse to handle Israeli goods, but moves towards a legislative ban on goods from Israeli-occupied territories appears to have stalled. 

6. X

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced that it has begun charging new users in New Zealand and the Philippines to use basic features like posting messages.

7. Britney 

Britney Spears says in her eagerly anticipated new memoir that she had an abortion during her relationship with Justin Timberlake over two decades ago, according to an excerpt released yesterday.

8. ‘Mediaeval misogyny’

The Journal’s Dirmuid Pepper reports from the synod at The Vatican, where Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) aims to challenge discrimination against women in the Catholic Church and whose mission is the ordination of women into the Church.

9. ‘Appalled’ 

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said he is ‘appalled’ by the strike on the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza and called for the opening of humanitarian corridors.