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GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know to start the day.
1. Andy Burnham’s rapid ascent to power in the UK has been built on promises to rip power away from London, moving key levers of power to his Manchester base via a new ‘No 10 in the North’.
Could Burnham’s plan to bring core powers of the British government to Manchester work in Ireland, by moving key parts of government to Cork or Limerick, Galway or Waterford?
2. Journalist Saoirse McGarrigle, who has long covered the case of prolific paedophile Michael Shine, writes today about her first encounter with the former surgeon, and the most recent encounter in which she doorstepped him at his Ballsbridge apartment.
She writes: “When we locked eyes, his first comment was, ‘Oh you are beautiful’.”
3. Peadar Tóibín has “no regrets” about jumping ship from Sinn Féin.
Sitting in his sun-drenched Aontú office that overlooks Kildare Street a day before the Dáil rises for the summer, the party leader tells The Journal‘s political editor Christina Finn there are “good people in Sinn Féin”, but he believes the leadership has been terrible.
4. On Sunday morning next week, the music will stop at Yamamori Izakaya.
After months of protests and a High Court dispute over noise complaints, the venue beneath the Japanese restaurant on South Great George’s Street will host its final weekend of DJ nights next week (a last-minute week extension has been agreed), bringing to an end a 15-year run as one of Dublin’s best-known late-night spots.
5. Donald Trump said he gets to host the World Cup and 2028 Olympics because “they rigged the election”.
The president told a reception of the international football governing body Fifa in New York he “was supposed to not be here right now”, in reference to the second and final four-year term he would have served if he had won the 2020 election.
6. Russian couple Yelena and Dmitry passed four petrol stations before finally finding one that actually had fuel as they returned to the city of Vologda, some 480km north of Moscow, from their country allotment plot.
Like all but a few Russian regions, Vologda is suffering from fuel shortages, as intensifying Ukrainian strikes on Russian depots disrupt ordinary life more than at any point since the conflict began in 2022.
7. Speaking a modern language is increasingly valuable in the global workforce but despite spending years learning a language in school, few Irish students continue to fluency.
Only a small percentage end up studying one at university, according to the 2026 Language Trends Ireland report commissioned by the British Council and Post-Primary Languages Ireland.
8. Ireland are facing New Zealand at Fortress Eden Park this morning, hoping to end the All Blacks’ legendary 32-year, 52-Test unbeaten run in Auckland.
You can follow along with all the action with Gavan Casey of The 42′s liveblog here.
9. Dense wildfire smoke billowing down from Canada and northern Minnesota set off unhealthy air quality alerts across the United States, triggering concern over the weekend’s World Cup final outside New York.
US President Donald Trump lashed out at Canada – where authorities said more than 200 fires were burning out of control – calling the pollution “totally unacceptable.”
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