EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. #TALKS Labour Relations Commision talks between unions and Bus Éireann management will take place today. Bus Éireann employees who are SIPTU and Transport Salaried Staff’s Association members voted in favour of strike action yesterday. The ballot took place following cuts to terms and conditions for staff at the company.
2. #STABBING A man (21) is due in court this morning in connection with the stabbing of a teenage boy in Drogheda on Wednesday. The 16-year-old was walking home from school when he was stabbed, and remains at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.
3. #SAVILE An inquiry report into the sexual offences carried out by the late Jimmy Savile is to be published by the Metropolitan Police and the NSPCC today. BBC News reports that the abuse took place in locations including hospitals and a hospice.
4. #HSE The HSE has published its national service plan for 2013, outlining how it will save €721 million. The changes mean 40,000 people will lose their medical cards. Fianna Fáil health spokesperson Billy Kelleher said that the plan is “significantly less substantial” than the plan published last year.
5. #CALIFORNIA A student was critically wounded after being shot by a fellow student in a California high school. The suspect used a shotgun that belonged to his brother and planned to shoot two fellow students, police said. His teacher helped to talk him into putting the shotgun down.
6. #ROADS The phone records of drivers involved in car crashes should be checked afterwards to see if they were using their mobile around that time, the Chief Executive of the Road Safety Authority is reported to have told The Irish Daily Star. He told the paper that he wants it to be mandatory, adding that it won’t be about who the call was made to, but when the phone was used.
7. #SMOKING A new report says that tobacco companies are making their packaging ‘elegant’ and ‘feminine’ to attract female customers. The Irish Cancer Society’s ‘Women and Smoking: Time to Face the Crisis’ report also says that half of poor young women are smokers, and one in three Irish women smoke, the Irish Examiner reports
8. #MARIE STOPES Representatives from the family planning and private sexual health clinic Marie Stopes met with the Justice Committee at Stormont yesterday, where they were grilled about the medical abortions offered in their Belfast clinic. The representatives said they operate within the legal framework in Northern Ireland and are regulated.
9. #SYRIA UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is to meet US and Russian officials today to discuss the Syrian conflict, a day after Damascus denounced his “bias” against President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, Washington has expressed concern about securing Syria’s chemical weapons should Assad fall from power.
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