GOOD MORNING. HERE’S everything you need to know as the Bank Holiday Weekend gets started.
India train crash
1. Two trains derailed yesterday in India, killing more than 280 people and trapping hundreds of others inside more than a dozen damaged rail cars, officials said.
The accident that happened about 137 miles south-west of Kolkata created a chaotic scene of twisted wreckage and desperate rescuers as teams tried to free passengers and recover bodies. The cause was under investigation.
Rivers
2. The Department of Agriculture pressured the environmental watchdog not to release a list containing information on farms pumping water from or diverting rivers and lakes across the country, TheJournal can reveal.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that the department “would not share information on farmers and farms” with the EPA if the information were to be made public.
Safe countries
3. The Government will formally review the designation it has given to all current ‘safe countries of origin’ over the next year, it has emerged.
The designation applies to countries deemed to be safe for the purposes of asylum applications, precluding arrivals from those countries from obtaining refugee status.
Dundalk
4. A man been charged in the garda investigation into the death of a woman in her 60s whose body was found in Co Louth last week.
A man in his 20s was arrested yesterday the woman’s body was discovered at a property in Bridge Street, Dundalk last Wednesday.
Siptu strike
5. A strike by Siptu members in local authority water services, which was due to start on Wednesday 7 June, has been called off.
The dispute related to a demand that the Government protect all earnings for local authority water service workers if they did not transfer to the state-owned utility company Uisce Éireann, formerly known as Irish Water.
Lebanon Trial
6. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has refuted accusations by a judge that it was behind last year’s killing of UN peacekeeper Seán Rooney, saying the powerful faction “had absolutely no relation to the incident”.
Five men were charged with the killing of Private Rooney in the south of Lebanon, a stronghold of the Iran-backed group. The charges allege all five men are linked to Hezbollah.
Ukraine
7. Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that his country is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory.
PGA Tour
8. Rory McElroy bounced back from a frustrating opening round and surged into the top five yesterday at the Memorial Tournament on the PGA Tour.
The Holywood man shot a four-under par 68 to move three shots off the lead held by Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama.
Sunny Weather
9. The sunny, dry weather is set to continue across the Bank Holiday Weekend and into next week, with temperatures remaining in the high teens and low 20s across the country.
According to Met Éireann, this morning will be mostly sunny with just small patches of cloud in places. There will be clear skies across the country, with highest temperatures of 19 to 24 degrees generally in mostly light easterly breezes.
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