LAST UPDATE | 16 Dec 2022

GOOD MORNING.

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

Lebanon

1. The Irish soldier killed in an attack on a convoy of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon has been named as 23-year-old Private Seán Rooney from Newtowncunningham in Co Donegal.

Another soldier – 22-year-old Shane Kearney from Killeagh in Co Cork – was seriously injured in the incident and remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Two other soldiers were injured in the incident, which took place when two armoured vehicles were travelling in a convoy and got separated. The routine patrol, which was taking place as two personnel had been granted special leave due to family bereavements, escalated into an incident where an “aggressive mob” blocked one of the cars and small arms fire was reported. The remaining four personnel from the convoy were not injured.

WhatsApp scam

2. Garreth MacNamee reports the number of people being arrested for fraud across the State has skyrocketed in the last three years with greater awareness of scams being cited as the reason for the jump. 

From 2012, only a handful of people were being arrested for fraud in Ireland. However, these numbers began to spike back in 2019.

Twitter suspends journalists

3. Twitter has suspended accounts of more than a half-dozen journalists who had been writing about the company and its new owner Elon Musk.

Silencing journalists at Twitter while claiming to be a free speech champion is the latest controversy provoked by Musk since he took over the company, which has seen staffing gutted and advertisers exit.

Among those suspended is CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan.

Fatal fire in France

4. Five children are among 10 people killed overnight after a fire broke out in a seven-storey apartment building in a suburb of the eastern French city of Lyon.

The cause of the fire remains unclear, authorities have said, adding that the blaze erupted a little after 3am (2am Irish time) in Vaulx-en-Velin.

Landslide in Malaysia

5. A landslide at a tourist campground in Malaysia has left multiple people, including a five-year-old boy, dead.

Rescuers recovered the bodies of 16 people and authorities said 17 others were feared buried at the site on an organic farm outside the capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Free contraception

6. Back to Irish news, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced the expansion of the free contraception scheme to include women aged 26, from 1 January 2023.

The free contraception scheme for women aged 17 to 25 was launched on 14 September 2022.

Eligible women are able to visit GPs and other medical facilities such as family planning clinics for consultations regarding the best contraceptive options from them.

Sunak in Northern Ireland

7. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has met Northern Ireland political leaders amid the ongoing political impasse at Stormont.

Sunak held informal talks with senior representatives of the main parties at a hotel near Belfast at the start of his first visit to the region as Prime Minister.

Weather warnings

8. A Status Orange low temperature/ice warning is in place for Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Cavan, Monaghan, Clare, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Galway and Roscommon until midday. 

A Status Yellow low temperature/ice warning is in place for the remaining counties until midday. 

Crisp warning

9. Doctors have warned that the “seemingly mundane” act of eating crisps could be “risky” for certain people with an unusual deformity after a 54-year-old woman perforated the tissue separating her oral and nasal cavities while munching a Pringle.

She was left with a two-centimetre hole in her palate, through which food and drink continuously entered her nose from her mouth last Christmas, according to a case report published in the Irish Medical Journal.