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LAST UPDATE | 26 Apr
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
1. The funeral for the late pope is beginning at the Vatican this morning. Our reporter Diarmuid Pepper is in Rome and we’ve live updates thoughout the ceremony here.
2. The plane to Rome yesterday was packed with Irish pilgrims on their way to pay their last respects to Pope Francis. They told Diarmuid that many of them had planned to travel for the now-postponed canonisation of the Church’s first millennial saint, the teenager Carlo Acutis.
3. Here’s a handy list of the various world leaders who will be attending the funeral. Meanwhile our Assistant News Editor Rónán Duffy has been taking a look back at photos from the funeral of Pope John Paul in 2005 – another of the largest gatherings of heads of state and government in history.
4. Tributes have been paid to Bronagh English, the Leaving Cert student who died after the car she was driving entered the water in Co Tipperary on Thursday night.
Shocked members of her community described the 18-year-old as kind, vibrant and talented.
5. Virginia Giuffre, the outspoken sex trafficking survivor who settled a sexual assault lawsuit against the UK’s Prince Andrew, has died aged 41.
She is understood to have died at her farm in Western Australia. Police are not treating her death as suspicious. Her family said in a statement that she was a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse”.
6. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said conversations about the rights of trans people need to be had calmly and respectfully, while making reference to her own sister, who is a trans woman.
Last week, Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane apologised after he described the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the UK Equality Act do not include transgender women as a “common sense” judgment.
Speaking to Patrick Kielty on the Late Late Show, McDonald said that Sinn Féin’s position on the issue has not changed but that the implications of the ruling would need to be studied, particularly since it will impact Northern Ireland.
7. Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
Mangione pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan federal court to the four-count indictment, which is the first case in which the US Justice Department is seeking the death penalty since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
8. Gaza’s civil defence agency has said an Israeli strike on Gaza City has killed at least four people and left “more than 30″ feared buried under the rubble of a house.
“Our crews were able to recover four martyrs and five wounded following the attack,” which hit a family home in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood at dawn, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
9. Any lingering rain and drizzle will clear this morning, Met Éireann says. Mist and fog will also clear slowly, but may linger on some southern and eastern coasts. Otherwise there’ll be sunny spells with temperatures of 13 to 17 degrees today.
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