GOOD MORNING.

Here’s everything you need to know as you start your day.

Licensing laws

1. In our main story this morning, Christina Finn reports that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed to The Journal that the licensing law changes that will allow nightclubs to open until 6am and pubs to open until 12.30am will not be ready by Christmas party season this year.

“It would not be the case that those laws will be in place for this Christmas,” Varadkar confirmed.

The Government had promised late night pub and club openings would be in operation by this summer, but the legislation has faced significant delays.

Hillsong

2. An investment firm linked to a religious group has been awarded a contract for housing international protection applicants.

Shalom Living has been contracted to provide accommodation for up to 77 people on a rural estate in Co Waterford.

The small firm is run by Edward Lacey and his wife Mary Lacey, who are recent graduates of Hillsong, an international ‘megachurch’ founded in Australia in the 1980s.

Child services

3. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that there are plenty of good things about being a child in Ireland, but has acknowledged that “there are huge deficits as well”.

Varadkar previously said that he was putting children’s issues at heart of his term as Taoiseach, and it was put to him this week that Tusla is now suffering an unprecedented crisis.

In the last two weeks, two significant reports have highlighted serious failings in the care for children in the State.

Russia

4. Three drones were downed over Moscow early this morning, Russia’s defence ministry said, in an attack that damaged two office towers and briefly shut an international airport.

While one of the drones was shot down on the city’s outskirts, two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office complex.

Dismissed

5. A federal judge has dismissed a $475 million (€430 million) defamation lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against CNN for describing his claim that the 2020 election was stolen as the “Big Lie.”

US District Court Judge Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Trump, threw out the suit on Friday.

2024 Election

6. Robert F Kennedy Jr, son of Bobby Kennedy, is challenging President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the 2024 Presidential Election. But who is he? And why is he running as a Democrat?

RFK Jr has never held an elected post himself, but became a prominent public figure as a result of his campaigning against the official account of the assassinations of both his uncle John F Kennedy and father.

Protest

7. The public library in Cork City closed yesterday as a result of an anti-LGBTQI+ protest being held there.

Cork City Libraries released a statement saying the library was forced to close after a banner was mounted across the entrance of the library without permission.

Coolock

8. Gardaí are investigating after an 80-year-old man was involved in an altercation during an aggravated burglary at his home early Saturday morning.

At about 4.40am, gardaí received a report that a number of males had forced themselves into a home in Dunree Park in Coolock, Dublin 5.

Dún Laoghaire Welcomes

9. Hundreds of people attended a rally in Dún Laoghaire in south Dublin in support of asylum seekers on Saturday afternoon.

The rally – organised by the Dún Laoghaire Welcomes group – was planned in response to recent protests in the nearby area of Ballybrack against housing for refugees and international protection applicants.