NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news.

Poet Lewis Kenny writes poems on demand for passers-by in Temple Bar today, as Lewis helped launch this years Poetry Day Ireland. Poetry Day Ireland will be taking place this Thursday 27 April with over 100 events all around the country, many of them free. Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

IRELAND

• The jury was selected in the trial of Solidarity TD Paul Murphy and six other men on charges of falsely imprisoning Joan Burton in Tallaght in 2014.
• TDs and ministers responded to the findings of the Citizen’s Assembly, which called for a change to Ireland’s abortion laws.
• A teenager stood trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a young girl after she fell asleep.
• President Michael D Higgins led the tributes for leading disability rights activist and journalist Donal Toolan, following his death.
• A man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the role he played in the killing of 17-year-old Daniel McAnaspie.
• Fire services managed to bring a wild gorse fire in Cork under control after battling the blaze through the night.
• An inquest heard of how a Kerry woman died after she received 61 stab wounds while her eight-year-old daughter was stabbed 11 times, RTÉ reports.
• A man who orally raped his partner’s seven-year-old son after sending the boy’s mother out on an errand was jailed for five years.
• A woman who stabbed her housemate and former partner to death was jailed for six years at the Central Criminal Court.
• The controversial Poolbeg incinerator took its first delivery of waste, and is due to fire up this week.
• The association representing rank-and-file gardaí said the breath test scandal is a management issue and blame should not fall on its members.

WORLD

NASA Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer appear on a video screen as President Donald Trump hosts a video conference with then aboard the International Space Station in the Oval Office at the White House. Pool / ABACA/ABACA/PA Images Pool / ABACA/ABACA/PA Images / ABACA/ABACA/PA Images

#FRANCE: French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen announced she was stepping down as her party’s leader, as she and Emmanuel Macron prepared to battle it out to become the next leader of France.

#SYRIA: The US blacklisted Syrian chemists following a chemical weapons attack early this month allegedly orchestrated by the Syrian Army.

#LONDON: An investigation was launched following the death of an 62-year-old Irishman in London.

#NORTH KOREA: North Korea detained a US citizen as he attempted to leave the country, bringing to three the number of Americans now being held there.

PARTING SHOT

Artificial intelligence is now detecting cancer and robots are doing nursing tasks. This Wired video looks at how robots are increasingly being used in healthcare.

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