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

IRELAND

Taoiseach Micheal Martin arriving for a visit to pharmaceutical and biotech research firm APC in Cherrywood, Dublin Brian Lawless Brian Lawless

• There have been a further 98 cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Ireland today, according to health officials.
• The new rule requiring pubs and restaurants to keep details of customer food orders was designed to “crack down” on the small number of pubs in breach of Covid-19 regulations, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said. 
• Taoiseach Micheál Martin believes Ireland remains well placed to secure a substantive EU Commission portfolio having selected two “high calibre” candidates.
• Varadkar has said we should not be obsessing about the number of positive Covid cases that are reported everyday.
• Two patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 who had been treated at the haematology ward in Craigavon Hospital in Co Armagh have died. 
• A man in his 40s has been taken to hospital after receiving serious head injuries during an early-morning assault in Dublin’s north inner city.
• A man has been arrested as part of an investigation into two suspected invoice redirection frauds. 

INTERNATIONAL

Western chimpanzee Mandy cradles her newborn baby in her enclosure at Chester Zoo Peter Byrne Peter Byrne

#NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand has reported its first death from coronavirus in more than three months. 

#VACCINE: Patients involved in early tests of a Russian vaccine for Covid-19 developed antibodies with “no serious adverse events”, according to new research.

#ITALY: Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been hospitalised, days after he became the latest high-profile figure to contract the coronavirus.

PARTING SHOT

The BBC breakfast programme has apologised after it mistakenly showed the Irish tricolour instead of the Northern Ireland flag this morning.  

The DUP has called the mistake “disgraceful” and said that Ian Paisley Jr MP had contacted BBC director-general Tim Davie about the matter. 

The programme had been reporting on the differing quarantine advice that exists in different parts of the UK. 

Displaying this on screen this morning, BBC Breakfast used the Irish flag instead of that of Northern Ireland.