LAST UPDATE | 21 Jan 2021

EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day

1. #PRESIDENT BIDEN: US President Joe Biden signed a raft of executive orders to launch his administration yesterday, including a decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord and reverse the process of leaving the World Health Organization.

2. #RESTRICTIONS: Cabinet will meet next week to review the current Level 5 restrictions, which are likely to be extended to late February.

3. #SCHOOLS: Parents have said they are disappointed and frustrated with the government’s handling of reopening special education amid the third wave of Covid-19.

4. #VACCINE: A group representing grocery shops and convenience stores in Ireland has said that retail workers are having to deal with “an increasingly antagonistic” group of people who refuse to wear masks or social distance in shops; RGDATA is asking for frontline retail staff to be vaccinated quicker.

5. #US DEATHS: US President Joe Biden warned the worst of the pandemic is still to come, as the number of American coronavirus deaths surpassed the country’s troop fatalities in World War II.

6. #NPHET: The ongoing debate about the abandoned reopening of schools for pupils with special needs has seen sharp exchanges between teachers’ unions and ministers this week. We take a look at the advice NPHET gave to the government around the closure of schools, in this FactFind.

7. #CANNABIS: Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced the provision for the delivery and funding of the Medicinal Cannabis Access Programme. Once suitable medical cannabis products are made available, the programme will make it possible for a medical consultant to prescribe a listed cannabis-based treatment for a patient under his or her care for a number of medical conditions, only where the patient has failed to respond to standard treatments.

8. #OPINION: Ireland can end homelessness but “absolute reform of the system is required”, Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin writes.

9. #WEATHER: Temperatures will drop to as low as minus four in the coming days, Met Éireann says.