LAST UPDATE | 19 Nov 2021

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

Facebook illegal ads

1. In our main story today, Stephen McDermott reports that a government TD has called on Facebook to stop hosting ads for college ‘essay mills’ after promoted posts for the illegal service recently appeared on the firm’s platforms.

A search of Facebook’s ad library by The Journal earlier this week found eight active advertisements for bespoke essay-writing services for college students, which targeted Irish users on Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.

The ads, posted on different dates in October and November by three different companies, offer students to have their essays and dissertations written or other course work completed, including research proposals, statistical analyses and presentations.

Work from home

2. Government advice that everyone should work from home “unless it is absolutely necessary” that they attend the workplace in person comes into effect from today. 

The guidance was outlined by Taoiseach Micheál Martin during an address to the nation on Tuesday during which he said the phased return to workplaces was being “paused”. 

Healthcare workers and Covid

3. Sticking with Covid-19 news, unions have said healthcare workers must not be exempt from the new requirement for people to restrict their movements for five days if a member of their household has coronavirus. 

It follows comments from HSE CEO Paul Reid yesterday afternoon that the health service is “working through” a policy around asymptomatic close contacts remaining in work.

Antigen test recommendations

4. The government’s Expert Advisory Group on Rapid Testing (RTEAG) suggested over two months ago that antigen tests should be used twice a week be people who engage in “higher risk activities”.

Government advised the public last week that people attending bars, restaurants and other indoor environments should consider using antigen tests multiple times a week to limit the spread of Covid-19. 

Medical misadventure

5. The jury at the inquest into the deaths of Marie Downey and her four-day-old son Darragh have returned verdicts of medical misadventure in both cases.

Mother of three Marie Downey, who lived in Knocknanevin, near Kildorrery, Co Cork was found dead on the floor of her private room at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) shortly after 8am on 25 March, 2019, with her baby son Darragh critically injured under her.

In spite of major medical intervention Darragh died 33 hours later.

London house fire

6. Internationally, two children and two women have died in a house fire in Bexleyheath in south-east London.

Six fire engines and around 40 firefighters were called to the blaze on Hamilton Road around 8.30pm yesterday.

Belarus-Poland border

7. A makeshift migrant camp on Belarus’ border with Poland has been cleared, Minsk has said, as hundreds of Iraqis who failed to make the crossing to enter the European Union returned home.

Malcolm X convictions

8. More than half a century after the assassination of Malcolm X, two of his convicted killers have been exonerated after decades of doubt about who was responsible for the civil rights leader’s death.

A Manhattan judge dismissed the convictions of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam, after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers said a renewed investigation found new evidence that the men were not involved with the killing and determined that authorities withheld some of what they knew.

Amazon deforestation

9. And lastly, deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose by almost 22% in one year, the highest level in 15 years, according to new figures that cast doubt on promises by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to reverse the trend with “forceful” action.