LAST UPDATE | 8 Mar 2022

GOOD MORNING.

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

Humanitarian corridors proposed

1. Russia said it will open humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of civilians from several Ukrainian cities experiencing heavy fighting, including the capital Kyiv and the besieged port city of Mariupol. 

Returning home

2. Many Ukrainians at the Polish border, who originally fled the war, are returning home. 

“I am afraid, but I owe it to my homeland,” one woman said. “I have a husband there and we will defend our homeland together.”

Irish Update 

3. Micheál Martin will today update the Cabinet on Ukraine and Ireland’s planned response for humanitarian support.

Ministers will be briefed about the ongoing work in the emergency procurement of accommodation options for the thousands of refugees set to arrive from the Ukraine in the weeks ahead.

Fatal Crash

4. A man in his 20s has died following a road crash in Galway yesterday evening.

Australia

5. The death toll from week-long floods battering Australia’s east coast has risen to 20, after the bodies of a man and a woman were discovered in floodwaters in Sydney.

Police said the pair were believed to be a missing mother and son whose car was abandoned in a stormwater canal.

Dublin Airport 

6. Dublin Airport has secured the green light to install a new paid drop-off and pick-up zone for the country’s busiest airport.

This follows Fingal County Council granting planning permission to DAA to install the infrastructure and change the internal roadwork at Dublin airport to allow the scheme for new paid drop off and pick up zones at T1 and T2 proceed.

Missing teenager

7. The public is being asked to help Gardaí trace the whereabouts of a 16-year-old boy who is missing from Co Meath for three days.

Callum McGill has been missing from Bettystown, Co Meath, since Friday; he was last seen at around 9.30pm that day.

Ghislaine Maxwell 

8. A US judge is set to question one of the jurors who convicted the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell of helping the millionaire Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

Weather

9. It is fierce blustery out there today. 

Outbreaks of rain will track up from the southwest through the morning with some heavy falls leading to localised flooding. The rain will clear to squally showers with a chance of thunderstorms and hail. Highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees with winds moderating for a time later this evening.

Full forecast here.