LAST UPDATE | 7 Nov 2022

GOOD MORNING.

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

1. Tech layoffs

Facebook-parent company Meta will become the latest tech firm to scale back its workforce, with plans to layoff thousands of employees this week, US media reported yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the layoffs could impact “many thousands” of Meta employees and that an announcement was expected as soon as Wednesday.

2. Climate change 

Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organisation warned as world leaders started gathering in Egypt for international climate negotiations at Cop27.

“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action – ambitious, credible climate action.”

3. Ukraine

The mayor of Kyiv is warning residents to prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure.

It means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out in the Ukrainian capital.

4. Lucan

Compulsory Purchase Orders for the Lucan leg of the BusConnects scheme have been submitted by the National Transport Authority (NTA).

It has applied to An Bord Pleanála to CPO parcels of land 9.7km in length stretching from west county Dublin into the city centre. 

5. Housing crisis

Capital expenditure housing by the end of September was drastically behind yearly targets, figures provided by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage indicate.

The data shows that major housing programmes had not yet reached half of their yearly targets as October began, and suggests spending must rise significantly during the final quarter of the year if Government spending targets under Housing for All are to be met.

6. Mahsa Amini

New protests erupted in Iran yesterday at universities and in the largely Kurdish northwest, keeping a seven-week anti-regime movement going even in the face of a fierce crackdown.

The protests, triggered in mid-September by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly breaching strict dress rules for women, have evolved into the biggest challenge for the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.

7. Ryanair

The company has announced a return to profit in its first half as the aviation sector recovers following the lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Profit after tax came in at €1.37 billion in the six months to the end of September, after a net loss of €48 million a year earlier, Ryanair said in a statement.

8. US Midterms

Republicans promised to deliver a “wake-up call” to Joe Biden and retake Congress in this week’s crucial midterm elections, as the US president’s Democrats insisted they were still in the fight with two days to go.

Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have been pulling out the stops to draw voters to the polls in Tuesday’s contest — which Biden says marks a “defining” moment for US democracy.

9. UK Immigration

Hundreds of protestors have staged a protest in the pouring rain outside Manston detention centre demanding in the UK it is shut down.

Action Against Detention And Deportation demonstrators chanted and banged metal pots outside the Kent base, which has been at the centre of the immigration crisis this week after it became dangerously overcrowded.