NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Blow The Dust Orchestra members Pauline Johnson and Robert Daly. It's part of a National Concert Hall programme encouraging older people to rediscover the joys of playing an instrument Mark Stedman Mark Stedman

• A teenage boy died after getting into difficulty in water in Co Kildare over the weekend.
• A judge in Northern Ireland ruled that the law allowing the UK Government to detain and remove asylum seekers it deems to have arrived illegally should be disapplied there.
• Taoiseach Simon Harris called for a “consistency of approach” around payments and supports offered to Ukrainian refugees.
• Several flights were delayed at Dublin Airport this afternoon as only one runway was in use due to the bad weather.
• Retail associations have claimed that the Department of Health’s proposal to raise the legal age of sale of tobacco products from 18 to 21 will cause problems for staff members in shops and supermarkets. 
• A man sleeping rough at a Luas station in Dublin suffered a severe head injury after “a lump of granite” was dropped 28 feet onto his head during a “sustained” row with a group of teenagers, a court has heard.
• GAA President Jarlath Burns hit back at recent comments made by Taoiseach Simon Harris when he said that the GAA have “Gotten this wrong,” on streaming service GAAGO.
• The Palestinian Women’s football team arrived in Dublin ahead of their game against the Bohemians on Wednesday. 
• The Portal between Dublin and New York is back up and running again after being turned off earlier due to a “technical glitch”. 

WORLD

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah in Gaza on 11 May Ismael Abu Dayyah / AP/PA Ismael Abu Dayyah / AP/PA / AP/PA

#GAZA: Thousands of people fled northern Gaza today as renewed shelling pounded areas where Israel says Hamas militants have regrouped, despite having announced them cleared months ago.

#TRUMP TRIAL: Donald Trump’s one-time fixer and the star prosecution witness in the former president’s historic criminal trial testified that he lied and bullied for his former boss who looked on silently.

#EUROVISION: The organisers of the Eurovision has said it “regrets” that some delegations did not “respect the spirit of the rules and the competition both onsite and during their broadcasts”.

#SPAIN: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists won a clear victory in yesterday’s Catalan regional election, in which Carles Puigdemont and fellow separatists lost their majority after 10 years in power.

PARTING SHOT

Israeli singer Eden Golan. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Amid all the social media praise for the performance of Bambie Thug in Saturday night’s Eurovision final, there was also some surprise expressed among viewers at the fact that televoters in Ireland awarded ten points to Israel. 

But while Ireland’s ten points for Israel may have raised eyebrows among some viewers on Saturday night, people familiar with Eurovision voting patterns were far from surprised.