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

IRELAND

Hundreds of people queued today for a public wake for Glen Hansard at the Baroque Chapel at IMMA, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin 8. Rollingnews.ie Rollingnews.ie

• Thousands of people queued to pay their respects to musician Glen Hansard at his public wake today.  
• A Dublin man accused of possessing a loaded handgun allegedly sent his ex-partner a photo of the firearm and a threat via text message, a court has heard.
• A status yellow warning for rain has been issued for Wexford, Wicklow and Waterford ahead of spells of thundery rain this evening, while a Status Yellow thunderstorm warning has taken effect in Cork.
• The number of anti-social incidents on public transport fell last year, but the percentage of people who believe the problem is getting worse increased.
• Donald Trump is due to visit Ireland for at least two days in September.
• Funding has been released for an additional 9,000 counselling sessions in communities around Ireland, with a focus on reaching LGBTQ+ people and young people.
• A man in his 20s has died after a crash in Co Donegal.
• Ireland’s first defence attachés have been appointed to France, Britain and the United States in a major new departure for Irish diplomacy. 
• The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has launched a stinging rebuke of An Garda Síochána for how the organisation treated a garda who was suffering from the mental impact of her workplace.
• Former head of the Irish Nationwide Building Society Michael Fingleton has died at the age of 88.
• Eighty-seven complaints were received last year by the Judicial Council against judges, but just one complaint was determined to be admissible.

INTERNATIONAL

A plastic collector drives his motorcycle loaded with plastic gallons collected from garbage in a Beirut street. Lebanon's severe economic crisis has fueled an informal, underground scavenging economy where trash collection and sorting thrive out of necessity. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#IRAN US President Donald Trump has said that new negotiations with Iran will begin today after he decided to hold off on new “disastrous” strikes in favour of pursuing a deal.

#GREECE Two fire fighting helicopters have collided in Greece as forces battled multiple wildfires that have devastated swathes of land.

#CUETA Spain and Morocco have given conflicting figures for the number of people who died in the recent wave of migration into Spain’s Ceuta exclave from Morocco.

PARTING SHOT

The AA has suggested in the UK that drivers who pass automatic driving tests should be allowed to drive manual cars if they complete a one-hour conversion session.

Currently, motorists who pass a driving test in the UK in an automatic car are only permitted to drive automatics.

The same is true in Ireland: if your driving licence is for automatic cars only, you need to pass the driver’s test again in a manual car in order to get a licence that permits you to drive manual cars.

AA president Edmund King has said that automatic drivers shouldn’t have to wait months for a manual driving test appointment and should instead be able to upgrade their licence by completing a one-hour conversion lesson with a driving school.

We asked in our poll today: Should automatic drivers be able to convert their licence to manual without retesting?

The Journal The Journal