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

IRELAND

Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar with Chief executive of DAA Dalton Philips and Minister for Transport Shane Ross wearing hard hats and holding shovels at photocall for the Official Sod-Turning for Dublin Airport’s North Runway (framed in the background by diggers that may just be arranged in the shape of a heart). Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• A woman died after being struck by a Luas tram in Tallaght this morning. 
• Transport Minister Shane Ross turned the sod on the new runway at Dublin Airport, yet some local residents remain unhappy and have claimed that the government ignored their concerns over noise levels. 
• The police force in Northern Ireland apologised profusely after it was discovered that a number of “legacy” documents relating to killings in the 1990s weren’t given to Northern Ireland’s police ombudsman.
• Paddy Holohan – the former MMA fighter – announced he was leaving the octagon to enter the political ring as a Sinn Féin candidate in the upcoming local elections.
• The European Court of Justice ruled that Ireland’s two-tier pay system for teachers is not an act of age discrimination.
• The HSE confirmed that a total of 34 people have died from the flu so far this season. 
• It was revealed by TheJournal.ie that the offices of the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) in Naas were raided yesterday by gardaí.
• Shane Ross said new laws were needed after it was revealed that close to 400 learner drivers have had their cars impounded by gardaí after being caught driving unaccompanied.
• A murder trial heard that a farmer accused of murdering his love rival told gardaí he had a “hunch” about what happened to Bobby Ryan and found the things the deceased’s girlfriend told him “strange” and “intriguing”.
• Gardaí arrested a man and a woman after they seized a large quantity of cocaine worth €700,000 in Westmeath this morning. 
• A man was arrested this morning in connection with a fatal assault in Kerry last weekend. 

WORLD

Thousands of students and faculty from the Catholic-run St. Scholastica's College, perform a mass dance at their campus to mark the 7th anniversary of the global movement to help eradicate violence against women and children on Valentine's Day, in Manila in the Philippines. Bullit Marquez / AP/Press Association Images Bullit Marquez / AP/Press Association Images / AP/Press Association Images

#BREXIT: British PM Theresa May suffered another humiliating Brexit defeat at the hands of her own eurosceptic MPs.

#MISCONDUCT: A New York Times report said that seven women have claimed singer-songwriter Ryan Adams offered to help them with their music careers but then turned things sexual, and he sometimes became emotional and verbally abusive.

#UNITED STATES: Former Trump campaign leader Paul Manafort intentionally lied to investigators and a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s Russia probe, a judge has ruled.

PARTING SHOT

On Valentine’s Day, archaeologists working in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii – which was buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD – have uncovered their latest find. 

Their discovery is a fresco of Narcissus, who loved only himself. Apt. (Read all about it in The BBC) 

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