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

President Michael D Higgins at the Ploughing Championship in Laois today. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

IRELAND

• It was confirmed that plans for an underground Dart line in Dublin have been shelved by the Department of Transport.
• Taoiseach Enda Kenny, speaking during a failed no-confidence motion in his leadership, gave a strong indication that the general election will be held in “early 2016″.
• Emergency legislation was signed to close a loophole that could have resulted in hundreds of drink-driving prosecutions being thrown out.
• Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the party will not initiate any move to repeal the eighth amendment.
• Garda Commissioner Noirín O’Sullivan insisted that gardaí will “fully address” any issues arising out of the Fennelly Commission.
• A man facing eviction as he receives hospital treatment said he is prepared to go on hunger strike to draw attention to the housing crisis.
• Six people were arrested at an anti-water charges protest in Waterford.
• A woman who abandoned her dog with no food or water was fined and banned from keeping animals for four years.
• A mother whose access to her five-year-son was restricted to one and a half hours a week compared the terms of a court’s care orders to prison.
• Close to 80,000 people attended the first day of the Ploughing Championship - catch up on all the action in Daragh Brophy’s dispatch from Laois.

WORLD

A father and his son circle the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Associated Press Associated Press

#MIGRANT CRISIS: EU member states approved plans to relocate 120,000 migrants.

#SAUDI ARABIA: Two million Muslim pilgrims began the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

#DRUGS: There was criticism of a US entrepreneur whose pharmaceutical company raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $700 a tablet overnight.

#POLLUTION: Pressure built on Volkswagen after the company admitted that some 11 million of its diesel vehicles worldwide were fitted with software at the centre of a US emissions scandal.

INNOVATION

• Archaeologists discovered human remains that could potentially be 6,000 years old.
• A US customer received her iPhone 6S almost five days earlier than the official shipping date of September 25.
• Rapper Snoop Dogg unveiled a new digital venture that he says will be the “cultural hub” of the growing worldwide demand for cannabis.

PARTING SHOT

Ross Galvin was standing with crowds of Irish fans in the shadow of the Millenium Stadium when Japan sealed the most unlikely of victories over South Africa over the weekend – and their reactions are priceless. (The42.ie)

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