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

IRELAND

Cherry Blossom trees in full bloom in Herbert Park, Dublin this morning Sam Boal Sam Boal

• Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has criticised John Delaney’s appearance before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport on Wednesday.
• Bobby Ryan’s death was “callous, calculated, controlled murder” and the only verdict available is to find Patrick Quirke guilty of murder, lawyers for the State have told the Central Criminal Court.
• A woman has been arrested by gardaí investigating the murder of Mikolaj Wilk last year. 
• Gardaí have charged a man after he was found to be in possession of a drone, controlled drugs, mobile phones and pills near a prison yesterday.
• Campaigner Gemma O’Doherty has announced she intends on running in the upcoming European elections.
• A third man has been arrested in connection with drug-related intimidation behaviour in the Drogheda and mid-Louth areas.
• A fundraising campaign has been launched to support an Irish woman who has to move with her family to the UK for a year to receive treatment.
• A Dublin election candidate has been criticised for using the likeness of a well-known paper to further her election campaign.
• Ireland’s ambassador to the UK has hit out at a political magazine over a piece about Ireland’s decision to join an international French-speaking organisation.

INTERNATIONAL

Nigel Farage launching the Brexit Party's European Parliament elections campaign in Coventry Joe Giddens Joe Giddens

#BREXIT: Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage has launched his new Brexit Party.

#DARK WEB: A dark web drug dealer has been convicted after rebooting the notorious trading website Silk Road.

#TRANSGENDER: US President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on transgender Americans in the military comes into force today.

#BLOODY SUNDAY: Bikers have rallied in central London in solidarity with a former British soldier accused of two murders in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings. 

PARTING SHOT

Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road is currently the number one song in the US but it has also become somewhat of a battle ground between music genres in 2019 and who gets to define them. 

The song features the sound of a plucked banjo sampled from Nine Inch Nails and is almost entirely about country themes. It also features deep trap drums throughout, a bass sound typical of rap in southern US states. 

The song began climbing the charts and last month debuted at #19 on Billboard’s Hot Country chart. That was until Billboard decided to remove the song for essentially not being country enough.

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