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

IRELAND

Snow falling in the Dunmasc housing estate in Portlaoise Co Laois today RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

• Supreme Court Judge Seámus Woulfe has told the Golfgate trial that, in his view, there were “ambiguities” surrounding what constituted a gathering under rules for hospitality at the time of the August 2020 Oireachtas Golf Society dinner. 
• Hospitals are under pressure and facing into a challenging week next week due to thousands of absences related to Covid-19 or isolation rules, the HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor has said. 
• The National Ambulance Service has cancelled all annual leave for the next three weeks as the system tries to deal with serious pressures caused by Covid. 
• Health officials have reported an additional 21,926 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland today.
• Two youths have been granted bail with strict conditions after they were charged attacking a teenage girl and her friend who were seriously injured in Dublin last week.
• Tributes were paid this morning at the funeral of Aoife Beary, one of the survivors of the Berkeley balcony collapse in 2015.
• At least five Irish MEPs plan to oppose a contentious EU proposal that would label nuclear power and natural gas as green energy sources. 

INTERNATIONAL

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen give a press conference after a meeting at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#FRANCE: French police have detained a man who presented himself at a police station carrying the decapitated head of another man and a penis in a bag.

#EU: French president Emmanuel Macron has paid tribute to two leading European figures as France formally took the reins of the 27-nation bloc for the next six months.

#UNREST: Kazakhstan’s president has rejected calls for talks with protesters after days of unprecedented unrest.

PARTING SHOT

Sidney Poitier, Hollywood’s first major Black movie star, has died aged 94.

The celebrated actor became the first Black star nominated for an Academy Award with 1958′s The Defiant Ones and, six years later, was the first to win the best actor Oscar for his performance in Lilies of the Field.

Sidney Poitier, the pioneering actor who died at 94, has been chronicled in The New York Times for decades. Here is a look back at some of the coverage over the years. https://t.co/zNvT8x0VNZ pic.twitter.com/e4GH5YTzZp

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 7, 2022