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

IRELAND

People enjoying a boat ride on the river Liffey in Dublin this afternoon. Sam Boal / Rollingnews.ie Sam Boal / Rollingnews.ie / Rollingnews.ie

• The Taoiseach and Jeffrey Donaldson met in Belfast as the DUP rejected a “sticking plaster approach” to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
• Dublin’s Capel Street was permanently pedestrianised, making it the longest traffic free street in the city.
• A retired school principal was charged with 90 counts of sexual abuse of 20 boys in Dublin over almost three decades.
• The Irish Prison Service (IPS) will launch a major review of how it deals with the psychology of sex offenders in custody.
• The Ceann Comhairle met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
• A Court action against Sean Quinn was adjourned after the businessman failed to turn up.
• Herbal cannabis valued at €400,000 was seized in a drug smuggling probe.

INTERNATIONAL

Villagers queue to buy cigarettes and bread from a peddler in the village of Staryi Saltiv, east Kharkiv, Ukraine. Bernat Armangue Bernat Armangue

#UKRAINE: Ukraine ordered its remaining troops holed up in Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms after nearly three months of desperate resistance.

#MONKEY POX: France and Germany reported their first cases of monkeypox, joining a number of other European and North American nations in detecting the disease endemic in parts of Africa.

#ELON MUSK: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk denied a claim of sexual misconduct by a flight attendant contracted by SpaceX who worked on his private jet in 2016.

#WAGATHA CHRISTIE: Rebekah Vardy complained she was being made a “scapegoat” during Euro 2016 and that news coverage made her “blood boil”, newly-released documents in the ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel trial have revealed.

PARTING SHOT

Clare-Louise Donelan @beegirlphotos Clare-Louise Donelan @beegirlphotos

Today is World Bee Day.

To mark the occasion, check out this article from ‘The Bee Guy’ – A.K.A. Paul Handrick – which encourages us to not just focus on the honey bees.

“Honey bees are a kept creature. They are not endangered. Our focus needs to be on native wild bees – bumblebees and solitary bees – so this constant placing of honeybees in the spotlight either knowingly or in a lot of cases unwittingly is not helpful. In fact, it’s a hindrance to the messaging and work around saving native wild bees,” the Bee Guy writes.

You can read the full piece here.