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

IRELAND

Daniel and Ronda Peden from Belfast pictured after receiving their Irish Citizenship at a ceremony at Gleneagle Killarney today. Department of Justice Department of Justice

• Three Irish citizens or dependents, including two children, were helped to evacuate Iran overnight and will now travel home.
• The HSE apologised to and compensated a 13-year-old child who was not only injected with a wrong Covid 19 vaccination but found out afterwards that a nurse had treated her with an already used needle.
• The US Embassy in Dublin is tightening its visa requirements, saying that future applicants looking to visit the country will be required to divulge “all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last five years” on their visa application form.
• A decision to proceed with the A5 road upgrade was quashed at the High Court in Belfast.
• House price inflation reached a ten-year-high, according to the latest report from property website Daft.
• Irish political parties are beginning to develop policies around the use of AI after MEP Ciaran Mullooly revealed he used it to write a letter to the President of the European Commission. 
• A man charged with causing criminal damage to the constituency office of the Taoiseach in Cork was ordered to stay away from the area and to refrain from any contact, indirect or direct, with Micheál Martin or his staff members. 
• The latest ‘Climate Conversations’ survey by the government found that the public believe that the government is seriously underperforming in its climate action.
• Boots Ireland was spared a court conviction after last month admitting breaking pricing laws during a 2023 Black Friday sale.
• Taoiseach Micheál Martin told a commemoration marking 40 years since the Air India disaster in West Cork that while the scale of the atrocity was global, it remains “an intensely personal tragedy” for the people who lost loved ones.
• Thousands of new citizens were conferred with citizenship in Killarney today – among them the Edge of U2, David Howell Evans, 63.
• The first trailer for Saipan, the upcoming film portraying one of the most divisive episodes in Irish football history, was released this morning.

INTERNATIONAL

Screengrab of what are believed to be anti-aircraft missiles sent to counter Iranian attacks in the sky over Doha.

#IRAN: Iran attacked American forces stationed at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base. The attack came shortly after Qatar closed its airspace as a precaution amid threats from Iran.
#MIDDLE EAST: Global airlines suspended or reduced flights in the Middle East as the conflict between Israel and Iran rages.
#UKRAINE: Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired over 350 drones and 16 missiles at the country in overnight strikes that have killed at least ten people, including an 11-year-old girl.
#GAZA: Simon Harris attended a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels today, where a report on Israel’s breaches of its agreement with the EU was discussed. 
#FRANCE: A 27-year-old bride was killed when gunmen attacked a wedding party in a village in southeastern France on Saturday night.

PARTING SHOT

File image of Orcas in Norway Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced today, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools.

Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools.

Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches.

Tool-use in the world’s difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, although sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells.