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

IRELAND

Students have set up a protest encampment in front of the Old Library, home to the Long Room and the Book of Kells © RollingNews.ie © RollingNews.ie

• A former Department of Justice official who admitted possessing child abuse material has been handed a fully suspended prison sentence.
• Minister for Media Catherine Martin has announced that RTÉ’s finances are to be brought under the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General. 
• The new encampment of tents set up by unaccommodated asylum seekers along the banks of Dublin’s Grand Canal has doubled in size in just three days, from around 50 tents to just under 100. 
• Three people arrested as part of the investigation into the murder of a man in Dublin yesterday remain in custody today. 
• Triple murderer Andy Cash, who inflicted hundreds of stab and slash wounds on his siblings before throwing the body of his eight-year-old brother out of the first floor window of their Tallaght home, has been given three separate life sentences.
• A former councillor has pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice and forging search warrants for Garda operations in Dublin.
• A delivery driver who followed a woman home before assaulting her on her boyfriend’s doorstep during a “sinister and bizarre” incident has been jailed for two years.
• Ireland’s Bambie Thug is among the performers taking to the stage at the Eurovision this evening. 

INTERNATIONAL

A child looks on as smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#GAZA: The United Nations has said Israeli forces have denied its staff access to Gaza through the southern Rafah border crossing after the army said it had established “operational control” of the passage overnight.

#TRUMP TRIAL: Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress at the heart of Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial, has testified about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the former president in a hotel penthouse suite.

#ZELENSKYY: Ukraine has said that its security service (the SBU) has uncovered and disrupted a plan to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials. 

PARTING SHOT

A ‘visual bridge’ between North Earl Street in Dublin and Fifth Avenue in New York City will open tomorrow. 

An animated preview of the Portal on North Earl Street in Dublin Dublin City Council Dublin City Council

The technology art sculpture, the Portal, will offer the public a real-time visual life stream that connects the two cities. 

The Portal in Dublin will be installed facing O’Connell Street and will capture the view of the GPO building and the Spire.

In New York City, the Portal will be installed on the Flatiron South Public Plaza at Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street, next to the famed Flatiron Building.