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

IRELAND

Isabella Fayeun (7) walking through a field in Athy Co Kildare. Niall Carson / PA Niall Carson / PA / PA

• Public health officials confirmed an additional 448 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
• The National Public Health Emergency Team is understood to have given a positive outlook on the further easing of restrictions in June and July.
• Two detective gardaí shot during the siege incident in Blanchardstown yesterday are expected to make a full recovery. 
• Beer gardens will be limited to six adults when they reopen in two weeks but there are to be additional spaces for children.
• Two missing brothers aged five and eight, originally from the North, were found safe and well in Tipperary.
• The Agriculture Minister acknowledged that fishermen face challenging conditions post-Brexit, as a protest flotilla of fishermen gathered at Roches Point in Cork Harbour to protest against reduced quotas.
• Planning permission for a controversial apartment proposal on the estate of a former Mother and Baby Home institution in Bessborough in Co Cork has been refused.
• Messages on WhatsApp have claimed that people are getting calls from scammers who purport to have personal data about them. The Journal took a look at these claims circulating online. 

WORLD

Police blocking off the scene of a shooting in California, US today. SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images

#LAB: Joe Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to report to him in the next three months on whether the Covid-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident. 

#SAN JOSE: Multiple deaths and injuries were reported after a shooting at a railyard in the US state of California, according to a sheriff’s spokesman.

#CLAIMS: Boris Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings gave extraordinary evidence before a Westminster committee about the UK Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

PARTING SHOT 

As mentioned above, Dominic Cummings put forward a number of explosive claims before a Westminster committee today, including that Matt Hancock should have been fired for lying and that Boris Johnson initially believed that Covid-19 was a “scare story”.

Cummings also said that by mid-March last year, the UK government considered suggesting to the public to have ‘chicken pox parties’ for Covid-19.

If you can cast your mind back to last May, Cummings was in the spotlight again when it was revealed he drove hundreds of kilometres outside London during a period of lockdown. 

At an unprecedented press conference in Downing Street’s rose garden, he made a series of claims about the trip, including that he drove for a period of 30 minutes in an effort to test his eyesight. Take a trip down memory lane with this piece from the BBC.

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