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

IRELAND

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

• Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan announced that the Government has appointed Justin Kelly as the new Garda Commissioner. 
• Dublin councillors were at loggerheads over whether the Obamas should finally be given the Freedom of the City of Dublin when they visit Ireland in September.
• The Taoiseach said it was “unsatisfactory” that the main person convicted for the killing of an Irish Defence Forces Private Seán Rooney in 2022 is still at large.
• A former garda who impersonated a colleague online and incited men to come to her home and rape her was jailed for seven years.
• A man who procured an attack on a young woman, which resulted in her losing vision permanently in one eye, was jailed for six years.
• A High Court case accused the Government of breaching international law and being complicit in genocide due to the contentious issue of so-called Israeli flyovers, which see weaponry being flown over Irish airspace and later delivered to Israel.
• Emergency services attended the scene of a multi-vehicle crash on the Chapelizod bypass in Dublin this evening.

INTERNATIONAL

President Donald Trump holds a scissors as his son Eric Trump gestures during an opening ceremony for the Trump International Golf Links golf course, near Aberdeen, Scotland Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#PALESTINE: The UN’s World Food Programme warned today that the disaster unfolding in Gaza was reminiscent of famines seen in Ethiopia and Biafra, Nigeria in the 20th century.

#UK: The United Kingdom said it would recognise Palestinian statehood unless Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza.

#USA: A gunman who killed four people at a Manhattan office building may have been targeting the NFL offices there because he blamed the American football league for brain injuries he said he suffered, according to New York City mayor Eric Adams.

#NORTH KOREA: A passenger plane from North Korea landed in Moscow today, the first direct commercial flight from North Korea’s capital to Russia’s in decades as the two countries deepened ties.

PARTING SHOT

THE REACTION ON this side of the Atlantic to the contours of a trade deal between the United States and the European Union, announced from President Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort, has been predominantly negative.

A “submission” on a “dark day” for the continent were the words of the French Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was “eaten for breakfast,” according to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

Indeed, it is difficult to see what has apparently been agreed as anything other than a win for Trump, who needed one in the context of discontent within the Make America Great Again movement over files relating to his ex-friend, the late Jeffrey Epstein. More on that anon.

You can read the rest of Larry Donnelly’s Voices article here.