NEED TO CATCH up? Here’s what made the headlines today.

IRELAND

Women at a demonstration this evening following the outcome of Nikita Hand's High Court civil case against Conor McGregor Leon Farrell / © RollingNews.ie Leon Farrell / © RollingNews.ie / © RollingNews.ie

• Support for Fine Gael slumped with just four days to go before the general election in a new opinion poll.
• The number of first-time callers to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre increased by 50% in the aftermath of Nikita Hand winning her claim against Conor McGregor for damages in a High Court civil case.
• New photos show the scale of the flooding devastation caused by Storm Bert in Listowel.
• Former rugby international Brendan Mullin, who stole hundreds of thousands of euro from Bank of Ireland Private Bank when he was its managing director, has been jailed for three years.
• Taoiseach Simon Harris again defended his decision to back Senator John McGahon as a Fine Gael general election candidate and said he stands by remarks made last week about the outcome of a civil case involving McGahon.
• An academic evaluation of nine party manifestos found that the leading parties’ environmental policies are “weak”.
• A former HSE manager was sentenced to six years in prison for distributing and possessing child sexual abuse material. 
• A man initially accused of assaulting a Canadian tourist who died after being injured on Dublin’s O’Connell Street has had his case upgraded to murder.
• There were emotional scenes at Dublin Airport as Irish peacekeepers received a warm welcome home after six months in Lebanon. 

THE WORLD

US Special Counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss the case against US President-elect Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

A senior UN official called on all parties involved in the conflict in Lebanon to “accept a ceasefire” as new Israeli strikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs. 

Bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.

PARTING SHOT

News Correspondent Niall O’Connor recently travelled to South Sudan and the Sudan border to report on the region’s forgotten crisis.

Read here about how medics are battling to save young children’s lives in immensely challenging conditions.