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

IRELAND

Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is on trial over sexual abuse charges.

• Ireland’s economy shrank so much in the first three months of this year that it dragged the entire eurozone into reverse.
• The Rotunda Hospital has requested a meeting with the minister of health to “explain the rationale” behind it allowing consultants on public-only contracts to see private patients.
• Irish attendees of popular Barcelona music festival Primavera Sound have described communication and crowd management of Thursday’s setup during a status yellow weather warning as a “shit show”.
• A woman who engaged in a “systematic long-term theft” by overclaiming €43,000 of child benefit over a 16-year period also forged two birth certificates, a court has heard.
• Unions representing ambulance workers have recommended members accept new Labour Court proposals on pay, in what’s described as a major breakthrough in their long-running dispute with the National Ambulance Service. 
• The sexual offences trial of Jeffrey Donaldson has heard a church pastor state an alleged victim told him she could not report abuse because it would “destroy” the former DUP leader’s “political reputation”.  

INTERNATIONAL

Vice President JD Vance has been criticised by No.10.

#US AND UK RELATIONS: US Vice President Vance said there should be “righteous anger” in response to the murder of Henry Nowak, which he partly blamed on “the mass invasion of migrants”.

#EUROVISION: The 2026 Eurovision Song Contest was watched by 131 million viewers, organisers said Friday, down 35 million on the year before after Ireland and four other countries boycotted over Israel’s participation.

#AI: Artificial Intelligence Anthropic has suggested a global pause on building the most powerful AI systems as the latest models are beginning to show signs they could escape human control. 

PARTING SHOT

'What I would like to discourage is anything that emboldens the already deranged wedding industry.'

In a new series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad:

What I would like to discourage is anything that emboldens the already deranged wedding industry. The absolute last thing we need is weddings getting any more berserk than they already are.

Weddings have become multiway affairs, with the “day two” now almost a given. I’ve heard tell of guests provided with outfit colour palettes, so they don’t clash with the bridesmaids and the theme of the event. Hen and stag parties are eye wateringly expensive. Brides assemble wardrobes full of white outfits, lest anyone might not be able to immediately identify them as one half of the happy couple. Invites come complete with links or QR codes so that cash gifts can be funnelled directly into the happy couple’s bank account.

Call me Scrooge, but I have never been fully on board with the practice of shoving several fifties into a card just because two people invited me to a party. Getting married is a decision, not an achievement. If I threw a birthday party and expected people to give me money to cover the cost of them being there, it would still be spoken about at my funeral. I get that it’s tradition to give the couple something to help set them up for their new life together, but do you know what else used to be common? Women having to give up their jobs once they were married.

Read the full article here.