LAST UPDATE | 8 Jul 2024

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start the day. 

Record high

1. Last month was the hottest June on record across the globe, capping half a year of wild and destructive weather from floods to heatwaves.

Housing

2. Asking prices for homes nationwide is up 7.3% over the past year, the fastest rate of inflation in close to two years.

France elections

3. President Emmanuel Macron is to start efforts to extract France from its most severe political uncertainty in decades after the left defeated the far right in elections with no group winning an absolute majority.

Asylum seekers 

4. The cost of incorrect State payments to people living in Direct Provision over a six-year period is valued at less than €6,000, figures obtained by The Journal show.

Starmer visit

5. New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will visit Stormont this morning to meet First Minister Michelle O’Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly.

Green Party

6. The new leader of the Green Party will be announced this morning. 

Roderic O’Gorman and Pippa Hackett are two candidates looking to take over from Eamon Ryan.

Department of Justice

7. Nationals of South Africa and Botswana will be required to obtain a visa before travelling to Ireland from Wednesday, the Minister for Justice announced.

Drug seizure arrest

8. A second man was arrested in connection to the seizure of herbal cannabis worth an estimated €6.86 million.

A man in his late 20s was arrested as part of the investigation but has since been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

EEHV Virus

9. Dublin Zoo officials are “heartbroken” after the death of an Asian elephant from Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV). 

The Asian elephant is the largest land mammal on the Asian continent and two have died from EEHV at Dublin Zoo in the past week.