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LAST UPDATE | 19 Dec 2025
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. EU leaders have struck a deal to provide Ukraine a loan of €90 billion to plug its looming budget shortfalls – but failed to agree on using frozen Russian assets to come up with the funds.
2. Australia will use a sweeping buyback scheme to “get guns off our streets”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said as hundreds plunged into the ocean to honour Bondi Beach shooting victims.
3. The signing of a trade deal between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur was pushed back to January, after farmers staged a show of force against the pact outside a Brussels leaders’ summit.
4. Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said that a pay dispute between the HSE and out-of-hours GP service CareDoc has been resolved, but the unions have said no offer has been received on their end.
5. Job postings have fallen year-on-year and the unemployment rate has edged higher, but the Central Bank says this cooling in Ireland’s labour market should not be mistaken for an economic downturn.
6. A man believed to be behind both a mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor has been found dead after a days-long manhunt.
7. US Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem suspended the green card lottery programme yesterday, saying it was used by the suspect in a mass shooting at Brown University.
8. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to intervene in the case of pro-Palestine hunger strikers.
9. Retirees renting homes in a Co Sligo community have spoken of their dismay after the owner of the houses commenced eviction proceedings.
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