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

IRELAND

Fourth class pupils Rhea and Danielle at Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School, Dublin celebrating Childrens Book Day as part of an event run by KPMG.

• Four people were arrested by gardaí investigating a suspected arson attack on a hotel earmarked for asylum seekers in Co Galway.
• Locals paid tributes to a mother and her two daughters killed in a crash in Mayo on Tuesday.
• There were two more road deaths as a man died following a crash in Co Roscommon last night, and a woman passed away after she was struck by a van in Dublin earlier this month.  
• Minister Eamon Ryan said he is not in favour of immediately implementing new plans to allow local authorities to introduce congestion charges to its streets.
• A soldier was arrested after a Military Police investigation found drugs at an Irish army base.  
• Another homelessness record was broken, with 4,170 children in emergency accommodation last month.
• Gardaí investigating the discovery of over €4 million worth of cocaine on Donegal beaches in July last year seized items of potential evidence today.
• A father was spared jail and fined €300 after attacking his daughter’s sex abuser in a courtroom.
• The jury for the Stardust inquests will begin their deliberations next Wednesday into the fatal fire at the nightclub in 1981. 
• Simon Coveney’s media advisor Chris Donoghue, who was previously a news broadcaster, is to become the new Government Press Secretary.
• MEP Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan stood over his stance that An Garda Síochána is “rotten to the core” due to controversies in the organisation.
• Two young sisters from Dublin organised an Easter egg drive for children in Temple Street Hospital.

INTERNATIONAL

People search for victims in the rubble of a paramedic centre that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

#SOUTH AFRICA: A bus plunged off a bridge into a ravine and caught fire today in South Africa, killing 45 of the 46 people on board. 

#GAZA: The UN’s Human Rights Chief said that the starvation experienced by Palestinians and Gaza could amount to a war crime. 

#FTX FOUNDER: Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a cryptocurrency fraud that a prosecutor has described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history. 

#COWBOY CARTER: Dolly Parton’s country-classic Jolene is among the songs that will be included in Beyoncé’s new album, which will be released tomorrow. 

PARTING SHOT

Nicky Ryan and Órla Ryan after winning their award this evening.

Investigative projects by The Journal and Noteworthy have won the prestigious Mary Raftery Prize.

The Prize is awarded annually to an individual or small team responsible for social affairs journalism produced on the island of Ireland which combined the rigorous analysis and commitment to social justice that characterised Mary Raftery’s journalism.

The Journal’s podcast Redacted Lives, which was produced by Órla Ryan, Nicky Ryan and Sinéad O’Carroll, won the 2022 Prize which was announced in Dublin earlier. 

The six-part documentary series tells the story of Ireland’s mother and baby home system, interviewing people who passed through these institutions as mothers or children about the ongoing impact this has on their lives.

Its first episode is here.

Calling Time, a Noteworthy investigation which revealed how the human rights of children of prisoners were not being fulfilled, won the 2023 Prize – it was written by Alice Chambers and Maria Delaney. 

You can read it here.