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

IRELAND

Clare Youth Theatre performing at the Ennis Book Club Festival this weekend. Eamon Ward Eamon Ward

• A motorcyclist aged in his 50s has died following a collision involving a car and a motorcycle on the southbound carriageway of the M50.
• The body of an unidentified man was found in the Grand Canal in Dublin.
• Sarah Healy won a gold medal for Ireland in the 3000m at the European Indoor Athletics Championships, while Mark English and Kate O’Connor snagged bronze in their respective events. 
• A surfer was rescued by members of the Courtmacsherry Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) today after getting into difficulty in offshore wind and difficult sea conditions. 
• Concerns have been raised after parking tickets were issued outside Dublin’s Mater Hospital to taxis whose drivers are obliged to transfer dialysis patients into the facility.
• An increase in break-ins and burglaries from food businesses in Dublin city and beyond has majorly impacted small businesses, seemingly caused by “a perfect storm” of factors plaguing the retail and hospitality sector.

INTERNATIONAL

Police officers watch aircrafts take their parking positions at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, the evening before a warning strike of all major German airports. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#GAZA: Israel has said it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza.

#SYRIA: More than 1,000 people have died in the worst clashes in Syria since the Bashar al-Assad regime was overthrown, according to war monitor reports.

#WASHINGTON DC: A man was shot after an “armed confrontation” between him and the US Secret Service near the White House in Washington D.C.

#AUSTRALIA: Strong gusts and torrential rain have blacked out more than a quarter of a million properties and swamped parts of Australia’s east coast.

PARTING SHOT

Judith Gilsenan (L), Lisa Byrne and 12 other women have been preparing for their journey for over a year. Irish Heart Foundation Irish Heart Foundation

A TEAM OF 14 women are set to take on the Arctic Challenge in aid of the Irish Heart Foundation, hiking, camping and trekking around the 350km-long Arctic Circle in -20 degree weather.

Research the campaign is trying to share includes the fact that one in four women in Ireland dies from heart disease. The illness in women is vastly under-researched, according to the Irish Heart Foundation.

The group is hoping to raise €100,000 in donations, and are on track to meeting that goal. They will land in Kilpisjärvi, Northern Finland on Thursday morning, 13 March.