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

IRELAND

Merchandise for sale at the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis in the RDS, Dublin. Sam Boal Sam Boal

• A report on the regulation and spending of the National Lottery, released today, has found that in the past seven years an average of €17.7 million in prize money was unclaimed by winners.
• The population of Ireland aged 65 and over is projected to double in the next 30 years, CSO figures have predicted.
• A planning application for Dublin’s Metrolink was submitted this morning.
• A man has been arrested after a car was driven through the gates of the home of Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny in Co Leitrim.
• Three men, suspected of being Hutch gang associates, were confronted by armed gardaí at a house in a north Dublin suburb yesterday after they allegedly went to a home linked to former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall in Cabra, West Dublin, earlier in the day. 
• Instagram launched a High Court appeal against the record €405 million fine that it was issued by the Data Protection Commission earlier this month.
• A man appeared in court charged in connection with allegedly being behind the wheel in a driving incident during which a van with six children on board rammed into six garda vehicles.
• The number of homeless people in Ireland has hit record figures, with over 10,800 people accessing emergency accommodation last month.

INTERNATIONAL

Vladimir Putin speaks during celebrations marking the incorporation of regions of Ukraine to join Russia in Red Squar. AP / PA Images AP / PA Images / PA Images

#UKRAINE: Vladimir Putin has signed treaties to annex four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions – Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – at a grand ceremony in the Kremlin.

UK: Police investigating the death of Moors Murders victim Keith Bennett are probing the reported discovery of a human skull.

#NORD STREAM: The four leaks affecting the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea were caused by underwater explosions corresponding to hundreds of kilogrammes of explosives, a Danish-Swedish report said today.

PARTING SHOT 

Summer is well and truly gone. Tomorrow marks the first day of October. 

It’s wet. It’s windy and it’s getting colder. 

C’mere and forget about that for a while and watch a video of a few dogs having the craic. 

Have a nice weekend from all of us at Journal Towers.

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