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

IRELAND

Six-year-old Kai Winters Rooke at the Dead Zoo Lab in Collins Barracks Mark Stedman Mark Stedman

• An Irish woman was among nine people kidnapped from an orphanage near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince yesterday.
• Over ten thousand homes, farms and businesses were left without electricity as Storm Floris battered coastal areas.  
• Gardaí were investigating after a man in his 40s was pronounced dead at a residence in Carrick-On-Suir in Co Tipperary having been found unresponsive.
• A man was arrested as part of the investigation of the murder of 34-year-old Mark Carroll in Finglas last year.
• Tusla warned it would blow its budget by nearly €68 million this year as it struggles to deal with huge demand for its services.
• Ireland’s newest train station is to open on Sunday.
• Bundee Aki revealed he missed the birth of his fifth child to play in the British and Irish Lions’ first Test against Australia.
• Tánaiste Simon Harris was among those to pay tribute to Irish-Canadian businesswoman Hilary Weston, who died yesterday at the age of 83.
• A man was arrested following an alleged assault that took place in Sligo Town in the early hours of this morning.  

INTERNATIONAL

An aircraft airdrops humanitarian aid to Palestinians over Zawaida, in the central Gaza Strip, Palestine Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#ISRAEL: Hundreds of Israeli former security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza.

#CHILE: The bodies of all five miners trapped for three days in a collapsed shaft in the world’s biggest underground copper mine in Chile were found and identified.

#USA: President Donald Trump threatened to ramp up tariffs on India over its dealing with the “Russian War Machine”.

PARTING SHOT

THE UK GOVERNMENT has announced that the voting age will be lowered to 16 years old ahead of the next UK General election in 2029.

Welcomed by youth groups who have long campaigned to expand voting rights, this change not only broadens the electorate for general elections but in the event of a future border poll as well. If effectively mobilised, this new franchise could prove pivotal in determining the outcome of such a vote.

The move represents the most consequential overhaul of the UK’s electoral system in generations and follows in the wake of other recent and notable efforts to modernise the voting system, including changes which saw the removal of restrictions on voting from abroad, enabling UK voters to now retain the right to vote in UK parliamentary elections for life.

By contrast, Ireland employs an outdated, exclusionary and regressive electoral system and is the only EU member state to deny European voting rights to its citizens outside the state. Ireland also remains a global outlier in denying citizens abroad the right to vote in presidential elections and restricts the right to cast a postal vote.

You can read Emma DeSouza’s full Voices article here.