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

IRELAND

People get in some exercise on the second day of the new year on the Curragh Plains in County Kildare.

• 2018 was the worst year on record for hospital overcrowding  according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). 
• A domestic violence law came into effect  which created the new offence of coercive control.
• An end-of-year report predicted that house prices are expected to rise by around 5% in 2019.
• A teenage girl was charged over a serious attack in which a young woman’s face was slashed  in Dublin city-centre. 
• Representatives from the hospitality sector said businesses will close as a result of the increased VAT rate  which kicked in yesterday. 
• Firefighters rescued three cows that fell into a slurry pit on a farm in Co Tyrone.
• Dublin City Council announced  that it has scrapped library fines and that all existing fines have been cancelled.

INTERNATIONAL

US President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting in the White House. AL DRAGO AL DRAGO

#DENMARK: Six people were killed  and a further 16 were injured after debris believed to be from a cargo train smashed into a passenger train on a bridge connecting two islands in Denmark.

#UNITED STATES: President Donald Trump warned  that the federal government may not reopen any time soon.

#MANCHESTER: British police said that it is increasingly likely that a man who stabbed three people on New Year’s Eve in Manchester while reportedly shouting “Allah” had acted alone.

#RIP: Actor Einstein, who portrayed Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm, died  at the age of 76.

PARTING SHOT

The UK’s largest bakery chain, Greggs, revealed that it is launching a vegan sausage roll tomorrow and it sparked a blaze of reaction on social media. 

TV presenter Piers Morgan labelled Greggs “PC-ravaged clowns” on Twitter because of the move but the company’s social media account didn’t take the insult lying down.

Its cheeky response has already been liked more than 38,000 times.