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

Nubya Garcia performing at The Everyman during the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival - the annual festival finished today.

IRELAND

• President Michael D Higgins will remain in St James’s Hospital for treatment of a localised infection after being kept overnight to receive antibiotics.
• Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien has reaffirmed Fianna Fáil’s faith in leader Micheál Martin after party members questioned the future leadership of the party over the weekend.
• A man arrested following an alleged assault on a woman canvassing for President-elect Catherine Connolly alongside Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald in Dublin has been charged with a number of offences.
• Gradaí have launched an investigation into the assault of two drag artists on a Cork city centre street yesterday.
• Armed garda have arrested a man allegedly armed with a shotgun after he barricaded himself inside a creche in County Meath.
• New public toilets in St Anne’s Park Raheny were vandalised over the weekend after being installed last week.

INTERNATIONAL

#CARIBBEAN Hurricane Melissa has been upgraded to a Category five storm as it heads for Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean.

#LEBANON UN peacekeeping troops in Lebanon have shot down an Israeli drone for the first time in an incident yesterday.

#ARGENTINA Argentine President Javier Milei hailed his party’s runaway victory in yesterday’s midterm elections as a “turning point” for the country and vowed to charge ahead with his agenda of shrinking the state and deregulating the economy.

PARTING SHOT

Halloween is getting closer and it is all about the fright season now. 

The traditional festival of Samhain has taken on a few different names including All Hallows and as things get more commercial so do the decorations.  

You may have noticed some carved pumpkins at front doors, a few artificial cobwebs, maybe a cartoonish bat or two hanging about the place.

But lately, it seems like some houses and shops have been cranking the spooky dial all the way up.

We asked today: Are Halloween decorations too scary these days?

And the results are in: