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

IRELAND

Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan Alamy Alamy

• Social welfare supports for Ukrainians living in state accommodation are to be cut from €220 to €38.80 per week.
• Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has met with local residents and business owners in Leitrim this afternoon as a clean-up operation continues after the village was hit with a localised tornado. 
• A draft deal at COP28 will not be accepted by the EU unless significant changes are made, Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan has said.
• A status yellow rain warning is in place for all the northern counties, with heavy rain and a chance of thunder and hail in the Republic too. 
• Irish actors Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan and Andrew Scott have all been nominated for Best Male Actor in a Drama at the Golden Globes.
• A woman was fatally injured when she was struck by a truck in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 this morning.

INTERNATIONAL

Donald Trump Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Pool/PA Images Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Pool/PA Images / Pool/PA Images

#TRUMP: Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to rule quickly on whether former US president Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results.

#GAZA: Heavy urban battles have raged today in the bloodiest-ever conflict in Gaza, with more than 18,200 Palestinians and 104 Israeli soldiers reported dead amid a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

#SHOOTING: Two people have been killed and another person has been wounded after a gunman opened fire at two locations in a southern Swiss town and then fled, according to police.

PARTING SHOT 

THE UK DID not ask the Irish government for permission to award honours to five Irish citizens, contrary to convention.

The constitution states that “no title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government”.

However, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has revealed that in the last 30 years, seven honours out of 19 were conferred without permission from the state. Five honours were from Britain and two were from Antigua and Barbuda.

“The standard practice is that the relevant accredited diplomatic mission would notify my Department in advance of the conferral of the award,” Martin said in response to a parliamentary question by Green Party TD Patrick Costello.

Titles of nobility or honours that require permission include anything with the prefixes ‘Sir’, ‘Dame’, ‘Lord’ or ‘Marquis’. 

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