GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

Interest Rate Hike

1. European Central Bank policymakers could reach for a historically large interest rate hike at their meeting on Thursday as they seek to tame soaring inflation.

Steep increases in the price of energy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have heaped pressure onto households and businesses.

Inflation hit 9.1 percent in August, an all-time high for the eurozone and more than four times the two-percent rate targeted by the ECB.

Galway Cannabis Seizure

2. Two men have been arrested after gardaí seized €465,000 worth of cannabis plants following a search in Galway yesterday.

At around 12:30pm yesterday afternoon, Gardaí conducted a search of a property in Ballygar, Co. Galway. 

The two men arrested have since been charged and are due before Ballinasloe District Court this morning.

Lobbying

3. The Standards in Public Office Commission has refused to disclose the names of former Government officials who applied to waive a “cooling off” requirement before engaging in lobbying activities.

The Journal earlier this year submitted a Freedom of Information request to the commission – which regulates lobbying – seeking the details of former officials who had applied for an exemption to the 12-month wait before they could become lobbyists.

While the commission annually releases figures on the number of people who have applied for an exemption, it does not release their names or details of who they have lobbied for.

UK Energy Bill Freeze

4. New UK PM Liz Truss is expected to unveil a costly plan to freeze domestic fuel bills to help ease the burden of a soaring cost-of-living crisis.

Truss will also declare she is lifting the moratorium on fracking, according to reports, and will allow the controversial shale gas extraction in places where it is backed by local communities.

The price freeze plan could top more than £100 billion (€115 billion), surpassing Britain’s Covid-era furlough jobs support scheme.

Canada stabbing spree

5. A days-long search for the second man suspected of carrying out a deadly stabbing spree in a remote western Canadian Indigenous community ended Wednesday, with the 32-year-old dying after being taken into custody, police said.

Federal police Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore told a news conference that with both brothers now dead, “we may never have an understanding of (their) motivation.”

Arrest in relation US journalist killing

6. An elected public official in the Las Vegas area of the US has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death a veteran newspaper reporter who investigated him.

Democrat Robert Telles, Clark County’s public administrator, was taken into custody by a police Swat team yesterday – hours after investigators served a search warrant and confiscated vehicles.

Psychiatry Study

7. A new study has suggested that the risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may be detectable years before the illnesses begin.

The study, published in the journal World Psychiatry, found that 50% of people who developed these mental health disorders had attended a specialist child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) during childhood.

The research was led by the School of Medicine at University College Dublin.

China Earthquake

8. The death toll from a strong earthquake that struck southwest China rose to 82, state media reported Thursday, as rain and possible mudslides threatened the search for dozens of missing people.

The magnitude 6.6 quake hit about 43 kilometres southeast of the city of Kangding in Sichuan province at a depth of 10 kilometres on Monday, forcing thousands to be resettled into temporary camps.

Peppa Pig

9. Children’s TV show Peppa Pig has added a lesbian couple to its cast of characters for the first time.

In episode 41 of season seven, titled Families, which aired on Channel 5 on Tuesday, Penny the polar bear introduced her two mothers.