LAST UPDATE | 24 May 2023

GOOD MORNING.

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

Energy Bills

1. More than a third of parents said they had to cut back on, or have gone without, heating over the past six months due to pressures caused by inflation, a new report from the charity Barnardos said.

The research is based on a survey of a sample of 315 parents, as well as 30 one-to-one interviews with parents supported by children’s charity Barnardos.

Carlingford

2. A man in his 40s has died after getting into difficulty on a jet ski on Carlingford Marina on Monday morning.

A woman, who was also on the jet ski, remains in hospital and is in a stable condition.

West London

3. A woman who was hit by a motorcycle that was part of the Duchess of Edinburgh’s police escort has died, the Independent Office for Police Conduct confirmed.

Helen Holland, 81, was struck on West Cromwell Road and Warwick Road in Earl’s Court on the afternoon of May 10, causing “irreversible damage to her brain”.

US Abortion Laws

4. The South Carolina Senate voted yesterday to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, despite an attempt to block the bill by the legislative body’s five female politicians, including three Republicans.

Environmental laws

5. Public bodies, ranging from An Bord Pleanála to Coillte and local councils, have shown an “unacceptable” lack of engagement with information laws, according to the Commissioner for Environmental Information.

There was also a “very worrying” level of understanding of public authorities’ obligations under environmental information law, with a “staggering” number of appeals resulting in the commissioner overturning decisions to refuse to release information on environmental issues.

US 2024

6. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is set to announce his 2024 presidential campaign in a Twitter event with Elon Musk.

Reports say that DeSantis, who has long been seen as Donald Trump’s leading rival for the Republican nomination, will reveal his plans in an audio conversation with the owner of Twitter.

Layoffs

7. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is due to announce more layoffs today, RTÉ reports, but it is unclear whether Irish jobs will be affected.

The move is part of a ream of job cuts announced in March by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said that Meta’s workforce would reduce by around 10,000 people.

Literature

8. Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel have won the International Booker Prize for Time Shelter, a darkly comic novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia.

The book beat five other finalists to the prize, which recognises fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The €57,000 in prize money is divided between author and translator.

War in Ukraine

9. Russia has said that it had deployed jets and artillery to destroy an armed group that penetrated its border from Ukraine, while the Kremlin ordered its military to prevent any repeat attack.