LAST UPDATE | 13 Apr 2023

GOOD MORNING.

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

POTUS

1. US President Joe Biden will make trips to Áras an Uachtaráin, Leinster House and Dublin Castle today as his Irish visit continues. 

The main event today – scheduled for the late afternoon – will be his address to the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas. 

Missiles

2. North Korea conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch in a month today, possibly testing a new type of more mobile, harder-to-detect weapons system.

North Korea launched the missile towards the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, South Korean officials said, in an extension of the North’s provocative run of missile tests.

Weinstein

3. Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has returned to the New York prison system after spending nearly two years in California, where he was tried and convicted of raping an Italian actress and model.

Weinstein, whose December 2022 conviction in Los Angeles followed a conviction in New York in February 2020 on rape and sexual assault charges, will be housed at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York, state prison officials said. 

Harry Potter show

4. The first Harry Potter television series is set to be made, with author JK Rowling acting as an executive producer, Warner Bros Discovery announced on Wednesday.

Rowling has recently faced accusations of transphobia for putting an emphasis on biological sex over gender identity in comments about trans women. She denies the accusation.

Trump

5. Former US President Donald Trump has sued the key witness in his criminal case, accusing one-time lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen of “vast reputational harm” for talking publicly about the hush-money payments at the heart of the case.

The lawsuit, filed in Miami, offered a preview of arguments that are sure to be featured in Trump’s defence against charges that he falsified internal business records to disguise payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of extramarital sexual encounters.

Wind energy

6. The government must invest in port infrastructure in order to make them capable of developing offshore wind farms, a new report has found.

The report, produced for Wind Energy Ireland by Gavin & Doherty Geosolutions, states that failing to do so could risk wind farms being built elsewhere and missing out on an “incredible economic opportunity”. 

Banking

7. Revolut has launched a new version of its app which includes joint bank accounts. 

With the 9.0 version of the app, cusomers will now be able to create an extra account to be jointly owned by two people, whether they are partners, family members or friends.  

Derry

8. Four devices found inside a cemetery in Derry where a republican commemoration was staged on Easter Monday were viable pipe bombs, the PSNI have said.

A senior officer has said he believes the explosive devices left in the City Cemetery are attributable to the New IRA.

Rats

9. New York City has appointed a former primary school teacher as its new “rat tsar” to battle potentially millions of the rodents lurking in urban nooks and crannies, subway tunnels and empty buildings.

Mayor Eric Adams introduced anti-rat activist Kathleen Corradi, who will be known as the “director of rodent mitigation”.