EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know before 9am…
1. #BUDGET 2012: With exactly two weeks to go until the Budget is announced, the Cabinet will this morning meet to make some of its final decisions on how to cut €1.45bn in current spending. Social protection is expected to bear the brunt of the losses, with potentially half of the budget savings coming from cuts to its spending.
2. #ASSAULT: A man in his 20s has been arrested by Gardaí investigating a serious assault on Pearse St in the early hours of Monday morning. The man was arrested yesterday and remains in detention at Pearse St. His victim, a taxi driver and father-of-one, remains in hospital.
3. #DEFAMATION: Eamon Ó Cuív has called on RTÉ to disclose details of its settlement over false allegations made against Fr Kevin Reynolds on an episode of Prime Time. The broadcaster says it cannot release the details, however, at the request of Fr Reynolds’ own legal team.
4. #ADMINISTRATION: The European Commission is reportedly set to seek powers to put troubled countries into ‘administration’ if they breach certain financial principles. A draft paper – which is to be presented tomorrow, but which has been leaked online in advance – mentions the possibility as a by-product of the introduction of ‘Eurobonds’, which it rejects because they are seen to punish ‘safe’ countries.
5. #HOMOPHOBIA: An American filmmaker has been awarded €1,500 in damages after being verbally abused by a hotel receptionist – who refused to give him the key for his room because he was bringing a male guest with him. The incident occurred in October 2008 and was discussed at the Equality Tribunal yesterday, the Irish Examiner reports.
6. #SETTLED: The Co Louth hotel which had attempted to sue Google in Ireland’s first case of ‘defamation by autocomplete’ has settled its action out of court, according to multiple papers today. The owners of the Ballymascanlon House Hotel said the search engine had allowed them to be defamed by showing the word ‘receivership’ as a suggested search when people entered the business’s name in its search bar.
7. #DEADLOCK: The US congressional ‘supercommittee’ – charged with coming up with trillions of dollars in Budget cuts, as part of the deal to avert a government shutdown earlier this year – has been abandoned, in a sign that Democrats and Republicans cannot find a deal to raise taxes and cut spending.
8. #EGYPT: The interim civilian cabinet in Egypt has offered its resignation to the country’s military leadership, as protests continue in Cairo at the slow pace of its reforms. The offer comes as a new report from Amnesty International condemned the interim authority, saying some of its human rights abuses were worse than those committed under Hosni Mubarak.
9. #BAD SEX: Yup, that’s time of year again – where Literary Review magazine chooses the literary passage deemed the worst representation of an intimate (ahem) moment published this year. Among the nominees is horror legend Stephen King, who – as the Guardian notes – wrote one passage that climaxes with the phrase, ‘Oh sugar!’. Yes, quite.
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