EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #US 2012: Mitt Romney has given his hopes of facing Barack Obama in the US presidential election later this year a boost after he won the Republican primary vote in New Hampshire overnight. The former Massachusetts governor took nearly 40 per cent of the vote with libertarian Ron Paul coming in second and former Obama-appointed US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman coming in third. The next primary takes place in South Carolina on 21 January.
2. #DÁIL: After a three week break, the Dáil returns today but it is the committee rooms which will be the subject of scrutiny as the Oireachtas Finance Committee begins hearings into the controversy surrounding some pensioners extra tax liabilities. Taoiseach Enda Kenny will also take Leaders’ Questions at around 4.30pm in the Dáil chamber. Here’s what else is happening.
3. #GOLFING BANKERS: It is reported that Bank of Ireland is giving thousands of employees and retired staff up to €1,500 to join golf clubs or to pay for other sports club memberships. Though the bank has been bailed out to the tune of nearly €5bn, the Irish Daily Mail reports that some employees have used this money to join Howth Golf Club or the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dún Laoghaire.
4. #MIDDLE CLASS: Residents of Terenure in south Dublin have written to the Constituency Commission asking it to consider moving the neighbourhood from Dublin South Central to Dublin South East. In a story carried in today’s Irish Independent, the Association of Residents of Terenure believes that local TDs in Dublin South Central do not pay enough attention to their ”middle class” concerns and there is “no logical affinity” with other areas in its current electoral district.
5. #LA SENZA: Trade Union representatives of the workers staging a sit-in at the La Senza lingerie store in Liffey Valley in Dublin will meet with the company’s administrators today. Around 100 workers lost their jobs this week after KPMG were called in but the laid off staff claim that they are owed overtime from the Christmas period as well as pay for work done this year.
6. #IRAN: A car bomb has gone off in in the Iranian capital of Tehran, killing a reported nuclear scientist and injuring two others. The attack has a strong resemblance to earlier killings of nuclear scientists working on the country’s controversial nuclear programme which is the subject of considerable disquiet in the West.
7. DOOMSDAY: The so-called Doomsday clock – seen as a symbolic gauge of nuclear danger – has moved one minute closer to midnight because of what scientists says is the “inadequate progress” on issues such as nuclear disarmament and climate change. BBC News reports that the clock went back a minute in 2010 but now stands at five minutes before midnight.
8. TECH WARS: Bad for consumers and for web publishers – that’s the Twitter verdict on Google’s changes to its search engine which we reported yesterday. According to Reuters, the popular microblogging service believes the changes will make it tougher for people to find the breaking news often shared by its users. Google’s changes to its search engine are aimed at making results more personalised.
9. #FAKE DEATH: A school employee in New York has been fired after it emerged that she forged her daughter’s death certificate in order to get extra time off work to holiday in Costa Rica. AP reports that parent co-ordinator Joan Barnett was the subject of an investigation after she submitted a fake death certificate but the probe failed to establish whether or not she had a daughter in the first place.
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