EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s biggest news stories, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

In the aftermath of yesterday’s stress tests, Ireland’s credit rating has been downgraded by the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which have dragged us down to BBB+. That might sound a bit rubbish, but it’s still three notches above ‘junk’. In better news, though, we’ve been taken off a negative ‘watchlist’ by S&P – so they don’t reckon we’re headed for anything worse.
If you own bank shares, it may be a good or a bad day. Coming back out of suspension, AIB and Bank of Ireland both saw their shares rise – but shares in Irish Life & Permanent, which is set to be split up, sank by a whopping 58 per cent. The boss of Anglo, meanwhile, says his bank won’t need anything more than the €29bn it’s already gotten from the taxpayer. You’re welcome.
Are you from Cork? A mixed day for you too. The county council is considering banning photography – even by parents – in playgrounds, in a move geared at guaranteeing child safety, while it’s been confirmed that the Queen will include a trip to Leeside in her jaunt over here next month.
Jackie Healy-Rae is thinking about running for President – and no, it’s not a joke. JHR, 80, outlined his plans on Radio Kerry this morning, leading many to think the story was an April Fool’s gag. Radio Kerry insist, however, that they weren’t joking.
Here, by the way, is our pick of some of the better April Fool’s Day gags.
The missing cobra that had escaped from the New York Zoo has been found and returned to captivity. The snake was found in a “non-public area” – though the fact the snake had a Twitter account may have given the search party a clue.
In a sentence we never thought we’d ever find ourselves typing, India has banned a book that reckons Mahatma Gandhi left the country for South Africa just so he could be with his gay German body-building partner.
Brian (formerly Bryan) McFadden and Delta Goodrem have split up. We have nothing else to add – except to suggest that they might have been struck by the Twitter variant of the Curse of Hello.
The Not Primate of All-Ireland, Cardinal Brady, has been telling us about a friend who had a nasty experience – getting stuck in a confessional box.
Finally, you might remember the young identical twin boys we featured having a less-than-coherent babble with each other earlier this week. Well, CollegeHumor reckons it’s deciphered the exact nature of the lads’ conversation – and it turns out to have been much more highbrow than we may have anticipated.

More: the week that was, in photos >

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