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

Race for the Áras…

• Independent presidential candidate Mary Davis has defended herself after it emerged she had been paid €190,000 for sitting on various State boards. She said she had been appointed by various different groups, and had nothing to hide.
• We’ve been wondering whether former Tánaiste and justice minister Michael McDowell has been weighing in on the presidential race – after a Twitter account was set up in his name, and posted several comments about Martin McGuinness. However, the jury’s still out on its authenticity…
• And TheJournal.ie asked seven of our readers – each supporting a different presidential hopeful – to outline why they made their decision. Here’s what they said.
• Meanwhile, pity the poor candidates – they’ve been out and about canvassing all day, several of them in the pouring rain. Mary Davis was in Kerry; Michael D Higgins in Galway; Gay Mitchell in Kilkenny; and David Norris in Limerick. Meanwhile Seán Gallagher and Martin McGuinness met voters in Dublin and did their best to stay dry:

Photo: Stephen Kilkenny/LightCurvePhoto.com

In the day’s other news…

• Gardaí have revealed that there were no signs of a break-in at the Limerick flat where 54-year-old Martin Purcell was found murdered yesterday. A post mortem revealed that Mr Purcell was killed by multiple stab wounds.
• More than 4,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the release of 65-year-old Teresa Treacy, who was jailed two weeks ago for refusing to allow the ESB and Eirgrid to carry out work on her land. A spokesperson for her supporters’ group said the Dochas Centre at Mountjoy has received 25,000 emails and letters from Ms Treacy’s well-wishers.
• The Central Bank has come under fire after it emerged managers spent €155,000 on staff parties during 2008 – the year when the financial crisis hit Ireland. Labour’s Kevin Humphreys today told TheJournal.ie that the figures show staff “ran away with themselves” when they should have been focusing on the economic situation.
• On the subject of economic recovery, Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy travelled to Silicon Valley recently to see what Ireland could learn from the famously dynamic tech hub. Here’s what he found out…
• A fairground in eastern Australia received an unexpected new attraction when a light aircraft crashed into its Ferris wheel – and then got stuck in the structure. Four people were rescued, but only after a photographer took these dramatic pictures.
• Bad news for anyone planning to visit Holland for, uh, illicit reasons – the government has begun enforcing a ban on foreign tourists in the country’s famous cannabis-selling coffee shops. The ban was implemented in Maastricht today and is to be rolled out across the whole country.
• And we might admire his initiative, but it all went wrong for a 31-year-old man from Cameroon who was stopped at Dublin Airport today with €37,000 in cash hidden inside his underwear. (The cash was seized, but it’s not known what happened to the pants.)
• Finally, one not to try at home: Unicyclist Lutz Eichholz has broken the world record for cycling along on top of a row of beer bottles. (No, we didn’t know there was a record for that either). Here’s how he did it:

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