EVERY EVENING, 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 along the way.

• Senator Rónán Mullen has today denied accusations that he was nasty or unpleasant to a group of women who came to the Dáil to share their experiences of having abortions outside of Ireland after their babies were diagnosed with fatal foetal abnormalities. He TheJournal.ie that he would be “horrified at any suggestion that I was nasty to anyone at that meeting, especially the women who came to tell their stories”.
• The UN Security Council has voted to expand the observer mission to Syria to 300 – and renewed the call for an immediate halt to violence – as five monitors ventured into the heart of the country’s uprising and were thronged by residents clamouring for foreign military help to oust President Bashar Assad.
• Estimates from the Department of the Environment show that just 300,000 homes will not be fitted with water meters during the initial installation phase this year. A spokesperson told TheJournal.ie today that that number will “come down significantly” over the next few years.
• The parents of one-year-old Sergio O’Connor, who was born with an incomplete oesophagus which means he cannot eat, drink or swallow, have received news that he is to travel to the Boston on Monday morning to begin life-saving treatment.
• A Dublin couple who were removed from their Killiney home earlier this week have set up a tent outside the house. Brendan Kenny (71) and his wife Asta (63) were evicted from their home on Wednesday on foot of a court warrant obtained by the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (formerly Anglo Irish Bank) in 2010. The Taoiseach has said he doesn’t understand why the couple had not arranged to stay somewhere else – as they had been given a repossession order two years ago.

A Nepalese woman takes a holy bath during Matatirtha Aunshi, or Mother’s Day, at Matatirtha temple on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 21, 2012. Nepalese celebrate this day by pronouncing their affection and love for their mother and those whose mothers are deceased throng to the Matatirtha temple to perform a holy bathing ritual in memory of their mother. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

• Japan announced today that it is to take steps to forgive about 300 billion yen (€2.8 billion) of Burma’s debt and resume development aid in a bid to support democratic and economic reforms in the country.
• Current affairs getting you down? Satirical site The Mire has an alternative angle on the week’s hot topics… it’s the week’s news, skewed.
• Officials in Peru say they have not yet been able to pinpoint why hundred of dolphins and porpoises have been washing up dead on the country’€™s coastline. Some 877 dolphins and porpoises have been found on the country’s beaches over the past two-and-a-half months.
• Researchers in New Zealand have developed a computer game which they say is effective at treating mild and moderate depression in teenagers.
• Pogs, Tamagotchi and beanie babies – the 8 trends from the 90s that we’re glad have disappeared…
• It’s been a long week – so why not take a look back, in pictures.
• Marc Flanagan, a writer on The Tracey Ullman Show, recalls in TheJournal.ie this evening how a low-budget animated segment on that show grew legs and became an international phenomenon… Yes – The Simpsons.

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