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

• Today marks the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. Memorial services have been held across the world today to remember the victims of the meltdown – and, just weeks after a nuclear crisis hit Japan’s Fukushima plant, to campaign for an end to nuclear power. More: What happened inside Chernobyl’s Reactor 4 on 26 April 1986?

• The Irish government’s deficit as percent of GDP is the largest in Europe, according to Eurostat. Our 32.4 per cent deficit meant that we even beat Greece, which came second with a 10.5 per cent deficit; the UK followed with 10.4 per cent; and Spain and Portugal followed with 9.2 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively.
• Fine Gael’s Deirdre Clune has become the first person to be elected to the 24th Seanad today, leaving a remaining 59 potential senators hoping to gain seats.
• Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has said that Finance Minister Michael Noonan has a tougher job than Michael Collins… in financial terms at least.
• Surgeons in Boston have successfully performed the second full facial transplant in the United States; the patient, 30-year-old Mitch Hunter, was disfigured in a car accident ten years ago.
• Last week, the Equality Authority awarded Louise Hannon €35,000 – making her the the first transgender person to have their case for discrimination recognised in Ireland. She explained her reasons for taking the case here.
• Officials at the world’s biggest particle physics laboratory have been playing down claims of a major discovery after a leaked internal memo sparked excitement among science enthusiasts that the elusive Higgs boson – aka the ‘god particle’ – had been found. A spokesman for CERN said that the observation was “probably nothing”.
• As the countdown to Britain’s royal wedding gets closer, we’ve taken a trip down memory lane to compare the wedding of William and Kate to that of another high-profile royal couple – the groom’s parents.
• In Egypt, a 42-foot-tall statue originally discovered in 1928 has finally been unearthed – and archaeologists expect to find a second one nearby. The statue of Amenhotep III was one of a pair that flanked the northern entrance to the grand funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile that is currently the focus of a major excavation.

Image: AP Photo/Supreme Council of Antiquities

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