NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news. 

IRELAND

People doing a beach clean on Dollymount Strand. Photograph: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie Sam Boal Sam Boal

• A murder investigation has been launched following the discovery of a 19-year-old’s body in Meath.
• Taoiseach Micheál Martin has declined to comment or rule out reports that NPHET will soon be disbanded.
• Public health officials confirmed 1,997 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
• The chair of the vaccine task force outlined why he believes Ireland has had such a high take-up of the vaccine. 
• A new study suggests that people with the Delta variant have a greater risk of hospitalisation. 
• The DUP is behind its unionist party rivals in the latest polling in Northern Ireland.
• A Garda dog sniffed out €35,000 worth of suspected drugs in Cork. 
• Amid calls for widespread reform, readers have been sharing experiences of the childcare crisis in Ireland and the impact it has had on their lives

THE WORLD

Afghan evacuees (AP)

#AFGHANISTAN The UK’s final dedicated evacuation flight from Kabul has departed the city as troops begin to leave.

#CHINA US President Joe Biden has said China is withholding “critical” information on the origins of the Covid-19 virus.

#US Robert F Kennedy’s assassin has been granted parole, with the late senator’s surviving children split on the decision. 

PARTING SHOT

The world's most northernmost land, according to scientists (Credit: Morten Rasch, University of Copenhagen)

The kingdom of Denmark is set to be accidentally expanded, thanks to the discovery of what is believed to be the world’s northernmost landmass — a yet-to-be-named island north of Greenland that could soon be swallowed up by seawaters.

Oodaaq is some 700 kilometres (435 miles) south of the North Pole, while the new island is 780 metres (2,560 feet) north of Oodaaq, according to Morten Rasch, who led the expedition as the head of Copenhagen University’s department of geosciences and natural resource management.