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

IRELAND

People at a vigil at Lurgan Park in Lurgan, Co Armagh, in memory of murder victim Natalie McNally and opposing violence against women. PA PA

• Police in Northern Ireland issued a renewed appeal for information on the murder of Natalie McNally, as hundreds of people attended a local vigil in her memory
• The number of asylum seekers who were not offered State housing when they arrived here rose to 81
• A nephew of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch has been granted bail with strict conditions following his arrest for criminal trespass at a house in Dublin last night
• Two-year-old Joshua Odonkor, who died after he choked on a piece of fruit earlier this week, was laid to rest in Skibbereen, Co Cork
• The head of the Irish office of the UN’s Refugee Agency said that Ireland is capable of accepting the number of people who are currently seeking asylum here, but the State must build a system to do so adequately
• A recently retired Garda Inspector told this publication he believed that poor leadership was partly to blame for the mounting problems with recruitment, retention and morale in the force

WORLD

Traffic along an interstate in Memphis was backed up for several miles during a protest over the violent death of Tyre Nichols AP / PA Images AP / PA Images / PA Images

#MEMPHIS: About 50 protesters brought traffic to a halt in the US city, demanding justice after a video was released showing police violently arresting Tyre Nichols, a young Black man who died a few days later

#JERUSALEM: The EU has urged Israel to only use lethal force as a last result, after two shootings in Jerusalem, including one outside a synagogue

#ENGLAND: A teenage has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Northumberland

#AIRLINE: Regional UK carrier Flybe has ceased trading and all scheduled flights have been cancelled

#AUCKLAND: Three people have died and at least one is missing after record levels of rainfall pounded New Zealand’s largest city, causing widespread disruption

PARTING SHOT

Protests in Beirut on Wednesday, the day the Tánaiste arrived in Lebanon

Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has just paid a visit to Irish troops in Lebanon, just over a month since the soldiers lost one of their own.

On the trip, Martin said the first priority of government “is to protect our people here who are on this peacekeeping mission”.

But he told reporters after his day with Irish soldiers that the “environment and the climate has changed” in the region in recent times.

“There’s a political vacuum at the moment in the absence of the establishment of a government, a permanent government,” he said, which has resulted in what he described as an “intensity”.

Christina Finn reported on the visit.

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