LAST UPDATE | 24 Jun 2025

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. Israel-Iran war

Donald Trump declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, saying that it is “now in effect” after twelve days of conflict.

“PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Israel has said it agrees to the ceasefire, while Iran’s foreign minister has said that if its rival stops its strikes, Tehran has “no intention to continue our response”.

2. Air traffic problems

Civilian and military leaders are set to defend their handling of the Air Traffic Control crisis in the Irish Air Corps at an Oireachtas committee hearing today, our News Correspondent Niall O’Connor reports.

As The Journal revealed last month, the service has been forced to move to a part-time five-day-week and daylight-only service because it does not have enough air traffic controllers.

3. US visa vetting

Tánaiste Simon Harris is to raise the strict new vetting and social media monitoring of US visa applicants with the new ambassador from Washington when he takes up the post next month.

Harris has said he is “very concerned” with new US visa requirements which will force future applicants looking to visit the country to divulge “all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last five years” on their visa application form.

4. Ban on goods from Israeli settelments

Legislation to ban imports from Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory is due to come before Cabinet this morning to be approved by Government ministers, almost seven years after similar legislation was first proposed.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs will present the proposed legislation, known officially as the Israeli Settlements Prohibition of Importation of Goods Bill 2025.

5. State accommodation for students

Cabinet will also hear of new State-backed student accommodation, which will have shared bathrooms, twin rooms and communal kitchens in a bid to increase bed capacity.

The current reliance on individual ensuite units is to be replaced with the new model which will enable greater use of “shared facilities”, ministers will hear today.

6. Big plans for the GPO

Dublin’s historic General Post Office (GPO) is set for a revamp under new Government plans to convert it into a building with cultural, retail and office elements.

The redevelopment of the building that housed the 1916 Rising has long been speculated on, with the Dublin City Taskforce last year recommending that it be used as a “major public building” with a greater public importance.

7. US deportations

The US Supreme Court has paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deportations of undocumented migrants to countries that are not their own.

8. Whale I never

Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, in what scientists said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools.