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

IRELAND 

Visitors enjoying the amusements at Funderland in Dublin today Sasko Lazarov Sasko Lazarov

• There were 9,006 new cases of Covid-19 reported by the Department of Health today.
• HSE boss Paul Reid says that the Omicron variant is “running rife” in the community, but that Ireland has not yet reached the peak of the wave.
• Registration for high-risk children between the age of 5-11 to receive a Covid-19 vaccine was opened today
• British officials were said to be “apoplectic” over the granting of a US visa waiver to Gerry Adams in 1994, newly released state papers reveal.
• The head of the Irish Business and Employers Federation (Ibec) has warned Taoiseach Micheál Martin that planned changes to carbon budgets could cost €7.8 Billion a year.
• New state papers have revealed that former Taoiseach Charles Haughey criticised the food served at an Ireland-hosted EU summit, saying that it was “only of good pub grub standard”.
• There was a significant increase in the number of people entering into apprenticeships and postgraduate studies between 2016 and 2020, according to a new Education Indicators report.
• A man has died following a collision between a bus and a car in Wicklow this morning.

INTERNATIONAL

PA PA

#GHISLAINE MAXWELL The jurors in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial have been asked to work longer hours due to rising cases of Covid-19 in New York City. Judge Alison J Nathan said that there was a “high risk” that some jurors may need to quarantine after they originally declined to work an extra day last week.

#MYANMAR MASSACRE Two Save The Children staff were among at least 35 people, including children, who were killed in Myanmar on Christmas Eve. The attack took place in Kayah state, with Save The Children pinning the massacre on Myanmar’s military.

#US SHOOTING Bodycam footage of police shooting a 14-year-old teenager in a California department store was released yesterday, as critics say officers were too quick to open fire.

PARTING SHOT

With kids across the country still off for their Christmas holidays and cases of Omicron rising, it’s likely that there are plenty of kids enjoying their break by playing online video games with friends.

Roblox, a massively profitable game that allows kids to play and develop their own games within it, has received criticism recently for how it operates, with structures that encourage kids to spend massive amounts of money on a simulated stock market of digital items.

Some of these items are sold in limited numbers, with Roblox players then selling them on for much higher amounts once the initial sale period is over. One item, a sparkly blue hat, cost $15,000 after it became available for resale.

For more on this, check out People Make Games’ investigative report on Roblox below.