NEED TO CATCH up?

Here’s your round-up of what happened today.

IRELAND

A sunset over Dublin Alamy Alamy

• A new rail plan could double passenger numbers and increase intercity speeds to 200km/hour.
• The Department of Health announced the details of the new publicly funded IVF scheme coming into place from September for people who meet certain eligibility criteria. 
• Lawyers for Gemma O’Doherty told the High Court that she is the controller of one of three Twitter accounts alleged to have breached a court order not to harass the mother of a young man who died by suicide.
• The government approved a masterplan for the National Centre for Research and Remembrance campus at the site of a former Magdalene Laundry on Dublin’s Sean McDermott Street.
• The National Union of Journalists expressed “grave concern” over an article published by Iconic Media’s digital titles that was generated by artificial intelligence about refugees.
• Ticketmaster’s website crashed this morning for some Coldplay fans trying to secure pre-sale tickets to next year’s gigs in Croke Park. 
• Four government departments had only one responsibility assigned to them in the second quarter of this year under the Climate Action Plan – and none of the four were completed on time.
• A father and son who were killed in a collision in Turkey last week were laid to rest in Portlaoise. 

THE WORLD

Petros Giannakouris / AP/PA Petros Giannakouris / AP/PA / AP/PA

#UKRAINE Russia launched a nighttime drone attack on Kyiv a day after it warned of ‘tough retaliatory measures’ after a drone attack on Moscow.

#GREECE Two pilots died when their water-bombing plane crashed while battling a blaze on the Greek island of Evia as wildfires flared across the Mediterranean.

#BELGIUM A jury found six people guilty of terrorist murder for extremist attacks in 2016 that killed 32 people.

PARTING SHOT

An Irish harpist played music atop the highest mountain in Africa today on a quest to set a new Guinness World Record.

24-year-old Siobhan Brady from Co Limerick reached the 5,895-metre summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this morning and performed a 20-minute concert with music including Ed Sheeran’s Little Bird and a Tanzanian jig.