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

Ireland

Leah Farrell Leah Farrell

• The Central Criminal Court heard that a woman and her partner will be sentenced later for the rape and abuse of her five-year-old daughter and three-and-half year-old son.
• A member of the Defence Forces who died in a parachuting accident in Spain yesterday was named as Acting Sergeant Major Declan O’Connell.
• A man is in a critical condition following a serious assault in the early hours of the morning in Dublin.
• People Before Profit’s Gino Kenny expressed frustration at the Government for delays in naming members and forming a special Oireachtas committee on assisted dying.
• A major union warned that plans to pay workers a reduced salary for domestic violence leave under a new bill could inadvertently “alert abusers”. 
• Worldwide job losses in multinational technology companies are yet to have any visible impact on Ireland’s labour market, according to a few European Commission economic report.
• Schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been warned that his appeal against an injunction that prevents him from attending Wilson’s Hospital School may not be entertained if he remains in contempt of court.
• The HSE launched a review after an 87-year-old woman who went missing from a hospital in Carlow was found dead.
• Some of the country’s best known retail brands – including Smyths Toys and Harvey Norman – have appealed against Fingal County Council granting planning permission to contentious €450 million plans for a 971 unit apartment scheme for the Blanchardstown Town Centre site.  
• Siptu has suspended upcoming 24-hour work stoppages by members employed by Go-Ahead Ireland after the company announced it will attend a Labour Court hearing in a dispute over pay. 
• Tributes were paid to film producer James Flynn and acclaimed novelist Deirdre Purcell following their respective deaths.

International

A boy walks near collapsed buildings in Antakya, southernmost Turkey Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#EARTHQUAKE The death toll from last week’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria has risen above 35,000 people, as rescue teams start to wind down the search for survivors and Ireland gives an added €8 million in aid.

#US The White House said it still does not know if unidentified objects shot down by American warplanes in recent days were spying.

#UK Convicted murderer and ex-police officer Wayne Couzens has admitted three counts of indecent exposure, before he abducted, raped and murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard.

#ISRAEL Tens of thousands of Israelis have protested outside parliament against the government’s controversial judicial reform plan, which aims to give lawmakers substantially more control over the supreme court.  

Parting Shot

People have different ways of marking Valentine’s Day with their loved one, and one emerging tradition is for couples to receive a blessing in front of the relics of St Valentine at the Carmelite Church on Whitefriar St in Dublin.

As Carl Kinsella reports here, Irish couples can have their upcoming nuptials blessed in front of the blood and bones of the man himself.

The relic of St Valentine in Dublin PA PA

The reliquary, which was a gift from Pope Gregory XVI made in 1836, contains some of the remains of St Valentine, along with a small vessel tinged with his blood and some other artefacts.

The event is run by Catholic marriage advice and counselling agency Accord, and this year two couples were involved in the ceremony.

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