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

IRELAND

A photo by the Irish Air Corps of flooding at Ballinasloe in the aftermath of Storm Desmond. Rollingnews.ie / Irish Air Corps Rollingnews.ie / Irish Air Corps / Irish Air Corps

• Met Éireann issued a fresh rainfall warning.
• That was accompanied by a flood warning for Clare.
• The Shannon area is already struggling to cope with rising waters.
• Elsewhere, Mary Lou McDonald raised a whistleblower’s claims at the Public Accounts Committee today. 
• A man’s body was found at a Tipperary recycling plant.
• An appeal was issued for a man who went missing in Offaly.
• Car thieves were arrested after getting onto a bus beside where they crashed.
• A senator was criticised for referring to an abortion ‘holocaust’.
• New figures showed the number of rough sleepers in Dublin has gone down (but there are more homeless people).
• Almost €1 million worth of cocaine, heroin and cannabis was seized after raids in two counties.

WORLD

Donald Trump has a run-in with a bald eagle during a photoshoot for Time. Time (screengrab) Time (screengrab)

#US: Figures in the US and internationally continued to react to Donald Trump’s incendiary comments about Muslims. Meanwhile, a new poll showed 65% of likely Republican voters supported his calls for Muslims to be barred from entering America.

#NORTH KOREA: American officials and experts poured cold water on Kim Jong-Un’s suggestion that North Korea has developed a hydrogen bomb.

#CHILD ABUSE IMAGES: Almost 700 people were arrested across the UK in the last nine months in connection with the downloading of indecent images of children, it was announced.

INNOVATION

• A new report showed AirBnB contributed €202 million to the Irish economy over the space of a year. 
• And… back in 2000, the CIA made 8 predictions on what life would be like in 2015 – here’s what it got right (and really wrong). [Business Insider]

PARTING SHOT

Saoirse Ronan landed a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Brooklyn earlier today. Guess where she celebrated the news? Only in this Dublin nail salon…