EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you kick off your day…
1. #DRUGS: An eighth man is to be charged in Dublin District Court this morning in connection with Operation Nitrogen in which gardai swooped on a number of properties on Wednesday. Yesterday, seven men appeared in courts in Longford, Gorey and Drogheda on drugs-related charges. Meanwhile, cannabis plants with a street value of €1m were seized at Nangor Road in Dublin last night and two men are being questioned in relation to that find.
2. #RIP: The funeral of Shane McEntee, the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food who died at his home at the age of 56, will take place on Monday morning in Castletown, Co Meath. Poignant tributes were made to the Meath East TD yesterday after his death was confirmed. His body will repose at home tonight for removal to St Patrick’s Church, Castletown, tomorrow evening.
3. #PAY IT BACK: A random audit of expenses of 12 members of the Oireachtas has led to €16,000 being handed back after that amount of claims could not be properly accounted for. The Irish Independent says that Fine Gael TD Derek Keating had to return the most – €7,571 – of those examined.
4. #PROTESTS: Rush-hour in Belfast and several other towns around Northern Ireland was disrupted by protests by loyalists. The Irish News reports this morning that the protests were not as large as Monday’s demonstrations but that loyalists have now protested each night for almost three weeks over a decision to restrict the flying of the Union flag over Belfast City Hall.
5. #THE EURO: Two-thirds of Irish people want to keep the euro currency, according to a new survey from eurobarometer. That’s a higher percentage than the European average of 53 per cent in favour of retaining the euro.
6. #PENNSYLVANIA: Police in the US are still trying to find a motive for why a man shot dead three people in a rural area of the state before being killed himself in a shootout. It happened on the same day that the National Rifle Association gave a controversial press conference on gun control. The Associated Press reports this morning that one of the people killed was a woman decorating a church hall for a children’s Christmas party.
7. #INDIA: Hundreds of candidates who have contested elections in India in the past five years have been accused of sexual crimes against women. The figures were released by the Association for Democratic Reforms as the country continues to be gripped by protests against violence against women in the wake ofthe vicious gang rape of a young woman on a bus in Delhi.
8. #BOOKS: What has Ireland been reading this year? Ronan McGreevy in the Irish Times confirms that the Fifty Shades trilogy of erotic novels was the publishing phenomenon of the year – 404,668 copies of the book were sold in Ireland, even though it was only released in April.
9. #WHOLE LOT OF ROSIE: Former Miss World Rosanna Davison has told Brian O’Connell in the Irish Times that she modelled topless for Playboy magazine “based on my academic understanding of women’s writing and literature and the fact that I haven’t made a career out of glamour modelling or taking my clothes off” but that she “agrees that it adds to the objectification of women”.
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