EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of all the day’s main news as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

Race for the Áras…

• The presidential election campaign is underway today with nominations closed and all seven candidates for the Áras already having taken part in their first debate on RTÉ’s News at One  today. If you missed it, here’s what happened.
• Fresh from having won the nomination last night, David Norris has today had to address the issue of letters of clemency he wrote for his former partner Ezra Nawi.
• Meanwhile, Sinn Féin candidate Martin McGuinness has said today he is the “epitome of first-class citizenship”.
• Tonight the candidates will all appear on RTÉ’s Prime Time programme where they will each face a 5-10 minute grilling. We’ll be liveblogging all the latest from there so stay with us.
• With the field now clear, who will you be voting for on 27 October?
• Finally for our #aras11 round-up today, here’s our quote of the day from David Norris to Pat Kenny this morning: “I have been through the fire. I am tempered steel.” In case  you’re wondering.

In  the day’s other news…

• Retail sales figures continued their slump in August owing largely to weak consumer sentiment and depressed demand, according to figures from the CSO.
• Over half of the housing units in Dublin which lay empty 18 months ago have now been filled, according to an analysis of the capital’s property market by Savills Ireland.
• Two-and-a-half kilogrammes of crystal meth worth an estimated €250,000 was seized at Dublin Airport today after officers from Revenue Customs Service found it concealed in two suitcases arriving from Africa.
• ESB and Eirgrid have said they “deeply regret”  the situation in Co Offaly which has seen a landowner jailed over a dispute involving trees and the construction of a power line there.
• The Minister for Health James Reilly has ruled out any prospect of a tax on ‘junk food’ but he does plan to write to some fast food operators in Ireland.
• Check out this human glider who jumped from a chopper and flew through a hole in the side of a mountain in China. Talk about accuracy:

• In his state of the union address to the European Parliament today, Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that more integration was needed to address what he called the “greatest crisis in EU history.”
• Eleven people were wounded as NATO peacekeeping forces clashed with Serbian protesters in northern Kosovo yesterday. It’s not the first time there have been such clashes at the disputed border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia.
• What would you do if you won  the Lotto? TheLineIreland has been finding out…
• Fancy some  tickets to the National Concert Hall this weekend to see the band behind music which features in The West Wing and The Sopranos? Find out how to win them here.
• A sex toy advert is to air on primetime television in the UK it was confirmed today. Lovehoney will become the first sex toy retailer to broadcast such an advert during the day.
• Finally, Amazon has launched a new tablet device which it hopes can rival  the dominance of Apple’s iPad but how does it work. We’ve been finding out…