LAST UPDATE | 12 May 2021

EVERY MORNING, The Journal brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. #HOUSING: Renters and first-time buyers are facing an “impossible situation” after a new report showed that the average monthly rent in Ireland during the first quarter of the year was 2.1% higher than the final three months of 2020.

2. #GAZA: Palestinian militants and the Israeli army exchanged a barrage of deadly fire in the early hours of this morning, as intense fighting continued overnight, with UN envoy for Middle East Peace Tor Wennesland warning the two sides were heading “towards a full-scale war“.

3. #VACCINES: Western countries could face a fresh wave of Covid-19 infections from mutations of the virus which causes the disease unless more is done to get vaccines shared out across the globe, a charity has warned.

4. #BALLYMURPHY: A cavalcade of cars passed through Ballymurphy last night thanking the community for its support over the past 50 years, hours after a coroner ruled that the 10 people killed in the west Belfast shootings involving British soldiers in Ballymurphy in August 1971 were “entirely innocent”.

5. #ADOPTION: Proposed legislation that would give adopted people access to birth certs and early life information has been described as “groundbreaking” by Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman.

6. #HSE: The HSE has spent a total of €500 million on Covid-19 measures so far. Meanwhile, hospitalisations from the virus have dropped to 106.

7. #BEACHES: The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) annual report on Ireland’s bathing waters reveals that the standard of beaches continued to improve last year. However, the quality of water at four beaches was described as “poor”.

8. #RUSSIA: At least nine people, most of them children, were killed yesterday when a lone teenage gunman opened fire at a school in the central Russian city of Kazan, officials have said.

9. #LIBERTIES: The winding down of Dublin’s Digital Hub in The Liberties has been criticised by Dublin City Council’s Chief Executive Owen Keegan after a decision was taken by Government to hand over the site to the Land Development Agency for social and affordable housing.