LAST UPDATE | 9 Jun 2022

GOOD MORNING. 

Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

Cost of living 

1. In our morning lead this morning, Christina Finn reports on the government’s indications that a new middle rate tax band will be looked at to help with the rising cost of living.

Pressure is mounting on the Government to do more to ease the rising cost of living, particularly as petrol and diesel costs jumped above the €2 a litre mark. 

Speaking in Dundalk yesterday, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys said the Government did not have a “magic money tree” to help with the soaring costs of fuel.

Labour leader’s visit  

2. British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has arrived in Dublin to meet with political leaders, where ongoing tensions between the EU and UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol are expected to dominate discussions. 

Starmer will hold talks with Taoiseach Micheál Martin today, and will also meet with President Michael D Higgins at 11:30am in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Meetings have also been scheduled with Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, as well as with Labour leader Ivana Bacik.

Ukraine 

3. The fate of the whole Donbas region rests in the eastern city of Severodonetsk, according to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Moscow’s forces are concentrating their firepower on the strategically important industrial hub while Ukrainian officials have conceded that Russian troops now control a large part of the city. 

Former defence chief

4. Mark Mellet, the former Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces, has spoken of how Russia exposed Ireland’s vulnerabilities off our coasts earlier this year.

Mellett was speaking at a recent Irish security conference which was being held as the government considers the future direction of the Defence Forces.

The former defence chief said that Ireland was powerless to do anything to prevent the exercises and “showed our nakedness” in its defence capacity, making it a “lone sentinel” in the Atlantic. 

US gun reform

5. The US House of Representatives voted overnight to set a minimum age of 21 for buying semi-automatic weapons in response to recent mass shootings, including in New York and Texas.

The legislation passed by a mostly party-line vote of 223-204. The portion of the bill involving increasing the minimum age for semi-automatic weapons was approved by a vote of 228-199.

However it has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programmes, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks.

Festival staffing 

6. With reports of lengthy queues hitting some festival attendees at the likes of Forbidden Fruit in Kilmainham, the effects of the pandemic’s disruptions to the industry are becoming clear.

The events industry is trying to keep up with demand as activity increases around the country in the first summer since the government lifted Covid-19 restrictions.

There has been the departure of some workers to other sectors and a lack of experience among younger workers who did not have opportunities to develop relevant skills.

Monkeypox 

7. The risk of monkeypox becoming established in non-endemic nations is real, the WHO has warned, with more than a thousand cases now confirmed in such countries.

So far the UN health agency is not recommending mass vaccination against the virus, and added that no deaths had been reported so far from the outbreaks.

Weed in Thailand

8. Thailand has made it legal to cultivate and possess marijuana.

Some Thai advocates celebrated on Thursday morning by buying marijuana at a cafe that had previously been limited to selling products made from the parts of the plant that do not get people high.

However the plant continues to exist in a form of limbo as legislators have yet to pass laws to regulate the trade of the plant.

Mega-church leader sentenced 

9. The leader of a Mexican mega-church with over five million followers has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three young girls was sentenced in Los Angeles on Wednesday to nearly 17 years in prison.

But the ruling, following a plea deal Naason Joaquin Garcia struck with prosecutors last week, was met with anger by victims, who at an emotional hearing called for their abuser to face trial and the maximum possible sentence.