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GOOD MORNING. Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
The HSE’s Covid-19 vaccine registration portal opened this morning for people aged 35-39.
In this morning’s lead story, Michelle Hennessy writes that the HSE is expecting to move at a slower pace through this age cohort as there are large volumes of people involved and the vaccination programme will rely on supplies of just two brands of vaccine from next month.
Here’s what readers wanted to know this week.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has set a target of 70% home-ownership in Ireland by the end of this decade, a goal that would require up to 40,000 new homes built every year.
Speaking at the Fine Gael Ard Fhéis yesterday evening, the party’s leader said owning our own homes “is in our DNA” and acknowledged that this “dream is out of reach for far too many”.
John Bercow, the former Conservative MP who became the scourge of Brexiteers as Commons Speaker, says he has switched allegiances to join the Labour Party.
Bercow said he regards the Tories under British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”.
Having stepped down as Speaker after 10 years in 2019, he announced yesterday that he joined Labour in recent weeks.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for 99% of confirmed and probable cases across the UK – but there have been just 180 cases of the Delta variant identified in Ireland, which accounts for just 5% of sequenced cases.
So how has Ireland managed to keep Delta at bay? Dr Fidelma Fitzpatrick, consultant and senior lecturer in microbiology at the Royal College of Surgeons, believes vaccination and travel measures have been key to keeping levels of this variant low.
Belgium will ban entry to non-EU travellers from Britain in order to limit the spread of the Delta variant that has forced London to delay the lifting of its pandemic curbs.
With Belgium’s restrictions, which already apply to South Africa, India and Brazil, only EU citizens or residents of Belgium will be able to enter the country. Those travellers will still have to meet tight quarantine rules as well as take covid tests before being free to move in Europe.
One man died and another was seriously injured after being struck by a pick-up truck at a Pride parade in Florida last night.
Police say they are keeping an open mind on the motive behind the incident during the Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade in the city north of Fort Lauderdale.
A man in his late teens was taken to St James’ Hospital after an assault in Dublin city centre yesterday evening.
Gardaí said they are investigating an alleged assault that took place near St Stephen’s Green at around 6pm.
Brazil has become the second country after the United States to surpass 500,000 Covid-19 deaths as the South American nation grapples with a third wave of the pandemic.
In large cities, life seems almost back to normal with restaurants, bars and shops open and many people in the streets not wearing face masks. And yet the situation is critical in 19 of Brazil’s 27 states with more than 80% occupancy of intensive care beds – in nine of those states, it’s over 90%.
Northern Ireland first Minister Paul Givan has been told by will have to resign as Stormont leader once the new DUP leader takes over from Edwin Poots, who resigned on Thursday.
The current front runner for the DUP leadership is Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who narrowly lost to Poots in last month’s DUP leadership contest. Voting gets underway today.
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Speechless! Stunning photos!
An anyone else see a white cloud in the shape of Ireland at the centre of the crab supernova? Begorra!
I do now. Thank’s Irish Jesus for putting that there.
I suddenly feel very small and insignificant …
It was Séasus.
Was a amazing telescope . I think one day science will totally replace religion. Can’t wait. The world will be much more peaceful !
It will probably split into those who believe in Hubble and those who believe in HLA :)
Just like oil and water, religion and science just don’t mix, no point in taking cheap shots,because religion is here to stay. Even if science was to prove without any doubt that God doesn’t exist people will still believe, and will never let go no matter what. Atheism is much braver stance in my opinion, because we know this is it, and we will stand on our own two feet.
Southpark did an episode about it. Watch it. Whether it be religion or science we’ll find something to get dogmatic and violent about… its what we do. Religion is only the vehicle of delivering our violent and disagreeable nature.
Amazing as Hubble and our constant discovery of the universe is – we’ve shown consistently this has very little impact or changes human behaviour at all …… , we always seem have an amazingly high % of basically idiots on the planet , an ability to always fight over land , resources like oil or water or religious beliefs and sadly the evidence would suggest that no matter how many more amazing wonders of the universe we learn – we somehow seem incapable to significantly change human behaviour – evidence to dare would suggest we will probably only pay attention to how much we screwed up our own planet in this amazing universe when we have finally broken it altogether
You are deluded if you think science replacing religion will lead to peace. You should see some of the fights that happen in universites about the interpretation of results.
10,000 galaxies. Imagine how big that is compared to our galaxy. Then imagine how big it is compared to Earth. Then imagine how big that is compared to Ireland. We are nothing but the smallest drop of sand on a unthinkably big beach.
As opposed to being a tiny grain of water in the ocean ? 8-)
Even taking into account the laws of probability – with all these galaxy’s – we can’t be alone -in fact – there should be hundreds and thousands of civilisations – que the Star Trek music
Yeah but at the start of all that something started it… and all the coincidences that made our world possible – are about the same odds. We’ll never know, perhaps in a few hundred years when we’re ready for ‘first contact’.
Also do not forget the slow speed of light (or the outside of spectrum wavelengths). These galaxies were there millions of years ago. It is a snapshot of the past. Civilizations may already be extinct. Others appeared
Another astonishing idea (that I heard on a documentary) is that space is so vast that it will eventually run out of ways to arrange the atoms and eventually another you is out there. But they did not talk about the fact that most repeating thing is… well nothing that leaves so little to be “something”. No atoms in space I mean. Or very little that is meaningless (and repeats itself maybe). Another aspect is time. Time is also adds another dimension which scales up the Universe.
Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast..
pictures like this really put into perspective the unimportance of humans. this is the kind of thing that should make us want to band together in the realisation that we are alone and we need eachother to survive and progress. stopping wars and securing the future of the human race. but no, lets kill each other because my invisible man in the sky is better than yours.
Amazing pictures and yet somehow there’s a lot of people out there who still believe in creationism. Why?
With All those other galaxy’s I’m sure there is intelligent life out there.
If anyone thinks that in all the vast universe that we are the only life forms they are naive. But if it were true and we are alone, we own everything we rule the universe.
Sometimes I wonder is there intelligent life on Earth….
In what sense do we own it? We have only worked out how to live on a small fraction of an insignificant planet. We are bombarded daily and a rock the size of Ireland could drive us to extinction. The sun is dying, but even if we get off the planet in time, the Andromeda collision will see off the entire galaxy a bit later. We are just lichen clinging aimlessly to a rock. But we have the capacity to enjoy ourselves for a brief time.
Most likely not alone but intelligence is unique. There are millions of different species on this planet but only one intelligent civilisation. Could be planets out there full of cockroaches or flies.
Who is to say that we are intelligent in the grand scheme of things? We are only a fledgling species of less than 1 million years old. There could be much more sophisticated species in the universe
We are a species that figured out and understand how the universe works, invented a way to live outside of this planet, landed probs and a machine as big as a car on another planet. That’s pretty intelligent if you ask me. Disregard all the other moronic things that go on on a daily basis though.
Not trying to diminish human achievement for a second but there is no guarantee that it doesn’t pale into insignificance compared to the intelligence of other possible species.
Rule the universe , we can’t even manage a small island in the Atlantic.
From when I first turned over a dead horseshoe crab on the beach I realised that we are certainly not alone.
To be fair chief, the Hubble had to be built and sent up to get these amazing pictures, and that takes remarkable intelligence, so wonder no more my friend.
Ah I was just having my usual banter with Glen…
A rock 6 miles across is enough to drive us into extinction
Only two scary thoughts when it comes to looking out into that vast expanse of the Universe: one, is that we aren’t alone; the other, is that we ARE alone!
Safe to say we are
Not the only ones.
Weather others are called aliens, humans or mickeymackeymoomoos.
Odds are their out there
True Glen, but trying to get around “our” universe is going to be tough!
We own an entire universe yet can only get to our closest moon.
You said the moon landing was a hoax!
No Charles
I said there is a lot of evidence that supports it was a hoax.
There is no evidence. All easily explained. Can you explain how we can see the moon moving further away every year. We left something there. Conspiracy theorists always conveniently ignore this
It’s easier to go to the moon than to fake it.
So Kim kardashian’s hole is the centre of the universe???
I took a snap of the moon yesterday with my old Nokia. it was as good as any if these.
I wanna live on Jupiter it looks mental altogether.
You do all know that NASA are master hoaxers and produce the artistic images to persuade Congress to keep giving them money (tongue planted firmly in cheek) – The Gospel according to Conspiracy Theorists.
So glad people like you are in the minority
It could all be a massive loop. The end of our universe causes the Big Bang of another universe,allowing other species and civilisations to have a go at life.
Astronomers believe that a type of dark matter is forcing the expansion of the universe by its negative gravity. (I can’t explain this, it was on a recent documentary)
They also believe that this matter will reverse at some stage and the universe will stop expanding and start to come together again until it is completely condensed causing another Big Bang.
Your theory isn’t too mad.
And this is just how big the universe is.
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/elon-musk-tweeted-the-universe-is-a-really-really-big-1680703461
Still amazes me when I look at stars in the sky. It’s mad to think where we actually really are.
It’s even crazier to think that some of those stars that we see in the sky may not even exist any more! We are simply looking at the light they emitted thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years ago!
I saw a program recently about the data that is being sent back from Hubble. In the search for another planet that can hold life on terms of the chemical make up of earth they found a planet that ,chemically and distance wise from its Sun, is almost exactly like earth. This planet is something like 1000 light years away from us so we may never get to know what lives on it.
Read a statistic recently were it stated that there are more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on the entire Earth.
With each star being orbited by planets such as our own.
It’s an unimaginably large and wonderful place.
Read a wonderful statistic earlier where it stated that there are more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on the entire earth.
With each star being orbited by planets such as ours.
It’s unimaginably large and wonderful place.
have your say