GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news to know as you start your day.
1. In today’s lead story, The Journal‘s reporter in Gaza, Dima Jalal Saud, reports the latest on the ongoing famine in Gaza.
She speaks to an agronomist (an expert in crop production) and the community around him in Northern Gaza as the growing number of displaced and starving Palestinians risking an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
2. Thousands will climb Croagh Patrick today in Co Mayo to mark Reek Sunday, also known by some as Garland Sunday or Bilberry Sunday.
The occasions was originally a pagan festival before it was a Christian one. In honour of St. Patrick, pilgrims will scale the mountain tomorrow, many of whom will be barefoot. Pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick has been undertaken for over 1,500 years.
3. A search for a missing boy, who fell from the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare last Tuesday, are continuing.
Members of the gardaí, the Coast Guard and the Civil Defence are searching the areas around the Cliffs. The Shannon-based Coast Guard helicopter R115 is also part of the operation and the Civil Defence is using a drone.
4. An unexplained increase in the price of cocoa has impacted small business owners, namely Irish cafés. For close to a decade up to 2023, global cocoa prices hovered at around $2,500-$3,000 per tonne (€2,300-€2,760).
But the prices have risen dramatically since then and in March of this year, hit over $10,000 a tonne (€9,210). Our reporter Diarmuid Pepper tries to get to the bottom of this surge, and chats to some impacted cafés along the way.
5. The United Nations has urged Israel display “maximum restraint” after a rocket attack in the annexed Golan Heights and an airstrike on a school in Gaza yesterday.
The latest mediation efforts have focused on a ceasefire and hostage release accompanied by increased aid flows into besieged Gaza and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
6. A man has been released without charge after he was arrested at the scene of a single-vehicle collision in the early hours of yesterday morning, in Ballynamona, Kinsale, Co Cork.
Another man in his 40s, the passenger of the vehicle, died at the scene. A file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
7. Two-Time World Champion gymnast Rhys McClenaghan will compete in next Saturday’s Olympic final after posting the joint-highest score in today’s qualification.
The Co. Antrim man and American Stephen Nedoroscik both produced almost flawless routines on the pommel to receive scores of 15.200, safely guaranteeing their passage into next Saturday’s eight-man final.
8. What did you think of the Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony in Paris 2024? Well Cooney and O’Carroll are talking all things opening ceremony, from uniforms to boats on the seine to rain. Listen for free now.
9. Peter Flanagan, Irish comedian and writer, says in our Voices section today that after years under the Tories, he is OK with a calm, measured Starmer in Number 10 Downing Street.
“There’s been no swarms of locusts, no flooding, no Woke Horse-People of the Apocalypse. Instead there’s been a feeling of calm. A safe pair of hands behind the wheel,” he writes.
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