NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Airline pilots during their protest outside Leinster House in Dublin today. PA PA

• A further 345 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Ireland. 
• Public health experts warned people to adhere to the public-health guidelines after an increase in Covid-19 cases in Limerick was caused by “a lot of large social gatherings” that took place indoors.
• The HSE said it is working closely with social media companies as part of efforts to prevent private medical data from Irish patients being shared online. 
• Political leaders in Northern Ireland are to contact the Taoiseach following various failed attempts to secure a meeting between the health ministers on both sides of the border.
• The Tourism and Culture Minister said she hopes that some test live events could take place as early as next month and that they will be across “a variety of genres”. 
• Traveller rights groups welcomed a new long-term report which recommended improvements to living conditions at a Cork halting site. 
• A Longford man admitted that he attempted to murder gangland criminal Wayne Whelan in a shooting in west Dublin nearly two years ago. His three co-accused also pleaded guilty to conspiring with each other to murder the deceased.
• Dozens of airline pilots lined up outside Leinster House to warn of thousands of job losses in their sector.  

WORLD

Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya speaking during a news conference in Lithuania today. Mindaugas Kulbis Mindaugas Kulbis

#MINSK: EU Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen demanded the immediate release of a journalist who was removed from a diverted Ryanair flight to face charges in Belarus. 

#CRASH: More than 200 passengers were injured in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur when two metro trains collided in a tunnel, police said.

#MINNEAPOLIS: Members of George Floyd’s family joined activists and citizens in Minneapolis for a march to mark the first anniversary of his murder.

#COVID DEATHS: India crossed another grim milestone with the country’s coronavirus death toll passing 300,000.

PARTING SHOT 

Today is Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday. President Michael D Higgins was one of many who paid tribute in a very pleasant way to the singer-songwriter. 

In an open letter — beginning with the salutation “Bob, a chara” — President Higgins warmly praised the Nobel laureate for his “linking of the American folk tradition to moral, economic and political challenges”.

“As one 80-year-old to another, and as one poet to another, I felt I should share with you my view that the best poem on an 80-year-old is William Wordsworth’s poem ‘Michael’, which deals with the consequences of the enclosures in England in the 18th Century, and their making of a working class of men, women and children for the factory system at the cost of intimate rural life,” Higgins wrote.

“I feel it’s a beautiful work and would love some time to talk to you about it.”

Message from President Higgins to Bob Dylan, on the occasion of the singer-songwriter's birthday. pic.twitter.com/2c75EU2a77

— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) May 24, 2021