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

IRELAND

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Taoiseach Micheál Martin pictured at Technological University Dublin, Grangegorman during her visit to Dublin today. Julien Behal / RollingNews.ie Julien Behal / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that Ireland has been the slowest to reopen in Europe and this has been a “wise” approach, as Covid cases are on the rise.
• There were 1,173 new cases of Covid-19 today, with 79 patients in hospital, including 23 in ICU. 
• The trial of the men accused of abducting Kevin Lunney, Director of Quinn Industrial Holdings, is expected to end next week.
• Northern Ireland political leaders held “robust talks” with Secretary of State Brandon Lewis, chaired by Simon Coveney, over the ban on prosecutions of Troubles-related matters.
• From today, landlords can no longer hit tenants with a 4% rent increase and must link any increase in Rent Pressure Zones to inflation.
• The vast majority of portable public toilets have been removed from Dublin City Centre due to lack of use.
• Experts criticised a clinical trial, funded by a biomedical company, at the Rotunda Hospital for the way it presents information on risks and benefits of induced labour to pregnant women.
• Today was the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching 27.1 degrees in Roscommon.

WORLD

Abandoned cars are left in the streets after floods in Liege, Belgium after the heavy rainfall of the past days where 20 people have been confirmed dead.

#EUROPE: Devastating floods have torn through entire villages and killed at least 126 people in Europe, most of them in western Germany where stunned emergency services were still combing the wreckage today.

#THE NETHERLANDS: Dutch customs found  €225 million worth of cocaine hidden inside of a shipment of banana pureé. 

#MANCHESTER: Police believe that the graffiti on a mural of football player Marcus Rashford was not racial in nature.

PARTING SHOT

In a rom-com like sequence of events, three young women were brought together under the most unlikely of circumstances: they were all being cheated on by the same man.

Now, they are touring the west of the US in a school bus they renovated over two months.

Read their story in the Washington Post here.