GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. Our lead story this morning is a detailed look at what we can expect in the next phase of removing Covid-19 restrictions.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed this week that a roadmap for the easing of restrictions would be published on 31 August.
Martin is promising “a comprehensive roadmap” for how restrictions will be lifted over the coming months and the beginning of “a new era in the management of Covid-19″.
2. Gardaí believe an infant child and its parents were among the four people who died in a road crash on the M6 motorway near Ballinasloe in Co Galway on Thursday evening.
The driver of another car, who is believed to be male, was also killed in the collision.
It is understood that the process of identifying the victims of the crash is complicated due to the extent of the injuries they sustained.
3. Desperation deepened around Kabul’s airport today with evacuation operations in chaos and US President Joe Biden warning he could not predict the outcome of one of the “most difficult airlifts in history”.
Six days after the Taliban took back power in Afghanistan, the flow of people trying to flee their feared hardline Islamist rule continued to overwhelm the international community.
4. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the European Union to stick to past deals on migrants and refugees and aid neighbouring countries as fears of a new exodus from Afghanistan mount.
Rising numbers of Afghan migrants could present “a serious challenge for everyone”, Erdogan said in a phone conversation with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of neighbouring Greece.
5. Detectives in the UK are trying to find a 49-year-old man as part of a murder investigation after two bodies were found within hours of each other at separate addresses in central London.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement they were appealing for information about the whereabouts of Lee Peacock, who they wished to speak to “urgently”.
6. R Kelly’s former tour manager said he bribed a worker at a public aid office to get false identification saying the late singer Aaliyah was of age, so she could marry the R&B star now on trial for sex crimes.
Testifying under a grant of immunity from later prosecution, Demetrius Smith – who worked for Kelly for more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s – said he paid a worker $500 to secure the then-15-year-old Aaliyah Haughton a fake ID, used shortly thereafter to wed Kelly, who was then 27.
7. A former British soldier lost a bid to have a manslaughter case against him dropped before it reaches trial.
David Holden, 51, will appear at Belfast Crown Court next month when he will be formally charged with unlawfully killing Aidan McAnespie on 21 February 1988.
Mr Justice O’Hara rejected an application made on behalf of Holden to quash the case, and expressed the hope that a trial can take place before Christmas.
8. A team of Irish researchers are heading to Belgium next month where Ireland’s first-ever satellite will undergo a series of final tests, bringing it one step closer to a 2022 launch into low Earth orbit (LEO).
The Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 (EIRSAT-1) is the size of a shoebox but will collect data from the three science experiments on-board while powering itself, orientating itself, and communicating to the ground station on the roof of the UCD School of Physics.
9. As politicians get ready to outline the next steps in Ireland’s reopening, DJ Niall Byrne (Nialler9) writes that the music industry has been treated as an afterthought by Government.
Byrne says the disparity between the Government’s treatment of music and sport is “indicative of the wider long-standing problem of respect it shows arts and culture.”
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