LAST UPDATE | 20 Jan 2023
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day
1. The Government is set to miss its revised social housing targets for 2022, briefing documents from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform show.
According to the ministerial briefing provided to Paschal Donohoe following the reshuffle in December, civil servants at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) have said that the revised target of 8,000 social homes in 2022 will be missed.
2. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he has “regrets” over the Northern Ireland Protocol being imposed as the latest deadline for restoring the executive at Stormont has passed without any breakthrough.
“I do have regrets, and the regret that I have is that in the same way Brexit was imposed on Northern Ireland without the support of both communities, the protocol was imposed in Northern Ireland without the support of two communities,” he told BBC.
His comments come as the impasse at Stormont continues to roll on, and the British Government once again assumes a legal duty to call a snap Assembly election in the region.
3. A federal US judge sanctioned former president Donald Trump and his lawyers nearly $1 million for a “frivolous” lawsuit claiming Hillary Clinton had tried to rig the 2016 election.
District Judge John Middlebrooks said the Republican, who is seeking to return to the White House in 2024, exhibited a “continuing pattern of misuse of the courts” and had filed the suit “in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative.”
It comes only days after Trump’s family business was hit with the maximum penalty of $1.6 million for committing tax fraud.
4. David Crosby, the trailblazing singer-songwriter whose time with The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young expanded rock’s range, has died at the age of 81.
His publicist confirmed his death but did not provide a cause. The singer’s wife Jan Dance had earlier told entertainment outlet Variety that Crosby passed following a long illness.
“Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us,” his wife’s statement read.
5. “As soon as I see ‘seeking next-of-kin’, because we’re in the business it would always ring a bell with me.”
In late December, Padraic Grennan, the managing director of Irish probate genealogy firm Erin Research, came across an appeal on social media for information on the next-of-kin of an Irishman who died alone in England.
The appeal related to John Joseph Gill who died in the Orchard House nursing home in Birmingham on 25 November.
6. Meta is reviewing a call by its oversight board to make its adult nudity policies more inclusive after the tech giant removed two Instagram posts showing transgender and non-binary people with their chests bared.
Neither post violated Meta’s policies on adult nudity, and in a statement released earlier this week, the board said it had overturned the company’s decision to remove them.
A Meta spokesperson told AFP that the company welcomed the board’s move and had already restored the images, agreeing they should not have been taken down.
7. Police in England are “looking into” Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak after he failed wear a seatbelt as he filmed a social media clip in the back of a moving car.
Sunak has apologised for the “mistake”, as Downing Street said that he had made a “brief error of judgment” by removing the safety device as he promoted his levelling-up funding in the Instagram video when he visited Lancashire on Thursday.
The offence can be punished with fines of up to £500.
8. People poured into Peru’s coastal capital, many from remote Andean regions, for a protest against President Dina Boluarte and in support of her predecessor, whose ousting last month launched deadly unrest.
There was a tense calm in the streets of Lima ahead of the protest that supporters of former President Pedro Castillo hope opens a new chapter in the weeks-long movement to demand Boluarte’s resignation, the dissolution of Congress, and immediate elections.
Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was impeached after a failed attempt to dissolve Congress.
9. Australian rangers have killed an invasive “monster” cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park – a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing 2.7kg.
The toad was spotted after a snake slithering across a track forced wildlife workers to stop as they were driving in Queensland’s Conway National Park, the state government said.
“I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn’t believe how big and heavy it was,” ranger Kylee Gray said, describing how she discovered the amphibian last week.
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