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

IRELAND

Ulster Bank in Newbridge, Kildare, on its last day of operation. The remaining 63 Ulster Bank branches in Ireland closed down today. Eamonn Farrell Eamonn Farrell

• A review of the State’s abortion laws recommended that women shouldn’t have to wait three days for a termination.
•  The High Court ruled that it was unlawful for Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman to fail to provide a teenage Afghan asylum seeker with accommodation.
• Advice was issued to government departments not to use TikTok on official devices over cybersecurity concerns.
•  Figures showed that wholesale electricity prices dropped 50.5% in a year, but consumers might not see decrease in bills just yet.
• Two Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled a bridge over the River Thames in England have been jailed as the judge stressed he wanted others to be deterred from copying them.
• Government officials were left praying for a “Hail Mary” as they put a call out for additional accommodation for the growing number of refugees arriving in Ireland.
• A former GAA club official has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for what a judge called “a campaign of sexual offending” carried out against young males for almost 30 years.
• Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has expressed concern about Dublin Port’s plan to redevelop the Poolbeg Peninsula.
• The Happy Pear franchise apologised following criticism of comments made on their podcast by a US physician linking antibiotics to a rise in depression. 
• A football player was handed a five-year ban from all football-related activity for “assaulting a match official”. 

INTERNATIONAL 

Dominic Raab leaving 10 Downing Street after being demoted to the backbenches today. PA PA

#GONE UK government minister Dominic Raab resigned following an inquiry into bullying allegations, after a report concluded that he engaged in an “abuse or misuse of power” that “undermines or humiliates” while foreign secretary.

#PARIS BOMBING A sociology professor has been sentenced to life in prison in absentia for the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in the French capital that left four people dead.

#WARMING PLANET The past eight years were the warmest of modern records, a new global report has found – despite a weather phenomenon that had a cooling effect. 

PARTING SHOT 

After threatening for some time, Twitter’s owner Elon Musk went and wiped thousands of accounts of their verification badges. As Carl Kinsella outlines, this goes beyond ego and into the realm of something that does in fact matter, given the platform’s role for spreading information in emergencies and its other uses.

Meanwhile, Aoife Barry goes back to the early days of Twitter and what it has morphed into since Musk took over. The piece is an an extract from her new book, Social Capital.