EVERY EVENING,TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s news, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

• Fine Gael’s candidate for the presidential election has been announced. Gay Mitchell MEP secured the nomination over fellow contenders Pat Cox and Mairead McGuinness in a party vote earlier this afternoon.
• The Guardian newspaper says that it warned a senior aide of British Prime Minister David Cameron over Andy Coulson having hired a private detective with a lengthy history of illegal activities – raising further questions about the level of knowledge in Downing Street in relation to activities by News of the World.
• A prosecutor has recommended that an Irishman arrested in Lithuania three years ago receive 16 years in prison. Michael Campbell, 38, stands accused of attempting to buy and smuggle arms in order to deliver them to the Real IRA.
• The world welcomed a new country at the stroke of midnight on Saturday, as South Sudan officially celebrated its independence after more than five years of bloody civil war with the north of Sudan.

Glamourous festival life continued in Punchestown today, as the fairer sex struggled with the joys and logistics of washing one’s hair in a sink…

Pictured: Shauna Hennessy and Leah Fitzpatrick both from Ashbourne, Co. Meath. Photo by Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

• The High Court has lifted a ban on revealing the identity of an Irish dancing teacher who sexually assaulted one of his students over a period of seven years, after the victim waived her right to anonymity and requested that her abuser be identified.
• The IMF has released funds of €3.2 billion to Greece, which will allow the country to pay off some of its debts. However an agreement on a second bailout is not expected to be decided upon until mid-September.
• The president has signed new legislation aimed at tackling the impending shortage of junior doctors, ahead of an expected emergency shortage of staff from next Monday.
• There are big plans afoot for Dublin’s College Green, which is being marked for redevelopment in the hopes that it could become a “great square” and rival some of the world’s best-known plazas.
• One surprising addition to the Oxegen bill this year was novelist and former Miss Ireland Amanda Brunker. Despite some speculation about whether she would actually be singing, she certainly did so- for one song at least…