EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you the day’s biggest news stories, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

• The Taoiseach has said he expects the Attorney General to advise the government on the necessity, or not, for a referendum on the EU fiscal compact treaty within “two to three weeks”. Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and other opposition parties have all called for a referendum to be held, with the Technical Group of independent TDs even petitioning to force a referendum regardless of the Attorney General’s decision.
• Two people have died in road crashes today: a 31-year-old man died this morning in Co Cavan, while another man in his late 40s was killed in Co Cork this evening.
• A Canadian delegation, including senior officials from the British Columbian Jobs Ministry, are to visit Dublin this week with a view to attracting Irish workers to the country. About 335,000 job opportunities, mostly construction-based, are projected to arise in British Columbia and Alberta between now and 2014.
• The IRA has admitted responsibility for the death of a Derry schoolboy almost 40 years ago. In 1973, nine-year-old Gordon Gallagher was playing in his garden when he accidentally detonated a bomb that had been placed there. At the time, the IRA denied responsibility, however it has released a statement admitting that it did place a viable device at the location.
• The Egyptian authorities have opened proceedings against 16 Americans and 27 other employees of pro-democracy groups charged with using foreign funds to foment unrest. The trial has seriously strained ties with the US, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton having raised the matter twice in person with Egypt’s foreign minister.
• Writing in TheJournal.ie this evening, Niamh Farrell, manager of Amen, says men can also be victims of domestic violence – but society seems to want the problem to just go away.

Nepal’s Chandra Bahadur Dangi, 72, poses with his certificates after being declared the world’s shortest living man and shortest man ever by the Guinness Book of Records, at a ceremony in Katmandu, Nepal, Sunday, 26 February 2012. Dangi is just 54.6 centimetres (21.5 inches) tall.

Niranjan Shrestha/AP/Press Association Images

• A letter written by a victim of the Titanic to his mother just days before the ship sank in April 1912 is to expected to fetch at least $50,000 at auction later this week. However, the descendants of surgeon John Edward Simpson say they want the letter back in Belfast for display and have appealed for a benefactor to step in to help them buy it.
• A young Turkish man has received the world’s first quadruple limb transplant, following the 20-hour operation, performed by more than 50 doctors at Hacettepe University Hospital in Ankara.
• Blocks of ice might not spell “music” to you – but that’s probably before you watch a performance by Norwegian composer and percussionist Terje Isungset.
• The good, the bad… the downright bizarre – it’s the week in quotes.
• Amateur photographer Susan Weir has explained why she captures images of Dublin street traders and their prams: “That’s what I feel makes Dublin the city it is. It’s not the buildings. It’s the people, the characters who inhabit it. I think they’re taken for granted,” she says. See her photographs here…
• Now, time to grab the nearest cup of tea you see and head for a comfy chair –  it’s Sitdown Sunday: 7 deadly reads.

Landscape artist Sonja Hinrichsen and her team have created this dramatic birds-eye view of a snow scape – check it out:

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