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

IRELAND

Jade Connolly, daughter of missing woman Bernadette Connolly, speaking to the media at the entrance to Donabate beach near the Shoreline Hotel in Dublin where Bernadette was last seen on Friday, 7 January. PA PA

• Dublin man Richard O’Halloran began his journey home to Ireland tonight after a deal was agreed between Chinese authorities and the Department of Foreign Affairs which lifted an almost three-year travel ban.
• The French Ambassador to Ireland said the Russian naval tests off Ireland are “unhelpful, not welcome” and offered his country’s support to Ireland.
• Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he would be worried for the safety of local fishermen if they insisted on fishing near an area set to be the focus of the Russian naval exercises.
• Public health officials reported 9,591 additional cases of Covid-19, and announced they will only release case numbers Monday to Friday from now on.
• There were almost 9,000 people in emergency accommodation in December, with homelessness organisations raising concerns that the numbers will rise further in 2022.
• The daughter of missing Dublin woman Bernadette Connolly made an appeal asking for anyone with information to help find her mother.
• Lisa Smith, a former Irish soldier who denies membership of Islamic State, “threw her life away to go and join a violent extremist ideology”, a witness told the Special Criminal Court today. 
• Trinity College Dublin said that the Science Gallery “needs to be reimagined” in order for it to remain open in the future.
• Gardaí in Sligo appealed for witnesses to an alleged assault during the early hours of yesterday morning in Ballinode. 

WORLD

In this aerial image taken with a drone, vehicles rest on a bridge following its collapse in Pittsburgh, US. The bridge spanning a ravine collapsed, requiring rescuers to rappel nearly 150 feet, while others formed a human chain to help rescue multiple people from a dangling bus. Gene J. Puskar / PA Gene J. Puskar / PA / PA

#PARTY GATE UK Police said they received the material requested from the Cabinet Office to support the investigation into possible lockdown breaches in Downing Street and Whitehall. 

#UKRAINE TENSIONS: President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the West was ignoring Moscow’s security concerns over Ukraine but added that Russia would hold off from taking action immediately.

#BELARUS: A bomb warning aboard a Ryanair flight last May, which saw the aircraft rerouted to Belarus where a dissident journalist was arrested, was “deliberately false,” United Nations investigators found in a report to be delivered to the body’s aviation agency Monday.

PARTING SHOT

If you’ve been wondering why Ireland is reopening now and how people feel about it all, you’re in luck.

On this week’s episode of The Explainer podcast behavioural scientist Pete Lunn and immunologist Christine Loscher discuss the decisions behind the reopening, how things might play out in coming months, and what the latest research tells us about how people in Ireland feel about the changes.

The Explainer / SoundCloud