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

IRELAND

Denis O'Brien carries the coffin of the late PJ Mara, former Fianna Fáil adviser and director of elections, at his funeral today Rollingnews.ie Rollingnews.ie

• Micheál Martin sought to justify the recent €30,000 hike in his Dáil salary.
• The Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis is under way at Citywest in Co Dublin. Micheál Martin has bemoaned the media’s focus on the makeup of the next coalition, while singer Richie Kavanagh dropped by to press the flesh.
• A body has been discovered in a container on the Grand Canal in Co Kildare.
• There’s bad news for the government in the latest polls.
• A mother and her two sons, missing from Co Wicklow since Tuesday, were located safe and well.
• Fine Gael had a go at Fianna Fáil over ghost estates.
• A family in Drogheda, Co Louth, escaped a fire at their house following a suspected arson attack.
• Ireland’s oldest-living woman has passed away.
• A member of staff was injured after an armed man raided a Meath supermarket.
• The weekend got off to a freezing cold start – and the chilly weather is set to continue.
• A former couple have been jailed for a ‘frenzied attack’ on a fellow Luas passenger.

WORLD 

A soldier stands guard outside the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, today AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

#BURKINA FASO: At least 26 people have died and 56 people have been injured after an Al Qaeda attack on a hotel in the African country,

#YOU KNOW NOTHING: Channel Four journalist John Snow has apologised for making a joke during an Alan Rickman obituary.

#US: An American couple who won €300 million in the recent Powerball lottery have no plans to give up their work. 

#LONDON: Nine people have been injured after a double-decker bus collided with a Smart car.

INNOVATION

• The Nexus 6P is the device Google needs to show off Android’s strengths. Read our review (TheJournal.ie)
• An American woman has managed to beat a drink-driving charge after arguing successfully that her body had made her drunk against her will (Geek.com)

PARTING SHOT

Take a look at this image. Notice anything strange? Try taking a few steps back…

Revision.ru Revision.ru

It’s a visual illusion created by Russian artist Ilja Klemencov, and if you look hard enough you’ll make out the World Wide Fund for nature’s (WWF) panda logo – designed to draw attention to the precarious status of the endangered species.

A worthwhile cause, but we’ll understand if it gives you a headache.