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

IRELAND

Minister for Education Richard Bruton, the Minister for Finance Pascal Donohoe, Minister of State for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Grangegorman as they announce that the application for Technological University status from TU4Dublin will be granted Sam Boal Sam Boal

• The HSE has launched a new campaign to tackle cocaine and crack cocaine use in the country.
• Just two Dublin postcodes have an average house price that is below a quarter of a million euro, according to the latest GeoDirectory report.
• Ryanair has confirmed that it has cancelled 24 flights between Ireland and the UK on Friday due to the ongoing strike by pilots.
• The Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has published the wording of the proposed amendment to the Constitution which would remove the offence of blasphemy.
• A postmortem examination will be carried out on the body of a woman who was found in a field in Galway yesterday.
• A new report issued by senators today has said that Irish schoolkids should be encouraged to hold events where the national anthem could be performed in Irish, English or Irish Sign Language.
• A couple who were caught with “an Aladdin’s cave” worth of stolen items in a Dublin hotel room will be sentenced later this week for fraud, theft, and criminal damage.
• The Central Criminal Court heard 23 murder trials, six manslaughter trials and 77 rape trials last year, according to the Courts Service annual report.

INTERNATIONAL

Len McCluskey, the General Secretary of Unite and union leaders representing manufacturing workers from across the UK stage a protest with a giant roulette over jobs and Brexit John Stillwell John Stillwell

#BREXIT: British Prime Minister Theresa May has survived a vote in the House of Commons which would see a change the UK’s post-Brexit trade deal.

#TRUMP: US president Donald Trump has said he meant the opposite when he said in Helsinki that he doesn’t see why Russia would have interfered in the 2016 US elections.

#OBAMA: Former US president Barack Obama has used a tribute to Nelson Mandela to warn of “strange and uncertain times”.

PARTING SHOT

An Irish Sign Language version of Ireland’s National Anthem has been officially performed for the first time by a deaf choir, as reported by RTÉ.