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

IRELAND

The entrance to the Jack Lynch Tunnel

• Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he didn’t intentionally scupper the Taoiseach’s election announcement after beating him to the punch yesterday evening.
• A woman who has taken a court case against MMA fighter Conor McGregor alleging that he sexually assaulted her in a Dublin hotel rejected a suggestion by his senior counsel that she had consensual sex with him.
• Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said it is disappointing that the Taoiseach and Tánaiste are choosing not to attend an international UN climate conference next week, staying at home for the general election campaign instead.
• November temperature records for Ireland were broken at 11 primary weather stations yesterday.
• Writer, broadcaster and musician Kathleen Watkins has died at the age of 90.
• Minister for Education Norma Foley rejected claims that she “misled” the Dáil about meeting an executive of a company that manufactures phone pouches for schools.
• Stardust campaigner and survivor Antoinette Keegan has withdrawn as an election candidate for the National Party, days after launching her campaign.
• The Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork will close at night during the week for the “next few years” as critical systems are modernised inside the structure under the River Lee estuary.
• Key shows on RTE 2FM have lost listeners over the past three months but the station nevertheless said it had “done extremely well to stabilise the 15 to 34 audience”.

THE WORLD

President Joe Biden gives a thumbs up to the audience after speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House Alamy Alamy

#GAZA UNICEF said that “vulnerable newborns and sick and wounded children in need of intensive care are being killed in tents, in incubators and in the arms of their parents” by Israel’s attacks.

#CLIMATE 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year in recorded history with global warming above 1.5C, according to EU climate monitor Copernicus.

#US US President Joe Biden promised a peaceful transfer of power to Donald Trump.

PARTING SHOT

The latest episode of The Journal’s politics podcast The Candidate is out now – listen to it here.