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

IRELAND

Rás na Ban: Imogen Cotter from Team NH finishes today's stage into Castlecomer after crashing. Lorraine O'Sullivan Lorraine O'Sullivan

• An inquest found that Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan drowned due to alcohol intoxication 
• A major housing rally will take place outside Leinster House next month
• The High Court blocked Minister Simon Harris’ call for an inquiry into patient health and welfare at the National Maternity Hospital
• Nine people were injured in crash between a school bus and car in Limerick
• Irish businessman Enda O’Coineen has agreed to buy the Sunday Business Post
• A teenage boy is in an induced coma after being assaulted over the weekend
• The skull and antlers of what’s believed to be a Great Irish Elk were found.

WORLD

Burt Reynolds poses for a portrait to promote his movie The Last Movie Star. March 2018. SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images

#FAKE NEWS: US President Donald Trump has called for the unmasking of an anonymous senior official who wrote an explosive article about his administration – Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have ruled themselves out. 

#PROGRESS: India has decriminalised gay sex in a move the Taoiseach said was an “enormous step forward”. 

#HOLLYWOOD: US actor Burt Reynolds died, aged 82.

PARTING SHOT

Richard Drew Richard Drew

We’ve had a fascinating week of news from the US: first in the form of extracts from Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s book Fear, and secondly – the New York Times’ opinion piece from an anonymous top White House official, which has caused a fervour in Washington.

But Vanity Fair gave us a unique into just how secretive publishing the much-discussed article was: many NYT reporters and editors, including those in the Washington bureau, had no idea the piece was going to be published.

“…Times reporters who cover the White House now find themselves in the rather unorthodox and surely awkward position of trying to discern the identity of a source whose anonymity is being protected by another department of their own organisation.”

“I’m obviously very concerned about preserving the anonymity of the writer,” the editorial-page editor James Bennet said, “but I understand reporters are doing their job.”

As an NYT investigative reporter put it: “…Is the entire newspaper bound by the promise of anonymity? I don’t think so, but this is fascinating. Not sure if there’s precedent.”