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

IRELAND

• Ruth Coppinger has said that it’s because of “sell-out Independents” that the AAA-PBP bill requesting a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment will be rejected.
• Revenue officers have seized cocaine with an estimated street value of over €5 million found concealed in a ‘torpedo-like’ device on the shoreline in Co Clare.
• The Chief Executive of Ervia (the parent company of water utility Irish Water) Michael McNicholas is to step down from his role.
• A man who threatened to shoot and stab three schoolchildren while he robbed them as they made their way to school has been remanded in custody for sentencing.
• An eight-year-old schoolgirl who suffered anxiety and stress after she was accidently locked in a classroom for 25 minutes has been awarded €20,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court.
• A jury has been told that it’s more likely that a man was drunk rather than sleepwalking when he allegedly raped his friend.
• A new crematorium has opened at Dardistown Cemetery in Cloghran, north Dublin today.
• Katie Taylor is reportedly set to turn professional and could make her debut as early as next month.

INTERNATIONAL

PA Wire / PA Images PA Wire / PA Images / PA Images

#US: Donald Trump’s campaign has launched a nightly show on Facebook Live in order to bypass “the media filter”.

#CANADA: A Canadian nurse has been charged with the murders of eight retirement home residents.

#UK: Six reporters, photographers and media chiefs are to be tried in France for invasion of privacy over topless photos of Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge published in 2012.

#ROME: Today the vatican urged Catholics not to scatter the ashes of the dead after cremation and instead to store them in places approved by the Church.

INNOVATION 

• An Irish plastic surgeon and a bat expert have teamed up to find the cause of cleft palate in humans.
• Last year was the ‘turning point’ when renewables toppled coal as the world’s main power source. [Fora]

PARTING SHOT 

THE SKELLIG RING has been voted as one of Lonely Planet’s top ten regions travellers should visit in 2017. [DailyEdge]

Here are 13 stunning views from it.