WHAT’S THE STORY? 

1. The Aer Lingus board has given the green light for a €1.3 billion buyout of the Irish national carrier – but the deal could still hit a political roadblock.

2. An investigation is underway after a man was shot in the head following a car crash in south Dublin late last night.

3. VHI customer? Some good news for you today. The health insurer is cutting the price of some of its plans by up to 3%.

4. Met Éireann has warned that snow, ice and wind are all on the way over the next 48 hours – but on the bright side, at least we’re not New York, which has been effectively shut down by a major storm.

5. Facebook has denied that hackers were to blame after both the social network and Instagram were down for 40 minutes this morning in the biggest outage in more than four years.

6. A 93-year-old veteran of World War II who is one of Ireland’s last surviving veterans of the D-Day landings has been awarded the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest military honour.

7. And staying with World War II, today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Some 300 survivors are travelling to the former Nazi death camp where hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

Main pic: Maria Sharapova of Russia celebrates after defeating Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in the quarter final of the Australian Open today. (Pic: AP Photo/Andy Brownbill)