LAST UPDATE | 5 Jun 2023

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

Troubles payment scheme

1. A woman who witnessed her father being shot by the IRA has said she’s been “taken up the garden path” after being deemed ineligible for a payment scheme for Troubles victims.

Jeanitta McCabe was 10-years-old when she witnessed her father Peter McCabe being shot multiple times in her family home in Newry in 1990.

However, after progressing through seven stages of the scheme, the assessors deemed that this was not a Troubles-related incident.

White-tailed eagle

2. The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is celebrating the hatching of five new white-tailed eagle chicks in Co Clare.

The NPWS said the newly-hatched chicks come from the bonding of eagles released under the white-tailed eagle reintroduction project, which aims to bring the species back to Ireland.

Antrim attack

3. Police in the North are appealing for witnesses after a group of up to 20 people were involved in a fight in a Co Antrim train station.

Around 9.45pm on Saturday, the incident within Ballymoney train station was reported to the PSNI.

A glass bottle was thrown during the disturbance, which had spilled out onto the platform, and a 14-year-old boy sustained an injury which required hospital treatment.

Prince Harry

4. Britain’s Prince Harry is due to appear at the High Court as his case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror over alleged unlawful information gathering begins.

Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages, claiming journalists at its titles – which also include the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called “blagging” or gaining information by deception and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.

Fossil Funds

5. An Irish EU Commissioner has said automatic-enrolment pension schemes should provide “transparency” to pension holders about whether their money is being invested sustainably.

EU Commissioner for Financial Services Mairéad McGuinness has told The Journal that schemes should allow pension holders to be aware about the details of their investment choices.

Housing Crisis

6.While Galway is set to be the scene for plenty of holidaymakers over the summer months, Galway City Council is to write to the Advertising Standards Authority to complain that online short-term letting platforms are regularly breaching planning laws.

The council is contending that advertisements for properties within the Galway Rent Pressure Zone – which covers the entire city – need to be removed.

Australia

7. A woman has been pardoned and released from prison after serving 20 years in Australia for the death of her four children.

Kathleen Folbigg, 55, was released from prison in Grafton, New South Wales today after receiving an unconditional pardon on the advice of the state’s attorney general.

The pardon follows fresh scientific evidence her four children died from natural causes as she had insisted.

Ukraine

8. Russia’s defence ministry said it had repelled “a large-scale offensive” by Ukrainian forces in Moscow-annexed Donetsk, as fighting intensified along their border.

Kyiv has for months said it is preparing a major counteroffensive, hoping to reclaim territory lost since Russia launched its military operation in February 2022.

Its army said recently there would be no announcement on the start of the manoeuvres.

Blue Monday

9. Serious heart attacks are more likely to happen on a Monday than at any other time, research has suggested.

The study found that the likelihood of a heart attack occurring on a Monday was 13% greater than expected.

Doctors at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland analysed data from 10,528 patients across the island of Ireland – 7,112 in the Republic and 3,416 in the North.