LAST UPDATE | 6 May 2022

GOOD MORNING. 

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

Stormont election

1. Counting starts at 8am following fresh elections to the Stormont Assembly.

The first of the 90 MLAs are expected to be returned by Friday afternoon, and the counts are likely to continue into tomorrow.

Some 239 candidates are running across 18 five-seater constituencies.

Turf and air pollution 

2. The political turf wars have been trundling along for weeks now, with Eamon Ryan planning to restrict the commercial sale of turf in Ireland. 

We examined whether this specific regulation could improve air quality and how turf contributes to air pollution in the first place. 

Ukraine 

3. A new UN convoy is expected in Mariupol today to evacuate civilians from the “bleak hell” of a besieged steel plant that has become the last pocket of resistance against invading Russian forces in the southern port city.

The Russian military had announced a three-day ceasefire at the site starting yesterday but a Ukrainian commander said there was still heavy fighting at the sprawling Azovstal complex, where hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been holed up for weeks under heavy bombardment.

England local elections 

4. Boris Johnson is facing backlash from local Conservative leaders as his party lost a flagship London authority to Labour and suffered setbacks across England.

While Keir Starmer’s party gained ground in the country’s capital by taking the totemic Tory authority in Wandsworth, there was a mixed picture elsewhere with the loss of Hull to the Liberal Democrats but success in the new Cumberland authority.

As dozens of Conservative councillors lost their seats against a backdrop of the row about lockdown-busting parties in No 10 and the cost-of-living crisis, local Tory leaders criticised the Prime Minister.

Israel

5. Israeli forces have launched a manhunt for attackers who killed three people in the central city of Elad as the country marked the anniversary of its founding.

The search was seeking what police described as “one or two terrorists”, who remained at large hours after the attack.

No details on the alleged assailants have emerged.

Housing 

6. Tax measures may need to be looked at in order to keep ‘mom-and-pop landlords’ from exiting the market, according to Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien.

Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, the housing minister acknowledged there was “an issue with a shrunken” market when it came to the availability of homes to rent.

Court

7. The issue of self-defence may have to be considered in the murder trial of a delivery cyclist accused of fatally stabbing schoolboy Josh Dunne following “a stand-off” over a stolen bicycle, the State has told the Central Criminal Court jury.

The 12 jurors were also told it is the prosecution case that the accused stabbed two other people that night and that events had unfolded within a “surprisingly short space of time”.

Apology

8. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said he accepted an apology from Russian President Vladimir Putin for controversial remarks about the Holocaust made by Moscow’s top diplomat.

The two leaders talked over the phone, after which an Israeli statement said Putin had apologised.

However, the Russian statement about the call made no mention of an apology.

Weather

9. It will be a wet Friday but a mostly dry and sunny weekend, when temperatures are expected to reach 19 degrees in parts.

Today will see heavy rain in places with possible downpours, especially in the west and midlands, though sunny spells and scattered showers will follow in the northwest later today. Highest temperatures will be between 14 and 17 degrees Celsius.

Tomorrow will be mostly dry with spells of hazy sunshine and some patches of light rain and drizzle. Highest temperatures on Saturday are expected to be 15 to 19 degrees.