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

IRELAND

Joan Burton at the Labour party meeting. Mark Stedman / RollingNews.ie Mark Stedman / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• Acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told independent TDs they have two choices: support a Fine Gael minority government or face a second general election.
• An investigation has been launched after a mother died shortly after giving birth at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny earlier this week.
• A man arrested in Belfast as part of inquiries into the murders of two police officers in the city 29 years ago was released.
• Joan Burton faced calls to resign at the Labour party’s lengthy general election post-mortem.
• There was a significant increase in kidnapping, murder threats and sexual offences in the last three months of 2015, according to new figures.
• Families are set to move into modular housing in Ballymun, Dublin from next month.
• Ryanair has cancelled dozens of flights tomorrow due to another air traffic control strike in France.
• Police in Northern Ireland used tear gas to defend themselves during a confrontation with some members of the Orange Order.
• A TV fitness guru is facing trial for assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
• TXFM, Dublin’s alternative rock station, is going off air.
• Journal Media launched a brand new business site, Fora.

INTERNATIONAL

University of Edinburgh student Kengo Shibata is photographed through the Six Planet Kaleidoscope which will be part of an exhibition of kaleidoscopes celebrating the 200th anniversary of the instrument's invention. Andrew Milligan / PA Wire/Press Association Images Andrew Milligan / PA Wire/Press Association Images / PA Wire/Press Association Images

#CANADA: Nine members of the same family died in a house fire.

#FRANCE: The families minister Laurence Rossignol compared women who wear the veil to “negroes who supported slavery”.

#LONDON: The European Court of Human Rights backed a decision by British authorities not to prosecute anyone after the shooting dead of a man wrongfully thought to be a terror suspect.

#US: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump refused to back any nominee but himself, another flip-flop in his position since the start of the race.

#BOLIVIA: A court has ordered the ex-girlfriend of President Evo Morales to present the child she says he fathered with her nearly a decade ago, a son the leftist leader insists has died.

INNOVATION

• An engineer managed to get dodgy USB cables banned on Amazon.
• A number of companies are working on smartphones that are also handguns [Geek].

PARTING SHOT

An American student moved to the UK for college so he sent his family a lifesize cardboard cut-out of himself. Let’s just say, they had a lot of fun with it.

Imgur Imgur

Comments are closed as one of the above stories is before the courts.

Originally published: 9pm