NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a roundup of today’s news.

IRELAND

East Wall protestors march to the Dublin Port Tunnel Jane Moore Jane Moore

• People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy has written to the Ceann Comhairle after The Taoiseach called a number of TDs “puppets of Putin’s regime” after he was repeatedly questioned in the Dáil yesterday on NATO’s recent presence in Cork.
• An East Wall protest group who blocked Dublin Port Tunnel have announced that it plans to block the tunnel three times a week until the local asylum seeker accommodation centre is closed.
• Twitter has told the High Court that it has restored Irish-based executive Sinead McSweeney to her position with the company. 
• An estimated  66,000 people are awaiting their €1,000 recognition payment for Covid-19 frontline workers.
• A witness has described to the Central Criminal Court the moment he found the dead body of a teenager while taking his dogs for a morning walk.
• The establishment of a Special Oireachtas Committee on voluntary assisted dying has moved closer, with terms of reference being agreed by the Dáil Reform Committee.
• A number of Fine Gael politicians have written to Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney calling on him to stop the reopening of the Irish embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
• The national archives is set to release over 3,500 files relating to compensation claims during the War of Independence and Civil War.

INTERNATIONAL

The US Senate has passed a landmark bill protecting same-sex marriage SACHELLE BABBAR SACHELLE BABBAR

#RACISM The lady in waiting to the UK’s late Queen Elizabeth has resigned and apologised after she made “unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments” by asking a prominent black advocate where she “really came from”.

#SPAIN An employee at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid was “lightly” injured today when a letter bomb blew up as he handled it, a police source told AFP.

#TRIAL A mother extradited from South Korea has appeared in a New Zealand court for the first time, facing murder charges after the remains of her two children were found in suitcases in Auckland. 

#LGBT The US Senate has passed a landmark bill protecting same-sex marriage, as lawmakers from both parties moved to forestall the possibility of the conservative-led Supreme Court taking away this right, as it did with abortion.

#TRUMP The former US President must testify in April as part of a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he raped her in the 1990s, a court said yesterday.

PARTING SHOT

Iggy Pop Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons

Punk icon Iggy Pop is set to finally headline All Together Now next year, three years after the legendary musician was supposed to lead the festival in 2020. 

His original booking was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds were the main act of last year. 

The festival will be the Stooges rocker’s first one in Ireland in 15 years, and it is set to feature hits from every era of the 75-year-old punk godfather’s career.