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LAST UPDATE | 20 Jan 2023
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day
1. The Government is set to miss its revised social housing targets for 2022, briefing documents from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform show.
According to the ministerial briefing provided to Paschal Donohoe following the reshuffle in December, civil servants at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) have said that the revised target of 8,000 social homes in 2022 will be missed.
2. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he has “regrets” over the Northern Ireland Protocol being imposed as the latest deadline for restoring the executive at Stormont has passed without any breakthrough.
“I do have regrets, and the regret that I have is that in the same way Brexit was imposed on Northern Ireland without the support of both communities, the protocol was imposed in Northern Ireland without the support of two communities,” he told BBC.
His comments come as the impasse at Stormont continues to roll on, and the British Government once again assumes a legal duty to call a snap Assembly election in the region.
3. A federal US judge sanctioned former president Donald Trump and his lawyers nearly $1 million for a “frivolous” lawsuit claiming Hillary Clinton had tried to rig the 2016 election.
District Judge John Middlebrooks said the Republican, who is seeking to return to the White House in 2024, exhibited a “continuing pattern of misuse of the courts” and had filed the suit “in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative.”
It comes only days after Trump’s family business was hit with the maximum penalty of $1.6 million for committing tax fraud.
4. David Crosby, the trailblazing singer-songwriter whose time with The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young expanded rock’s range, has died at the age of 81.
His publicist confirmed his death but did not provide a cause. The singer’s wife Jan Dance had earlier told entertainment outlet Variety that Crosby passed following a long illness.
“Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us,” his wife’s statement read.
5. “As soon as I see ‘seeking next-of-kin’, because we’re in the business it would always ring a bell with me.”
In late December, Padraic Grennan, the managing director of Irish probate genealogy firm Erin Research, came across an appeal on social media for information on the next-of-kin of an Irishman who died alone in England.
The appeal related to John Joseph Gill who died in the Orchard House nursing home in Birmingham on 25 November.
6. Meta is reviewing a call by its oversight board to make its adult nudity policies more inclusive after the tech giant removed two Instagram posts showing transgender and non-binary people with their chests bared.
Neither post violated Meta’s policies on adult nudity, and in a statement released earlier this week, the board said it had overturned the company’s decision to remove them.
A Meta spokesperson told AFP that the company welcomed the board’s move and had already restored the images, agreeing they should not have been taken down.
7. Police in England are “looking into” Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak after he failed wear a seatbelt as he filmed a social media clip in the back of a moving car.
Sunak has apologised for the “mistake”, as Downing Street said that he had made a “brief error of judgment” by removing the safety device as he promoted his levelling-up funding in the Instagram video when he visited Lancashire on Thursday.
The offence can be punished with fines of up to £500.
8. People poured into Peru’s coastal capital, many from remote Andean regions, for a protest against President Dina Boluarte and in support of her predecessor, whose ousting last month launched deadly unrest.
There was a tense calm in the streets of Lima ahead of the protest that supporters of former President Pedro Castillo hope opens a new chapter in the weeks-long movement to demand Boluarte’s resignation, the dissolution of Congress, and immediate elections.
Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was impeached after a failed attempt to dissolve Congress.
9. Australian rangers have killed an invasive “monster” cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park – a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing 2.7kg.
The toad was spotted after a snake slithering across a track forced wildlife workers to stop as they were driving in Queensland’s Conway National Park, the state government said.
“I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn’t believe how big and heavy it was,” ranger Kylee Gray said, describing how she discovered the amphibian last week.
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What are these people thinking!
Profits!
It’s only a matter of time before I see a cow in a tiny pair of speedos covered in fake tan in a field flexing his muscles.
Beef is so last year 2013 it’s all about horse!!
Hey leave my horse outside
How many steroids does it take to turn a cow into a horse ?
Ask sarah jessica parkers plastic surgeon ?
@ Stephen…
Oh dear Jases, I havn’t laughed that much in ages . 10/10
how many does it take to turn u into ass
Or for you to kiss mine !!!
JasuZ damo who pissed in ur cornflakes…..
Mad for ass that lad, mad for it..
This is arguably worse than the horsemeat scandal.
Irish beef is such a fantastic product, I’m surprised the IFA even let it get this far.
I mean, is this not Angel Dust by a different name?
The I.F.A. have a turnover of 44million and a retired cop on his pension as its leader …what makes you think that the I.F.A. care about farmers, farming or indeed the consumer …………. think Jack O’Connor and you have the I.F.A. …in my opinion ..
It’s as simple as this folks this is being done to open up the american beef producers to the european market and to hell with the consequences , the same thing happened when the original CAP was introduced but in that case it was the brazilian beef market and the result ? ………. rainforest destruction and no tarriffs put on Brazil ! …….It’s only a matter of time before drones fly over Ireland !
It is worse than the original article describes.
“At the same time as it scrapped illegal steroid use from cross compliance, the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament also dropped water quality from the same system of checks and balances.”
So while “feck it up” Phil is making rural dwellers pay for their septic thanks, his European colleagues want to lower standards. Can I have my money back, Phil?
Proof of the lobby groups power in Europe, We’re a member of a Cartel!
Short term greed, long term loss and when it all goes belly-up who’ll pay the tab? Why, the tax-payer, of course.
Why are we in the eu again?
Grants for farmers.
So they are saying to the farmers go ahead and break the law to make higher profits and we’ll continue to pay you to do it. Muppets. It would be very shortsighted of farmers to do this.
No-one knows what happens in the European Parliament which is why these bastards can get away with murder.
What have the Eurofanatics eg Brigid Laffan to say about this?
I see that they haven’t learned from the horse/beef scandal ….
I wonder will Ikea put steroids in their shit cakes?
Where were our farming organisations in all this?
Still bullshitting us that Irish meat can be trusted from “farm to fork”? While they picket Coveney’s office for more money.
Eat any meat at your peril, they are all pumped with hormones, antibiotics , growth promoters, animal vaccination , etc. they you kill them when they are in a slaughter house, pumping with animal adrenaline on top of all the chemicals. No wonder people’s body chemistry has changed for the worse
That it I’m finished with Irish beef going to Tesco’s and get English beef at least it wont have that shit in it.
This isn’t about Ireland, it’s about the EU and England is in the EU too.
That finish’s me with Irish beef only English beef from Tesco’s from now on it cant be any worse than this irish shit.
have your say