NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal gives you a round up of today’s news.
IRELAND

Healthcare workers queue for their Covid-19 booster vaccines at the Citywest vaccination centre in Dublin Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• New parents said they are paying private companies more than twice the going rate to get birth certificates for their children due to huge delays in registering their births in Dublin and nearby counties
• Green Party Leader and Minister for Transport and the Environment Eamon Ryan said that many changes people can make to tackle the climate crisis are “worth doing anyway”
• The Greens’ Deputy Leader Catherine Martin said there could be no “opportunistic populism” in the fight against climate change
• A Derry man was killed when a tree fell on his car as Storm Arwen swept across Britain and Northern Ireland
• Public health officials reported an additional 4,791 cases of Covid-19
• RTÉ’s Toy Show Appeal raised more than €5 million in donations, which will go to charities that support children

WORLD

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a hastily organised press conference. The UK reported its first two cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 today Hollie AdamsAP / Press Association Images Hollie AdamsAP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

#OMICRON: Two cases of the new variant of Covid-19 were confirmed in Germany, regional officials have said, in two travellers who arrived at Munich airport from South Africa.

#CHANNEL TRAGEDY: The first of the 27 people who died while crossing the English Channel on Wednesday was named as 24-year-old Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, a young Kurdish woman from northern Iraq.
#DOWNING STREET: The UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance said that a vaccine for the Omicron variant could be ready in as little as 100 days.

PARTING SHOT
Giant kites flying over the Pattaya beach in Thailand as part of the Pattaya Fireworks Festival

SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images