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

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney pictured with nine-year-old Jack Langan in Aughagower, Co Mayo. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

IRELAND

• Fine Gael is to develop and publish a new blueprint for a unified Ireland later this year, Tánaiste Simon Harris announced.
• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney travelled to several locations in Co Mayo today, and said retracing his roots to the west of Ireland has been a “great thrill”.
• An Garda Síochána is to extend its taser pilot for six months until the end of 2026 and expand it to Limerick.
• Police in Belfast arrested two men after a racially motivated attack on a home with children inside in southern area of the city in the early hours of this morning.
• Owners of derelict properties in more than 100 towns and cities across Ireland are set to be hit with a new tax as part of government plans to tackle long-standing vacancy and dereliction issues.
• The government would support EU sanctions on Aughinish Alumina if an ongoing investigation confirms concerns that its exports may be feeding into supply chains linked to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, Minister of State Seán Canney has indicated.

INTERNATIONAL

Knicks fans celebrating in New York city following the NBA finals yesterday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#PEACE TALKS: Donald Trump has said that a peace deal with Iran was still on track to be signed within hours, despite an Israeli strike on Beirut that he said had delayed the plan.

#NEW YORK: Police in New York City confirmed that 63 people were arrested overnight as unruly crowds flooded into the city’s streets to celebrate the Knicks’ first NBA championship in 53 years.

#SHADOW FLEET: UK armed forces intercepted a sanctioned Russian shadow fleet oil tanker attempting to pass through the English Channel, the Ministry of Defence said.

#FARAGE: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he would evict all foreign nationals from social housing if the party was in power, claiming Britain is currently a “two tier state against white people”.

PARTING SHOT

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Contracts, insurance, employment law – all of these matters were discussed in the last two weeks during the stand-off between the government and the Rotunda Hospital, our Political Editor Christina Finn writes.

In the end, there was much praise for Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill who won out, with the hospital conceding that consultants on public-only contracts will not treat private patients.

The health minister isn’t stopping there. In an interview with The Sunday Times today, the minister said she now has a laser focus on ensuring that consultants on the public-only contracts are fulfilling their roster obligations by working later into the evenings and over the weekend.

While the government and the consultants fought over who was right and who was wrong and whose legal advice trumped whose in the Rotunda debate, the crux of the issue, women’s voices, and what they wanted from Ireland’s maternity care, went largely ignored.

Read more of Christina Finn’s analysis piece here.