Local police investigating whether other suspects involved after residents warned to keep away from city centre

in Dublin

The Irish government has drafted legislation to remove a de facto ban on any more than 12 troops being deployed overseas as the country makes significant moves to bolster its bare and weak defence force.

European Union is a project of peace, and the project of peace means that security and defence is necessarily a priority, because peace without defence is an illusion.

…

Aid to Ukraine is being paused and reviewed to ensure the war-torn country is ‘committed’ to the goal of a peace deal, White House official says

Donald Trump will lay out his priorities tomorrow evening in a prime-time speech to Congress, his first since returning to the White House.

He’s doing some expectation setting this morning, posting on Truth Social:

TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!

Such a truce would determine whether Putin is ‘acting in good faith’, French foreign minister says

France is proposing a partial one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister have said, as European efforts to bolster support for Kyiv accelerate in the face of uncertain US backing.

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said on Monday: “Such a truce – on air, sea and energy infrastructure – would allow us to determine whether Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith”. He said it would also enable Europe to gauge Putin’s attitude to “real peace negotiations”.

Artist found dead at his apartment in Nice in southern France on Saturday, his publicist says

The self-taught Scottish painter Jack Vettriano, who became hugely popular despite being shunned by critics, has been found dead at his apartment in Nice in the south of France, his publicist has said.

Vettriano, who was born Jack Hoggan on 17 November 1951 in Methil, Fife, was found on Saturday, the publicist said.

“Those are all great artists. Vettriano is not even an artist. He just happens to be popular, with “ordinary people” who buy reproductions of his pseudo-1930s scenes of high-heeled women and monkey-suited men, and celebrities who fork out for the originals of these toneless, textureless, brainless slick corpses of paintings. I urge you to visit the National Gallery. Look at great paintings for a few hours. Now take a look at Vettriano. I’m not arguing with you; I’m telling you. I look at art every day and I know what I don’t like.”

As hearing opens, bank’s letter saying pair ‘did not have a close relationship’ forms focus of Staley’s challenge to FCA ban

The former chief executive of Barclays, Jes Staley, is trying to convince a high court that the bank was well aware of the extent of his ties with child sexual abuse offender Jeffrey Epstein when it sent a letter to the financial regulator claiming that the pair “did not have a close relationship”.

The argument forms part of Staley’s attempt to challenge a decision by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to ban him from senior roles in the UK’s financial sector in 2023, after its investigation found he had misled the regulator over the depth of his relationship with Epstein.

Australia has a huge of diversity of worms on land, sand and sea such as the giant Gippsland earthworm which can stretch up to 3 metres

One of the world’s largest worms might escape notice, if not for the loud gurgling noises that can be heard coming from underground as the species burrows and squelches through its moist clay.

The giant Gippsland earthworm, a purple and pink colossus that lives in a small, wet patch about 100km east of Melbourne in south-east Australia, reportedly stretches as long as 2 to 3 metres.