By Sarah Gill
26th Jan 2024
26th Jan 2024
Your speedy summary of today's must-read stories.
Toy Show the Musical sponsorship overstated by €75,000
A review into RTÉ’s Toy Show the Musical has found that the amount of commercial sponsorship the show received was overstated by €75,000, even though the actual amount of money that came in through sponsors was clearly recorded. The money was transferred from funds that were raised from selling advertising space to the show’s sponsorship revenue in RTÉ’s financial management system. Chair of the RTÉ Board Siún Ní Raghallaigh today said that this financial manoeuvre was “totally inappropriate”.
Alabama execution
A convicted murderer has been executed with nitrogen gas, putting him to death with a new method that once again put the US at the forefront of the debate over capital punishment. Alabama state said the method would be humane, but critics called it cruel and experimental. Officials said Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was pronounced dead at 8:25pm at an Alabama prison after breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask to cause oxygen deprivation. It marked the first time that a new execution method has been used in the United States since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.
ICJ to deliver ruling in genocide case brought against Israel
The International Court of Justice in The Hague will deliver its first decision later this morning on the genocide case taken by South Africa against Israel over its bombardment of Gaza. The 17 judges of the court will declare whether or not South Africa has demonstrated that the charge against Israel of genocide is plausible, and whether the court can therefore order Israel to take specific measures, including halting its bombing campaign and ground operation completely while the wider case continues. The court will not however pass judgement on whether or not Israel is actually committing genocide in Gaza.
Trump denies sexual abuse claims
Donald Trump’s testimony in the writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case ended almost immediately after it began, with the former U.S. president standing by his earlier testimony that Carroll’s claim that he raped her was a hoax. “100% yes,” Trump told his lawyer Alina Habba in federal court in Manhattan, when asked if his comments in an October 2022 deposition in Carroll’s case were accurate.
New public sector pay deal
A new public sector pay deal has been agreed, providing for increases of 10.25% over two-and-a-half-year period. It is made up of pay increases totalling 9.25%, as well as a provision for a Local Bargaining mechanism equivalent to 1% of pay. Negotiations went on throughout the night at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) after both sides were invited to the WRC yesterday to give an update on their positions.
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