Your morning briefing: First cost-of-living payments to be paid in November; Biden to visit Israel to show support

Biden to visit Israel to ‘demonstrate his steadfast support’

US president Joe Biden is to travel to Israel on Wednesday as the US said it was working on a plan to facilitate aid reaching Gaza and to establish safe areas for civilians.

Israel strikes on the Gaza Strip intensified in advance of an expected ground incursion, as the war entered its 11th day.

The White House said on Monday night that Mr Biden would be making the visit to “demonstrate his steadfast support for Israel”.

Israel-Hamas conflict

• EU stresses international law after confused response to Israel-Hamas conflict: European Union leaders have issued a joint statement calling for respect for international law and are to hold an emergency meeting in a bid to take control of a bungled response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
• Biden to travel to Israel to ‘demonstrate his steadfast support’: US president Joe Biden is to travel to Israel on Wednesday as the US said it was working on a plan to facilitate aid reaching Gaza and to establish safe areas for civilians.
• Israeli strikes on Gaza intensify as effort to arrange ceasefire fails: Israel continued pounding the Gaza Strip on Monday in advance of an expected ground incursion as tensions remained high on the northern border with Lebanon, with more exchanges of fire between Hizbullah and Israeli units.
• Saudi Arabia stops normalisation talks with Israel, demands end to Gaza siege: Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has frozen US-mediated normalisation talks between the kingdom and Israel.

Top News Stories

• Dublin Airport in talks with airlines on staying below planning ‘cap’ for flights: Dublin Airport has opened talks with airlines over an increase in passenger numbers that is taking it close to the 32 million annual cap that previously led to planning complications.
• ‘Shocking’ vandalism of megalithic tomb site in Co Sligo being investigated: Acts of vandalism carried out at a megalithic passage tomb site in Co Sligo over the weekend are being investigated by gardaí. The site at Carrowkeel, home to a collection of monuments, is part of an extensive landscape settled by early neolithic cattle-farmers.
• Tina Satchwell would ‘put a smile on anyone’s face’, Fermoy vigil told: The late Tina Satchwell was remembered as “a very bubbly personality” who would “put a smile on anyone’s face” during a vigil in her hometown of Fermoy, Co Cork on Monday evening.
• Budget 2024: First three lump sums to be paid next month: The first of nine lump sums, worth a total of €1.2 billion, announced in last week’s budget to help meet cost-of-living increases will begin to be paid from mid-November, Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys will tell the Cabinet on Tuesday.
• Leaving Cert students risk losing all marks over use of AI in coursework: The State Examinations Commission is to warn Leaving Cert students that use of material generated by artificial intelligence in coursework may result in candidates forfeiting all marks.
• Ireland to begin accepting online applications for citizenship: The Department of Justice has begun accepting citizenship applications online, the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has announced.
• Check out today's Most Read stories
• Ireland’s weather today: There are a number of weather warnings in place today as Storm Babet approaches. A status orange rain warning is in place for counties Cork, Kerry, Waterford from 6am until 1pm on Wednesday. A status yellow rain warning is in place for counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford. Localised flooding is possible, particularly in the southwest. Highest temperatures of 10 to 14 degrees in a fresh to strong and gusty east to southeast wind.
• Happening today: EU leaders are meeting in Brussels, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence is meeting and CSO is publishing research; Ireland and the EU at 50, who looks at changes in a range of topics from 1973-2023.

News from around the World

• Belgium raises terror alert to highest level as two Swedes shot dead in Brussels: Two Swedish nationals have been shot dead in Brussels and one other person injured, police said on Monday.
• Polish president praises record election turnout as proof of a stable democracy: Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has praised Sunday’s election, in which his allies in the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) lost their majority, as proof his country is a “stable democracy”.

The Big Read

• Children’s access to smartphones: ‘many sleep with them under their pillows’: The online world can be a dangerous place for children. But it’s not realistic to expect them to stay offline until they’re 18. Nor does it help prepare them to live in a technology-driven world. So, how can schools – and parents – keep children safe? Gardaí are investigating the death of a 14-year-old girl last month who may have died after participating in a so-called “aerosol challenge” on the popular (and often addictive) video-sharing TikTok app, writes Peter McGuire.

The best from Opinion

• Humanity is insufficient in Israel-Hamas war because, too often, it only means ‘people like us’: The great political philosopher Hannah Arendt told us that the worst thing to be in the modern world is stateless. She knew what she was talking about: as a Jew, she was stripped of her German citizenship by the Nazis and lived as a stateless person for 18 years, writes Fintan O’Toole.

Culture and Life & Style highlights

• Mike Skinner of The Streets: ‘They used to like my stuff - where did I go? That’s a pretty common thing to hear’: The sun is shining, palm trees are wafting in a soft breeze, and the man who is synonymous with The Streets, one of the UK’s most influential hip-hop acts, is in chipper form. “Every time that background comes on it just makes me so happy,” Mike Skinner says about the Zoom screen created by his young son.

Today's Business

• ESRI’s mixed views on State’s housing interventions: Government officials will no doubt be cheered by the Economic and Social Research Institute’s positive evaluation of the budget. The think tank’s assessment indicated that – taken together – the measures would see average real household income in the Republic rise by about 2 per cent next year, “with higher gains for low-income compared to high-income households”.
• US to miss deadline to avoid new digital services taxes, Janet Yellen says: Treasury secretary Janet Yellen indicated the United States would be unable to sign a treaty on global tax rules in time to uphold a deal that prevents other countries from imposing new levies on some of the largest American tech companies.

Top Sports news

• Gerry Thornley: Why can’t Ireland get past the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals?: Nobody died. A brilliant Irish team just lost a game of rugby and they died with their boots on. As with France, there was more honour in this Irish Rugby World Cup quarter-final exit than any of the previous seven. Over the last two years they have become a team to engender pride and continued to do so until the last throes of their 28-24 defeat by the All Blacks on Saturday night
• Owen Doyle: It is not possible to blame Wayne Barnes for Ireland’s defeat: Oh ye sporting gods, how cruel you are! They were obviously having a grim chuckle while Andy Farrell and his men were busy, meticulously planning for a victory over New Zealand.
• GAA must show leadership on abolition of preseason competitions, GPA say: The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) has called on the GAA to “start showing leadership” in abolishing the preseason competitions in the four provinces. The GPA’s AGM on Saturday passed a motion calling for their abolition.

Picture of the Day

Letters to the Editor

Sir, – Some of the Israeli victims reported on in the recent media broadcasts in the aftermath of the Hamas massacres are named.

Despite the concentration risk, Ireland’s corporation tax windfall could grow to €30bn

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I thought I’d found love at work but he says I misunderstood

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Claire Keegan in Dalkey: ‘I can’t say I’d cry if I was never nominated for the Booker again’

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A large swathe of the country look at the 2 Johnnies and see themselves

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Some details of the lives are presented as well as testimonies from their loved ones and that of righteous anger in the wake of their killing.

Their lives are depicted as having value and they appear as full human beings.

How therefore do we characterise the mounting numbers of Palestinian dead?

Have not these people names, loved ones who mourn, those who would wish to avenge their deaths?

Can the media strive equally to render them as fully human? Or is there the danger of a media complicit in the narrative of Israel’s desire for revenge?

Will this bias, conscious or otherwise, seek to reduce and diminish these Palestinian humans, rendering them smaller, lesser and other.

Does this leave us incapable of fully conceiving of the dire consequences for Palestinian people in any subsequent action or operation undertaken by the Israeli military? – Yours, etc,

NIALL COLLEARY, Ballisodare, Co Sligo.

Video & Podcast Highlights

• In the News: How one of Ireland’s biggest homelessness charities ran into trouble: There will be two separate statutory investigations into the Peter McVerry Trust

Review of the day

• I’ve Been Thinking by Daniel C Dennett, and Free Agents by Kevin J Mitchell: From fun academic infighting to slinky human agency: Remember The Four Horsemen of Atheism? For those who fear the current culture war on “woke” has sucked the oxygen out of public debate, there may be some comfort in knowing the last culture war on religion fizzled out without civilisation collapsing, writes Joe Humphreys.

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