Video: Covid and children, woman killed on M7 and fireworks warning

Automatic contact tracing and the testing of asymptomatic close contacts will be discontinued in primary schools and childcare facilities under updated measures from the Department of Health.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly confirmed the changes will be implemented from Monday, September 27th.
Children aged 12 or under will also no longer be required to restrict their movements if they are identified as a close contacts in childcare, education, or other non-household settings if they are asymptomatic, unless instructed to do so by a local public health team.
The changes come as the number of Covid cases linked to schools more than doubled in the last week. HPSC data shows 90 outbreaks in the week to last Saturday resulting in 412 new infections — up from 40 outbreaks and 191 linked cases the previous week.
Around 40 per cent of Covid tests last week were carried out on children.

A serving garda charged with dangerous driving and drink-driving is to contest the charges against him, a court has heard.
Meanwhile, Renato Gehlen, who denies murdering his wife Anne Colomines, told a garda that he was arguing with Ms Colomines when he tried to grab a knife from her hand and it was "50/50 blame on both sides" when she was stabbed.
Separately, a woman has gone on trial accused of causing serious injuries to a cyclist while driving unaccompanied as a learner driver.
Finally, a 76-year-old man whose bank accounts were used for money laundering after he was "sucked in to a Facebook friendship" with an American woman has received a six-month suspended sentence.

Gardaí are appealing for information after a woman was killed in a road traffic collision in Co Kildare.
The woman, aged in her 40s, was struck by an articulated lorry on the M7 southbound between Junction 12 Newbridge and Junction 13 Kildare.
The woman sustained serious injuries, with emergency services and a number of Garda units attending the scene. She was taken by ambulance to University Hospital Tallaght where she later died.

Ground operations staff at Aer Lingus have rejected a cost-cutting plan.
82 per cent of those who voted turned down the company's Covid recovery proposals. The proposals would see some staff temporarily laid off and the continuation of pay cuts.
Karan O’Loughlin, SIPTU aviation divisional organiser, said the airline needs to have a re-think, adding its only chance for meaningful recovery “is for both workers and the company to have the same opportunity to recover”.

Pet owners are being forced to “desensitise” their animals to loud noises as fireworks are becoming an increasing problem around the Halloween period, according to the Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA).
On Wednesday Minister for Justice Heather Humphreys launched a fireworks awareness campaign at the Dublin Fire Brigade Training Centre alongside members of An Garda Síochána, Dublin Fire Brigade and the ISPCA.
Fireworks are illegal and being caught with them carries hefty fines and prison sentences.

Gardaí have arrested a man, aged in his 50s, in Crumlin, Dublin, and seized 16 stolen pedal bicycles.
The operation involved a planned arrangement to meet a seller of a stolen pedal cycle, which was placed for sale on a website.
In a follow-up search of a property in Dublin 8 a total of 15 pedal cycles were recovered, all believed to be stolen along with an angle grinder. The estimated value of these pedal cycles is believed to be in the region of €7,000.