A tell-all book about the US President by his niece is set to be released next week

The President’s niece wrote a book
Which may leave the poor fellow shook
She claims that his dad
Was exceedingly bad
And raised his son to be a crook

John Moynes

Pic: The Mega Agency

Tonight.

Meath Fianna Fáil activist Ken McFadden alleges dirty tricks from Meath Fianna Fáil TD and new Minister of State for European Affairs. Thomas Byrne (top) , who has yet to respond.

UPDATE:

Hardcore.

Thursday morning update here.

Earlier….

Minister for Agriculture Barry Cowen addressed the Dail last night on the issue of his drink driving charge from 2016

This morning.

Via The Offaly Express:

Cllr Eamon Dooley, who was sitting on [Offaly County] council when Barry Cowen was first co-opted to the local authority to replace his brother Brian in 1992, said he had a “fair idea” who informed the Irish Independent about the incident.

He could not confirm that it was a senior member of the Fianna Fail party but said it came “from someone who had a grudge against” the Offaly TD.

“I’d say he was Fianna Fail alright but I wouldn’t say he was a TD. I’d say he was never an elected member of anything. That’s only my opinion, for what it’s worth.”

Cllr Dooley expects the controversy to die down, even though “some fellows” keep seeking new ways to maintain it….

“It’ll eventually run out of steam. If every fellow who was appointed held up his hand and said ‘I had two pints and I drove home’, I’d say we’d have very few ministers.”

Fianna Fail member with ‘grudge’ blamed for Barry Cowen leak (Offally Express)

Barry Cowen apologises in Dáil for drink driving incident that was a ‘stupid, stupid mistake’ (Independent.ie)

Meanwhile…

Anyone?

Meanwhile…

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ms Martin, who is also Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sports and the Gaeltacht, said he has shown remorse after making a “serious mistake”.

However, Ms Martin said that the one issue that was not addressed was why Mr Cowen was driving on a provisional licence and she said he may have to reach out to road safety campaigners and explain that himself.

Taoiseach accepts Cowen’s remorse ‘is genuine (RTÉ)

At The High Court, London.

Actor Johnny Depp’s dining table in Los Angeles, USA taken at some point in 2013 reportedly before lunch.

Pot Noodles (out of picture).

A pint of whisky and four lines of cocaine for lunch: Johnny Depp’s libel trial is shown a picture taken by Amber Heard of his skull and crossbones ‘pill box’ and mountain of drugs and alcohol (Mail Online)

Pic via Mail Online

Behold: just one part of the immense interstellar molecular cloud of NGC 1976, aka Messier 42, aka the Great Nebula in Orion: To wit:

…the part of the nebula’s centre known as M43 is shown as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The entire Orion Nebula, including both M42 and M43 spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

(Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Bryan Goff)

Previously: Inside Orion

apod

Hic.

What replaced The Hamlet?

That is the question.

Anyone?

Dublin before The Tiger (David Jazay)

Brian Hayes, CEO of Banking and Payments Federation Ireland

This afternoon.

Former Fine Gael minister and CEO of Banking and Payments Federation Ireland responded to claims that guidance from European regulators undermine the Irish banks’ policy of applying interest and adding it to the principal of a loan at the end of a break period.

Via RTÉ

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Mr Hayes said the EBA guidance, produced on 2 April, could not be clearer.

The guidance said that the sequencing of loan repayments could be changed but the interest rate could not; and if the interest rate was changed, this could be classified as forbearance.

This advice, he said, did not change until yesterday…

However…

Um.

Anyone?

Irish banks ‘upfront’ since day one about payment break costs – Brian Hayes (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

Broadsheet.ie