This morning.

Dublin Castle, Dublin 2.

Green Party Leader and Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan arrives for a cabinet meeting on lifting all covid restrictions.

Earlier: “A Sense Of Nervousness”

Sam Boal/RollingNews

This morning.

Dublin Castle, Dublin 2.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly arrives for a cabinet meeting to sign off on the lifting of all covid restrictions from February 28.

Earlier: Freedom

Sam Boal/RollingNews

Last night/This morning.

Via DW:

Vladimir Putin signed a decree ordering Russian troops into eastern Ukraine in a televised speech to the nation. Putin said Russian troops were being sent in to “maintain peace” in eastern Ukraine.

Earlier Monday, he recognized the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LPR) in eastern Ukraine as “independent.”

Meanwhile…

The West is preparing a round of fresh sanctions against Russia. At the UN Security Council, the US said it is “nonsense” that Russian forces Putin is sending into Ukraine are “peacekeepers.”

Ukraine latest: Russia faces sanctions after Putin orders in troops (DW)

Getty

Last night.

The leaders of the Government parties Freedom agreed that NPHET’s recommendations to end almost all remaining covid restrictions should be accepted.

Via RTE:

The final decision will be taken by the Cabinet this morning. If agreement is reached, as expected, the changes would take effect from 28 February.

This would mean that mask wearing in schools, retail settings and on public transport would be voluntary from next Monday.

It is likely people would still be advised to continue wearing masks on public transport, but it would not be underpinned by law.

Physical distancing measures in schools, such as pods, would also end next week.

NPHET itself will be wound-up too…

Leaders agree NPHET recommendations to end most restrictions should be accepted (RTE)

RollingNews

Wynona Bleach – Aubergines

I am the Eggplant.

Wynona Bleach are an indie guitar troupe from Belfast whose new album Moonsoake has just been released on Fierce Panda Records.

Recorded in central Portugal, the album features: Melyssa Shannon (vocals), Jonny Woods (guitar, vocals), Aaron Black (guitar), Matt Killen (drums) and Carl Gilmore (bass).

Nick says: Wynona forever.

Wynona Bleach

Oh.

This afternoon.

Via Cnet:

People who download the app reported seeing error messages when they tried entering a birthdate, e-mail or phone number to create an account. “Something went wrong. Please try again,” the message read.

Others reported they were placed on a waitlist after signing up. “Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist,” read the message….

Trump’s Truth Social Debuts in Apple’s App Store, Hits No. 1 in Top Charts (Cnet)

Earlier…

This afternoon.

Via Washington Times:

The platform was available on Apple’s app store on Monday. But some supporters of the former president who hoped to promptly join the free site and engage with Mr. Trump encountered problems that prevented them from successfully creating profiles and using the platform.

Reporters at The Washington Times, along with reporters from other news media outlets, were unsuccessful in creating accounts. They were faced with error messages at various stages of the sign-up process that blocked them from creating accounts.

Trump social media app debuts, but early glitches prevent some new users (Washington Times)

Earlier: A Limerick A Day

Clamping at St Stephen’s Green in Dublin in 2020

This afternoon.

Via RTÉ News:

Clamping fines in Dublin city are to increase from €80 to €125 next week.

The 56% rise comes into effect on 1 March following a decision by Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan.

Green Party Councillor for Dublin’s North Inner City, Janet Horner, said the increase was needed to discourage car use in the city centre.

The Automobile Association said the rise was coming at a bad time for motorists who are already experiencing a “perfect storm” when it comes to rising costs of running a car.

Name that jammer, anyone?

Clamping fines in Dublin city will increase to €125 (RTE)

This afternoon.

Via RTÉ News:

“It’s not just a replacement of LEDs, we’ll be replacing a number of the columns, underground cables and various other things to bring the lighting infrastructure up to spec,” said Brendan O’Brien, head of technical services.

“Public lighting infrastructure is an important part of the city. The reasons we’ve had to spend this amount of money is to make up on a deficit of spending over the decades.”

“We’ll have lower energy costs… and we’ll also save, roughly speaking, around 2,500 tonnes of CO2 per year.”

He said there will also be less maintenance and an easier way to detect outages.

“We’ll have a computer-controlled system that will allow us to know what lights are out and also have the ability to dim at various times and choose different lights (in various settings),” he said.

*cough*

*cough*

Thousands of Dublin lampposts to switch to LED lightbulbs (RTE)

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