5 things you need to know today

1. Students asked to write blog posts

Teachers have broadly welcomed Leaving Cert English paper one as a fair and thorough test of exam candidates. While many higher level students may have been have been hoping for a text about 1916, it did not appear - though it did on the ordinary level exam, "It didn't have any major surprises and most students would have been happy with it," said Lorraine Tuffy, English teacher with StudyClix.ie" For the first time ever within a Leaving Cert paper, students were asked to write a blog post, a sign that examiners are moving with the times.

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2. Old, poor and urban dwellers worst hit by cancer

Cancer hits the poor, the old and those living in urban areas the hardest, a new report has revealed. Both the chances of a person developing cancer and whether they survive it vary according to how well off they are, their age and where they live, according to the report by the National Cancer Registry. The incidence of some cancers is up to 38 per cent higher in urban areas than in rural parts of the country. The report identifies poorer survival rates for older patients for all cancer types, as well as lower use of treatment aimed at reducing tumours. "The patterns seen – in particular, in relation to variation in cancer risk by deprivation status, variation in survival by deprivation and by age and variation in treatment by age – do point up striking inequalities that need to be targeted for improvement," said Dr Harry Comber, director of the registry.

3. Irish teenagers among the most prolific ‘sexters’ in EU

Irish teenagers are among the most prolific in the EU for "sexting", the practice of sending sexually explicit text messages and images, a conference taking place at Dublin City University will hear today. Dr Sheri Bauman, professor of counselling at the University of Arizona and an expert in cyberbullying, will present research showing some adolescents regard sexting as a "normal" part of growing up. She will reference a survey of pupils from 300 Irish secondary schools showing sexting was most frequent among 14 to 17-year-olds, with more than one in four saying they had sent such messages. Irish teenagers emerged as the fourth most prolific "sexters" in the EU.

4. Claims several Loughlinisland killers were British agents

Castle Street in Belfast is only minutes from Royal Avenue and City Hall, but it is a street in which the poverty which has outlasted the Troubles is evident. A red-headed homeless boy begs. Everybody, it seems, smokes. The street is home to solicitors, KRW, run by Kevin Winter. Inside, the offices overflow with boxes and filing cabinets. The labels on those boxes are a sombre roll-call of the Troubles: Kingsmill, McGurk's Bar, Omagh, Glenanne, Loughgall. One of those boxes deals with the attack 22 years ago almost to the day as a crowd gathered in The Heights Bar in the small Co Down village of Loughinisland to watch Ireland's game against Italy in the 1994 World Cup. Members of the UVF burst in armed with assault rifles. Within seconds, six customers were dead and five lay wounded. In the years since, it has been persistently claimed that some of the killers were British agents. Today, the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, Dr Michael Maguire, will produce the findings of his investigation in the Ramada Hotel in Belfast, the latest inquiry into the killings.

Spotlight rests on RUC role in Loughinisland attack: Report into murder of six Catholic men runs rule over allegations of collusion with UVF

5. Wall to wall football on telly and punditry in spades

Four years ago, if you recall, we had to make do with just the 31 games over 24 days, so we'd hardly got the cushions comfy on our couches when the final whistle was blown on Euro 2012. Thanks, though, to a proposal by the Republic of Ireland and Scotland football associations, the number of competitors has gone up from 16 to 24 – for all the good it did Scotland. Among the other notable absentees are the Dutch and Euro 2004 champions Greece, the latter's qualifying campaign starting so badly they sacked their coach four months after appointing him. Whatever happened to Claudio Ranieri anyway? And speaking of native languages – RTÉ will, for the first time, provide commentary as Gaeilge for competitive Irish games on the Saorview and Sky platforms, Garry Mac Donncha the man behind the microphone.

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