Friday briefing: Five things you need to know this afternoon

Louvre attack; Brexit challenge; Conway makes up massacre; Russian man’s citizenship; Gardaí on alert for gang attacks

The Louvre museum in Paris following an attack on Friday in which an armed man was shot by a soldier. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters
The Louvre museum in Paris following an attack on Friday in which an armed man was shot by a soldier. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

1. Louvre attack: Soldier shoots man armed with machete

A man armed with a machete and a knife rushed towards soldiers shouting “Allahu akhbar” in the shopping centre beneath the Louvre museum on Friday.

One soldier was slightly wounded on the hairline during the incident, which took place at about 10am (9am Irish time).

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2. Fresh legal challenge to Brexit blocked by UK high court

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Two senior judges have blocked a legal challenge to the British government’s strategy for leaving the single market and the European Economic Area (EEA).

In a hearing at the high court that lasted less than an hour on Friday, Lord Justice Lloyd Jones and Mr Justice Lewis dismissed an application for a fresh judicial review of the Brexit process brought by two sets of claimants.

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3. Russian man who claimed Dublin birth loses citizenship case

The Court of Appeal has overturned a ruling that a 76-year-old Russian man who claimed he was born in Dublin during World War II is entitled to Irish citizenship.

The High Court had ruled in 2015 that Sergey Chesnokov had established that he was born in in Dublin’s Henrietta Street in September 1940 and directed that his birth be registered here, entitling him to citizenship.

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4. Gardaí on alert for further Kinahan-Hutch attacks, says Minister

Gardaí will be alert this weekend to the threat of further “revenge and retaliation” between the Kinahan and Hutch gangs on the first anniversary of the Regency Hotel shooting, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said.

Sunday will mark one year since the murder of Kinahan gang member David Byrne during a boxing weigh-in at the hotel, which sparked a spate of murders as the gang feud escalated.

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5. Trump adviser blames made-up ‘Bowling Green massacre’ on refugees

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, has come in for criticism and ridicule after blaming two Iraqi refugees for a massacre that never happened.

Ms Conway, the US president’s former campaign manager who has frequently faced the press to defend his controversial moves, cited the “Bowling Green massacre” - an incident that never occurred - in an interview in which she backed the travel ban imposed on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.

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