A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Spanish police scale down search for teenager
Spanish police on the Costa del Sol have scaled down the intensive search for missing Irish girl Amy Fitzpatrick, who was last seen 11 days ago, writes Karl McLaughlin.
Although Civil Guard officers continue to patrol areas near the 15-year-old's home for clues to her disappearance, the manpower allocated to the hunt is nowhere near the 230-strong operation conducted on Wednesday and Thursday in Mijas, Fuengirola and parts of Marbella.
The two-day search produced no findings of relevance. An informed source said the authorities were still not certain that they were dealing with an abduction case.
Amy had not attended school for several months and yesterday, the headmaster of the Torres Almenara secondary school in Mijas, Mario Galdeano, said her frequent absences from school since 2005 had been reported to her family and the local authorities.
Sharp rise in patients with flu symptoms
There has been a sharp rise in the number of people presenting to their family doctors with influenza-like illnesses in the past week, writes Eithne Donnellan.
The National Health Protection Surveillance Centre said 50 per cent of specimens taken from patients by GPs who report weekly to its flu surveillance system had tested positive for flu in the last week.
Dr Joan O'Donnell, public health specialist with the centre, said there was still time for people at risk, such as those with heart conditions or compromised immune systems, to get the flu vaccine.
Released cash transit suspect rearrested
A Dublin man charged in connection with the attempted robbery of a cash transit van in Celbridge, Co Kildare was rearrested at the Four Courts yesterday, minutes after a High Court judge declared his detention was unlawful.
Mr Justice John Edwards had earlier yesterday afternoon found that the detention of Eamonn Dunne (31) of Dunsoughly Drive, Ratoath Road, Finglas, Dublin, was unlawful.