Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) will field two North Antrim candidates in the Assembly election next year. The party say they hope to elect both Timothy Gaston and Kirk Wilson.
The local Ulster Unionist Party association in Upper Bann is now expected to reselect Doug Beattie to stand in next year’s Assembly election. It comes after the party HQ asked the association to ‘revisit’ its decision.
Doug Beattie will not be selected as the Ulster Unionist Party’s Upper Bann candidate in the next election. The BBC are reporting that he will stand either as an independent or for another party.
Sinn Féin have accused DUP Communities Minister Gordon Lyons of not funding the place-names project, something he denies, saying that responsibility was transferred to his department without funding being made available.
The finance minister has confirmed that officials are working towards the introduction of a Jade’s Law equivalent early in the next Assembly mandate. It follows campaigning by human rights advocate Edwin Duggan, who was key to the law being introduced in England & Wales.
The growth deal is set to provide a new Centre for Food and Drug Discovery at Ulster University’s Coleraine campus, a Foodovation and Skills Centre at NWRC in Limavady and a regeneration project in Dungiven.
The current deputy lord mayor of Belfast, councillor Paul Doherty, has left the SDLP with immediate effect, following a council motion on the erection of a Bobby Sands statue in Twinbrook.
Alliance MLA for Strangford, Kellie Armstrong, will retire from politics next year after first being elected to Stormont in 2016. She is the first Alliance MLA to announce they will not be standing in 2027.
Moira Doherty, who has had the role on an interim basis since February, has been appointed Permanent Secretary of The Executive Office following an external recruitment process last year.