EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s biggest news stories, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

• The accounts of over 8,000 Eircom StudyHub customers have been compromised after a server was hacked yesterday.
• The controversial unvouched expenses allowance for independent TDs and Senators is being reviewed by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.
• The Oireachtas committee on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement has played down suggestions that the group tasked with finding the bodies of the ‘disappeared’ victims of sectarian violence could be closed down.
• The average Irish mortgage is now €1,453 in arrears, according to new figures from the Central Bank. At the end of December 2011, over €1.11bn in loan repayments was due on mortgages more than 90 days in arrears. Half of respondents to our poll on mortgage arrears say that they pay their mortgage on time every month, while a further 30 per cent said they don’t have a mortgage.
• Meanwhile, over 90 per cent of households liable for the new Household Charge have not registered to pay it yet. SIPTU is calling on the government to suspend the charge, saying it is both “unfair and regressive”.

Li Hongxiao, 30, successfully holds up 23 benches with his teeth for 11 seconds in Chongquing, China. (ChinaFotoPress/Photocome/Press Association Images)

• Convicted drug dealer John Gilligan has been sentenced to an additional six months in prison for possession of a  mobile phone.
• Police in England are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 6-year-old boy and his grandmother in Lincolnshire after their bodies were recovered from a pond.
• Rupert Murdoch has told staff at The Sun newspaper that a Sunday edition will launch very soon.
• Over 100 complaints have been launched with the UK’s advertising watchdog over this Channel 4 campaign.
• Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have said that goats have speech skills and “accents”. And given that today is Friday, we’ve opted to mark the discovery by dedicating our weekly animal slideshow to some very cute goats.
• German President Christian Wulff has resigned over a corruption scandal one day after prosecutors called for his immunity against prosecution to be lifted.
• What do the submarine, chocolate milk and the modern injection all have in common?
• Earlier today we asked what you thought was going on in this photo. Today’s caption contest winner was Lainey Hughes with: “Cameron: ‘You spat in this didn’t you?’ Worker: ‘No. We all did.’”
• Have you seen Chris O’Dowd’s red carpet turn with Miss Piggy yet?

(Video via orange)

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