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Wednesday, May 13, 2026 · Ireland · Published by CPT-RI
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The Government on 12 May 2026 presented Bill 48 of 2026 in Dáil Éireann, beginning the legislative process to dissolve the National Asset Management Agency and transfer its remaining assets, liabilities, rights and obligations to the National Treasury Management Agency.
The Government on 12 May 2026 presented the National Treasury Management Agency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 — Bill 48 of 2026 — in Dáil Éireann, beginning the legislative process to dissolve the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and transfer its remaining assets, liabilities, rights and obligations to the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). The Bill is a Government source, public Bill type, and is at First Stage.
According to its long title, the Bill provides for: the dissolution of NAMA; the transfer to the NTMA of NAMA’s assets, rights, liabilities, obligations, causes of action and entitlements; the transfer to the NTMA or one of its subsidiaries of certain assets, rights, liabilities, obligations and entitlements relating to Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (IBRC); additional functions for the NTMA and certain of its subsidiaries; and consequential amendments to the IBRC Act 2013 and the NTMA (Amendment) Act 2014, along with the repeal of the NAMA Act 2009.
NAMA was established under the NAMA Act 2009 to manage and wind down distressed property loans transferred from the recapitalised Irish banks after the financial crisis. The agency completed its principal debt-redemption programme in 2020, but retained a residual portfolio and ongoing functions including the management of the strategic-housing pipeline. The Bill is the formal closing-out mechanism for that residual operation and consolidates the legacy IBRC special-liquidator functions inside the NTMA group. Second Stage, at which the Minister for Finance opens debate on the general principles, has not yet been scheduled. See p. 2. Source: Houses of the Oireachtas, Bill 48 of 2026.
The European Council and the European Parliament reached a political agreement on the Critical Medicines Act on 12 May, the European Medicines Agency confirmed in a statement issued the same day. The CMA combines regulatory tools with industrial-policy measures aimed at reducing the EU’s exposure to manufacturing-concentration and supply-chain shocks that have produced repeated medicine shortages over the past five years. Under the CMA, the Medicine Shortages Steering Group (MSSG) will conduct supply-chain vulnerability assessments on medicines designated as critical. The EU’s Union list of critical medicines — published in 2024 and updated annually — already contains over 200 active substances considered critical for healthcare systems across the EU. EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke framed the agreement as building on EMA’s reinforced crisis-preparedness mandate under Regulation (EU) 2022/123. See p. 5. Source: EMA, 12 May 2026
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday published Software Bill of Materials for AI — Minimum Elements, extending the existing federal SBOM transparency framework to artificial intelligence systems. The resource was posted to CISA’s resources and tools library on 12 May 2026. A software bill of materials is the cybersecurity equivalent of a food-label ingredients list: a structured, machine-readable inventory of the components, versions, suppliers and dependencies that make up a piece of software. The AI extension is intended to bring AI components — models, training pipelines, fine-tuning data, embedding stores, retrieval systems and inference servers — into the same transparency regime. This is a guidance publication, not a compulsory rule; its operational force comes from downstream incorporation into procurement contracts and sector-specific cybersecurity rules. See p. 7. Source: CISA, 12 May 2026
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Sunday that armed drones have now become “by far and away” the leading cause of civilian death in Sudan’s two-year war, accounting for more than 80% of recorded civilian casualties in the first four months of 2026, with at least 880 people killed by drone strikes in January–April alone. The OHCHR figures, released in a Geneva briefing, draw on the office’s monitoring of attacks attributed to both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Türk specifically cited an 8 May attack that killed 26 civilians in strikes on Al Quz in South Kordofan and near El Obeid in North Kordofan. OHCHR’s monitoring counted at least 28 attacks on markets and 12 strikes on health facilities over the four-month period. Türk called for “robust measures to prevent the transfer of arms, including increasingly advanced armed drones” to either party. See p. 10. Source: UN News, 11 May 2026
Ireland Desk p. 2–3 · Science & Health p. 4–5 · Money Moves p. 6 · Infrastructure p. 7 · The Wire p. 8 · What We’re Watching p. 9 · Wires & Wars p. 10 · Quiet Laws p. 11 · Crossword p. 12 · Diversions p. 13 · Life & Culture p. 16 · Sport p. 17
The Government on Monday presented the National Treasury Management Agency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 in Dáil Éireann, beginning the legislative process to dissolve the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and transfer its remaining assets, liabilities, rights and obligations to the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).
The Bill — number 48 of 2026, Government source, public Bill type — was published on 12 May. According to its long title, the Bill provides for: the dissolution of NAMA; the transfer to the NTMA of NAMA’s assets, rights, liabilities, obligations, causes of action and entitlements; the transfer to the NTMA or one of its subsidiaries of certain assets, rights, liabilities, obligations and entitlements relating to Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (IBRC); additional functions for the NTMA and certain of its subsidiaries; and consequential amendments to the IBRC Act 2013 and the NTMA (Amendment) Act 2014, along with the repeal of the NAMA Act 2009 and other related enactments.
NAMA was established under the NAMA Act 2009 to manage and wind down distressed property loans transferred from the recapitalised Irish banks after the financial crisis. The agency completed its principal debt-redemption programme in 2020, but retained a residual portfolio and ongoing functions including the management of the strategic-housing pipeline and certain receiver-managed assets. The Bill is the formal closing-out mechanism for that residual operation and consolidates the legacy IBRC special-liquidator functions inside the NTMA group.
The Bill is at First Stage following its presentation. Second Stage, at which the Minister for Finance opens debate on the general principles of the Bill, has not yet been scheduled. Committee Stage and the more detailed amendment process would typically follow over the subsequent months; the Bill’s full text and explanatory memorandum are linked from the Oireachtas bill page.
The dissolution is not, on its face, a fiscal event — NAMA’s residual book sits within the wider exchequer balance sheet — but it consolidates two of the State’s principal post-crisis financial-management vehicles inside a single statutory body and creates additional NTMA functions whose exact scope will be set in the Bill’s enacted text. Source: Houses of the Oireachtas, Bill 48 of 2026
A Private Members’ Bill brought forward by a group of Fine Gael TDs would amend the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Act 2023 to broaden Garda access to publicly operated CCTV systems and to allow Garda personnel to install and operate CCTV in designated high-crime areas. The Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2026 — Bill 43 of 2026 — is currently at Admissibility for Introduction in Dáil Éireann, with admissibility considered on 2 April, 1 May and 6 May.
The Bill is sponsored by James Geoghegan TD, Naoise Ó Muirí TD, Emer Currie TD, Grace Boland TD and Maeve O’Connell TD, all of Fine Gael. According to its long title, the Bill would require public bodies operating CCTV to provide members of Garda personnel with access to those systems without a full new authorisation being required, where the access is for the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences; allow members of Garda personnel to install and operate CCTV in designated high-crime areas; and provide for the preparation of draft codes of practice on Garda access to publicly operated CCTV systems, with the Minister for Justice to declare those codes of practice by order.
The 2023 parent Act, which followed the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing, established the statutory framework for Garda use of body-worn cameras, ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) and other recording devices, and set out the authorisation process under which Garda personnel may access CCTV operated by other bodies. The current amendment Bill targets that authorisation process, which Fine Gael TDs have argued is too slow in practice and adds operational friction in routine criminal investigations.
The Bill is at a procedural pre-introduction stage. Private Members’ Bills require admissibility certification before First Stage and ordinarily face longer paths to enactment than Government Bills.
Civil-liberties groups including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties have, in earlier debate on the 2023 Act, raised concerns about the breadth of police access to public CCTV networks and the standard for in-place authorisations. Any Committee-Stage scrutiny of Bill 43 is likely to focus on the proportionality of the new access regime and on the code-of-practice mechanism. Source: Bill 43 of 2026 — Houses of the Oireachtas
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalised its new post-market food chemical safety assessment programme and announced the first two chemicals to be put through it: butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), a preservative used to prevent fats and oils from going rancid, and azodicarbonamide (ADA), a flour whitening agent and dough conditioner used in commercial breadmaking.
The agency issued two requests-for-information opening 60-day public comment windows for each substance, with comments closing on 13 July 2026. The FDA is seeking data on how widely each chemical is used in U.S. food products and on whether new safety evidence has emerged since each was originally cleared for use under the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) framework.
“Americans want the FDA to take a fresh look at some of the chemical additives that have become widespread in our food supply,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in the announcement. “By establishing a comprehensive, science-based framework for reviewing chemicals like BHT and ADA, we’re delivering the rigorous oversight Americans deserve. We will act swiftly based on our findings.”
The programme is built around two technical documents published the same day. The first, Enhanced Systematic Process for Post-Market Assessment of Chemicals in Food, sets out how the FDA will monitor signals, triage them and prioritise chemicals for full review. The second, Post-Market Assessment Prioritization Tool, codifies the agency’s ranking method, with modifications after external scientific peer review.
Deputy Commissioner for Food Kyle Diamantas said the finalised framework “provides Americans with confidence that the FDA is ensuring chemicals in the U.S. food supply remain safe as new scientific information becomes available.” The agency will report progress through its public List of Select Chemicals in the Food Supply Under FDA Review.
BHT appears in a wide range of U.S. products, including breakfast cereals, frozen pizzas and ready meals, baking mixes, cookies, chewing gum and some meat products, the agency notes. ADA is used as a whitening agent in cereal flour and as a dough conditioner in commercial breadmaking, and also in some food-contact-material manufacturing. Both have been the subject of advocacy-group petitions for re-evaluation; the FDA framing today is procedural rather than predictive of an eventual safety decision. Source: FDA, 12 May 2026
The European Council and the European Parliament reached a political agreement on the Critical Medicines Act on 12 May, the European Medicines Agency confirmed in a statement issued the same day. The CMA combines regulatory tools with industrial-policy measures aimed at reducing the EU’s exposure to manufacturing-concentration and supply-chain shocks that have produced repeated medicine shortages over the past five years.
The political agreement is the formal endpoint of the inter-institutional trilogue process; the file now returns to the Council and Parliament for technical legal-linguistic finalisation and formal adoption. The Commission proposed the CMA in 2025 as a companion file to the broader pharmaceutical legislation reform.
EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke said in the statement: “At a time of increasing global disruptions, resilient and secure supply chains for critical medicines are essential to protect public health across the EU.” Cooke framed the agreement as building on EMA’s reinforced crisis-preparedness mandate under Regulation (EU) 2022/123 — the regulation that established the Medicine Shortages Steering Group (MSSG) and the European Shortages Monitoring Platform (ESMP).
Under the CMA, the MSSG will conduct supply-chain vulnerability assessments on medicines designated as critical. The EU’s Union list of critical medicines — published in 2024 and updated annually — already contains over 200 active substances considered critical for healthcare systems across the EU; the CMA gives the assessment process a clearer legal basis and supply-side toolkit. The Act also envisages joint procurement and state-aid measures for affected manufacturers, intended to be complementary to EMA’s regulatory role rather than running through the agency itself.
EMA will expand ESMP to support the new framework and will work with the European Commission and Member States on implementation. The agency’s statement also flags that the CMA aims to improve access to medicines of common interest that may not be currently available across all EU markets — including treatments for rare diseases.
The CMA’s adoption timeline depends on formal Council and Parliament votes in the coming months; implementation dates for individual provisions will be set in the final regulation. Source: EMA, 12 May 2026
The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced the termination of two long-running supervisory written agreements, lifting formal enforcement constraints on F & M Holding Company, Inc. of Manchester, Georgia and Thread Bancorp, Inc. of Rogersville, Tennessee — the latter formerly known as Volunteer Bancorp, Inc.
The Board’s press release records that both written agreements were “Terminated May 6, 2026”. The F & M Holding agreement dated from 31 May 2011, and the Thread Bancorp agreement from 25 May 2010 — meaning both holding companies have been under formal Fed supervisory commitments for approximately 15 years before today’s release. Written agreements are non-cease-and-desist enforcement instruments under section 8 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, used by the Fed when a bank holding company commits to specific remedial actions in writing rather than under a cease-and-desist order.
The Board does not specify in the termination notice the original basis for either agreement. The 2010–2011 era of written agreements with small community bank holding companies typically related to capital, asset quality, management, or earnings deficiencies identified during the post-crisis examination cycle; the agreements normally remain in force until the Board satisfies itself that the underlying conditions have been remediated and sustained over several examination periods.
F & M Holding Company is the parent of The Farmers and Merchants Bank of Manchester, a single-branch Georgia state-chartered bank. Thread Bancorp’s principal subsidiary is Thread Bank, a Tennessee state-chartered institution that has positioned itself in recent years as a banking-as-a-service provider to fintech partners. Neither holding company has issued a public statement in response to the termination. Today’s release is administrative and does not, on its face, change capital, dividend or operational requirements for either company beyond what is set in normal supervisory expectations. Source: Federal Reserve Board, 12 May 2026
The European Central Bank and the Reserve Bank of India signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation on 10 May, in a brief ceremony on the sidelines of the Bank for International Settlements meetings in Basel.
The MoU was signed by ECB President Christine Lagarde and RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra. It replaces a previous bilateral arrangement that the two central banks signed in 2015, and provides “a framework for a regular exchange of information, policy dialogue and technical cooperation” between Frankfurt and Mumbai, including joint seminars and technical workshops on areas of mutual interest.
The ECB’s release does not specify the agreement’s duration or any concrete dated deliverables. Updated central-bank MoUs of this type typically formalise existing staff-level contacts, regularise information-sharing protocols (for example on payment-system oversight, financial-stability monitoring and emerging-market crisis liaison), and provide a standing legal basis for joint technical assistance, rather than committing either side to specific market interventions.
The agreement comes against a backdrop of expanding EU–India financial dialogue alongside the EU–India Trade and Technology Council, and follows the RBI’s growing weight in cross-border payment-system development through India’s UPI rails. The ECB has signed similar updated MoUs with several emerging-market central banks over the past three years; previous renewals have included the People’s Bank of China (2023) and Banco Central do Brasil (2024). The update reflects “internal requirements of both institutions” rather than a new geopolitical posture, according to the ECB’s text. Source: ECB Press Release, 10 May 2026
The European Central Bank’s annual Financial Integration in Europe report, published on 7 May, finds that price-based and quantity-based indicators of euro-area financial integration have run above their longer-run historical averages since late 2022, helped by the disappearance of post-2010 redenomination risk premia. But the report also flags persistent structural fragmentation in cross-border equity holdings and intra-euro-area foreign direct investment.
Integration strengthened most in sovereign and interbank markets. Cross-border holdings of euro-area sovereign bonds increased, interbank lending became more active as excess liquidity was redistributed across national systems, and non-bank financial institutions expanded their cross-border risk-sharing activity. These movements reflect both the post-2022 normalisation of monetary policy and the gradual removal of fragmentation-era frictions.
By contrast, cross-border equity investment within the euro area has stagnated, and intra-euro-area FDI has fallen to “historically low levels.” Households continue to hold a large share of savings in low-yielding deposits rather than equities, and savers continue to channel significant flows outside the EU rather than to other euro-area markets. The ECB endorses the European Commission’s savings and investments union initiative as the right policy response, calling for measures that channel European savings into productive investment within the single market. The package — formally proposed by the Commission in March 2025 — combines elements of the older capital-markets-union and banking-union agendas with a household-investor angle. Source: ECB Press Release, 7 May 2026
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday published Software Bill of Materials for AI — Minimum Elements, extending the existing federal SBOM transparency framework to artificial intelligence systems. The resource was posted to CISA’s resources and tools library on 12 May 2026.
A software bill of materials is the cybersecurity equivalent of a food-label ingredients list: a structured, machine-readable inventory of the components, versions, suppliers and dependencies that make up a piece of software. Federal SBOM minimum elements were originally defined by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in 2021 under Executive Order 14028 and have become the baseline for software-supply-chain transparency in U.S. critical-infrastructure procurement.
The AI extension is intended to bring AI components — models, training pipelines, fine-tuning data, embedding stores, retrieval systems and inference servers — into the same transparency regime. CISA’s resources page indexes the publication for use by federal agencies, critical-infrastructure operators and vendors that ship AI-enabled products into regulated environments. Adoption of SBOM disclosure has historically been driven both by federal procurement requirements and by sectoral regulators (banking, energy, telecoms, healthcare) that build SBOM into their cyber-resilience reviews.
This is a guidance publication, not a compulsory rule. Its operational force comes from downstream incorporation into procurement contracts, sector-specific cybersecurity rules and CISA’s own published assessments under Binding Operational Directives. The agency has not announced a procurement-mandate timeline in the resource itself. Source: CISA, 12 May 2026
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday issued an industrial-control-systems advisory, ICSA-26-132-05, warning operators of a stack buffer overflow vulnerability in the Cryptographic Message Syntax handling routines used by ABB’s AC500 V3 family of programmable logic controllers.
ABB’s AC500 V3 line is a widely deployed range of industrial PLCs used in process automation across water and wastewater, manufacturing, energy and other critical-infrastructure sectors. Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) — the message format defined by RFC 5652 — underpins signed firmware envelopes, signed configuration messages and PKCS#7-style certificate handling on many embedded platforms. A stack buffer overflow in CMS parsing is the class of vulnerability that can, depending on exploit conditions, allow either denial of service or arbitrary code execution on the affected controller.
The advisory is one of a cluster of ABB-related ICS advisories CISA published on 12 May 2026 (ICSA-26-132-02, ICSA-26-132-03, ICSA-26-132-05 and ICSA-26-132-06), all of which sit in the agency’s standard ICS Advisory series. The advisory will include the specific CVE identifier, CVSS v3 and v4 scores, the affected firmware version ranges, the vendor-supplied mitigation steps and CISA’s recommended compensating controls for operators who cannot patch immediately.
For asset owners running ABB AC500 V3 controllers in production, the standard CISA-recommended posture applies: minimise network exposure of control-system devices, isolate control networks behind firewalls from business networks, and follow vendor patch guidance directly. ABB’s own product security advisory portal carries the matching vendor notification. Source: CISA ICS Advisory ICSA-26-132-05, 12 May 2026
Seven short briefs from the day’s lower-scoring filings. Each is a one-paragraph summary of a published primary document; every URL was checked and resolves to the source listed.
EMA puts Emergency Task Force on standby for cruise-ship hantavirus outbreak (12 May). The European Medicines Agency confirmed on 12 May that it is actively monitoring a hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship, with its Emergency Task Force standing by to support the development and regulatory evaluation of vaccines and therapeutics. The agency is mapping developers of antivirals, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines against hantaviruses, and is prioritising the identification of repurposed immunomodulators for treatment and repurposed antivirals for post-exposure prophylaxis. (EMA)
Lagarde: separate stablecoin functions from instruments, anchor settlement in central-bank money (8 May). ECB President Christine Lagarde, speaking at the Banco de España LatAm Economic Forum in Roda de Bará, Spain on 8 May 2026, argued that conflating stablecoins’ monetary reach with their settlement technology obscures whether Europe needs them at all. She noted that the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) brought stablecoins inside the regulatory perimeter in 2024, but cautioned that its protections apply only to EU issuers in multi-issuer schemes — leaving redemption-run vulnerabilities. Rather than promoting euro-denominated stablecoins, she advocated building public infrastructure that settles tokenised assets in euro central-bank money through the ECB’s Pontes and Appia projects. (ECB)
Elderson: complete banking union, deliver EDIS, finance €1.2tn-a-year green transition (12 May). ECB Executive Board member Frank Elderson, speaking at the Financing Europe conference in Brussels on 12 May 2026, called for the completion of Europe’s banking union and the delivery of the European Deposit Insurance Scheme with a clear implementation timeline. He framed continuing fragmentation as the structural obstacle to banks playing their full role in funding the green transition, which he priced at €1.2 trillion in annual financing through 2030. (ECB)
UN opens $340m Nairobi expansion, ground broken on new conference complex (11 May). The United Nations inaugurated new office buildings and broke ground on a conference facility at its Nairobi headquarters on 11 May, in what Secretary-General António Guterres called the largest UN Secretariat project in Africa in the organisation’s 80-year history. The $340 million investment will lift the Nairobi campus’s conference capacity from 2,000 to 9,000 participants and includes net-zero energy facilities powered by solar panels along with nearly 6,000 indigenous trees and universal-accessibility design. (UN News)
FDA opens public docket on drug-repurposing candidates (11 May). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on 11 May 2026 opened a request for information on candidates for drug repurposing — new indications or new populations for already-approved medicines — with particular focus on metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative conditions, women’s and men’s health conditions, substance-use disorders and rare diseases. The agency is asking patients, clinicians, researchers and other stakeholders to flag candidates that already have supportive scientific evidence but limited commercial incentive to pursue. Commissioner Marty Makary said the initiative was about “making better use of available scientific data to deliver effective treatment options for patients in need.” (FDA)
UK Sea Fisheries 2024 statistics — Marine Management Organisation correction (12 May). The Marine Management Organisation re-published the UK Sea Fisheries Annual Statistics Report 2024 on 12 May 2026 with a published correction. The original 80-page report and its data tables — covering UK fleet landings by species, by port and by ICES sub-area — were first issued on 2 December 2025; the 12 May version is the corrected edition that supersedes the original on gov.uk. (gov.uk)
Senate clears cloture on Warsh Chairman nomination, 51–45 (12 May). The Senate voted to invoke cloture on Kevin Warsh’s nomination to chair the Federal Reserve Board of Governors at 12:30 p.m. ET on 12 May, on the same 51–45 split that confirmed him as a Governor an hour earlier (50 Republicans plus Senator John Fetterman in favour, 45 Democrats against, four senators not voting). With cloture agreed, post-cloture debate is capped at 30 hours and the final Chairman confirmation vote moves to the Senate floor calendar. (GovTrack Senate Vote #117)
Senate final-passage vote on Warsh as Federal Reserve Chairman
With cloture agreed on the Chairman nomination at 51–45 on Monday afternoon, post-cloture debate is capped at 30 hours and the floor vote on the four-year Chairman appointment is now on the Senate calendar. Current Chair Jerome Powell’s four-year term expires on 15 May 2026; the timing of the confirmation vote is the controlling variable for whether Warsh takes the gavel directly from Powell or there is a brief vice-chair handover. Watch: Senate Daily Press, GovTrack roll calls 119-2026 from #118 onwards. Lead on p. 11. Anchor: GovTrack Senate Vote #117
Comment period on FDA BHT and ADA reassessments closes 13 July 2026
The FDA opened two requests for information on Tuesday under its new post-market food chemical safety framework — one on butylated hydroxytoluene (a fat-and-oil preservative used in cereals, frozen pizzas, baking mixes, cookies, chewing gum and some meat products), one on azodicarbonamide (a whitening agent and dough conditioner used in cereal flour and commercial breadmaking). Both 60-day public-comment dockets close on 13 July. Substantive scientific submissions from food manufacturers, public-health bodies and academic groups will set the evidentiary base for any future use-restriction or revocation proceedings. Watch: regulations.gov dockets linked from the FDA press announcement. Lead on p. 4. Anchor: FDA
Defra precision-bred tomato release PBR/26/005 — earliest field release on or after 26 May
Defra’s release notice for PBR/26/005 names 26 May as the earliest date the precision-bred tomato can lawfully be released to the environment in England under Schedule 1 of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025. The release date is the trigger for separate biosecurity, traceability and reporting requirements that apply once the trial is operational. Watch: gov.uk precision-bred organism notices index for any further PBR/26 notices in the run-up. Brief on p. 11. Anchor: Defra
NTMA (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 — Second Stage scheduling
Bill 48 of 2026, presented in Dáil Éireann on 12 May, would dissolve the National Asset Management Agency, transfer NAMA’s residual assets and liabilities to the National Treasury Management Agency, consolidate certain IBRC functions inside the NTMA group and repeal the NAMA Act 2009. The next visible step is Second Stage debate — the Minister for Finance opens the principles of the Bill on the Dáil floor — which has not been scheduled. Watch: Houses of the Oireachtas legislative observatory for the Second Stage date and the published explanatory memorandum. Lead on p. 2. Anchor: Oireachtas
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Sunday that armed drones have now become “by far and away” the leading cause of civilian death in Sudan’s two-year war, accounting for more than 80% of recorded civilian casualties in the first four months of 2026, with at least 880 people killed by drone strikes in January–April alone.
The OHCHR figures, released in a Geneva briefing, draw on the office’s monitoring of attacks attributed to both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Türk specifically cited an 8 May attack that killed 26 civilians in strikes on Al Quz in South Kordofan and near El Obeid in North Kordofan, a 4 May strike on Khartoum International Airport that disrupted all flights, and a cluster of targeted strikes in Khartoum and Omdurman between 28 April and 5 May.
OHCHR’s monitoring counted at least 28 attacks on markets and 12 strikes on health facilities over the four-month period — patterns that, the office said, repeat across both sides of the front line and that engage international-humanitarian-law obligations on distinction and precaution. The office did not allocate the 880-death figure between the two belligerents.
Türk called for “robust measures to prevent the transfer of arms, including increasingly advanced armed drones” to either party. OHCHR did not name third-state suppliers in the briefing text, but the office’s earlier 2025 country reports have identified external transfers to both SAF and RSF as a structural driver of the escalation in stand-off precision attacks.
The figures are likely to feed into the next Human Rights Council reporting cycle on Sudan and into Security Council discussions on the existing UN arms embargo on Darfur, which currently does not extend to weapons transfers to either side elsewhere in the country. Source: UN News (OHCHR briefing), 11 May 2026
The UN Population Fund warned this week that maternal-health services across refugee-hosting areas of eastern Chad are being overwhelmed by the scale of arrivals from Sudan, with single midwives managing up to 300 births a month on minimal equipment and severe anaesthesia shortages forcing emergency caesarean sections without adequate pain relief.
UNFPA Deputy Executive Director Andrew Saberton briefed reporters in New York after returning from Wadi Fira province in eastern Chad. He set out a national picture of more than 1.3 million refugees and returnees hosted by the country, with Wadi Fira alone reporting over 333,000 refugees and Iridimi camp among the largest single sites. UNFPA staff visited camps in Abéché, Adré and across Wadi Fira during the mission.
The agency framed the situation as a slow-onset collapse rather than a single incident: refugee numbers continue to rise as conflict in Darfur intensifies, while host-community health systems were already among the most underfunded in the Sahel. Saberton said overcrowded clinics had limited medicines and minimal equipment; the most acute clinical gap UNFPA flagged was anaesthesia stockouts, which leave women undergoing C-sections without proper pain control.
The funding picture is stark. UNFPA’s 2026 humanitarian appeal for Chad is currently funded at just 2.5%, and the agency is operating with a 44% overall funding reduction for 2026 globally. The appeal covers reproductive-health supplies, midwifery deployments, gender-based-violence response and dignity kits — components that, when underfunded, fall disproportionately on women in displaced and host communities. The briefing does not announce new emergency pledges; UNFPA’s call is for the same set of donors who fund the broader Chad Refugee Response Plan to top up the reproductive-health component before the rainy-season caseload arrives in June. Source: UN News (UNFPA briefing), 12 May 2026
The United States Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on Monday afternoon by a vote of 51 to 45, with one Democrat joining all 50 voting Republicans in support and three Republican senators not voting. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the lone Democrat to vote yea. The roll call (Senate Vote #116 of the 119th Congress) was called at 11:24 a.m. ET on 12 May.
Warsh, of Florida, takes a seat for a 14-year term that runs from 1 February 2026. He previously served on the Fed board from 2006 to 2011 and has been nominated by President Trump for the Chairman role.
Roughly an hour after the Governor confirmation, the Senate voted 51 to 45 to invoke cloture on Warsh’s separate nomination as Chairman of the Board of Governors for a four-year term (Senate Vote #117, 12:30 p.m. ET). The cloture motion carried on the same party split. With cloture agreed, post-cloture debate is capped at 30 hours and a final Chairman confirmation vote is now on the floor calendar.
The Republican non-voting senators on both roll calls were not specified by Senate floor recording at the time of the votes; Senate Daily Press lists three Republicans and one Democrat absent for both 12 May roll calls. The Democrat nay column included all 45 voting Democrats other than Senator Fetterman. By population apportionment — each state’s population split between its two senators — the yea side on the Governor confirmation represented roughly 49% of the country. Both votes required a simple majority for passage (Governor confirmation) and three-fifths of senators present and voting (cloture); both thresholds were met by margins of 6 and 6 respectively.
The Chairman confirmation vote, once held, will install Warsh atop the Federal Open Market Committee with effect from the date of his swearing-in. Chair Jerome Powell’s current four-year term expires 15 May 2026. Source: GovTrack Senate Vote #116 · Vote #117, 12 May 2026
The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published a precision-bred organism release notice under reference PBR/26/005, naming a tomato variety scheduled for environmental release in England on or after 26 May 2026.
The notice is the formal regulatory step required before a precision-bred plant — a plant produced by genetic techniques that introduce changes that could have occurred through traditional breeding — can be released to the environment under Schedule 1 of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025. The 2025 regulations, made under the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, separate precision-bred organisms from the older genetically-modified-organism regime that requires a full deliberate-release consent.
PBR/26/005 is the fifth precision-bred organism release notice published in 2026 under the new regime. The Defra notice page links to a separate HTML document containing the full applicant details, the specific trait introduced and the duration of the release. The notice was published on 12 May. Comments and queries on the regime go to [email protected]; Defra has not announced a formal consultation deadline for PBR/26/005 on the notice landing page. Field trials of precision-bred crops in England remain subject to separate biosecurity and traceability requirements; equivalent permission would not be granted in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland under devolved law. Source: Defra, 12 May 2026
The UK Department for Work and Pensions has published the quarterly benefit sanctions statistics to February 2026, showing 5.4% of Universal Credit claimants in conditionality regimes were undergoing a sanction in the latest month — down 0.6 percentage points from November 2025 and down 0.1 percentage points year-on-year. The conditionality population — claimants who can be sanctioned for failing to meet job-search or attendance requirements — stood at roughly 2.1 million in February, around 24.8% of the total UC caseload. Failure to attend or participate in a mandatory work-coach interview accounted for 90.3% of all adverse sanction decisions in the latest quarter and 89.9% over the last year, by far the dominant reason. The series shows the sanction rate well below its January 2017 peak of 11.8%, but still meaningfully above the 2.5% trough reached in March 2020 during pandemic-era pause arrangements. Source: DWP, 12 May 2026
No. 36 (Monday) solution
Yesterday’s solution and the running back-list are collected in the archive.
Sudoku No. 37 — Medium
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| 1 | 6 |
1846: The United States Congress formally declares war on Mexico following a request from President James K. Polk two days earlier. The House votes 174 to 14 in favour and the Senate 40 to 2; the joint resolution authorises the President to call up 50,000 volunteers and appropriates $10 million. The declaration follows the 25 April clash between US and Mexican cavalry north of the Rio Grande in the disputed strip between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The war runs until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848, by which Mexico cedes the territory of present-day California, Nevada, Utah and large parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
1888: Princess Regent Isabel of Brazil, acting in the absence of her father Pedro II, signs the Lei Áurea (Golden Law), abolishing slavery throughout the Empire of Brazil with immediate effect and without compensation to slaveholders. The two-article statute — the shortest abolition act in the western hemisphere — ends more than three centuries of chattel slavery and frees an estimated 700,000 enslaved people. Brazil is the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. The rupture with the slaveholding planter class is one of the proximate causes of the November 1889 republican coup that ends the Empire.
1917: Three shepherd children — Lúcia dos Santos (10), her cousins Francisco Marto (9) and Jacinta Marto (7) — report seeing an apparition of a woman “more brilliant than the sun” over a holm-oak in the Cova da Iria, in the parish of Fátima, Portugal. Five further apparitions are reported on the 13th of each subsequent month through October; the October event draws an estimated 30,000–100,000 onlookers. The Catholic Church recognises the apparitions as worthy of belief in 1930; the Sanctuary of Fátima becomes one of the largest Marian pilgrimage sites in the world.
1940: Three days into his first ministry, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addresses the House of Commons for the first time as Prime Minister and asks the House to support the new National Government: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” The House votes confidence 381 to 0. Within ten days the German offensive in France will break through at Sedan; within three weeks the British Expeditionary Force will be evacuated from Dunkirk.
1981: Pope John Paul II is shot four times at close range in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City, by the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca at 17:17 local time during the Wednesday general audience. The Pope is critically wounded — the bullets perforate the colon and small intestine and cause severe blood loss — and is rushed to the Gemelli Polyclinic, where he undergoes a five-hour emergency operation. He survives. Ağca is sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy on 22 July 1981; the Pope visits him in his cell on 27 December 1983 and publicly forgives him.
1985: A Philadelphia Police Department tactical unit drops two C-4 explosive charges from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter onto the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, the row-house headquarters of the Black-liberation group MOVE, during a day-long armed standoff. The resulting fire is allowed to burn; eleven MOVE members — including founder John Africa and five children — are killed, and sixty-five neighbouring row houses are destroyed, leaving 250 people homeless. Mayor Wilson Goode establishes the Philadelphia Special Investigation (PSIC) Commission, which reports in March 1986 that the use of the bomb was “unconscionable”. No criminal charges are filed against city officials.
Today’s Numbers
Bill 48 / 2009 / 2013 / 2014 — The number of the National Treasury Management Agency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026, presented in Dáil Éireann on 12 May at First Stage; the year of the NAMA Act the Bill repeals; the year of the IBRC Act the Bill consequentially amends; and the year of the NTMA (Amendment) Act also amended (page 2).
51 / 45 / 1 / 14 — The yea side and the nay side of U.S. Senate Vote #116 on 12 May 2026 confirming Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; the number of Democrats voting yea (Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania); and the term in years of Warsh’s seat, running from 1 February 2026 (page 11).
880 / 80% / 28 / 12 — Civilians killed by armed-drone strikes in Sudan in January–April 2026 per OHCHR figures cited by High Commissioner Volker Türk on Sunday; the share of recorded civilian casualties from drone attacks across the same period; the number of monitored drone strikes on markets; and the number of monitored strikes on health facilities (page 10).
31 May 2011 / 25 May 2010 / 6 May 2026 — The date of the original F & M Holding Company written agreement with the Federal Reserve; the date of the original Thread Bancorp (formerly Volunteer Bancorp) written agreement; and the date the Federal Reserve Board terminated both, announced in the 12 May 2026 release (page 6).
Word of the Day
WRITTEN AGREEMENT
A formal supervisory enforcement instrument under section 8 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act in which a bank or bank holding company commits in writing to specific remedial steps demanded by its federal regulator — typically the Federal Reserve, the OCC or the FDIC. A written agreement is non-cease-and-desist: it does not carry the public stigma or the immediate civil-money-penalty machinery of a formal enforcement order, but it binds the institution’s directors and officers under the same statutory authority. Written agreements remain in force until the supervising regulator formally terminates them; some run for a decade or longer. The Federal Reserve Board on 12 May 2026 announced the termination of two long-running written agreements: with F & M Holding Company, Inc. of Manchester, Georgia (originally dated 31 May 2011) and with Thread Bancorp, Inc. of Rogersville, Tennessee, formerly Volunteer Bancorp (originally dated 25 May 2010). Both terminations took effect on 6 May 2026, ending roughly fifteen years of formal Fed supervisory commitments at the two holding companies (see p. 6; cover lead).
Quick Quiz — From Today’s Edition
1. The Government on 12 May 2026 presented the National Treasury Management Agency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 in Dáil Éireann at First Stage. What is the Bill number, what State agency does the Bill dissolve, and which 2009 statute does the Bill repeal?
2. The U.S. Senate on 12 May 2026 confirmed Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. What was the vote tally on Senate Vote #116, which Democrat senator was the lone Democrat to vote in favour, and on what date does Chair Jerome Powell’s current four-year term as Chair expire?
3. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a Geneva briefing on Sunday that armed drones have become the leading cause of civilian death in Sudan’s two-year war. According to OHCHR monitoring, how many civilians were killed by drone strikes in January–April 2026, what share of all recorded civilian casualties came from drones over the same period, and how many drone strikes on health facilities were monitored?
Answers: 1. Bill 48 of 2026; the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA); the NAMA Act 2009 (page 2). 2. 51 to 45; Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; 15 May 2026 (page 11). 3. At least 880 civilians; more than 80% of recorded civilian casualties; 12 strikes on health facilities (page 10).
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” — Winston Churchill, address to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, on this day in 1940.
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Recipe — the season’s first Wicklow new potatoes in Castletownbere salted butter, with chives and crème fraîche: A Wednesday-evening supper that takes twenty minutes from board to plate and trades on three Irish ingredients now at the very start of their year. The first Irish Queens from the early-earlies in north Wicklow and the south-Wexford coastal beds came up over the long weekend; the bags reach the city greengrocers and the Tuesday/Wednesday country-market stalls this week. The Castletownbere salted butter from the Beara co-op is the high-fat unsalted’s salted twin, with a deeper sea-mineral edge that does most of the seasoning for you. The Wicklow and Carlow chives are at their first cut of the year, the dark-green stems still tender, the purple flowers a fortnight away. The potatoes (about 600 g for two): washed but not peeled, halved lengthways for the smaller, quartered for anything bigger than a walnut, dropped into a wide pan of well-salted boiling water for eight to nine minutes until the point of a knife slides in with the smallest resistance, drained and left a minute in the colander to dry. The pan: a heavy cast-iron pan brought to medium-high heat, a generous tablespoon of the Castletownbere salted butter foaming and just turning the palest gold; the potatoes tipped in cut-side down, pressed once with the back of a spoon, left untouched for three minutes until the cut faces are dark gold and crisp; turned, another two minutes; off the heat, a second knob of butter folded through. To plate: tipped onto a warm platter, the chives chopped fine and scattered across in a wide arc, a final pinch of Achill Island Sea Salt flakes for the cut faces, a small dish of crème fraîche on the side, a wedge of unwaxed lemon at the rim. A glass of something cold and dry, a slice of brown bread if you want it, an open window for the long May light. A clean kitchen by 20:30.
Worth Your Time
Book: Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger by Fintan O’Toole (Faber and Faber, 2009). The closest thing to a primary-source institutional history of the 2008 Irish banking collapse that produced NAMA — the agency now on the legislative slate for dissolution. The pair for today’s page 2 lead on the NTMA (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 — Bill 48 of 2026, presented in Dáil Éireann at First Stage on 12 May, repealing the NAMA Act 2009 and transferring NAMA’s residual assets and liabilities to the NTMA. NAMA completed its principal debt-redemption programme in 2020; the Bill is the formal closing-out mechanism for the residual operation.
Book: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle (10th-anniversary edition, University of California Press, 2013). The most-cited single institutional account of US food-additive regulation, with chapter-length treatment of the Generally Recognized as Safe framework that BHT and ADA originally entered under. The reading for today’s page 4 lead on the FDA’s post-market food-chemical safety programme, finalised on 12 May 2026, with 60-day public comment windows opened on butylated hydroxytoluene and azodicarbonamide — both windows closing on 13 July 2026.
Book: Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA by Daniel Carpenter (Princeton University Press, 2010). The standard institutional history of pharmaceutical regulation in the United States, the closest English-language analogue for what EMA is being built to do. The pair for today’s page 5 lead on the EU Critical Medicines Act, on which Council and Parliament reached political agreement on 12 May. Under the CMA, the Medicine Shortages Steering Group will run supply-chain vulnerability assessments on critical medicines; the Union list of critical medicines, published in 2024 and updated annually, already contains over 200 active substances.
Book: Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars by Chris Woods (Hurst & Company, 2015). Primary-source-anchored institutional history of armed drones and civilian harm, built on declassified records and on-the-ground investigations from Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The reading alongside today’s page 10 lead on the OHCHR Sudan briefing: armed drones now account for over 80% of recorded civilian war deaths, with 880 people killed in January–April 2026 alone, and at least 28 attacks on markets and 12 strikes on health facilities over the four-month period.
Place to visit: the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9. The Office of Public Works site on the south bank of the Tolka, founded by the (Royal) Dublin Society in 1795 and Ireland’s principal botanic collection ever since. The Turner-built curvilinear glasshouses, restored 2004, hold the Victoria water-lily; the Great Palm House is back in operation after its multi-year refurbishment. The herbaceous borders and the rose garden are in early-summer planting this week. Open daily 09:00–18:00 in May, free admission; an hour’s walk from the city centre or the no. 4 / 9 / 83 bus from O’Connell Street. A good Wednesday-evening hour after work in the long May light.
Cycling — Giro d’Italia 109 Stage 5 today, the second Italian stage of the race; finish in Rome on Sunday 31 May: The 109th edition of the Giro completed its Bulgarian opening triptych on Sunday 10 May, used Monday 11 May as the first rest day for the convoy transfer to Italy, and rolled out Stage 4 on Tuesday 12 May — the first proper Italian stage of the race. Stage 5 rolls out today, Wednesday 13 May, the second Italian stage in the run from the southern peninsula north. The Bulgarian opening went Sofia–Plovdiv (Stage 1, 187 km flat, Friday 8 May), to Veliko Tarnovo (Stage 2, Saturday 9 May) and the rolling Stage 3 to close the Bulgarian start on Sunday 10 May. The race finishes in Rome on Sunday 31 May. The 79th Tour de Romandie, the principal pre-Giro tune-up, closed on Sunday 3 May with the flat 17.1 km individual time trial in Geneva. Route, start list, stage profiles and broadcaster split (Eurosport / discovery+) at giroditalia.it.
Football — Premier League MD37 midweek card opens tonight, closes tomorrow; UEFA Champions League final, Allianz Arena, Munich, Saturday 30 May: Premier League MD36 ran across the weekend of 9–10 May and closed on Sunday with the 19:00 BST headline kick-off. With two matchdays remaining the title race is still decided on goal difference, the fourth Champions League qualifying slot is live, and the relegation picture is mathematically open at the foot — the season closes on Sunday 24 May with the simultaneous final-day card. The midweek MD37 card opens tonight, Wednesday 13 May, 19:45 / 20:15 BST kick-offs, and closes tomorrow, Thursday 14 May, on the same slot (Sky / TNT). The Champions League final at the Allianz Arena, Munich, kicks off at 20:00 BST on Saturday 30 May. Standings, broadcaster split and the MD37 fixtures at premierleague.com.
Tennis — Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals lower half today, Foro Italico, Rome: The combined ATP 1000 / WTA 1000 clay-court swing moved from Madrid to Rome on Wednesday 6 May with the main-draw first round at the Foro Italico. The round of sixteen ran across Sunday 10 May (upper-half draws) and Monday 11 May (lower-half card); the upper-half quarter-finals opened yesterday, Tuesday 12 May; the lower-half quarter-finals follow today, Wednesday 13 May. The men’s and women’s semi-finals open tomorrow, Thursday 14 May; the women’s singles final is on Saturday 16 May and the men’s singles final on Sunday 17 May. The Internazionali is the last 1000-level clay event before Roland-Garros opens on Sunday 24 May. Order of play, draw and broadcaster split (Sky Sports Tennis in the UK and Ireland; discovery+ for the women’s draw) at internazionalibnlditalia.com.
Horse racing — Curragh Sunday card behind us; Lockinge Stakes at Newbury this Saturday: The flat-racing season is past the early-season Newmarket classics — the 2,000 Guineas and the 1,000 Guineas were run at the Rowley Mile across the first weekend of May; the Curragh ran a Sunday flat card on 10 May. The Lockinge Stakes (Group 1, one mile) at Newbury this Saturday, 16 May 2026, is the first of the season’s Group 1 mile contests on the older horses; previewing it through the rest of the week. Race-by-race cards and going at horseracingireland.ie.
League of Ireland — Premier Division Round 12 closed Saturday; Round 13 this Friday and Saturday: The 2026 League of Ireland Premier Division Round 12 opened on Friday night with four 19:45 IST kick-offs and closed on Saturday 9 May with the remaining fixtures at the same slot — LOITV live. After Round 12 the title race is one of the tightest on record at this stage of the season; six of the ten Premier Division clubs are within four points at the top of the table. Round 13 follows this Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May on the same Friday-and-Saturday split. Standings, fixtures and stadium-by-stadium broadcaster pickups at loi.ie.
Results & Fixtures — Week in review & week ahead
| Sat 2 May | Premier League MD35 opens (Sky / TNT); Tour de Romandie queen stage Aigle–Thyon 2000, 167.7 km (Eurosport); Madrid Open men’s & women’s semi-finals (Sky); World Snooker final sessions 2 and 3, 14:30 & 19:00 BST (BBC / Eurosport); League of Ireland Round 11 closing fixtures, 19:45 IST |
| Sun 3 May | Tour de Romandie Stage 5 closing ITT, 17.1 km in Geneva — final GC decided (Eurosport); Madrid Open women’s singles final (Sky); Premier League MD35 Sunday card (Sky / TNT); World Snooker final session 4 (BBC / Eurosport); Punchestown Festival closes |
| Mon 4 May | Premier League MD35 closed — early-May bank-holiday card (Sky / TNT); Madrid Open men’s singles final, Caja Mágica (Sky); World Snooker final deciding session 19:00 BST if required (BBC / Eurosport) |
| Tue 5 May | UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg #1 at the higher-seeded club, 20:00 BST (TNT Sports / discovery+) |
| Wed 6 May | UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg #2 closed at the higher-seeded club, 20:00 BST (TNT Sports / discovery+); Internazionali BNL d’Italia — main-draw first round opens, Foro Italico, Rome (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+) |
| Thu 7 May | Internazionali BNL d’Italia — second-round main draw, Foro Italico, Rome (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+); League of Ireland Premier Division Round 12 build-up day |
| Fri 8 May | Giro d’Italia 109 Grande Partenza — Stage 1, Sofia–Plovdiv, 187 km flat (Eurosport / discovery+); League of Ireland Round 12, four 19:45 IST kick-offs (LOITV); Internazionali BNL d’Italia — third-round main draw opens, Foro Italico, Rome (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+) |
| Sun 10 May | Premier League MD36 Sunday card, 14:00 / 16:30 / 19:00 BST (Sky / TNT); Giro d’Italia Stage 3, third Bulgarian stage (Eurosport / discovery+); Curragh Sunday flat card; Internazionali BNL d’Italia round of sixteen opens (Sky Sports Tennis) |
| Mon 11 May | Giro d’Italia 109 first rest day — transfer Bulgaria–Italy (Eurosport / discovery+); Internazionali BNL d’Italia round-of-sixteen second day, Foro Italico, Rome (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+) |
| Tue 12 May (yesterday) | Giro d’Italia Stage 4 — first Italian stage after the Bulgarian opening (Eurosport / discovery+); Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals upper half, Foro Italico (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+) |
| Wed 13 May (today) | Premier League MD37 midweek card opens, 19:45 / 20:15 BST (Sky / TNT); Giro d’Italia Stage 5 — second Italian stage (Eurosport / discovery+); Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals lower half (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+) |
| Thu 14 May | Premier League MD37 midweek card closes, 19:45 / 20:15 BST (Sky / TNT); Internazionali BNL d’Italia semi-finals open, Foro Italico (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+); Giro d’Italia Stage 6 (Eurosport / discovery+) |
| Fri 15 May | League of Ireland Premier Division Round 13, four 19:45 IST kick-offs (LOITV); Giro d’Italia Stage 7 (Eurosport / discovery+) |
| Sat 16 May | Lockinge Stakes (Group 1, 1m) — Newbury (ITV); Internazionali BNL d’Italia women’s singles final (Sky Sports Tennis / discovery+); Premier League MD37 Saturday card; League of Ireland Round 13 closing fixtures, 19:45 IST (LOITV) |
| Sat 30 May | UEFA Champions League final — Allianz Arena, Munich, 20:00 BST (TNT Sports / discovery+) |
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