EACH WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you five stories you really should check out by 5pm.

1. #BAILOUT: Europe’s newly expanded bailout fund may force Ireland to pay out over €11.1bn to help bail out Europe’s bigger economies: the new European Stability Mechanism will initially be funded by €80 billion by the 17 members of the eurozone. If the fund is ever called into action it will then expand up to extraordinary €700 billion.

2. #SOLAS: The government has announced that the state training agency FÁS will be disbanded and replaced with a new, reformed authority named SOLAS. The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn said that the reformed agency’s programmes move away from skills provision for traditional occupations like construction, and instead would respond to the needs of learners and the requirements of “a changed and changing economy”.

3. #PROPERTY: Residential property prices are falling at their fastest rate in over two years, according to the latest data published by the Central Statistics Office. The latest Residential Property Index indicates that the average house price in Ireland fell by 2.1 per cent last month alone.

4. #LIBYA: Britain has officially recognised Libya’s National Transitional Council as the legitimate ruler of the country and has expelled all staff from the Libyan embassy in London to make way for representatives from the new authority. However, in what appears to be another sign of defiance by the Gaddafi regime, the Lockerbie bomber has been spotted at a pro-Gaddafi rally in Libya’s capital Tripoli.

5. #GLENN BECK: US broadcaster Glenn Beck defended the use of Hitler analogies “in logical conversation” – after he after compared the teenage victims of the mass shooting on Norway’s Utoya Island to the Hitler Youth yesterday. Beck insisted that restrictions on making Hitler and Nazi comparisons would mean that the US is “going to be a society of gas chambers”.