EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you the five stories you need to know before heading out the door.

1. #FLAGS: Three political parties have called on loyalists to reconsider their plan to hold a protest outside Leinster House this Saturday. One Labour TD described the plan to bring three busloads of protesters to sarcastically call for the Irish flag to be lowered over the Oireachtas as a “ridiculous stunt”.

2. #STRIKE: Union members at Bus Éireann have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike which will begin on Sunday – and does not yet have an end date. The National Bus and Rail Workers Union are holding the industrial action over planned cuts to pay and changes in working conditions.

3. #NORTHERN IRELAND: There has been widespread condemnation after a journalist and an SDLP politician were both sent a bullet in the post in Northern Ireland.

4. #STUDENT GRANTS: Students around the country are being forced to rely on food parcels from their students’ unions as they continue to wait for their grants to be paid, the Union of Students in Ireland has said. More than 5,500 students are still waiting for their first grant payment.

5. #AMERICA: The man who will be named as the new CIA director by US President Barack Obama is a second-generation Irish-American whose parents come from Roscommon. John Brennan was one of the lead planners of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and is a 25-year veteran of the CIA. Here’s some more about him.