EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you start your day.

1. #JOBS: Management and unions will hold talks this morning about the future of the Bausch and Lomb plant in Waterford after the company announced 200 job losses as well as major pay cuts for remaining employees.

2. #LABOUR PAINS: Nominations for the next leader of Labour will close at 12 noon today with TDs Joan Burton and Alex White both in the running so far. Kerry North TD Arthur Spring has said he won’t run and has endorsed Burton, RTE reports.

3. #JAILED: An Irish former doctor has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in the United States after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting two young girls, the Irish Times reports. Rory Doyle spent more than a decade on the run in Ireland and Morocco.

4. #ELECTION: Voting is underway in Syria’s presidential election, three years into the civil war which has left tens of thousands of people dead. President Bashar Assad is widely expected to win his third seven-year term in office.

5. #WORLD CUP: Concerns have been raised about some Irish businesses involved with the Qatar World Cup, with one lawyer warning that the labour system can be akin to a form of slave labour.

6. #HELP: Former employees at the Paris Bakery in Dublin, who have been staging a sit-in at the premises for 12 days, have appealed to Taoiseach Enda Kenny to intervene to ensure they are paid the wages they are owed. 

7. #BLOOD: The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has appealed for blood donors to come forward amid concerns that the supply – which is already low – will drop even further due to the upcoming World Cup.

8. #ROADS: Two people have died on Ireland’s roads in the past 24 hours. A man in his 70s died when the car he was driving crashed at the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre in Dublin on Sunday, while a 21-year-old man died this morning when the car he was driving hit a tree in Limerick.

9. #HURRICANE: New research has found that people don’t take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name – even though female-named storms have killed more people than ones with male names.