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

1. #ROYAL VISIT: Queen Elizabeth II decided to wear green when she touched down at Baldonnell at noon today for her historic first visit to the Republic of Ireland. As she visited Áras an Uachtaráin, the Garden of Remembrance and Trinity College, skirmishes broke out as protestors challenged riot police around the north Dublin inner city. An elaborate hoax device shut down Fairview this morning but these flag-burners had less success in disrupting proceedings.

2. #RAPE CRISIS: The HSE has said today that it will postpone plans to cut all core funding to the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland. The decision has been put off until 1 August – but the RCNI has warned it would have to close in the case of such a massive cutback.

3. #TAXIS: Last night’s Prime Time Investigates on corruption and criminality in the taxi industry has been provoking a strong response from consumers (see our poll here). Now the junior minister for Public Transport, Alan Kelly, has said a review of the industry will get underway immediately.

4. #STRAUSS-KAHN: The pressure is mounting on IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn to resign from his influential job now that he is jail in New York, accused of sexual assault. Meanwhile, Mario Draghi has been confirmed to take over from Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the ECB in November. But who is he – and what is he likely to do?

5. #CHINA: Water mess… farmers in the Jiangsu province of China have been left baffled by their exploding watermelon crops. Weather, chemicals and the sheer size of the ‘melons have all had the finger pointed at them as reasons behind the popping fruit.