Every afternoon, TheJournal.ie brings you five things you need to know by 5 o’clock.

1. #ANGLO Taoiseach Brian Cowen came out with all blunderbusses blazing in the first day back in the Dail to answer questions on the nature of his conversations with Sean FitzPatrick in 2008. When asked if he and the then-chairman of Anglo Irish Bank discussed the ailing state of the bank during a round of golf and dinner two months before the State announced a guarantee for the banks, Cowen made a verbal charge on the Opposition. He claimed they were spreading a “patently absurd conspiracy theory” in suggesting the government had introduced the guarantee to help “friends” of Fianna Fail who had borrowed from Anglo.

2. #MICHAELA One of three men who appeared in court in Mauritius this morning in connection with the killing of Michaela McAreavey on her honeymoon has claimed he was the victim of police brutality during questioning yesterday. Abinash Treebohun and Sandip Monea are provisionally accused of Michaela’s murder. Raj Theekov is provisionally accused of conspiracy to murder. All three work at the Legends hotel where Michaela and new husband John were staying.

3. #BAD PORK One man has been arrested in Monaghan and four others arrested in Northern Ireland in relation to the pork contamination crisis of 2008 which resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs in the Irish agricultural and processing sectors.

4. #HAITI The Caribbean island remembered the hundreds of thousands killed in the earthquake – and in its aftermath – on the first anniversary of the tragedy today. Humanitarian agencies report that conditions are still hellish for the one million survivors living in disease-ridden and insecure camps.

5. #ARIZONA Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin makes a lengthy response to the mass shooting on Saturday in a Facebook message; Fox News president urges all sides of the political divide to cool it on the inflammatory rhetoric; and the parents of shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner release a heartfelt statement about the deaths.