EACH WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you five stories you really should get your head around before 5pm.

1. #TIGER KIDNAPPING: A two-year-old child, his mum and his dad were the targets of would-be tiger kidnappers this morning near Athy, Co Kildare. A gang of four armed men failed to take the family hostage after an alarm was activated – the father in question works for a security company.

2. #ENERGY: Getting Ireland’s energy needs from nuclear plants here is not an option, according to the ESRI Review of Irish Energy Policy. The report advises that production must start “rapidly” from the Corrib gas field and that too much money is being invested into wind, wave and tidal energy.

3. #VICES: Dublin and Louth hasn’t come out too well from two reports today – one finds that Dublin and Louth people drink to excess more than any other county in Ireland. The other finds that most illegal cigarettes seized last year were found in Dublin and Louth (Cork came in third).

4. #BARACK OBAMA: The White House has publicly released the long form of Barack Obama’s birth certificate to show that he was indeed born in Hawaii, and therefore eligible to be President of the US. Obama said this afternoon that the country did “not have time for this kind of silliness”.

5. #BEATIFICATION: The beatification of Pope John Paul II this Sunday will be graced by the presence of a “first-degree relic” – vials of the late pontiff’s blood, taken from him during his final days.