EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the stories you need to know as you wake up.

1. #SEIZURE: Gardaí have discovered drugs worth €40,000 and €120,000 in cash in the search of two houses in Cork city and county.

2. #AMMUNITION: Three men arrested in Cork appear before the Special Criminal Court this morning charged with dissident republican activity.

3. #WAR: Schoolchildren from Co Clare are trying to track down the family of an Irishman killed in the First World War to reunite them with a bronze plaque bearing his name.

4. #TEMPLE BAR: A Wicklow man has been jailed for five years for punching a man and leaving him with lifelong brain injuries after the victim allegedly called him a ‘Paki’.

5. #SLOVENIA: Christmas has come early for Slovenians after MPs restored 2 January as a public holiday, four years after it was scrapped as part of austerity measures.

6. #HOMELESS: Musician Glen Hansard says Home Sweet Home’s occupation of Apollo House in Dublin 2 is an act of “civil disobediance”.

7. #ALEPPO: US president Barack Obama has blamed Russia and Iran for atrocities in the disputed Syrian city.

8. TURKEY: Thirteen Turkish soldiers have been killed and 48 wounded in a car bomb blast that targeted a bus transporting them in the central city of Kayseri.

9. #EMILY BARUT: Tullamore GP Bernadette Scully is unlikely to face disciplinary action after being found not guilty of the manslaughter of her disabled daughter, the Irish Times is reporting.