EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you kick off your day.

1. #PRICE WARS: Ireland could be set for a major price war between its leading chemists, after Boots announced it would be cutting the price of the majority of its prescription medicines. The chain says its moves will cut costs by 25 per cent – laying the gauntlet for rival chains.

2. #ABUSE: Survivors of abuse in Magdalene laundries have criticised the government for failing to implement a year-old recommendation to apologise or offer redress to survivors. The Justice for Magdalenes group has assembled new evidence which appears to confirm that some survivors were transferred to laundries without consent or permission to leave.

3. #JOBSWATCH: Research and technology company IDG Connect is to set up a new base in central Dublin creating 125 jobs. The company only recently filled 60 jobs at its Dublin 1 premises.

4. #STABBING: Gardaí in Cork have appealed for witnesses to a serious stabbing incident in Knocknaheeny yesterday evening. The incident, in which a man in his thirties received serious stab wounds, happened at Holyhill Lane at around 5pm.

5. #SYRIA: The UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, is set to meet President Bashar Assad today as part of the latest diplomatic efforts to rescue a ceasefire in the troubled state. Annan is likely to condemn Friday’s attack on Houda, which killed 108 – which the Syrian government denies responsibility for.

6. #ITALY: An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 has struck Italy this morning. The quake struck 25 miles away from Bologna, and close to the cities of Parma and Verona. The scale of any damage is not yet known.

7. #BURMA: Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will leave Burma for the first time in 24 years today, as she heads for Thailand to give a speech at the World Economic Forum. Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest, and decided against leaving while she was free – for fear she wouldn’t be let back in again.

8. #MEXICO: A mother in Mexico has been arrested on suspicion of gouging out the eyes of her 5-year-old son. Reuters says the boy’s eyeballs were pulled out during an unknown ritual.

9. #ALPHA MALES: New studies suggest the behaviour of ‘alpha males’ in early society may have resulted in women opting to pair off with less aggressive beta males, who showed their worth by devoting more time to raising children. It’s suggested that the faithfulness of women to these less confrontational men is actually the origin of modern monogamous coupling.