Every day, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really need to know with your morning coffee.

1. #GOOD NEWS: Exchequer figures to be published today will show that for the first four months of the year “things are back on track”, finance Minister Michael Noonan has claimed.

2. #TRAGIC: The High Court has approved an award of €2.35 million damages to the family of a 35-year-old woman who died shortly after giving birth to her second child, a son, at Holles Street in November 2004.

3. #RECESSIONOMICS: More than 115,000 Bord Gáis customers are two months in arrears on their bill – three times the number which was having difficulty paying last year, the Examiner reports.

4. #LIAM: Two-year-old Liam Heffernan, who underwent gene transfer surgery for Batten’s disease in New York yesterday, is recovering well, his parents have said. The surgery came just 15 weeks after his sister Saoirse passed away from the illness, RTE reports.

5. #PORTUGAL: The worst kept secret in international economics is finally confirmed…Portugal has announced that it has been forced to take a €78bn bailout – but the Portuguese government says it’s getting better terms than Ireland or Greece. So there.

6. #BIN LADEN: Reports today suggest that Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed, but still “tried to resist the assault”.  A Pakistani intelligence official has claimed Bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter witnessed the killing. Meanwhile, Pakistan has reacted badly to US claims that it could not have been trusted with details of the raid on Bin Laden. The CIA has confirmed that photos of a dead Bin Laden will be released as scepticism mounts in the north Pakistan region where the raid took place.

7. #ALCOHOL: Two Tipperary barmen are to go on trial today for the manslaughter of a man who bought so much drink that he died, the Belfast Telegraph reports. The trial will be the first of its kind under Ireland’s liquor liability laws.

8. #NICK LEESON: In his latest column for TheJournal.ie, the former trader who brought down Barings Bank, Nick Leeson, says that while he served time for his actions, nothing happened to the treasury, banking and compliance officials who should have stopped him – most of whom are still working in finance. That’s why he believes accountability in banking should come from the top down.

9. #POOR PETS: After a storm of criticism, the Journal of Animal Ethics has defended its new guidelines on the terms that should be used to refer to animals. Under the guidelines, the term ‘pet’ should be replaced by ‘animal companion’; ‘wild’ is to be banned, and ‘free living or free ranging’ used instead; and insulting terms like ‘silly geese’; ‘stubborn mules’ and ‘drunk skunks’ should be dropped altogether, as they’re demeaning. Frankly, we think it’s a load of old bull.