EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the main news stories, as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed throughout the day.

• Engineers are battling to prevent a meltdown at three of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power reactors after water levels dropped drastically causing reactors to overheat. Earlier today, officials confirmed that fuel rods at nuclear reactor number 2 had been briefly exposed to the air, which can cause a meltdown. A third reactor is also in danger according to the most recent reports. The official death toll in Japan is 10,000 but officials fear it could be much higher. Millions of people are now without power or water.
• Pro-Gaddafi forces in Libya have been emboldened after pushing rebels back 160kms eastward so far this week.
• In Bahrain, foreign troops from Saudi Arabia and UAE are crossing into border on behest of government. Opposition forces have said that this  ”amounts to an occupation”.
• A jailed brothel keeper, TJ Carroll, who said that he made €1 million a year from forcing trafficked women to work as prostitutes in Ireland has been ordered to pay a fine €2 million or face another ten years in jail.

• Finance Minister Michael Noonan has said that a meeting with the ECB president Jean Claude Trichet earlier today “went well”. He told Trichet that Ireland might need more than the €10 billion earmarked for saving the country’s banks – and that more time was needed to restructure the institutions.
• The man at the centre of a murder trial has told the court that he was sorry that he shot Limerick rugby player Shane Geoghegan but repeatedly refused to explain why he did so. Barry Doyle, 24, would not confirm or deny to gardaí that he had killed Geoghegan in a case of mistaken identity. The trial continues.
• Elective surgeries at some hospitals might have to be postponed because of a standoff between the HSE and agency nursing staff over plans to slash 0rates of pay.
• Several officers police officers in the Colorado mountain town of Durango have achieved a small victory over a law forbidding them from having beards. Seemingly unable to face the day without at least some facial hair, they quietly introduced a new policy that allows goatees… So for those of you in doubt there is a difference. Apparently.

Image via banj o/ Creative Commons