Barack Obama delivers his inaugural address at the US Capitol today. (Photo: AP Photo/Evan Vucci/Pool)

HERE ARE THE things we learned, loved and shared today.

THINGS WE LEARNED

#INAUGURATION: Barack Obama has been inaugurated as US President for his second term in a ceremony in Washington DC this afternoon. The 44th American president told the crowd of around 700,000 that a decade of economic trouble was coming to an end, and signalled his plans to seek full equality for gay couples. Here’s his inauguration speech in full.

#COURTS: There have been calls for an urgent review of sentences for rape and sexual assaults after a 72-year-old man walked out of the Criminal Courts of Justice today on bail, despite being found guilty of the rape and indecent assault of his daughter over the course of a decade.

#HMV: HMV stores in the UK are to begin accepting gift vouchers from tomorrow, reversing the company’s previous position – but the change won’t affect Ireland. The 16 HMV shops across Ireland will remain closed following the appointment of a receiver to HMV Ireland.

#HOSTAGE: Stephen McFaul, the Irishman who was taken hostage during the attack on a gas plant in Algeria, has returned home to his family in Northern Ireland.

#ABORTION: Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton has said she has grave reservations about including the risk of suicide as a threat to the life of a mother in any bill which legislates for the X Case on abortion.

#CYSTIC FIBROSIS: Negotiations are under way over a groundbreaking new drug to treat cystic fibrosis, which has been hailed as a breakthrough treatment for sufferers, but which has been deemed too expensive to be funded by the State.

THINGS WE LOVED

• These photographs of fisherman in remote Alaska are amazing – our personal favourite is the one of the guy who looks happier than anyone we’ve ever seen after he landed a 30-lb giant salmon.
• This video is about Tommy Carroll, who has been skateboarding since he was 10 years old – and blind since the age of 2. Watch it, and think about how much you’ve ever been able to push yourself to do something:

(Video: EyEFORcE/Vimeo)

THINGS WE SHARED

• Want to make the most out of the snow? Here’s how to build a rainbow igloo.
• Is this the longest correction ever published? The 545-word correction appeared beneath an article in Time magazine on Britain’s universities.
• This is so heinous, so painful, so wrong that we weren’t sure about whether to share it or not. However the whole thing manages to still be so weirdly compelling that we decided we couldn’t not – s0 here, for your viewing pleasure is REM’s seminal Losing My Religion, reworked so that it’s now in a major scale, rather than the minor scale which gives it is poignancy.

(Video: major scaled/Vimeo)

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