Kentucky Derby hopefuls (left to right) Falling Sky, Charming Kitten and Black Onyx go for a morning workout at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

HERE ARE THE things you need to know as we round off the day in three easy steps.

THINGS WE LEARNED

#ABORTION: The Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 that plans to legislate for the X Case has prompted strong reaction from both sides of the debate with pro-life groups saying the proposals go too far and pro-choice groups saying draft does not go far enough. Enda Kenny earlier insisted that Fine Gael backbenchers would be expected to vote for the bill. Meanwhile Fine Gael TD Peter Mathews has today apologised for some “clumsy” comments about abortion earlier this week.

#SHOOTING: A man has died after a shooting at an industrial estate in south Dublin earlier today. The man in his 40s was pronounced dead at Tallaght Hospital after being shot at the Greenogue Industrial Estate in Rathcoole at 9.30am this morning.

#BOSTON: Police in Boston investigating the marathon bombings have arrested three more people. It’s believed that the three additional suspects are college students with connections to Dzhokar Tsarnaeva, the 19-year-old who is suspected of carrying out the attack with his now-dead brother Tamerlan.

#VISA: Meijiao Yu and Xiao Shao, who last week went to the High Court in the hope of securing a visa for their three-year-old daughter, have had their request granted. Their daughter had been unable to secure a visa having entered China aged four-months. The Minister for Justice Alan Shatter today reversed his decision. Their daughter, Jiayi, is due to turn four next week.

#UNEMPLOYMENT: Ireland’s unemployment rate remains at 14 per cent as just 100 fewer people signed on the Live Register last month compared to March according to CSO figures. In total 451,593 were signing on in April.

#HISTORY: Prince Edward, The Duke of Kent, became the first member of the British Royal family to lay a laurel wreath at the Sigerson Memorial to the volunteers of the 1916 Easter Rising. Prince Edward, who is the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, also lay a poppy wreath at the World War I and II commemorative walls at Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery.

THINGS WE LOVED

• If you found yourself wandering around St Anne’s Park in Raheny recently, you may have noticed what can only be described as a chocolate tree. Put there by Cadbury’s, it gave people more than they had bargained for. Check it out here.
• Those uber-clever people at IBM have created the world’s smallest movie. Composed of moving atoms (that have been magnified over 100 million times), it’s the world’s smallest stop-motion film… ever.

(IBM/YouTube)

• Primary school wouldn’t have been primary school without at least one Viking ship being drawn during class, before being coloured in using as many colours as we could get our grubby little hands on. But is that really what they looked like? This fascinating read from ScienceNordic begs to differ.

THINGS WE SHARED

• O’Connell Street is one of Dublin’s – and Ireland’s – best known streets. Here, architect Stephen Wall tells us its history. Enjoy!

(CommonsLaneFilms/YouTube)

• Photographer Nicholas Nixon took a snap of his wife and her three sisters in 1975, and continued to take a similar picture each year until 2010. The result is an amazing insight into the passage of time, not to mention fashion trends. Check it out here.

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