Cody Mooney tosses his daughter, Willow, 17 months, in the air as snow geese take flight behind them in the Skagit Valley near La Conner, Washington state. Bird watchers took advantage of a rain-free day earlier this week to gaze at tens of thousands of snow geese. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

THINGS WE LEARNED

#SHOOTING: A man has been arrested over the fatal shooting of Christopher Warren in central Dublin last night. The man in his late 20s is being questioned at Kevin Street Garda station. Gardaí have meanwhile appealed for witnesses to the events surrounding the shooting, which saw Warren dropped anonymous to A&E in a car which was later found abandoned.

#SOCIAL WELFARE: Social welfare claimants will have to face up (literally) to new anti-fraud measures in the new year. The introduction of a new Public Services Card will mean claimants will undergo mandatory facial recognition every time they sign on, in a bid to stop impersonation and to ward off people who may use more than one identity to claim.

#RUSSIA: Four people have died after a passenger plane overshot its runway and crashed onto a motorway before breaking up. The accident at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport has been attributed to pilot error.

#MENTAL HEALTH: There have been calls for new pressure to be exerted so that the government lives up to its commitments on mental health. The calls, led by Sinn Féin, come after it was revealed that the government only hired 17 of the 414 mental health staff it promised to recruit in 2012 - with the rest of the money going towards plugging the HSE’s €365-million deficit.

#RAPE: Indian leaders have appealed for calm amid protests following the death of the unnamed Indian student who died yesterday, two weeks after being gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi. The head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has compared the Indian city to Dublin, saying both cities have unacceptably high levels of rape and sexual assault.

#COUGH SYRUP: At least 24 people have died in the Pakistani city of Gujranwala in the last four days as a result of toxic cough syrup. Authorities believe most of the fatalities were drug users who were seeking intoxication by taking large doses.

THINGS WE LOVED

• The sheer volume of goals in today’s Premier League games. There were 35 bagged today – the most in a single day so far this season – including no fewer than 10 at the Emirates, where Newcastle picked up an unwanted distinction.
• This nifty (but also sarky) wrap-up of all the major plot holes, gaffes, and other general ‘cinema sins’ in The Dark Knight Rises.

(YouTube/CinemaSins)

THINGS WE SHARED

(YouTube/latenight)