Farmers have put little ‘jackets’ on lambs in the fields around Langley, Cheshire to help them with the unusually cold weather conditions during the lambing season. (Image: Lynne Cameron/PA Wire)

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

THINGS WE LEARNED

#MONEY MATTERS: The long-anticipated guidelines from the Insolvency Service of Ireland were published today, revealing that borrowers struggling to keep up with repayments may have to move house, sell a car and change childcare arrangements in order to qualify for the process.

This image shows exactly how much a single person can spend under the new rules.

#TEXAS: At least 15 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas in the early hours of this morning. The scene has been described as one of “significant devastation” but it is not yet clear what caused the blast.

#SAVITA: The inquest into the death of Savita Halappanavar heard from a pathologist today who said the cause of the 31-year-old’s death was septic shock, E.coli in her bloodstream and a miscarriage at 17 weeks, reports RTÉ News.

The Galway coroner is expected to sum up and charge the jury tomorrow.

#ARREST: A man in his 30s has been arrested in connection with the theft of €9,000 from Balbriggan garda station in January. The sum was taken from a €26,000 haul recovered after an attempted robbery at a shop in Lusk.

#ROBBERY: Rhino heads and horns worth about half a million euro were stolen from the National Museum Archive last night. A security guard at the Swords facility was tied up as three masked men raided the building before 11pm.

#FREEDOM: An internal document circulated among the Fine Gael parliamentary party this week has outlined a series of radical proposals which would alter the way Dáil business is conducted. Backbencher Eoghan Murphy suggests that government deputies should be allowed to vote against their own party on certain issues.

THINGS WE LOVED

Let us introduce you to Dalek and Davros, two newborn baby Humboldt penguins born at Chester Zoo. Zookeepers have named all this years babies after characters from the television series Dr Who. Lovely Michelle in TheJournal.ie HQ noted earlier that they’re even smiling for the camera. (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

• Dublin’s latest visitor guidebook – made by young adults with Down Syndrome for young adults with Down Syndrome.
• Happy Birthday, Mr President. That sounds a bit wrong when talking about Michael D but the lads and ladies at DailyEdge.ie gave him a virtual hug earlier.
• We are all better at football than this lot. Thanks to TheScore.ie for finding this gem and using the hashtag #woegius. (Editor’s note: Make sure you have the audio turned up as you watch)

(YouTube: RebellionFC)

THINGS WE SHARED

• In the days since the Boston Marathon explosions, many people have questioned the media’s intense coverage of the events, comparing it to a perceived lack of reporting on a series of explosions in Iraq that killed 50 people and injured hundreds more. Australian journalist Jonathan Green dissects the issue, stating that that the “deaths in Iraq have, somehow, been stripped of the elements of empathy and surprise that would propel them into the eager vacuums of our news cycles”.
• Anne Hathaway and pals are ruining the Mammy haircut for actual mammies.
• Ole Salomonsen‘s third film about the northern lights is definitely worth five minutes of your time. For this short, he decided to use some real-time video footage to “better show how furiously fast and beautiful the polar spirits can dance”.

(Vimeo Credit: Ole C. Salomonsen)

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