Many hands wave through clouds of coloured dust during celebrations after the Swiss Color Run at Homebush Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. The Colour Run is a 5K feel-good, happy event where participants run through a "“color stationÂ" every kilometre and are covered with coloured powder. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

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

THINGS WE LEARNED:

#MAGDALENES: A group of five women from the Magdalene Survivors Together group are to meet with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny tomorrow afternoon, in hope that it will "ultimately lead to an official apology". A separate organisation representing the victims of the Magdalene Laundries declined the invitation after they received no word regarding the purpose of the meeting - saying the women wanted concrete answers not "gestures".

Minister Brendan Howlin promised today that the Government is determined to acknowledge and “make amends” for the all the women who were “sorely wronged” through the Magdalene Laundries system.

#ATTACK: Police in Armagh are investigating an arson attack at the home of prominent loyalist Willie Frazer in the early hours of this morning. According to the PSNI, patrolling officer found a car on fire "very close" to Frazer’s property, which was evacuated immediately. Frazer said the roof had caught on fire and smoke was filling the house when he was rescued.

#PROMISSORY NOTES: The Governor of the Central Bank has said the deal reached with the European Central Bank on promissory notes will not unravel and that Ireland's debt is now more sustainable than it was previously. Tasked with negotiating the agreement during the week, Honohan said it was important to note that the ECB did not object to the arrangement.

#HORSEMEAT: The head of the British parliament’s food affairs scrutiny panel,  Anne McIntosh, has called for a ban on importing meat from EU countries until the horsemeat scandal is resolved. “I believe there should be a moratorium on the movement of all meat until such time as we can trace the source of the contamination and until we can establish whether there has been fraud either of the meat or of the labelling,” she said.

#CANARY ISLANDS: Five people were killed and three injured earlier today when a lifeboat fell from a cruise liner during a safety drill while it was docked at La Palma in the Canary Islands. The regional rescue service said the injured were three men, including a Greek national, but no information has been released about those who lost their lives.

Nepalese Hindu women take holy dips at the Bagmati River during Madhav Narayan festival in Katmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. Unmarried Hindu women pray to meet and marry a good husband while the married women pray for the longevity of their husbands by observing a day long fast during the month long festival. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

THINGS WE LOVED:

• Today we welcomed "Little Huberbod*" into the world after actress Amy Huberman gave birth to a girl this morning (just hours after arriving at the IFTAs looking smokin', might we add) making Brian O’Driscoll a father just hours before taking to the field for Ireland’s all-important Six Nations tie against England (*unfortunately not really her name).
• Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so you'll probably be wondering about how to shower your beloved with affection without breaking the bank. May we suggest these very Irish marks of your esteem?

THINGS WE SHARED:

• Anyone who has parted ways with someone they love won't be surprised to hear that heartache can take a scary physical toll: "stress-induced cardiomyopathy" (aka a broken-heart) is a medical condition in which a person experiences sudden chest pains or believes they're having a heart attack.
• A group of Channel Islanders have recreated the final panels of the Bayeux tapestry - which is believed to have been made ten years after the the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
• Drones are now routinely used by the US military, and their benefits are regularly touted by officials; but even the best-intentioned public servants operating under decent intelligence can - and do - get things horribly wrong, writes Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic.

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