Eric Lee, a football player for Notre Dame in the US, talks on the phone during preparations for a college football game today in Miami (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

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

THINGS WE LEARNED

#NORTHERN IRELAND: Police in Belfast have been attacked by a crowd using fireworks, bricks and masonry as tensions continue to flare over loyalists protests about the flying of the Union flag in the city.

#SHOOTING: Three people have been shot dead by a gunman holding them hostage in Aurora, Colorado today, the scene of the gun massacre in a cinema last July. The gunman was shot dead by police who had surrounded the house.

#NURSES: Nurses have voted to boycott the HSE’s graduate recruitment scheme when it begins advertising jobs next week in protest at the plan to pay graduates 80 per cent of the usual salary paid to nurses.

#LINKING: The National Newspapers of Ireland is to be asked to appear before an Oireachtas committee to explain its position on charging websites for linking to Irish newspaper sites.

#ANIMAL CRUELTY: A three month old puppy has had its throat slashed in a horrific attack in Portlaoise. The dog, who has been named Taylor after boxer Katie Taylor, has undergone a two hour surgery.

#TRAGEDY: A 96-year-old woman was gagged and attacked during an aggravated burglary at her home in Donegal in the early hours of this morning. Separately a man in his early 60s has died in a fire at an apartment complex for pensioners in Dublin.

#OOPS: The Polish Prime Minister launched a major initiative to promote Polish families and encourage them to have more children this week – but he used a photograph of an Irish family at the launch by mistake. Oops.

THINGS WE LOVED

• You having a nice Saturday evening? Things going well? Great. Here’s 28 signs that YOUR CHILDHOOD IS OVER AND GROWING UP SUCKS.  Sorry.
• To make up for that, here’s a pretty amazing photograph of German ski jumper Severin Freund soaring through the air during his competition jump in Austria today:

(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

• John Kiriakou was a CIA officer who led the hunt for a major Al Qaeda figure. Now, he has become the first CIA officer to face prison for leaking classified information –  the name of an undercover agent –  to a journalist. In this meticulous and compelling piece, the New York Times tells his story.

THINGS WE SHARED

• This photograph by White House photographer Pete Souza shows the moment when Barack Obama was told about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut – which he later described as the worst day of his Presidency:

(Photo: The White House/Flickr)

• We’ve all imagined what it would be like if The Office was mixed up with The Hobbit, right? RIGHT? Anyway. The two are somehow mashed up in this surreal video where David Brent is Gandalf the Grey, lending slightly more authority than usual to his pronouncements:

(Video: eagerbeaverfilms/YouTube)