An artist works on the ‘Dracula’ character, next to ‘Castlevania’ and ‘Frankenstein’, at the annual Sand Sculpture Festival, in coastal town Blankenberge, Belgium, on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. The festival has more than 40 professional sand artists from all around the world, and covers an area of over 4,000 square meters.(AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

HERE ARE THE things we learned, loved and shared today as we round off the day in three easy steps.

THINGS WE LEARNED:

#ABORTION: The final wording of Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill, which will allow abortion in limited circumstances to be carried out in Ireland, is set to be published this evening after ministers signed off on its contents at a special meeting today. The publication of the final text of the legislation will allow it to begin the official process of being passed through the Oireachtas.

#RIP: Three men have died after their small fishing boat capsized in waters off Co Waterford. The men had been out in a 20-foot ‘punt’, a small man-powered fishing boat, about half a mile off Brownstown Head near Tramore, and the alarm was raised when a local fisherman realised that the vessel had not returned from its trip.

#SENTENCING: Sexual abuse survivor Fiona Doyle, whose case was thrust into the national spotlight last year after a controversial judicial decision, is backing calls to bring in minimum sentencing for rape. Doyle, who was raped over a period of ten years by her father, has backed a report published yesterday by the Law Reform Commission stating that judges be allowed recommend a specific minimum term an offender should serve – which would bring Ireland into line with other jurisdictions.

#INFECTIONS: A Derry hospital has confirmed that three babies at the facility have been infected with MSSA since May. Altnagelvin Hospital, which was at the centre of last year’s pseudomonas outbreak, says the affected infants are currently ‘stable’ in the neonatal intensive care unit.

#OMBUDSMAN: An Ombudsman report has found that the HSE had “no proper basis” to refuse payment to a woman who was forced to wait for over a year for assistance in Ireland after fleeing South Africa after the murder of her husband. The report  said the “failure caused significant adverse consequences over an extended period for the family”, with one of her young daughters becoming suicidal.

#FLIGHTS: Ryanair and Aer Lingus have been forced to cancel flights today as a result of strike action by air traffic controllers in France. Four Aer Lingus flights and another four Ryanair flights either to or from Dublin have been cancelled. In total, Ryanair has had to cancel over 200 flights across Europe.

Selma, the turtle grabs the attention of a stray cat, while on her daily walk out, near Taksim square, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

THINGS WE LOVED:

• Someone – who we imagine is very odd and very passionate in equal parts – has taken on the mission of stapling dresses onto risqué billboards advertising Rihanna’s Aviva stadium show across Dublin. Yes, you read that right. No, we don’t know where people find the time either.
• This list of compelling arguments about why no-one should mess with the ocean (or, preferably, go anywhere near it).
• We might joke about stress making your hair turn grey… but it seems it’s actually true.

THINGS WE SHARED:

• US polls this week found strong support for the country’s National Security Agency accessing the information of millions of citizens. Writing in the Guardian, Ana Marie Cox asks if the sanguine response to government intrusion demonstrates a creeping loss of a desire for privacy in a digital world.
• “When I was a teenager, I made a vow never to become like my mother. I would never sacrifice myself to family in the way my mother seemed to have done. I would put my own work first — whatever that would be… But I was wrong. Or perhaps just young, which isn’t quite the same thing…” Helen Hayward writes frankly in Aeon magazine about why motherhood is not what she expected – and why she is not the kind of mother she expected to be.

You might think you’ve heard Daft Punk’s Get Lucky quite enough, and we’d be with you on that one, but you should really watch this video anyway. It shows the ‘evolution’ of the song from 1920–2020 and it’s pretty great.

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