February2018 was the second month of that common year. The month, which began on a
Thursday, ended on a
Wednesday after 28 days. There were no full moons in that month.
The
Canadian Senate agrees with the
House of Commons to make the Canadian national anthem, "
O Canada", gender neutral. The second line of the song will now read "in all of us" instead of "in all thy sons."
(NPR)
A framework accord between
the Vatican and
China on the
appointment of bishops is ready and could be signed in a few months in what would be an historic breakthrough in relations, according to a senior Vatican source.
(Reuters)
Two 15-year-old students are seriously wounded and three other people injured in a shooting at Sal Castro Middle School in
Los Angeles,
California. A 12-year-old female student is taken into custody.
(CNN)
5 people are shot and 17 others sustain injuries during mass fighting between Afghan and Eritrean migrant groups in
Calais, France. A 37-year old Afghan man is suspected of having critically wounded four Eritrean teenagers at a queue for food handouts.
(BBC)
NASA confirms that Scott Tilley, a
Canadianamateur astronomer and
satellite tracker, has rediscovered NASA's
IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration) satellite while he was searching for the U.S. government's classified
Zuma satellite. NASA engineers will try to analyze the data from the spacecraft to learn more about the state of the spacecraft.
(The Independent)(Phys.org)
YouTube, in a move to boost
transparency and combat propaganda, announces that it will start to label videos by broadcasters that receive state-funding.
(The Hill)
As the sole perpetrator of the 19 June 2017 attack on Muslims in London, Darren Osborne is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murder.
(Al Jazeera)
An Arizonan ammunition dealer is charged in a Nevada federal court with "conspiracy to manufacture and sell armor-piercing ammunition without a license" after his fingerprints were discovered on unfired armor-piercing ammunition inside
Stephen Paddock's suite.
(Reuters)
The document is released through the
House Intelligence Committee's website. Opinions on the memo were largely mixed, with Democrats, some Republicans and several national security experts suggesting that certain details in the document confirm prior reports surrounding the reasoning for the FBI's decision to conduct the investigation. Critics of the memo suggested that its release was a partisan attempt to undermine and discredit Special Counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into possible ties between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russian intelligence associates, and posed a risk to national security .
(CNN)
The United States releases a new policy on nuclear arms, the first update since 2010. It calls for the introduction of two new types of
weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal: low-
yield nuclear submarine-launched ballistic (
SLBM) and cruise (
SLCM) missiles.
(Denver Post)(NPR)
A shooting in
Macerata,
Italy, leaves six African immigrants wounded. The suspect is arrested and the case is being treated as a racially motivated crime.
(BBC)
Israeli authorities tear down parts of a
European Union-funded school in the
Palestinian village of Abu Nuwar, on the occupied West Bank, saying it was built illegally. Palestinians say this is the fifth such demolition since 2016, with residents and
NGO's each time reconstructing it.
(Reuters)
Robert Doyle resigns as
Lord Mayor of Melbourne after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him. Melbourne City Council is investigating the allegations.
(BBC)
Syrian government airstrikes pound rebel-held Eastern
Ghouta enclave near the capital
Damascus, killing at least 23 civilians including four children.
(Al Jazeera)(Times of Israel)
In the
United States, billionaire
Steve Wynn, best known for his casino hotels and resorts, resigns as CEO of
Wynn Resorts following sexual harassment reports, including a $7.5 million settlement with a former worker at his
Las Vegas resort.
(The New York Times)
Former
President of the MaldivesMohamed Nasheed calls from exile for other countries to intervene in a political crisis engulfing the island nation. Nasheed asks
India to help release prisoners and the
United States to curb leaders' financial transactions.
(BBC)
SpaceX successfully launches its
Falcon Heavy rocket, a feat the space company hopes will lead to increased commercial and national security missions. Both boosters were successfully landed and recovered. The core didn't land and was softly ditched in the water near the drone ship. The rocket launched
Elon Musk's
Tesla Roadster, playing "
Life on Mars" by
David Bowie, which is expected to be in an
elliptic orbit of the sun, close to
Mars, for several hundred million years.
(Los Angeles Times)
Without peer-review publication researchers at
London's Natural History Museum state that the DNA extracted from "
Cheddar Man" reveals that early inhabitants of
Great Britain had blue eyes and dark skin. The name "Cheddar Man" was given to a fossil of a human man that lived thousands of years ago, which was discovered in 1903. Some scientists in the field state that the sample may have been contaminated with modern DNA weakening the results.
(BBC),
(The New York Times),
(Gene Expression)
Syria and the
Russian Federation once again state that the
United States' military presence in Syria is "illegal". United States and US-backed forces now have control of about a quarter of Syrian territory.
(The Washington Post)
A force of five hundred Syrian pro-government troops supported by tanks and artillery launched a ground assault on a local headquarters of the
Syrian Democratic Forces near the town of
Khasham, in the
Deir ez-Zor Governorate. More than one hundred Syrian government fighters were killed in the battle, including Russian private military contractors of
Wagner Group.
(The Washington Post)
A senior
European External Action Service official says that the
European Union, in order to protect its companies doing business with
Iran, could implement "blocking regulations" based on a legal framework set up in 1996 for E.U. trade with
Cuba, should the
United States pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal and restore its sanctions.
(Reuters)
Bermuda repeals
same-sex marriage, becoming the world's first jurisdiction to legalise, then repeal same-sex marriage. However, about half a dozen same-sex marriages that took place in Bermuda between the Supreme Court ruling in May 2017 and the repeal will continue to be recognised.
(The Guardian)
Jeff Kruse announces his resignation from the
Oregon State Senate, effective March 15, amid allegations that he sexually harassed female colleagues and other staffers. Kruse denies the allegations.
(USA Today)
Researchers at the
University of Edinburgh claim they have successfully brought prepubescent-sourced,
immaturehumanegg cells to
maturity in a laboratory for the first time. The work may be significant because it may allow the harvesting and preservation of eggs from young girls undergoing
toxic cancer treatment before their lifetime reservoirs of those cells are destroyed.
(BBC)(Oxford Academic)
As predicted, asteroid
2018 CB, estimated to be between 15 and 40 metres (50–130 feet) in diameter, makes a fly-by past
Earth at a distance of around 64,500 km (40,100 mi). This is the second asteroid to make a fly-by this week.
(The Guardian)
Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi visits
Palestine, saying that he backs an independent Palestine state. This event has been labeled as "historic" as it is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Palestine.
(Al Jazeera)
Two officers of the
Westerville, Ohio Police Department are shot and killed (one died immediately, one later at the hospital) in an
ambush-type attack which had begun as a domestic dispute between the male perpetrator, who was wounded during the incident, and his wife.
(CNN)
Emergency teams comb snowy fields outside
Moscow Monday for debris from a crashed
Russianairliner and the remains of the 71 people who died.
Transport Minister
Maksim Sokolov says that emergency teams have already found the plane's
flight data recorder, which will help them determine the crash's cause, but notes that the search for the victims' remains will take at least a week.
(AP via Daily Mail)
In closed-door proceedings at an
Israeli military court in
Ofer Prison, near
Ramallah, 17-year-old Palestinian activist
Ahed Tamimi is indicted on 12 counts of assault and incitement. She is ordered held until the end of the trial, which is adjourned until next month.
(PRI)(VOA)
Israeli police recommend indicting Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu with charges of corruption and bribery. Netanyahu calls the accusations "baseless".
(NBC News)
Former President
Alvaro Colom and his entire government cabinet were arrested for their alleged participation in a new corruption case investigated by
CICIG and the MP. They were sent to preventive detention at the Mariscal Zavala Military Center.
(Deutsche Welle)
A new plane that would fly from
London to
New York City in three hours has just received crucial funding. The aircraft, officially named
Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) and dubbed the "Son of
Concorde", was proposed by
NASA and has just been given the go-ahead by US officials. QueSST could make its maiden voyage in 2021 if all goes according to plan. If so, it will halve the current travel time between London and New York City.
(Metro)
After the first trial on the attacks, Jawad Bendaoud is acquitted. Bendaoud rented an apartment to two of the attackers but denied knowing what they planned. Mohamed Soumah is sentenced to five years in jail for acting as an intermediary, and Youssef Ait-Boulahcen to three years for failing to inform authorities.
(Digital Journal)
The remains of Maëlys de Araujo, a nine-year-old girl who disappeared from a wedding in
France in August 2017, are found after suspect Nordahl Lelandais guides investigators to the site.
(RTE.ie)
The
United Kingdomgovernment and the
United StatesWhite House accuse the
Russian military of being responsible for the launch of the NotPetya malware in June 2017. The White House calls it the most destructive and costly cyberattack in history and says Russia will be met with unspecified "international consequences". Russia denies responsibility and dismisses the accusation as "groundless", lacking evidence, and "Russophobic".
(Washington Examiner)
A teenager is arrested for allegedly planning a
school shooting in
Everett, Washington. Police found a semi-automatic rifle hidden in a guitar case along with bomb-making equipment.
(CBS News)
Three days after the previous, stronger earthquake, a 5.9-magnitude possible
aftershock strikes again near the coast of
Oaxaca and is widely felt across Southern and Central
Mexico. No victims are reported so far.
(Reuters)
A collapse at a garbage dump in
Mozambique kills at least 17 people.
(BBC)
A court sentences
Matthew Falder, convicted on 137 charges, to 32 years in jail after confessing to blackmailing numerous teenagers into performing sexual acts.
(The Guardian)
Iranian forces have spotted the wreckage of the missing Aseman Airliner 30 meters below a hilltop on mount
Dena. Helicopters could not land yet at the crash site due to weather and topographical conditions. 65 people are feared dead.
(PressTV)
Indonesia's
Mount Sinabung has a massive eruption, completely destroying the volcano's peak, with ash reaching over 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) high. Much of the surrounding area is covered with ash.
(Quartz)
The
Nigerian military rescues 76 schoolgirls taken on Monday during a Boko Haram raid on the village of
Dapchi,
Yobe State. The bodies of two girls were recovered, and at least thirteen other students remain missing.
(Reuters)(Daily Trust)
U.S. PresidentDonald Trump meets in the
White HouseState Dining Room with parents and friends of young people killed in school shootings to discuss what needs to be done. Suggestions for the president included a number of items to make schools safer, and for Trump to "put politics aside" and back gun control measures.
(NBC News)(AP via Star Tribune)
Russian police detained the political activist
Alexei Navalny and his chief of staff
Leonid Volkov, who will be taken to court for having organized an unauthorized protest on January 28. Navalny claims that the authorities want him in jail when the upcoming presidential election occurs on March 18.
(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Rick Gates pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy against the United States and making false statements, and agrees to cooperate with the Special Counsel investigation.
(NPR)
Documents obtained through legal discovery filings during the ongoing
FBI probe into college basketball corruption reveal potential current and retroactive
NCAA rules issues for at least 20
Division I programs and more than 25 players. In addition to programs named when federal criminal charges were first revealed in September 2017, among the programs potentially implicated in the new documents are
Duke,
Kentucky, and
North Carolina.
(Yahoo! Sports)
Islamist car suicide bombers and gunmen try to storm the headquarters of a counter-terrorism unit in the southern port city of
Aden, killing at least 14 people and wounding 40 others.
(Reuters)
Three bombs explode in
Sittwe, the capital of
Myanmar's
Rakhine State, slightly injuring a police officer. Three other unexploded bombs are defused around the city. It is unclear who was behind the bombs, but most of them were placed next to government-related buildings.
(BBC),
(Voice of America News)
An explosion destroys a store and a house, causing at least five deaths on Hinckley Road in
Leicester,
England. The cause of the explosion and subsequent fire is unknown.
(BBC)
A mass shooting at a bar in the town of
Comerio,
Puerto Rico, near the capital
San Juan, leaves at least five people dead and one other injured.
(CBS News)
An
Iraqi court sentences 15
Turkish women to death by hanging after they were found guilty of joining the
ISIS group as brides.
(Newsweek)
Five
Dutch nationals and a
Colombian are arrested at the staged delivery operation in
Oss, Netherlands, of a container with 4,500 kilograms (9,900 lb) of
cocaine and bananas for cover, originating from Colombia, that was previously intercepted in the
Port of Antwerp.
(NL Times)
Five unnamed Western European security sources say that
North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un and his father
Kim Jong-il used fraudulently obtained
Brazilian passports in order to apply for visas to visit Western countries in the 1990s.
(Reuters)
A letter containing an unknown substance opened at a
U.S. military base in
Arlington,
Virginia, leaves 11 people ill, with three being hospitalized.
(Reuters)
The death toll from clashes between militias in the
Rutshuru Territory of the
North Kivu province,
DR Congo, rises to 23 people. The renewed violence has been ongoing since February 25.
(New Vision)
The
Met Office issues its highest level warning, a red alert for parts of
Scotland due to heavy snow. It is the first time a red alert has ever been issued in Scotland, and only the second time anywhere in the
United Kingdom.
(BBC)
A collision between a passenger and a cargo train in
Beheira,
Egypt kills 15 people and injures 40 more.
(Egypt Independent)