The United Steelworkers union strikes against Royal Dutch Shell Plc at nine U.S. oil and chemical plants. Up until recently oil prices had undergone steep drops since June, but the union's action as part of the supply chain caused the market price to soar more than eight percent. (Reuters)
Four-hundred African migrants charge past Moroccan border forces by throwing rocks, trying to storm border fences separating Spain's North African enclave Melilla, but Spanish guards repel them. (AP via Fox News)
A female suicide bomber attacks minutes after the President of Nigeria leaves an election rally in the city of Gombe resulting in at least one death and eighteen people injured. (BBC)
In the town of Chuddogram in eastern Bangladesh, anti-government protesters firebomb a bus full of sleeping passengers, leaving seven people dead. (AFP via ABC News)
Egyptian Army soldiers fire warning shots at the Gaza Strip after an explosion occurs on the Gaza side of the border near a convoy. (Reuters)
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant posts pictures of Jordanian Air Force pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh being burnt alive which Jordan believes are a month old. (BBC)
The Chad Army claims to have killed 200 militants and lost nine soldiers in fighting in northern Nigeria. (BBC)
Anthem discloses that criminal hackers have broken into its servers and potentially stolen over 80 million records that contain personally identifiable information from its servers. According to Anthem, the data breach extends into multiple brands Anthem uses to market its healthcare plans, including, Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Amerigroup, Caremore, Unicare, Healthlink, and DeCare. Anthem says the medical information and financial data was not compromised. (NBC News)(AP)
The United Arab Emirates suspends air strikes against the Islamic State after a video of a Jordanian air force pilot being burned alive is published online. The suspension involves concerns over a lack of coalition search and rescue capabilities in Syria to recover downed pilots. (NBC News)
The management of Twentieth Century Fox considers granting permission to a group of investors, including some hedge funds, seeking to amend the company's charter and turn their type of voting shares of stock into non-voting shares, a conversion that might raise that type of shares' market price and that also would further concentrate control in the hands of Rupert Murdoch and his family. (Reuters)
A gunman shoots six people, killing four, including several children, in Douglasville, Georgia, ending with the gunman committing suicide. (AP via FOX News)
Although greater than 90% vote in favor of the referendum, Slovak election officials deem the result invalid due to a low 21% voter turnout, far short of the 50% or greater turnout required for the results to be legally binding. (The Slovak Spectator)
In Cairo, Egypt, clashes between police and fans of Zamalek SC kill 22 people. Egyptian authorities indefinitely suspend football league matches. (BBC)(AP)
The U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, sets all-time records for amount of snow on the ground and amount of snow over 30-day and 40-day periods in 17 days. (WCVB)(NBC News)
Iraqi clashes and attacks kill at least 31 people. (AP)
Business and economy
Rite Aid, one of the largest chains of pharmacies in the United States, announces that it is purchasing EnvisionRx, a pharmacy benefits manager, from TPG Capital, for $2 billion. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
The Greek Coast Guard rescues all 22 crewmen from a Cyprus-flagged vessel Good Faith that ran aground on the Greek island of Andros during a storm in the Aegean Sea. (AP)
A court in the city of Grosseto convicts the former captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, of manslaughter for his part in the ship's January 2012 sinking, and sentences him to 16 years in jail. (BBC)
Little League Baseball strips Chicago's Little League championship team Jackie Robinson West of their 2014 Little League World Series US title after an investigation revealed the team had falsified boundaries to field ineligible players. The league names Mountain Ridge Little League of Las Vegas, Nevada, the US champion due to the vacating of Jackie Robinson West's wins. (AP)(Little League.org)
Six Taiwanese prisoners commit suicide after releasing hostages captured yesterday in Kaohsiung. The prisoners were protesting their sentences and alleged poor conditions of the Taiwanese prison system. (BBC)
Boko Haram militants attack Chad for the first time after 30 fighters crossed Lake Chad in four motorboats and attacked the village of Ngouboua. Chad recently joined Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon in a military coalition against Boko Haram. (BBC)
Voters elect Wang Rong Chairman of the People's Political Consultative Conference of Guangdong province, in China, replacing Zhu Mingguo, who was dismissed for corruption. (SCMP)
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warns of a threat to a planned ceasefire tonight from heavy fighting today and accuses Russia of "significantly increasing" its offensive. In a live interview he ordered all Ukrainian forces to cease fire after midnight. (BBC)
Myanmar launches air strikes against rebels in the Kokang area as dozens of soldiers have been killed and dozens more wounded in fightings in recent weeks. (AFP via France 24)
The United Arab Emirates suspends its embassy operations in Yemen due to security concerns surrounding the recent Shiite Houthi rebel take over of the country. (AFP via France 24)
A motorcycle gunman shoots and kills a journalist in the Philippines who had been critical of local officials' alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade. The murder of the journalist is the 34th since the regime of Benigno Aquino III began in 2010. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
A house under construction collapses in the Indian city of Mughalsarai in the state of Uttar Pradesh killing twelve people and injuring two. (NDTV)
Law and crime
A Turkish court remands seventeen police officers into custody for allegedly being part of an illegal wiretapping program targeting politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen. (LBC)
A heavy snow storm hits Turkey causing disruption to travel for several days. (Accuweather)
A bus carrying at least 60 passengers plunges into a gorge in India's Madhya Pradesh resulting in at least ten deaths and 33 people injured. (Times of India)
EBioMedicine publishes research by University of Leuven scientists describing their findings of a so-called Cuban variant of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (the virus that causes AIDS) which is an aggressive strain that can rapidly progress to AIDS. (FOX News)
Around 20 Okba Ibn Nafaa Islamist militants attack a checkpoint in Tunisia's central Kasserine region, killing four police officers and stealing their weapons. (Reuters)
Greece requests its partners in the eurozone for a six month loan program extension in an apparent compromise attempt; Germany has rejected the request. (BBC News)
Israel is hit by the heaviest snow storm in a century causing the closure of schools and highways in high places throughout the country. (Jerusalem Post)
The United Steelworkers union notifies the owner of the largest refinery in the United States that its members are on strike. The notification to Motiva constitutes a major escalation of ongoing labor-management confrontation in that industry. (Reuters)
NASA astronauts perform one of three ISS spacewalks to reroute cables needed in preparation for the 2017 arrival of the first commercial spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts. (AP)
The Ukrainian Army says it cannot withdraw its heavy weapons from the front, as it is still under attack from rebel forces despite the ceasefire. (Reuters)
Egyptian political activist Alaa Abdel Fatah is sentenced to five years in jail for violating a rule against organising political protests without permission. (Al Arabiyah)
Chadian soldiers kill over 200 Boko Haram fighters in a clash near the town of Garambu, close to Nigeria's border with Cameroon. One Chad Army soldier is killed and nine wounded. (Reuters)
Suicide bombers target two crowded bus stations in Potiskum and Kano in northern Nigeria, killing at least 27 people in nearly daily violence in the embattled region. There is no claim of responsibility for either blast, but both bore the hallmarks of militant group Boko Haram. (Voice of America)
Business and economy
Greece submits a list of eleven reforms it will proceed with to secure a loan extension. (BBC)
The British Parliament's House of Lords gives final approval to a bill that earlier in February had been approved in the House of Commons, refusing to block the plan by a majority of 232, that would allow, through a modified form of in vitro fertilization (IVF), the creation of three-person babies, to treat certain mitochondrial disorders (mitochondria are parts of cells that convert nutrients into useful cellular energy to fuel vital processes), by using a very small segment of mitochondrial DNA from another woman to replace the mother's defective DNA; the U.K. is the first to authorize the still ethically controversial procedure. (MSN)
Former U.K. Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind steps down as chair of a parliamentary intelligence committee and said he won’t run for re-election as a Conservative member of parliament after becoming embroiled in an embarrassing cash-for-access sting. (Guardian)
The Austrian Parliament passes a bill, partly aimed at tackling Islamist radicalism, that gives Muslims more legal security but bans foreign funding for mosques and imams. (BBC)
ISIS posts a video showing the destruction of Mosul Museum, the second largest in Iraq and rich in artifacts from thousands of years of Iraqi history. (National Post)
Norwegian police raid the offices of the Catholic Church’s diocese in Oslo, charging the church administration with serious fraud under the suspicion of wrongfully claiming as much as NOK 50 million in state support by presenting fraudulent membership statistics. (NewsInEnglish)
The municipal intermediate people’s court for the eastern city of Dongying convicts Ni Fake, former Vice-Governor of Anhui province in China, on charges of bribery and "amassing wealth of unclear origin", and sentences him to seventeen years in prison. (The Guardian)
