Portal:Current events/2013 March 12

March 12, 2013 (Tuesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian civil war:
- Syrian Army forces kill 30 army deserters in an ambush on the Damascus Airport road. (Reuters)
- The Syrian army launches intensive air strikes on Homs following the rebel's capture of the Baba Amr district. (Reuters) (BBC)
Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
- A Palestinian protestor is killed by Israeli forces after hurling stones and incendiary bottles in the West Bank. (Fox News) (BBC)

Arts and culture

English singer and lyricist Morrissey is diagnosed with severe pneumonia and hospitalised in San Francisco on his U.S. tour. (The Guardian)

Business and economy

The Better Business Bureau expels the Los Angeles chapter, the nation's largest chapter, over a pay-to-play scheme. (Los Angeles Times)
Google agrees to pay $7 millions to settle a privacy lawsuit over the handling of wireless data. (BBC) (AP via ABC News)
Japan's JOGMEC becomes the first to successfully extract methane hydrate from seabed deposits. (Reuters) (AFP via Google)
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management announces that it has purchased the rights to Twinkies and other Hostess Brands snacks and hopes to have the treats back on grocery shelves by summer. (Chicago Tribune)^{[permanent dead link]}

Disasters and accidents

An Israeli military helicopter Bell AH-1 Cobra crashes near Palmachim Airbase in southern Israel and kills two IAF pilots. (BBC) (Reuters) (Haaretz)
Frankfurt Airport is closed and Eurostar trains are suspended due to unseasonably heavy snowfall in Western Europe. (AP via News24) (BBC)
Four teenagers die after their car skidded on an icy patch and went through a bridge guardrail into Forked Creek near Wilmington, Illinois, United States. (AP via Peoria Journal Star)

Health and environment

A study finds a correlation between insufficient sleep and weight gain. (Counsel & Heal)
A Saudi Arabian man becomes the ninth person to die from the Novel coronavirus 2012. (Reuters)
At CITES meeting in Thailand, participating nations vote in effect various restrictions on the trade of critically endangered hardwood trees. (BBC)

Law and crime

South Africa exhumes the bodies of two people whose deaths may be tied to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of Nelson Mandela. (Business Week)
The secretive Opus Dei sect is mobilising within the Irish professions to interfere with abortion law reform, according to Senator John Crown. (The Guardian)
The United States Secret Service launches an investigation after hackers post what they claim is personal data and credit information of celebrities, including First Lady Michelle Obama, online. (SAPA via News24)
A U.S. judge entered a plea of not guilty on the behalf of alleged Aurora theater gunman James Holmes, after his lawyers said they were not ready to enter a plea. (AFP via News24)
Former New York City police officer Gilberto Valle is found guilty of plotting to kidnap, kill, and eat women. (BBC)
Authorities believe that a U.S. man suspected of killing his grandparents on March 8 in Renton, Washington, is barricaded in a hotel in Lincoln City, Oregon. (AP via San Francisco Chronicle)

Politics and elections

Religion

Science and technology

NASA holds a media conference to announce new discoveries about Mars made by the Curiosity rover. It was found that the planet could have once supported life. (Space.com) (NASA) (AP)
The "mysterious life form" detecting last week in Lake Vostok, Antarctica, turns out to be a false positive resulting from contamination. (Science World Report)

Sport