2014 Moscow school shooting. Two people are shot and killed and 29 students are taken hostage at a high school in Moscow, Russia. The suspected shooter, a 15-year-old student at the school, surrenders to authorities. It is one of the first school shootings to occur in Russia. (Reuters)
railway line linking London with the west of England is washed away by a powerful storm that has hit the UK overnight. Thousands of homes are also left without electricity. (BBC News)
government forces rages around the Aleppo Central Prison in the war-torn city of Aleppo, but it is unclear whether rebels control all or part of the facility. (CNN)
Rescue workers recover eight bodies from a South African gold mine in Doornkop following a fire on Tuesday night. One worker is missing while another eight were rescued. (BBC News)
Minister of State for Immigration Mark Harper resigns after it is discovered that a cleaner that he employed was not legally allowed to work in the United Kingdom. (Daily Mail)
The owners of Tazreen Fashions, Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter, hand themselves in to face charges of murder in relation to the death of 112 workers in a factory fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in November 2012. (The Globe and Mail)
Victoria with at least 34 houses lost. (Herald-Sun)
2013-14 United Kingdom floods:
The British Geological Society warns that 1.6 million properties in England and Wales are at risk from groundwater flooding with flood risks likely to be high until at least May. (Sky News)
U.S. House of Representatives votes to raise the government's borrowing limit for the next year, without attaching conditions, and sends the measure to the Senate for approval. (CNN)
Russia says it will veto a U.N. resolution on humanitarian aid access in Syria, claiming that the draft is an effort to prepare for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. (Reuters)
Militants in northwestern Pakistan kill nine male family members of a slain leader of a pro-government militia in an attack on the family's house outside the city of Peshawar. (AP via ABC)(CNN)
massive winter storm across states in the southern United States causes widespread power outages, travel disruptions and dangerous road conditions. (NBC)
During a two-day visit by an Egyptian delegation in
Sergey Shoigu added that this could include joint military exercises and training of Egyptian officers in Russian military academies. (Al-Ahram)(The Hindu)
The UK Government says that packages sent to several army careers offices had "potentially viable devices bearing hallmarks of Northern Ireland related terrorism". (BBC News)
From 18 to 43 people including civilians are killed and dozens wounded by a car bomb outside a mosque in the southern Syrian village of al-Yadouda according to local reports. (ABC News)
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta resigns after less than a year in office, following pressure from his own Democratic Party to step down. (CNN)
Sports
Five members of the 2014 induction class of the
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton is also elected as a contributor. The full induction class will be announced on April 7 and will be formally inducted on August 8. (AP via ESPN)
Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, calls on other sectarian forces in the Arab world to withdraw from Syria, saying that if they did so, Hezbollah would also "not remain in Syria either." (Reuters)
Eleven miners in South Africa are freed after being trapped in an illegal gold mine where they had opened up old sealed shafts but the remaining estimated 19 trapped miners are refusing to come out for fear of being arrested. (CNN)(Bloomberg)
Taliban militants in Pakistan say they have killed 23 captured Pakistani security force members, in a setback to peace talks aimed at ending the Islamist insurgency. (VOA)
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 between Addis Ababa and Rome is diverted to land at Geneva in an attempted hijacking by the co-pilot who claims to be seeking political asylum. (The Houston Chronicle)
Bushehr nuclear power plant in exchange for Iranian oil, under an oil-for-goods deal being negotiated that has alarmed the United States. (Reuters)(News 24)
Violent clashes between police forces and opposition demonstrators reignite in Kyiv, Ukraine. The death toll rises to 14, six of them policemen who were shot dead during the confrontation. (CNN)(BBC News)(Reuters)
Arts and culture
A
Ai Wei Wei is destroyed in Miami by a local vandal protesting the lack of exhibits promoting local art. (The New York Times)
Egyptian security officials say army helicopter gunships have rocketed several houses where militants were thought to have gathered in the northern region of the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 10. (Montreal Gazette)
Bogdana Matsotska of the Ukraine olympic team decides to pull out of the Winter Games in Sochi, as widespread anti-government protests back home leave dozens dead and hundreds injured. (BBC Sport)
Twenty-two-year-old Venezuelan beauty queen Génesis Carmona is shot in the head and killed while participating in a student protest against Nicolás Maduro's socialist government. (The New York Times)
Aogan O' Fearghail is elected as the 38th President of the GAA, and the first from Cavan in the organisation's 130-year history. (The Score)(BBC Sport)
The Ukrainian parliament votes to free Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister jailed for more than two years for what supporters say are politically tainted charges. She is released later in the day. (The Irish Times)(BBC News)
The Ukrainian parliament votes to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from his position. From his current base in Kharkiv, Yanukovych denounces the events in Kyiv as a "coup". (USA Today)
St Peter's Basilica in Rome. In addition, the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI makes his first public appearance at the Vatican since his resignation in 2013. (BBC News)
Sprint Cup Series, after the race is red flagged for several hours due to heavy rain, while a tornado warning is put into effect for the area. (Fox News)
Ukrainian economist and banker Stepan Kubiv, who worked as one of the commandants for the EuroMaidan demonstrations, is selected as governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. (Reuters)
Pope Francis, in the most significant reform of the Roman Curia in 25 years, creates a second Secretariat, for Economic Affairs, headed by a Cardinal (which will work with the Vatican Secretariat of State, the reformed Vatican bank, or IOR, and the other economic departments of the Roman Curia), which will have an office with the power to audit any Vatican agency at any time. (AP via MSN News)
The death toll in the Papua province of Indonesia reaches 11 as torrential rain continues to cause floods and landslides, occurring since Saturday. (News Corp Australia)
At least seven mourners are killed and 37 are injured as a bridge collapses as they are transporting a coffin in
Gary Melius, owner of Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York, the second largest private residence in the United States, is shot in the head in the castle parking lot. The gunman is still at large. (Los Angeles Times)
Over 1,400 gold coins from the mid-19th century that were buried in eight cans are discovered by an anonymous couple while walking their dog in Gold Country, California. The find dubbed the Saddle Ridge Hoard is expected to be worth over $10 million dollars (USD) and is the largest known hoard of gold coins ever found in the United States. (USA Today)
The United States administration formally declares that it no longer recognizes Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president as "his actions have undermined his legitimacy". (Guardian)
meat cleaver in his Hong Kong neighborhood. He is in critical condition. (CNN)
The two men convicted of the murder of Lee Rigby are sentenced to life imprisonment, Michael Adebolajo without the possibility of parole, and Michael Adebowale with the possibility of parole after 45 years. (BBC News)
Viktor Yanukovich, whose whereabouts remained unknown before he turned up in Russia, issues a statement saying that he is still the legitimate president and "ready to fight to the end" to fulfill his deal with the opposition. (USA Today)
Censors in Australia effectively ban the award-winning Swedish film Children's Island due to scenes of child nudity, with anyone caught selling or showing the film in public risking up to 10 years in prison. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, speaks to both houses of the Parliament of Great Britain and urges Britain's continued participation within the EU, but she ruled out German support for any far-reaching reform of the treaties that define it, such as many Britons think their government should demand. (Reuters)
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoes a bill that would have allowed businesses to discriminate, based on their religion, against LGBT people. (Al Jazeera)
Joanne Dennehy is given a whole life sentence for three murders and two attempted murders committed in 2013. (BBC News)
A stabbing spree in a Loblaws distribution centre in Edmonton, Alberta kills two, and injures four. The suspect, 29-year-old Jayme Pasieka, is arrested hours after the attack. (CNN)
Politics and elections
Russian businessman and oppositionist Gleb Fetisov, a co-chair of the
