• European leaders emerged from 15 consecutive hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Belarus on Thursday to announce a cease-fire deal that would take effect Sunday between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
• The Wednesday deaths of 300 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe from Libya could have been prevented by better European Union life-saving provisions, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Thursday. About 3,500 migrants died trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean in 2014, according to the UNHCR.
• A gunman shot dead three students living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina before turning himself in to police on Tuesday afternoon. Members of the community, including the father of the students — a woman, her husband and her sister, all Muslims — called the execution-style murder a hate crime. The shooter, 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
• Philadelphia triumphed over New York City and Columbus, Ohio as the location for the July 25, 2015 Democratic National Convention (DNC), the DNC committee announced Thursday. The Republican National Committee will host its convention in Cleveland the week before.
• Three fires erupted across Georgia between Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. One firefighter was killed and five others were wounded at a Macon house fire at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Just after midnight on Thursday, a man was arrested for climbing a fire truck ladder to get back inside of his burning Hapeville apartment. Later that morning, authorities shut down Monroe Drive in Atlanta for over an hour due to a nearby house fire.
• The Gilmer County (GA) Sheriff’s Office announced on Thursday that two children who were reportedly abducted were found safe in another state. Authorities did not say whether they had arrested the suspect, 27-year-old Jonathan Lee Giddeons, for abducting 7-year-old Bryson Lee Giddeons and 6-year-old Mykalia Madison Giddeons.
— Compiled by Asst. News Editor Lydia O’Neal
News Roundup | 2.13.15
Courtesy of Marjory Collins / Wikimedia Commons.
