Top News Stories –

Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert over bathroom bill –
Rock star Bruce Springsteen on Friday canceled a concert scheduled for this weekend in North Carolina to protest a new state law restricting bathroom use by transgender individuals, as country music stars decried similar legislation proposed in Tennessee. Springsteen said in an online statement that the North Carolina law was “an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.” Tickets for the concert that was to be presented on Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina, would be refunded, according to Springsteen’s website. PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) cited the discriminatory nature of the law when it canceled on Tuesday a new operations center that was to employ 400 workers in Charlotte. [Reuters] In March Springsteen signed a late note for a schoolboy who came to one of his concerts
Bruce Springsteen

SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform –
The US aerospace company SpaceX has successfully landed a resusable rocket on an ocean platform, after four previous attempts failed. Mission controllers cheered as the Falcon 9 rocket remained upright on the platform off Florida. It was returning from delivering an inflatable habitat into space for Nasa. The inflatable room will attach to the International Space Station (ISS) for a two-year test and become the first such habitat to for humans in orbit. It is due to reach the ISS around 09:00 GMT on Sunday along with other freight aboard the Dragon capsule. Built by Nevada company Bigelow Aerospace, the habitat is intended to pave the way towards the use of such rooms for long space trips, including to Mars. [BBC] See Video of the Day

Video of the Day –

SpaceX lands rocket at sea, makes history –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Sinai insurgency
  • At least seven people are killed, including five Egyptian Army soldiers, a military officer and a civilian woman in two separate blasts in Egypt‘s Sinai Peninsula. ISIL’s Sinai branch claimed responsibility for the attacks on several websites. (Reuters)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • Hīt offensive (2016)
    • The Iraqi Army recaptures the western town of Hīt, Al Anbar Governorate, after driving out hundreds of ISIL militants. (Reuters)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Damascus offensive (April 2016)
    • ISIL militants reportedly execute 175 workers who were captured earlier this week at a cement factory situated to the east of Damascus. (RT) (Daily Mail)
• 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes
  • An ethnic Armenian soldier dies in overnight clashes. (News Armenia)

Arts and culture

• Pope Francis issues Amoris Laetitia or the Joy of Love, a document on the Roman Catholic approach to love, sex, marriage and family life. (AP)
  • In the 256-page document, the Pope encourages the clergy to embrace sinners as well as saints, opens the door a bit for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and stresses that Catholics, with their own informed consciences guided by the light of the Gospel, address tricky moral questions in their life, and not only be guided by dogmatic rules from above. Francis also asserts the right to a natural deathwithout aggressive treatment; firmly rejects the death penalty; and reiterates the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage. (AP²) (The Washington Post) (Vatican)
• North Carolina bathroom bill
  • Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band cancels their Sunday night concert in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest the state’s controversial “bathroom bill.” (Rolling Stone)

Business and economics

• Both Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide and Marriott International shareholders approve Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood, which will create the world’s largest hotelier. The deal has cleared the pre-merger antitrust reviews in the United States and Canada; approvals from the European Union and China is pending. Last week, Anbang Insurance Group topped Marriott’s bid, then withdrew their offer three days later. (Reuters) (UPI)

Disasters and accidents

• At least 50 people are reportedly injured following a head-on collision between two commuter trains in San José, Costa Rica. (WRAL)
• Three people are killed, and there was one survivor, following the crash of a small plane headed to Angoon in Southeast Alaska, United States. (KTUU-TV)

International relations

• North Korea–South Korea relations, North Korean defectors
  • A group of 13 North Koreans working at a restaurant in an unidentified country defect en masse to South Korea, according to Seoul‘s Ministry of Unification. (USA Today)
• Egypt–Saudi Arabia relations
  • King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud announces, during his trip to Cairo, that a bridge crossing the Red Sea will be built, linking Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi says the bridge will be named after the Saudi monarch. A Saudi–Egypt Causeway project has been in the works for years. (BBC)
• Syria–United States relations
  • Syria releases American freelance photographer Kevin Patrick Dawes who was kidnapped in 2012. (Washington Post)
• NATO–Russia relations
  • NATO announces it will hold a meeting of the NATO–Russia Council at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels in the next two weeks after a two-year break since NATO cut all practical cooperation with Russia in 2014. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• Egypt–Italy relations, Murder of Giulio Regeni
  • Italy recalls its ambassador to Egypt for consultations in protest over the lack of progress in a probe into the fate of murdered Cambridge University student Giulio Regeni. “We want only one thing, the truth about what happened to Giulio,” Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Friday. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• China-Russia relations
  • Russia postpones a transfer of missile engines to China. There is concern the technology could be passed on to a third country, such as North Korea. China is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary, informal partnership between 34 countries to prevent proliferation of missile delivery systems that could carry weapons of mass destruction. (UPI)
• Bangladesh–United States relations
  • U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemns Wednesday’s “barbaric murder” of Nazimuddin Samad, and says federal officials are considering granting refuge to a select number ofBangladeshi writers who are under “imminent danger” because of their critical views of radical Islamists. (UPI)

Law and crime

• At least two people are reported dead following a shooting at Lackland Air Force Base, in the U.S. state of Texas. (CNBC)
• Aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks
  • Mohamed Abrini, wanted in connection with the 2015 Paris attacks, is arrested in Belgium. (Reuters via Ynet)
• Panama Papers
  • El Salvador officials seize documents and equipment during a raid of the local offices of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Attorney General Douglas Melendez says authorities interviewed seven employees, and confiscated 20 computers and some documents. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• The French occupy movement known as Nuit debout enters its ninth day, “March 40,” spreading across dozens of French cities and to Belgium, Germany, and Spain. (The Guardian)
• Djiboutian presidential election, 2016
  • Voters in Djibouti go to the polls for the first round of voting in a presidential election with current President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh winning a fourth term in office. (BBC), (AFP via Daily Mail)
• A Myanmar court releases 69 jailed student activists in the first wave of amnesty for the country’s political prisoners, with more releases expected. This comes after State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi vowed to push for the release of all the political prisoners in Myanmar. (Al Jazeera)
• The Prime Minister of Madagascar Jean Ravelonarivo and his cabinet resign from office with no explanation given. (The Guardian)
• Macedonian opposition leader Zoran Zaev pledges to boycott the early Macedonian parliamentary elections, saying it is due to a lack of government reforms. (Business Insider)
• LGBT rights in the United States
  • A group of United States mayors forms “Mayors Against Discrimination” in the wake of recent discriminatory laws enacted in North Carolina and Mississippi against LBGT individuals. The founding members are city leaders from Honolulu, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Oakland, San Francisco, Sante Fe, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. (AP) (Huffington Post) (Mayor Edward Murray)
• United States presidential election, 2016
  • The Colorado Republican Party continues choosing its delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Ted Cruz has swept all of the delegates available so far. The process which began last Saturday (April 2, 2016) will conclude tomorrow. (Washington Post)

Science and technology

• SpaceX CRS-8
  • SpaceX launches a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station, and in a spaceflight first, successfully lands its reusable main-stage booster on an autonomous spaceport drone ship. (The Verge)(Reuters)

Sport

• Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko says they will not open up a formal investigation into the doping scandals that were reported by the World Anti-Doping Agency last November, where it documented Russian athletes systematically taking banned performance-enhancing drugs with state support. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

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