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Earth, Wind & Fire soul band founder Maurice White dies –
The founder of soul group Earth, Wind & Fire, Maurice White, has died in the US, his brother has said. White, 74, died in his sleep in Los Angeles on Thursday morning. He suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. His band had a series of hits including September, Boogie Wonderland, Shining Star and After the Love has Gone. The singer-songwriter was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1992 but his condition was reported to have got worse in recent months. [BBC]
Maruice White 1982

Black tarantula named after Johnny Cash –
A new species of black tarantula that lives near Folsom Prison, California, has been named after Johnny Cash. The famously black-clad country singer wrote a song about the prison, and also played a historic series of concerts for inmates there in the 1960s. Aphonopelma johnnycashi is among 14 new tarantula species from the southern US which have been described by biologists in the journal ZooKeys. As part of his PhD research at Auburn University in Alabama, Chris Hamilton carefully whittled that down to 29. He eliminated a lot of double-counting, but also defined 14 species that were entirely new to science. “It’s a perfect name. It fits the spider – it’s found around Folsom and the males are predominantly all black, so it fits his image. “I have a Johnny Cash tattoo so I was very happy that it worked out that way.” [BBC]
The cover art for the album At Folsom Prison by the artist Johnny Cash. Copyright Columbia Pictures

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
  • A drone strike in Yemen‘s Shabwah Governorate kills six suspected Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants. (Jerusalem Post)
• Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, Battle of Aleppo (2012–present)
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports Russian airstrikes on several rebel-held neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo, kills at least 21 civilians. (AFP via Yahoo!)
  • Russia‘s Ministry of Defence accuses Turkey of preparing a military incursion into northern Syria, saying it had registered “a growing number of signs of hidden preparation of the Turkish Armed Forces for active actions on the territory of Syria”. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are active on the border of Syria involved in fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). (Reuters)

Business and economy

• The U.S. President Barack Obama will within days propose a plan to tax crude oil $10 a barrel in order to fund infrastructure spending, according to a White House statement. (Reuters).

Health

• Zika virus outbreak
  • The Polynesian state of Tonga declares a Zika virus epidemic with two confirmed cases and 265 suspected cases. (Radio New Zealand)
  • A pregnant woman is reported with the Zika virus in Spain – the first case in Europe. (BBC)

International relations

• Julian Assange
  • The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rules that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained. (BBC) (Reuters) (The Guardian)
• Trans-Pacific Partnership
  • Twelve nations, including the United States, sign the deal at SkyCity Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand. (BBC)(UPI)
• European migrant crisis
  • The President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, in an address to the Finnish parliament (Eduskunta), says the current flow of migrants into Europe threatens the continent’s Western values and that the UN‘sConvention relating to the Status of Refugees is outdated, saying “All estimates predict that the flow of people will increase this year. This is challenging the ability of Western democracies to help and also challenging the very structures underlying the idea of Europe”. (Yle News)

Law and crime

• The People’s Republic of China charges Zhao Liping, former Police Chief for Inner Mongolia with murder, bribery and possession of fire arms and explosives. (Reuters)
• The suspect in the murder investigation of former Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands Els Borst admits to have assassinated her citing political motivations. (NOS) (RTL Nieuws)
• Five adults and one child are found stabbed to death in the Chicago neighborhood of Gage Park in the U.S. (Chicago Tribune)
• Terrorism in Germany
  • German police arrest two Algerian men suspected of having links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and planning terror attacks in the country. One of the men detained, reported to be aged 35, had been living in a refugee shelter in the town of Attendorn, east of Cologne. Police say “investigations show that he has been trained militarily in Syria“. (BBC)

Politics

• Tamil national anthem
  • Sri Lanka lifts unofficial ban on Tamil national anthem on independence day. (New York Times) (Indian Express)

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