10 things you need to know today: September 12, 2014

1. Arab states agree to do more to defeat ISIS

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states agreed Thursday to expand their military participation in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The commitment came in a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry and leaders from 10 nations in the Middle East the day after President Obama announced an expanded campaign against the Sunni extremist group. Some countries, including Egypt, were lukewarm to the plan, avoiding specific commitments, while others, including Saudi Arabia, said they would open more bases for airstrike launches and training.

The Washington Post The New York Times

2. Pistorius found guilty of culpable homicide

A South African judge on Friday found double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, for killing his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, last year. The conviction carries up to 15 years in prison. Judge Thokozile Masipa had cleared Pistorius of murder charges a day earlier. Masipa accepted Pistorius' assertion that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired four shots through a locked bathroom door, but said he "acted too hastily and used excessive force."

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Los Angeles Times

3. Missouri lawmakers approve a 72-hour wait for women to get abortions

Missouri's Republican-controlled legislature has enacted a 72-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions. The new waiting period, which will take effect in October, is one of the strictest policies of its kind in the nation. The old policy allowed women to get abortions 24 hours after receiving counseling. Republicans pushed through the measure over a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat. Utah and South Dakota are the only other states requiring three-day waits.

The New York Times

4. CIA says ISIS has gained tens of thousands of new fighters

The CIA on Thursday tripled its estimate of the number of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters to 31,000, three times as many as previously feared. The agency said the revision was based on intelligence gathered from May to August. The change partly reflected the group's "stronger recruitment since June" following a string of battlefield victories, a CIA spokesman said.

BBC News

5. Europe and the U.S. broaden Russia sanctions over Ukraine

The U.S. is joining Europe in imposing new sanctions against Russia over its support for separatists in Ukraine, President Obama said Thursday. Washington plans to broaden restrictions against Russian financial, energy, and defense industries. The EU said its sanctions would take effect on Friday, but that it would lift them as soon as Moscow showed that it was making a sincere effort to end the conflict. Russia said it was already trying to stop the fighting, and called the sanctions "unfriendly."

Bloomberg News

6. Islamist rebels release Fijian peacekeepers captured in the Golan Heights

Islamist militants on Thursday released 45 United Nations peacekeepers from Fiji who were captured two weeks ago on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights. The U.N. said no ransom was paid, and no concessions were made to the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants who were holding the peacekeepers. The Arab Gulf emirate of Qatar, a backer of Syrian opposition fighters, said it had played a role in negotiating the release of the peacekeepers, part of a 1,200-member U.N. force in the area.

The Associated Press

7. Yahoo faced the threat of $250,000-a-day fines for refusing to give the NSA data

The federal government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 to get it to hand over user data for National Security Agency surveillance programs, Yahoo said Thursday. The internet firm's general counsel, Ron Bell, announced the news after the company won a fight to release 1,500 pages related to the case, in which a secret surveillance court sided with the government but found the broad data request to be unconstitutional. Bell said the documents show how Yahoo "had to fight every step" to protect user information.

The Washington Post

8. Obama says 9/11 terrorists failed to "break us"

Americans solemnly observed the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Thursday, as the Obama administration and governments around the world confront the new threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. "Thirteen years after small and hateful minds conspired to break us, America stands tall and America stands proud," President Obama told survivors and victims' families at the Pentagon, the day after he unveiled a new strategy for defeating ISIS.

ABC News

9. Teen imprisoned for a deadly 2012 Ohio school shooting recaptured

Nineteen-year-old T.J. Lane, who was convicted for killing three students at an Ohio high school, was recaptured six hours after scaling a fence and escaping prison on Thursday. Lane, who was serving three life sentences after pleading guilty to the 2012 murders last year, was found 100 yards from the prison outside a church, and did not put up a fight. Two others who escaped with him were also caught.

CNN

10. Researchers unveil evidence of the first swimming dinosaur

Spinosauraus, a massive meat-eating predator, might have been the first dinosaur to live entirely in water, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science. The 50-foot-long beast swam in the rivers of North Africa 97 million years ago. The researchers based their conclusion on new fossils found in the Moroccan Sahara, which included a crocodilian snout, paddle-like feet, and dense bones for buoyancy. It also had a small nostril located far back on the head, which would have limited water intake.

Science National Geographic