10 things you need to know today: March 3, 2015

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1. Netanyahu says he means no disrespect to Obama with speech
2. Hillary Clinton used only her personal email account at State Department
3. Sen. Barbara Mikulski announces her retirement
4. Judge rules Nebraska's gay marriage ban unconstitutional
5. Georgia delays woman's execution
6. Thieves steal $4 million in gold from truck in N.C.
7. ISIS threatens Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey
8. Mommy blogger Lacey Spears convicted in her son's death
9. Clinton's portrait included reference to Monica Lewinsky scandal, artist says
10. Google confirms plan to start small wireless service

published 3 March 2015

1. Netanyahu says he means no disrespect to Obama with speech

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his Tuesday speech to Congress was not intended to be a show of disrespect to President Obama, but that he felt a "moral obligation" to speak out against Obama's efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu was invited by Republican leaders who control Congress, not by Obama, in what the White House has called a breach of diplomatic protocol. The president has said he will not meet with Netanyahu during the trip, because that could be seen as interference in Israel's looming elections.

During her four years as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton used only her personal email account, rather than a government one, The New York Times reports. This may have violated the Federal Records Act, which requires preserving officials' emails on department servers so Congress, journalists, and historians can find them, with some exceptions for sensitive material. Clinton's advisers gave 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department two months ago, and a spokesman said she is adhering to the "letter and spirit of the rules."

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Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) announced Monday that she would not seek reelection in 2016, ending a congressional career that has spanned 10 years in the House and 30 years in the Senate. Mikulski, the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress, rose to the powerful position of Senate Appropriations Committee chair before losing the position when Republicans took over control of the Senate this year.

A federal judge on Monday struck down Nebraska's same-sex marriage ban, calling it unconstitutional. The state's voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment to the state's constitution to outlaw gay marriage in 2000. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled in favor of several plaintiffs who challenged the ban, but he put his decision on hold pending the hearing of an appeal Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson (R) filed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which already has similar cases in Missouri, Arkansas, and South Dakota before it.

Georgia halted the execution of the state's only female death-row inmate on Monday, due to problems with the lethal combination of drugs with which she was to be injected. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, was condemned to die for plotting with her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, to murder her husband in 1997. She was scheduled to become the first woman to be executed in Georgia since 1945. The Georgia Supreme Court turned down her request for a stay, but prison officials delayed the execution because the drugs appeared cloudy.

Three men stole three barrels of gold valued at $4 million from a truck in North Carolina, authorities said Monday. The truck's two security guards, who worked for the Miami firm Transvalue, said they pulled over on Interstate 95 due to mechanical trouble on the way from Miami to Massachusetts. The three armed men pulled up in a white van and made the guards lie down, then bound their hands behind their backs and left them in the woods. The robbers then took the gold and fled.

Islamic State militants on Monday threatened to kill Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey because the microblogging service has blocked ISIS-linked accounts. A message posted online also threatened Twitter with "real war." The threat was posted on Pastebin and attributed to ISIS, although its authenticity could not be immediately confirmed. Twitter said it had contacted authorities and that its security team was investigating the threats.

Parenting blogger Lacey Spears was convicted Monday of second degree murder in the death of her 5-year-old son, Garnett. The child died in January 2014 after high levels of sodium in his system led to swelling of his brain. Prosecutors said Garnett poisoned her son by injecting salt through a feeding tube, calling it "torture" she did for attention as she blogged about his health problems. Defense attorneys said there was no evidence against Spears, 27. She faces 15 years to life in prison when she is sentenced in April.

The artist who painted President Clinton's portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., told Philly.com that the work includes a reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The painter, Nelson Shanks, said he included a shadow in the image meant to have been cast by Lewinsky's infamous blue dress. Shanks said it was "a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him," cast by Clinton's affair with his then-intern.

Google plans to offer a small-scale wireless service, but it is designed to show off technological innovations rather than compete with the nation's leading carriers, Google Android executive Sundar Pichai said at an industry conference in Barcelona. The move could complicate Google's relationship with the big carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Google counts on them to promote Android phones, but its efforts to improve connections by tapping WiFi networks could reduce data traffic — and income — for carriers.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.