10 things you need to know today: March 2, 2015

(Image credit: (Photo by Amos Ben Gershom/GPO via Getty Images))

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1. Netanyahu arrives ahead of controversial address to Congress
2. Shooting of homeless man by L.A. police caught on video
3. Boston braces for another winter record
4. DOJ report to detail alleged racial bias in Ferguson traffic stops
5. Iraq launches offensive to retake Tikrit from ISIS
6. Astronauts take third spacewalk to prepare for new crew capsules
7. Man identified as "Jihadi John" described as cold loner
8. Bangladesh police arrest suspect in U.S. blogger's murder
9. North Korea fires missiles ahead of U.S.-South Korea drills
10. White Sox legend Minnie Minoso dies at age 90

last updated 2 March 2015

1. Netanyahu arrives ahead of controversial address to Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the United States on Sunday ahead of a Tuesday address to Congress on Iran. Netanyahu was invited by GOP leaders in Congress who share his opposition to the Obama administration's attempt to negotiate a deal with Iran to curb its controversial nuclear program. National Security Adviser Susan Rice has called Netanyahu's address "destructive," but Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that Netanyahu was "welcome" and that U.S.-Israel security ties remained close.

Dozens of people gathered Sunday night at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles to protest the shooting death of a man in the city's skid row area earlier in the day. The shooting was caught on camera by a witness, and posted to Facebook. Police said officers responding to a 911 call about a possible robbery approached the man, and he "began fighting and physically resisting." There was a struggle over an officer's weapon, police said, before two officers and a sergeant shot the man.

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Another snowstorm barreled toward Boston overnight on Sunday, adding to record snowfall in the month of February. The city has already weathered its second snowiest season every with 102 inches, just 5.6 inches below the record 1995-1996 season. The latest storm is expected to pile on as much as another six inches by early Monday, which would make this the city's snowiest winter. This winter blast should be brief, though. Forecasters expect the storm to clear out of the Northeast by late morning.

A nearly complete Justice Department report will accuse Ferguson, Missouri, police of discriminating against African Americans in traffic stops, according to law enforcement officials. The disproportionate ticketing and arrests of black drivers allegedly contributed to racial tensions that led up to last year's fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, by a white officer. The report is expected to be released as early as this week. Ferguson officials will either have to negotiate a settlement or face a civil rights lawsuit.

A large-scale military operation by Iraqi government forces to take back Tikrit from ISIS is underway, Iraqi state television reports. They are backed by artillery and airstrikes by Iraqi fighter jets, and militants are said to have been forced out of some areas outside of the city 80 miles north of Baghdad. Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, fell to ISIS last summer, and before the operation, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Sunni fighters that if they left ISIS, they would be pardoned.

Astronauts conducted their third spacewalk in a week on Sunday to install 400 feet of power and data cable, and two antennas at the International Space Station. The equipment is needed for docking ports to accommodate new crew capsules being built for NASA by Boeing and SpaceX. Two docking ports will be flown to the station later this year, and the capsules are expected to start flying up with astronauts on board in 2017. NASA has not had such a busy flurry of spacewalks since it retired the space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Details continue to emerge about Mohammed Emwazi, the London-raised man identified as the masked killer shown in Islamic State videos of the beheadings of Western hostages in Syria. A former teacher said that before Emwazi, 26, became known as "Jihadi John" he was a "hard-working, aspirational" student who was once bullied by classmates. A former ISIS militant described Emwazi as a cold loner who kept to himself. "He didn't talk much," the man, Abu Ayman, said. "He wouldn't join us in prayer."

Authorities in Bangladesh have arrested a suspect in last week's gruesome murder of Avijit Roy, an American atheist blogger who has been an outspoken critic of Islamist extremists. The suspect, Farabi Shafiur Rahman, is a Muslim blogger who has denounced atheism and threatened Roy on Facebook. In one post, a police spokesman said, Rahman wrote, "Avijit Roy lives in America, so it’s not possible to kill him right now. But he will be killed when he comes back."

North Korea fired two short-range Scud ballistic missiles into the sea to protest annual South Korea-U.S. military drills that start Monday. South Korea called the launches "foolhardy and provocative," saying they violated United Nations Security Council resolutions against North Korean missile programs. North Korea has called for the U.S. and South Korea to cancel the drills, calling them a rehearsal for a "nuclear war of invasion." The allies say the drills are necessary for South Korea's defense.

Former Chicago White Sox star Minnie Minoso — the city's first black Major League Baseball player — died Sunday at age 90. Minoso had attended a friend's birthday party and apparently fell ill. He was found unresponsive in the driver's seat of his car at a gas station. Minoso, who was born in Cuba, hit a two-run homer in his first at bat when he joined the team in 1951 after two seasons in Cleveland. President Obama expressed his condolences to the family in a statement, saying Minoso "will always be 'Mr. White Sox.'"

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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.