10 things you need to know today: April 7, 2015

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1. Duke wins its fifth NCAA basketball title
2. Rand Paul expected to unveil plan for White House run
3. UVA fraternity vows to pursue legal options against Rolling Stone
4. Boston Marathon bombing case goes to jury
5. Israel lists demands for Iran nuclear deal
6. Iraq exhumes mass graves holding ISIS victims in Tikrit
7. Clandestine group puts bust of Edward Snowden in Brooklyn park
8. Kenya says it took out two al-Shabab bases behind cross-border attacks
9. Rutgers bans fraternity parties after alcohol incidents
10. Woman dies after five days as world's oldest person

published 7 April 2015

1. Duke wins its fifth NCAA basketball title

The Duke Blue Devils defeated Wisconsin 68-63 Monday night to win the school its fifth national college basketball title, all under coach Mike Krzyzewski. Duke's four freshmen — Tyus Jones, Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, and, off the bench, Grayson Allen — scored 60 of Duke's 68 points. Okafor made two straight baskets, sandwiched by two three-pointers by Jones, to help Duke bounce back from a nine-point deficit and take an eight-point lead with just 1:22 remaining.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is expected to announce Tuesday that he is launching a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Paul said in a video previewing his campaign that he wants to "defeat the Washington machine." The libertarian Tea Party favorite is expected to unveil his campaign plans at a rally planned Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky. He will simultaneously run to keep his Senate seat. So far, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the only major candidate from either party to officially declare a White House bid.

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The University of Virginia fraternity identified as the site of a gang rape in a now-retracted Rolling Stone story said Monday it would "pursue all available legal action" against the magazine following a scathing independent report on the now discredited article. The Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi said Rolling Stone "admits its staff engaged in reckless behavior" but refuses to punish those involved, apparently referring to publisher Jann Wenner's statement that the reporter and editors involved would not be fired.

Attorneys in the Boston Marathon bombing trial made their closing arguments on Monday, sending defendant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's fate to the jury, which begins deliberating Tuesday. Defense attorneys did not deny that Tsarnaev participated in the attack, but insisted he was manipulated into committing the bombing by his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police. Prosecutors said the brothers deliberately targeted as many civilians as possible to bring Islamist holy war to the U.S.

Israel's minister of intelligence and strategic affairs, Yuval Steinitz, on Monday issued a list of requirements for an Iran nuclear deal that would be deemed "more reasonable" to Tel Aviv. Israel wants Iran to end all nuclear research and development, ship all its enriched uranium out of the country, lower the number of centrifuges below the 6,104 (out of 19,000 currently) agreed to in the framework deal, disclose all previous nuclear activities, and shutter its underground Fordo facility, which under the current framework could be used for medical purposes. Analysts say that reopening the talks could easily start them unraveling.

Iraq's government said Tuesday that forensic teams had begun exhuming bodies from mass graves in the newly liberated city of Tikrit. The graves are believed to hold the bodies of hundreds of soldiers summarily executed by Islamic State fighters after they seized control of the city — Saddam Hussein's hometown — last June. ISIS captured 1,700 soldiers trying to flee after it overran the town last year, and later posted images online showing gunmen massacring captives.

An unidentified group erected a bust of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden at a New York City park early Monday. The work of art in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park was quickly covered up by park officials. The monument reportedly was installed on the site of an existing structure with a bronze eagle. A voice on a video showing the Snowden bust before it was covered said it was mounted so that it could be taken down "without doing permanent damage to the structure."

Kenya's military said Monday that it had destroyed two al-Shabab camps in neighboring Somalia in the first major response against the Islamist group since it claimed responsibility for the massacre of 148 people at a Kenyan college last week. Military jets targeted the camps of the al-Qaeda-linked group with intense airstrikes on Sunday. "Our aerial images show that the camps were completely destroyed," Kenya Defense Forces spokesman David Obonyo said.

Rutgers University in New Jersey on Monday banned all fraternity and sorority parties on campus for the rest of the semester, due to several recent alcohol-related incidents. Students are calling the ban a form of informal "social probation." It applies to all 86 of the school's fraternities and sororities. "Rutgers takes seriously its commitment to maintaining a healthy and safe campus environment," Rutgers spokesman E.J. Miranda said.

Gertrude Weaver died Monday at age 116 just five days after becoming the world's oldest person. She was aware that she had taken on the status after the death of 117-year-old Misao Okawa of Japan last week. Weaver, who lived at the Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Center in Arkansas, fell ill with pneumonia on Saturday. "She was alert and oriented," the facility's administrator, Kathy Langley, said. "She knew that she was the oldest person in the world, and she enjoyed that distinction greatly."

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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.