10 things you need to know today: April 9, 2015

Protesters hold candles for Walter Scott in front of city hall in North Charleston, South Carolina.

(Image credit: (AP Photo/Chuck Burton))

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1. Tsarnaev convicted on all 30 counts for Boston Marathon bombing
2. White officer fired after being charged in fatal shooting of black motorist
3. Iran says no final nuclear deal unless sanctions are lifted the same day
4. Iran sends military ships to waters near Yemen
5. Obama to call for end to anti-gay "conversion" therapy
6. U.S. soldier dies after insider shooting by Afghan in uniform
7. Rand Paul clashes with reporters on first day after launching presidential campaign
8. Ferguson voters elect two new black city council members
9. Secret Service manager suspended after assault allegation
10. University of Michigan reverses course on American Sniper cancelation

last updated 9 April 2015

1. Tsarnaev convicted on all 30 counts for Boston Marathon bombing

A jury took just 11 hours on Wednesday to find Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded 260. Tsarnaev, 21, was convicted on all 30 counts against him, including conspiracy, using a weapon of mass destruction, and the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier three days after the bombings. Seventeen of the counts against the confessed killer carry the possibility of the death penalty. The jury will reconvene next week to consider Tsarnaev's sentencing.

The North Charleston, South Carolina, police department fired officer Michael Slager on Wednesday, a day after he was charged with murder for the fatal shooting of 50-year-old Walter Scott. The white officer was caught on cellphone video shooting Scott, who was black, eight times in the back as he ran away after a traffic stop. The man who captured the shooting on video — Feidin Santana — said Scott and Slager struggled but Slager was in control, and Scott ran to get away from the officer's stun gun.

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Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, said Thursday that he would only sign a final nuclear agreement with the U.S. and five other world powers if they lifted all sanctions the same day. "We want a win-win deal for all parties involved in the nuclear talks," Rouhani said in a televised speech. Negotiators agreed to the framework for a deal last week in Switzerland, and are working toward a June 30 deadline for a final version that the U.S. and other nations say will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran sent a destroyer and another naval vessel to the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, raising tensions as Saudi Arabia leads an air campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The U.S. has increased its support for the Saudi-led coalition with weapons, intelligence, and now aerial refueling of coalition warplanes. Saudi Arabia imposed an air and maritime blockade of after Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled as rebels closed in two weeks ago.

President Obama is expected this week to call for an end to "conversion" therapy aiming turn gay, lesbian, and transgender youths straight. The White House said in a statement released Wednesday that the move was intended to prevent the therapy's "potentially devastating effects." The statement was posted online next to a petition signed by 120,000 people in honor of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender youth who threw herself in front of a truck after leaving a suicide note saying religious leaders had pressured her to revert to being a boy.

An Afghan soldier killed one American counterpart and wounded two others on Wednesday. The killer opened fire on a group of U.S. troops after a meeting between a U.S. embassy official and Afghan provincial leaders in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. American troops returned fire, killing the Afghan soldier. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. There were at least four such insider attacks by Afghan security forces in 2014.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a series of combative exchanges with reporters on Wednesday in the first day after announcing that he was running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. First, Paul pushed back against conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity for suggested he flip-flopped by turning hawkish on Iran after saying in 2007 that it was "ridiculous" to see Tehran as a threat. When another reporter asked him about flip-flops, he said, "That isn't journalism."

Ferguson, Missouri, Mayor James Knowles declared Wednesday that the city had reached a "milestone" after a surge in voter turnout helped two new black candidates win spots on the city council. The change came weeks after the Justice Department found that Ferguson's police and courts had systematically singled out African Americans for harsh treatment. Ferguson is two-thirds black, but has only had two other African Americans on its six-member city council in the its 120-year history.

The Secret Service put a senior supervisor, Xavier Morales, on leave last week after a woman who reported to him accused him of making unwanted sexual advances and grabbing her at the office after they returned from a party on March 31. The woman said Morales relented after a struggle. The woman told police and Secret Service investigators that Morales had told her he was in love with her and wanted to have sex. Morales, through an agency spokesman, declined to comment.

The University of Michigan reversed course late Wednesday and pledged to show a previously canceled screening of American Sniper — the biopic about the late Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle — on campus. The screening was originally cut after nearly 300 students signed a petition complaining that the film "sympathized with a mass killer" and "not only tolerates but promotes anti-Muslim" propaganda. A university official said that canceling the film went against freedom of expression. "The movie will be shown at the originally scheduled time and location," she said.

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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.