10 things you need to know today: February 19, 2014

(Image credit: (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky))

last updated 8 January 2015

1. CBO says raising the minimum wage will cost 500,000 jobs

The Congressional Budget Office released a report on Tuesday forecasting that raising the federal minimum wage to $10 would cost the economy 500,000 jobs, but would also help nearly a million Americans climb out of poverty. Polls showing three fourths of the public favors increasing the minimum wage, which Democrats want to push to $10.10 per hour from $7.25. Republicans have called the proposal a certain job killer, but the Obama administration said increased worker productivity would offset any drawbacks. [Reuters]

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Ukrainian riot police launched a new assault on protesters in Kiev's Independence Square on Wednesday as the death toll from Tuesday clashes rose to 25. The dead included nine police officers, 15 protesters, and a journalist. Tuesday's violence was the deadliest since the at-first peaceful protests broke out three months ago after President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped promises to make a trade deal with Europe and took a Russian bailout instead. The government called the clashes an attempted coup; the E.U. threatened sanctions. [BBC News, CNN]

President Obama on Tuesday said his administration would impose tougher fuel economy standards for medium-size and heavy trucks by 2016. Obama said boosting the mileage of the nation's truck fleet would make the U.S. less dependent on imported oil, save consumers money, and reduce pollution blamed for climate change. "It's not just a win-win. It's a win, win, win," Obama said at a Maryland distribution center for Safeway, where he was flanked by two delivery trucks. "You got three wins." [Al Jazeera America]

An 84-year-old Catholic nun, Megan Rice, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Tuesday for breaking into a nuclear-weapons complex with two other activists. Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli also spray-painted peace slogans and chipped the wall of a bunker containing weapons-grade uranium. The stunt exposed security flaws at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Boertje-Obed and Walli were sentenced to five years. Rice pleaded with the judge not to be lenient on her. [The Associated Press]

A string of severe winter storms has left the Northeast facing critical shortages of rock salt to melt ice on roads as the third snowstorm in a week moved in on Tuesday. A foreign ship lacking proper paperwork was stuck in Searsport, Maine, with a 40,000-ton shipment of rock salt bound for New Jersey, where officials tried unsuccessfully to get a federal shipping-rule waiver to bring it to Newark. Without the new shipment, a state spokesman said, crews are "scraping the bottom of the barrel." [Reuters]

Twin suicide car bombings killed at least four people near an Iranian cultural center in Beirut on Wednesday. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a Sunni militant group, claimed responsibility, saying the attacks were retaliation against the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, for its support of government forces in neighboring Syria's civil war. The Abdullah Assam Brigades also claimed responsibility for bombings that killed 23 outside the Iranian embassy in November. [The Associated Press]

The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $13 million to 17 men who said they were sexually molested as children by a visiting Mexican priest in 1987, lawyers said Tuesday. The cleric, Nicholas Aguilar-Rivera, spent nine months at two Los Angeles parishes, then fled to Mexico days before police were notified of the abuse allegations. He was never charged. Lawyers for the alleged victims accused Archbishop Roger Mahony and his top aide with letting Aguilar-Rivera flee. [Los Angeles Times]

Shares of Tesla Motors surged by 2.8 percent to close above $200 for the first time on Tuesday, after a report on a 2013 meeting between the electric-car maker's CEO, Elon Musk, and Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions fueled speculation that the iPhone and iPad maker might buy Tesla. Both Tesla and Apple declined to comment. Tesla, maker of the trendy Model S sedan, reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday. It's stock was already hot, having risen fivefold since last February. [Bloomberg News]

Nestlé USA has recalled some of its Hot Pockets due to an 8.7 million pound meat recall by supplier Rancho Feeding Corp. It was unclear late Tuesday how many products were affected, but Nestlé said on its website that it was telling consumers to return its Philly Steak, Croissant Crust Philly Steak, and Cheese Hot Pockets in some sizes, because they might contain meat covered in the recall. No illnesses have been reported. Regulators said Rancho processed unhealthy animals without proper inspections. [RTT News]

Guitarist Bob Casale, one of the original members of Devo, died after medical complications from a stomach ailment led to heart failure, Casale's brother and bandmate Gerald Casale said Tuesday. Bob Casale was 61. Devo was formed in the early 1970s. It was best known for its hit "Whip It," and its oddball tech-savvy take on rock 'n' roll, complete with futuristic headgear and yellow lab coats. Devo had been planning a 40th-anniversary concert tour this summer. [Los Angeles Times]

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.

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