10 things you need to know today: March 3, 2013

(Image credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

last updated 8 January 2015

1. CHADIAN ARMY CLAIMS TROOPS KILL MASTERMIND OF ALGERIAN ATTACK

The head of Chad's military, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue, announced on state television that Chadian troops in northern Mali killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist responsible for the January attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that resulted in a hostage crisis and death of dozens of foreigners. The French military, which is leading the offensive in northern Mali, has not confirmed the information, but the news comes a day after Chad's president said their troops killed Abou Zeid, the other main al Qaeda commander in the region. Belmoktar's assassination has been called a "significant blow" to al Qaeda. [TIME]

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Following the gridlock that preceded the sequester President Obama expressed his goal to ensure a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2014 in order to secure cohesion and his two-term presidential legacy. Obama, seemingly giving up on the idea that the GOP majority in the House will work with him, hopes to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control in order to push forward with a progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy. "The president understands that to get anything done, he needs a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives," said Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "To have a legacy in 2016, he will need a House majority in 2014, and that work has to start now." [Washington Post, Salon]

Rebels have captured large parts of a Syrian police academy near Aleppo, after a fierce battle resulting in heavy loss of life, activists say. Video emerged on Saturday apparently showing rebels breaking into the sprawling Khan al-Assal compound. One account said more than 34 government soldiers and police died on Sunday alone — an apparent setback for the government a day after the army announced it had regained control of villages on a major route linking the central city of Hama to Aleppo. President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview with the UK's Sunday Times newspaper, said it was "nonsense to suggest" that the conflict was about his future as leader. [BBC]

The International Space Station welcomed a privately-owned SpaceX capsule on Sunday, which carried supplies, fresh fruit, 640 seeds of a flowering weed used for research, mouse stem cells, food and clothes for the six men on board the space station, trash bags, computer equipment, air purifiers, space-walking tools and batteries. The mission had a shaky start on Friday when a clogged pressure line or stuck valve on the capsule prevented thrusters from working. Despite the initial mishaps, the capsule had an otherwise smooth journey, and ISS crew was relieved. "As they say, it's not where you start, but where you finish that counts," said space station commander Kevin Ford, "and you guys really finished this one on the mark." [Los Angeles Times]

In his first interview since losing the presidential election to Obama, Mitt Romney told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, that "it kills me" not to be in the White House solving the country's problems. Romney says he was convinced he would win the election until Ohio's vote came in, and that he damaged his campaign by failing to attract black and Hispanic voters, and that his 47 percent comments were a big factor in his loss. Romney's wife Ann also sat for the interview and blamed the media and the Obama campaign for painting an unfair image of her husband. [Politico]

Construction crews are demolishing the remains of the Florida home that partially collapsed into a huge sinkhole, which swallowed Jeff Bush, 36, as he slept on Thursday night. Authorities called off the search for Bush's body on Saturday. "We don't know, in fact, whether it will collapse or whether it will hold up," he said. He said the crew's goal for Sunday is to knock down the house, and on Monday they will clear the debris as much as possible to allow officials and engineers to see the sinkhole in the open. [USA Today]

Digital note-taking service Evernote implemented a service-wide password reset Saturday after the company discovered suspicious activity on its network. The company issued a statement on its site, saying that no stored user content or financial data was changed or lost, but that hackers gained personal information including usernames, passwords, and email addresses. The company's security team first detected "unusual and potentially malicious activity" on Feb. 28, The Verge reports. The hack is the latest in a series of security breaches that affected companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, as well as similar incidents at The New York Times and The Washington Post. [Mashable]

Citing a "watershed moment" in nutrition, medical experts are calling for closer inspection of diets similar to the olive oil and nut-rich Mediterranean diet that a study published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine showed have as powerful a role in decreasing heart attacks, and strokes, and deaths from cardiovascular disease as drugs in certain cases. Though there is minimal evidence that similar effective diets could shake up the cardiovascular medicine field, scientists are optimistic that fruit- or fish-heavy diets can also positively impact health. "We don't know what the best diet is," said Dr. Michael Lauer, the director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "This is a great opportunity to come together and use power of the scientific method to get closer to the right answer." [New York Times]

Researchers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have concluded that more than 40,000 Nazi camps and ghettos existed during Hitler's reign of terror between 1933 to 1945. The total is far higher than most historians had previously estimated, and shows the Holocaust was far more extensive than even historians comprehended. The numbers indicate a larger death toll than the previously reported number of 6 million, and the researchers' work may also help Holocaust survivors attempting to sue insurance companies or recover stolen property. Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, the lead editors of the project, have compiled the sites in an encyclopedia that provides a comprehensive history of the "living and working conditions, activities of the Jewish councils, Jewish responses to persecution, demographic changes, and details of the liquidation of the ghettos." [Huffington Post]

Two high-level industry sources told The Hollywood Reporter that NBC is planning a May announcement that the 2013-14 television season will be Jay Leno's last as host for The Tonight Show. The sources expect that Jimmy Fallon will take over the hosting job following Leno's exit. A Leno rep says, "We do not speculate on rumor," but sources believe that Fallon is NBC's plan to address Jimmy Kimmel's draw for younger audiences on ABC late-night programming. [Hollywood Reporter]

Terri is a freelance writer at TheWeek.com. She's a graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism and has worked at TIME and Brides. You can follow her on Twitter.

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