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Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes affected the midwestern and southern United States yesterday into today with damage reported in several states and at least two people killed. In Mississippi, at least ten counties suffered power outages, and the National Weather Service reported a tornado struck areas near the town of Sardis. At least 11,900 customers were without power in Indiana, where debris blocked roadways and a tornado reportedly damaged homes in the town of Solsberry. In Tennessee major damage was reported around the Nashville area w

Binyamin Netanyahu is set to be re-elected as prime minister of Israel despite losses suffered by his party, Likud. An alliance of centre-left parties has increased their share of the votes. Likud now have 31 seats in the Knesset. Netanyahu has stated he seeks to form "as broad a coalition as possible". The newly-formed Yesh Atid party led by former television presenter Yair Lapid is set to play an important part in negotiations over the formation of a coalition government. As a result of Yesh Atid winning 19 seats in the Knesset, Lapid has b

The auction for the mobile spectrum capable of carrying 4G mobile broadband services in the United Kingdom got underway on Thursday. The auction process is expected to take several weeks and will take place online. Mobile network operators are expected to roll out services by July. 4G mobile network technology will bring faster downstream speeds than the current 3G connections allowing for data-intensive surfing on the move such as video streaming. Some mobile users have criticised the industry regulator Ofcom for having taken a long time to

A group of researchers published a paper about their discovery of a new species of Madagascar mermaid skink lizards last December. The species is the fourth forelimbs-only terrestrial tetrapods species known to science, and the first one which also has no fingers on the forelimbs. The species was collected at Marosely, Boriziny (French: Port-Bergé), Sofia Region, Madagascar. The Sirenoscincus mobydick name is after the existing parent genus, and a sperm whale from the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. This week, Wikinews interviewed on

The United States is set to remove restrictions preventing women from serving in front-line combat roles in the military thanks to a change in policy led by defense secretary Leon Panetta and announced yesterday. The move would open up as many as 230,000 jobs in the US military to women, who have already served in non frontline-combat work in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the military's 1.4 million currently active personnel, 14% are female. Over 20,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 130 killed in service there, and ov

The Philippines said yesterday it will take China to an arbitration tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on a series of territorial disputes involving the South China Sea. According to Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, Manila chose this move after exhausting "almost all political and diplomatic avenues." He also says he has already informed the Chinese ambassador in Manila. Disputes such as those involving the Scarborough Shoal and China's Nine-dotted line map are likely to be tack

The USS Guardian, a United States Navy vessel used for destroying mines, ran aground in the Philippines' Tubbataha Reef National Park in the Sulu Sea on Thursday, according to the US Navy. The US Navy said the incident occurred at 2:25 a.m. local time about 130 km east-southeast of the province of Palawan in the Philippines and about 98 nautical miles from Puerto Princesa, the capital of the province. There were no reports of injuries nor signs of fuel leakage. The ship has a crew of 80 and had previously completed a port call at Subic Bay ear

Zaragoza, Spain — On Thursday, Wikinews traveled to Zaragoza, Spain to interview the nation's most decorated Paralympian and IPC Athlete Council representative Teresa Perales. A wide range of topics about the Paralympics and sport in Spain were discussed including the evolution of Paralympic sport, disability sport classification, funding support across all levels of elite sport including the Paralympics and Olympics, the role of sportspeople in politics, sponsorship issues, and issues of gender in Spanish sport. Evolution of the Paralympics

Despite earlier cooler weather, heatwave conditions are expected to resume in New South Wales, Australia. Local weather service forecasts expect temperatures to rise above 40°C (104°F), as-experienced earlier in the week. The percentage of uncontained fires jumped as high as 20%. On Friday, local fire authorities have declared total fire bans across Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Fire crews at the east coast of Australia are readying to battle an increased rate of bushfires during the weekend. Uncontrolled fire

Madrid, Spain — On Wednesday night, Spanish La Liga football team Real Madrid defeated Celta Vigo 4–0 in Copa del Rey octofinals in a return match played at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid. Real Madrid lost the first leg of the round at an away match against Celta Vigo 1–2 and needed to win this game by a score of 1–0 to advance. Their 4–0 victory gave them an aggregate score of 5–2 which allowed them to advance in Copa del Rey. They were led in scoring by Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo who scored a hat trick, with goals in the second

The programmer, activist, and early Reddit cofounder Aaron Swartz reportedly committed suicide yesterday in New York City. He was 26. Swartz's death is reported confirmed by both Swartz's uncle and his attorney to The Tech, the campus newspaper of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2011, Swartz was arrested and charged for downloading two-thirds of the material on JSTOR, a repository of academic journal articles. Last year, on September 24, he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He had previously attracted the attention o

All 187 store locations of Jessops camera retailer are closing in the United Kingdom today. The business, which went into administration earlier this week, is to leave its workforce of approximately 1370 jobless. While staff at the business' top office in Leicester, in central England, are not being made redundant with immediate effect, they are in the next few weeks to lose their positions. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the firm declared administrator of Jessops two days ago, has said an examination of the company indicated it was no longer c