Portal:Current events/2017 February 17

• Boko Haram insurgency
  • Up to seven suicide bombers blow themselves up after failing in an attempt to attack a camp for displaced people near Maiduguri, Nigeria. (Al Jazeera)
• War in North-West Pakistan
  • In response to yesterday's bombing at the Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar that killed 88 people, the Pakistan Army claims to have killed more than 100 terrorists and arrested many others. (Al Jazeera)

• Mark Zuckerberg publishes a new mission statement for his website, Facebook, including the development of artificial intelligence to identify potential tragic events such as suicides before they occur. (Forbes) (The Guardian)

• British-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever rejects a US$143 billion takeover from Kraft Heinz, saying the deal had no financial or strategic merit. Nevertheless, Kraft is still interested in finding agreement; it has until March 17 to make a final bid under UK takeover rules. (Reuters)

• Cyclone Dineo kills seven and destroys twenty-thousand homes in Mozambique. (Newsweek)
• Severe storms in southern California prompt flash flood warnings over most of southern and central California, toppling trees and power lines, and delaying over 300 flights from Los Angeles International Airport. Since the largest El Nino of 1997-98 and 2009-10. (ABC)

• Authorities in the state of Pennsylvania discover the Seoul virus, a member of the Hantavirus family, in a contained scientific breeding-facility for rats. (CBS)

• European migrant crisis
  • Nearly five hundred African migrants swarm the border of Spain from Morocco. (CNN)

• Princess Cristina of Spain is acquitted of fraud but her husband is convicted. (The New York Times)

• Leila de Lima, senator and critic of the Philippine Drug War, is charged by Philippines justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II of alleged drug-related crimes. (BBC)
• Political appointments of Donald Trump
  • With a 52–46 vote, the U.S. Senate confirms Attorney General of Oklahoma Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Breaking with party lines, Republican Susan Collins opposed the nomination, while Democrats Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Manchin supported Pruitt, who has been described as a climate change denier with a history of criticizing the agency he now leads. (CNBC)

• Zealandia comes closer to being recognized as a continent. (BBC) (The Guardian)