Two children and a man drown as new floods overflow one bank of the Bui River, engulf several villages, and threaten to submerge parts of
Hanoi.
(NHK World)
An intense heat wave hits
South Korea, which started at the end of
July and is forecast to reach its highest temperature in the coming days. The heat wave kills 27 people, while more than 2,200 are taken to the hospital.
(The Straits Times)
The
White House imposes sanctions on two
Turkish officials over the detention of
Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who is being tried on espionage and terror-related charges.
(Al Jazeera)
The
Afghan government says that it will hold presidential elections on April 20, 2019.
(AL Jazeera)
Science and technology
Researchers from
Australia report the success of a plan to use
mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria to prevent the spread of
dengue fever in an Australian town, stating that they intend to bring the program to other locales.
(BBC)
Reddit reports a data breach consisting of emails and usernames. The site states that the perpetrators had access to information on accounts which were subscribed to their newsletter between the 3rd and 17th of June, as well as those created between 2005 and 2007.
(NBC)
Alleged
Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on a fish market and hospital entrance kill at least 20 people in
Al Hudaydah,
Yemen. A Saudi spokesman denies that its jets were in the area at the time, and blames rebels instead.
(BBC)
Departing Colombian President
Juan Manuel Santos grants 2-year citizenship rights to over 440,000 displaced Venezuelans living in Colombia, giving them certainty in access to medical and financial aid.
(United Nations),
(ABC News)
A study is published suggesting that loose
plastic objects in the ocean release more
methane than previously thought.
(BBC)
Tests on the 5,000-year-old burnt human bones of 25 people found at
Stonehenge suggest that ten came from more than 100 miles (160 km) away in
West Wales.
(The Guardian)
Floods in
Vietnam trigger landslides that kill six people, and leave two injured and five missing.
(VnExpress)
21 people are killed after a boat capsizes in
Nigeria's northwestern state of
Sokoto.
(Xinhua)
Health and environment
Researchers at the
University of Texas Medical Branch in
Galveston report the first successful transplant of a bio-engineered lung. The lung, taken from a donor pig, was reduced to a protein scaffold, and replaced with the subject pig's own cells over the course of a month.
(BBC)
Greek Civil Protection Minister
Nikos Toskas resigns after a
wildfire that killed 88 people and led to wide criticism of the government for its handling of the disaster.
(Reuters)
Venezuela PresidentNicolás Maduro survives what he claims is an assassination attempt involving drones while speaking at a military event in
Caracas. Eight people are injured.
(BBC)
Nationwide student protests following the deaths of two teenagers killed by a speeding bus enter their fifth day, causing the government to shut down thousands of high schools.
(The Guardian)
Oakland Raiders cornerback
Daryl Worley is sentenced to three days in jail and two years of probation in June after pleading guilty to firearms and resisting arrest charges stemming from an incident in April.
(NFL)(ABC News)
A
Taliban suicide bomber kills three
Czech soldiers on a routine patrol in
Charikar,
Afghanistan. A
U.S. soldier and two Afghan troops are also injured in the bombing.
(BBC)
Saudi Arabia withdraws its Ambassador from
Canada, and orders the Canadian counterpart to leave the country in 24 hours, after Canada calls for the release of activists who are in detention in the Middle East nation.
(CBC News)
A fuel tanker explodes on the
A14 motorway after colliding with a lorry near
Bologna Airport in
Italy, causing a section of the motorway to collapse. A person dies and 145 others are injured, at least 14 seriously.
(ANSA)
Twelve migrant workers die and three others are injured when a truck collides with a van in
Foggia,
Italy.
(ANSA)
The
European Union announces that its
blocking statute against the US sanctions will take effect tomorrow, protecting European companies from US sanctions and encouraging them to keep trading with Iran.
(The Telegraph)
Facebook removes several InfoWars-related pages from its platform, for what it describes as glorification of violence and dehumanizing language.
YouTube deletes
Alex Jones's main account for repeated Terms of Service violations.
Apple and
Spotify pull Jones's podcasts. Editor
Paul Joseph Watson calls Facebook's move "political censorship" on
Twitter.
(NBC News)
A
German couple is jailed for twelve years each for selling the woman's son to a
Spanish pedophile on the
dark web, who repeatedly abused him. The couple themselves previously abused the boy and a three-year-old girl, whom they are ordered to pay
€42,500 in compensation. The Spaniard is sentenced to ten years.
(BBC)
Venezuelan politician
Juan Requesens is arrested for alleged crimes related to the supposed Maduro assassination attempt, despite having political immunity.
(BBC News)
Saudi Press Agency reports that all Saudi patients are being transferred from Canadian hospitals to other medical facilities outside Canada.
(Al Jazeera)
China announces 25%
tariffs on an additional US$16 billion worth of imports from the United States, effective August 23, matching yesterday's decision by the United States.
(Bloomberg)
Saudi Arabia reports the execution and crucifixion, in
Mecca, of a man from
Myanmar. The man was sentenced for breaking into the home of a woman and stabbing her, which led to her death, as well as for other crimes.
(Bloomberg)
At least 43 people, mostly children, are killed in
an airstrike on a bus at a market in Dahyan,
Sa'da, by the
Saudi-led coalition, while more than 60 are injured. The coalition calls the strike a "legitimate military action" against the
Houthis, accusing them of using children as
human shields.
(The Guardian)
Over 180 rockets and mortars are launched toward
Israel by
Hamas militants, injuring seven people. In retaliation,
IDF launches an air assault on 150 targets in Gaza, in which three people are killed, including an 18-month-old child.
(CNN)
A large-scale military offensive is launched by the
Taliban in a bid to overrun the southeastern city of
Ghazni, a provincial capital on the
Kabul–Kandahar Highway. They manage to take control of a part of the city.
(The New York Times)
A jury in the U.S. state of
California awards $289 million to a man who claims that his terminal cancer was caused by
Monsanto's
glyphosate-containing weed killer.
(BBC)
The BNPB spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho confirmed that the death toll from the earthquake in
Lombok rises to 436.
(Tempo.co)
A report by the
SOHR says that the explosion of an arms depot in
Sarmada,
Idlib Governorate,
Syria, kills at least 69 people, including 17 children. The cause of the blast is "not yet clear". Most of the victims were reportedly family members of
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants.
(Reuters)
At least 15 people die after a bus falls into a ravine in the western region of
Ancash, in
Peru.
(Xinhua)
After more than 20 years of negotiations, the five countries bordering the
Caspian Sea sign an agreement in
Aktau,
Kazakhstan, on its shared use and the distribution of its resources. The convention legally defines the body of water as a
sea rather than a
lake, but with special provisions.
(Deutsche Welle)
At least 40 people are killed by paramilitary forces in eastern
Ethiopia, in the latest spate of violence driven by ethnic divisions.
(Voice of America)
Nine people are killed and 16 others injured after a fire breaks out in a ward on the seventh floor of a hospital in
New Taipei City,
Taiwan.
(BBC)
More than 300 people are injured, five seriously, after a section of wooden jetty collapsed at an urban sports and music festival in
Vigo,
Spain.
(BBC)
Twelve fans of Ecuadorian football team
Barcelona S.C. are killed and 30 others are injured after the bus they were traveling on overturns in
Azuay,
Ecuador.
(Xinhua)
Three Russian climbers and two Tajik pilots die while 12 other people are injured in a helicopter crash in
Tajikistan.
(Tampa Bay Times)
The
Ponte Morandi viaduct collapses on the
A10 motorway in
Genoa,
Italy. 38 people are confirmed dead, 16 others are seriously injured, 5 are missing and 632 displaced. 35 cars and three heavy vehicles are involved in the accident. Several homes are also damaged and people inside them also injured.
(TGCom)
A road accident in
Quito,
Ecuador involving a bus and a truck leaves 24 people dead and 18 others injured.
(CNN en Español)
Michael Drejka is charged with
manslaughter by a state attorney after a reversal of an earlier decision made by police. The case stems from a controversial video that shows Drejka shooting another man over a handicapped parking space and claiming self defense.
(NBC)
Nebraska executes convicted murderer Carey Dean Moore, becoming the first
U.S. state to execute an inmate with
fentanyl, and what is also the state's first execution in 21 years, and its first by
lethal injection.
(BBC)
At least 48 people, mostly students, are killed and a further 67 are injured in a suicide bomb attack at an education centre in
Kabul. The
Taliban denies any involvement.
(BBC)
Following accusations by fellow monks of sexual misconduct and embezzling funds—accusations which were subsequently posted on social media—the
Buddhist Association of China announces
Shi Xuecheng's resignation from the office of president of that organization. Xuecheng had dismissed the records as a fabrication.
(The Guardian)
New Zealand's
parliament votes to ban the sale of homes to non-resident foreign nationals amid a housing affordability crisis.
Australians and
Singaporeans are exempt due to free-trade deals.
(BBC)
Venezuelan authorities arrest a military general, a colonel, and a dozen others in connection to a failed assassination attempt on
PresidentNicolás Maduro.
(UPI)
Analysis shows that a rare
fire tornado that barreled into the city of
Redding on July 26 during the
Carr Fire was responsible for the death of a firefighter as he raced towards a neighborhood in flames.
(Los Angeles Times)
The Mexican government announces that they are offering up to MXN$30 million (equivalent to US$1.56 million) for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), the suspected leader of the
Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of Mexico's most-wanted.
(El Universal)
Amnesty International releases a report accusing
Indonesian police of fatally shooting at least 77 suspected
petty criminals since January 2018, in the lead-up to the
2018 Asian Games. Authorities insist that lethal force is used when the suspects resist the police.
(BBC)
A school official in Bicol Central Academy, a school in
Libmanan, Camarines Sur,
Philippines burned students' bags and other personal belongings as a punishment for students who violated the no-bag policy set for the school's event during that time. It was met with huge outrage from the netizens.
(Rappler)
Brazilians attack Venezuelan migrants at a border camp, the Brazilian military is deployed to stem the conflict.
(The Telegraph)
Ecuador,
Peru,
Brazil,
Colombia, and
Chile tighten border controls for Venezuelan migrants. Over 7% of Venezuela’s total population has fled the nation in two years.
(The Guardian)
The Venezuelan armed forces send two attack helicopters and a brigade of 30 soldiers across the Colombia-Venezuela border. Colombia denounces the "violation of sovereignty" but takes no further action against the country.
(NTN24)
An officer fatally shoots a man in
Cornellà,
Barcelona,
Spain, after he storms into a
Mossos d'Esquadra police station with a knife. Police are treating the incident as an attempted terrorist attack.
(BBC)
American actor
Jimmy Bennett accuses Italian actress
Asia Argento of having sexual relations with him when he was 17 years old and then paying him $380,000 to keep silent.
(The Hollywood Reporter)
PepsiCo announces its intent to buy
SodaStream, a manufacturer of products for in-home
soft drink production, for
US$3.2 billion. The deal awaits approval by regulators.
(BBC)
Eighty-nine
South Koreans are selected via lottery to be reunited for three days with
North Korean relatives they were separated from in the
Korean War six decades earlier.
(UPI)
The judge in the trial of two Reuters journalists jailed in
Myanmar announces that he will deliver his verdict on August 27, in a test of press freedom in the country. The journalists were investigating mass graves at the village of
Inn Din and the
massacre that took place there when they were arrested for allegedly obtaining "secret documents".
(Reuters)
Sixty-one people are shot over the weekend in
Chicago, including twelve in two mass shootings. Eight die, including five teenagers. Police arrest three people in connection with the shootings and 29 on other firearms charges, and seize 83 guns.
(CBS News)
Two men are detained in
Ankara,
Turkey, after shots are fired at the United States embassy.
(ABC News)
An American woman shoots two employees at a food distribution plant in
Houston, Texas, killing one person and injuring the other, before killing herself.
(CNN)
Mortars are fired at the diplomatic quarter of
Kabul during a speech by President
Ashraf Ghani. After several hours of fighting, including a helicopter attack on a building behind the
Id Gah Mosque, police say the attackers are dead and four people are wounded.
(BBC)
A magnitude 7.3
earthquake strikes off the coast of
Venezuela, prompting building evacuations in
Caracas. Buildings shake across Caribbean and South America's North coast. Several buildings are destroyed.
(The Guardian)(Newsweek)
Michael Cohen, the ex-lawyer of
U.S. PresidentDonald Trump, pleads guilty to eight felony financial charges. He admits that a $150,000
hush money payment in August 2016, "at the direction" of an unnamed candidate, was for the "principal purpose of influencing" the
2016 presidential election. He is released on $500,000 bail until his sentencing on December 12. He faces up to 65 years, though prosecutors recommend 46 to 63 months.
(NBC News)
U.S. RepresentativeDuncan D. Hunter (
R–
CA) and his wife are charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations and conspiracy. In the indictment unsealed today, federal prosecutors allege that the Hunters illegally used campaign funds to pay personal bills.
(CNN)
A court in
Vietnam’s
Ho Chi Minh City begins the trial of twelve people, including two Vietnam-born Americans, on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.
(Los Angeles Times)
The mass of exoplanet
Beta Pictoris b is measured directly for the first time through
astrometry, giving it a mass of 11±2Jupiter masses, and marking one of the first times an exoplanet was detectable through measuring its effect on the host star's location.
(Phys.org)
In
Berlin, police raid an apartment and arrest a suspected
RussianIslamic extremist who had allegedly stored a large amount of
TATP in October 2016 and plotted with a Frenchman to bomb an unspecified public place in
Germany.
(Reuters)
According to human rights campaigners,
Saudi Arabian prosecutors seek the death penalty for six activists for inciting anti-government protests and morally supporting rioters.
(NBC News)
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a
Mexican man accused of killing
University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts after entering the U.S. illegally, appears in a
Poweshiek County court for arraignment on first-degree murder. His bail is set at
US$5 million. If released by local police, he may be arrested by
ICE.
(CNN)
A bone fragment found in
Denisova Cave, Denisova 11, is identified as that of a girl who died 50,000 years ago aged at least 13.
Genome-wide signatures tell that she had a
Neanderthal mother and a mostly-
Denisovan father. This first find of a
prehistoric first-generation mixed offspring shows that different
archaic human subtypes sometimes migrated, and then mixed more frequently than previously thought.
(NBC News)(Live Science)
Americantariffs of 25% on approximately $16 billion worth of Chinese goods come into effect.
China immediately responds with equivalent tariffs of its own.
(Reuters)
Hurricane Lane causes flash flooding, and threatens a direct hit towards
Hawaii as it passes through
Oahu. Over 19 inches (48 cm) of rain has already fallen in some areas.
(CNN)
Ecuador leaves the Bolivarian alliance of nations run in Latin America, citing the behaviour of the
Venezuelan government in several areas including attempting to impose Chavism in America, creating major crises, and ineffectual control of migration.
(ABC News),
(El Comercio)
In response to the Venezuelan
Bolivarian National Guard's armed infiltration of
Norte de Santander,
Colombia four days ago, Venezuela releases a statement calling it "supposed" and "fake news", despite clear video of Venezuelan helicopters in Colombian territory.
(NTN24)
Colombia announces that it will host a summit in
Bogotá with migration officials from
Peru and
Ecuador in an attempt to seek a solution for the growing illegal immigration of
Venezuelans through their nations.
(Reuters)
Authorities arrest 32-year old John Colin Eagle Skoda after investigators concluded that a debris fire he started turned into a 60-square-mile blaze that killed one person and destroyed 35 homes.
(ABC News)
A hotel fire in
Harbin,
China, kills 19 people and injures 23 others. The fire broke out at the four-story Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Harbin's Sun Island recreation area.
(Xinhua)
Afghan authorities say that, in a joint ground and air operation on Saturday night,
Afghan and foreign forces killed the head of
ISIL/K, along with ten other members of the militant group.
(Reuters)(CNN)
Archbishop
Carlo Maria Viganò accuses Pope Francis of covering up sexual abuse allegations against
Theodore McCarrick. Pope Francis declines to comment on Viganò's accusations.
(ABC News)
The death toll from the
Kerala floods rise to 445, while 15 remain missing.
(Gulf News)
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes the western
Iranian province of
Kermanshah, killing at least two people and injuring more than 200 others.
(Deutsche Welle)
Violent protests break out across Germany after a stabbing attack the day before. Several instances of racial violence are reported, and riot police have been attacked.
(Deutsche Welle)
A Catholic priest held hostage for almost four months by Muslim militants in Marawi city in the southern Philippines says he still believes in inter-religious dialogue despite experiencing horrors that included seeing a fellow captive gunned down in crossfire and another one killed during an airstrike.
(BenarNews)
Irish paper production and packaging firm
Smurfit Kappa release a statement explaining that one of its production facilities was seized a week earlier on August 21 by the
Venezuelan government and its managers were arrested, with the company accused of not setting their prices at government-approved levels and smuggling. It says that the government have taken over operation of the plant.
(BBC)
Health officials state that the
Iraqi city of
Basra has recorded 17,000 infection cases due to water contamination. A
cholera outbreak is feared as salinity rates continue to increase in the unprocessed water.
(Iraqi News)
The Brazilian government sends armed forces to be stationed along its
Venezuelan border for two weeks, due to a large increase in migrants from
Venezuela.
(BBC)
Peru declares a 60-day public health crisis in its northern provinces, with concern of the
Venezuelan migrants spreading diseases.
(BBC),
(Bloomberg)
The Swar Chaung dam bursts in
Yedashe Township,
Bago Region,
Myanmar, flooding around a hundred villages and forcing roughly 50,000 people to flee their homes. One person is missing and the country's main highway is flooded.
(The Guardian)
A meeting is held in
Lima attended by representatives from
Colombia,
Peru,
Ecuador, and
Brazil, to develop requests for aid in regards to
Venezuelan immigrants, which will be sent to organisations including the
United Nations and
International Red Cross. Yesterday, there was a similar meeting in
Bogotá. A larger meeting has been set-up to be held in
Quito in early September, to be attended by representatives from 14 countries and 10 international organisations.
(Bloomberg)
Law and crime
Air Canada reports a data breach in which passport information was accessed.
(BBC)
Russian PresidentVladimir Putin announces a softening of the pension plan presented in June. The plan's original announcement has led to protests and a dip in Putin's approval ratings.
(AP via News 13)
The
petro, a Venezuelan government-backed
cryptocurrency, has not been trading and is not publicly accessible, despite government claims that it has sold $3.3 billion worth of units and the fact that it is linked to the nation's
physical currency and wages.
(Reuters)
The
National Hurricane Center issues advisories for what forecasters call a Potential Tropical Cyclone Six. If it strengthens to a tropical storm, it would be known as
Florence.
(Sun Sentinel)
At least eight people are reported dead and many sent to hospitals after a bus crash on a
New Mexico highway.
(BBC)
The
European Union announces an aid package of €35 million ($40.6 million) for
Venezuelans, both inside the country and for those displaced in neighbouring countries.
(Yahoo News)
The
European Commission is proposing to end the practice of adjusting clocks by an hour in spring and autumn after a survey found most Europeans opposed it. The Commission proposal requires support from the 28 national governments and
MEPs to become law.
(BBC)
President Morales deploys the
armed forces near the headquarters of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala.
(ABC News)
The third impeachment against President Jimmy Morales for illicit electoral financing during his
electoral campaign in 2015, is discussed in the
Congress. It is the third impeachment that was requested by the Attorney General and the CICIG.
(Insight Crime)