Portal:Current events/2019 September 5
September 5, 2019 (Thursday)
Armed conflict and attacks
- September 2019 Kabul bombings
- A Taliban bomb in the middle of a heavily fortified area in Kabul kills twelve people, including a U.S. soldier and a Romanian soldier. (CNN) (BBC)
Business and economy
- Walgreens and CVS ask customers not to bring guns into their stores in response to several deadly mass shootings last month. (CNN)
- Economy of Mexico
- Mexican authorities are preparing the launch of a $1 billion per year oil hedging program, and options trading consistent with such a giant trade. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
- 2019 Atlantic hurricane season
- Hurricane Dorian spawns several tornadoes in the Carolinas and causes power outages to 230,000 people in South Carolina. (Charlotte Observer) (Washington Examiner)
- Air France Flight 447
- A French magistrates' court drops 228 charges of manslaughter brought by victims relatives against Airbus and Air France. (BBC)
- The National Transportation Safety Board of the United States rules that driver inattention and the design of Tesla's Autopilot feature were jointly the cause of a 2018 crash. A seperate fatal Tesla crash remains subject to investigation by the Board. (BBC)
International relations
- A United States Department of State spokesperson confirms as accurate a story reported yesterday by the Financial Times, saying that Akhilesh Kumar, the captain of a tanker carrying Iranian oil that was captured in Gibraltar in July and since then released, was offered millions of dollars by U.S. official Brian Hook to change its course, so that it could be impounded on U.S. charges of "terrorism". (Hindustan Times)
Law and crime
- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes an official resolution declaring the National Rifle Association to be a domestic terrorist organization. NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre criticizes the decision online. (ABC)
- The Court of Appeal in Kyiv, Ukraine, rules to release Volodymyr Tsemakh, a person of interest in the case of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. President of Russia Vladimir Putin says both countries are finalizing negotiations on a "rather large-scale" prisoner exchange. (RFE/RL)
- Ghost Ship warehouse fire
- A jury finds Max Harris, the creative director of the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, not guilty on involuntary manslaughter charges in relation to a fire at the location in 2016, which killed 36 people. The jury fails to reach a verdict on similar charges for its leaseholder, Derick Almena, due to a hung jury. (CNN)
Politics and elections
- Jo Johnson, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's younger brother, resigns from his joint position as the minister of state for universities, science, research and innovation with the Department of Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He says he has experienced "an unresolvable tension" in recent weeks in being "torn between family loyalty and the national interest". (NBC News)
- Conte II Cabinet, 2019 Italian government crisis
- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's new cabinet is sworn in after the coalition agreement between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party. Lega Nord ministers, led by Matteo Salvini, are ousted from the government. (The Guardian)
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatens to "open the gates" and allow over three million Syrian refugees to freely emigrate into Europe, unless the Northern Syria Buffer Zone, agreed between Turkey and the United States, is set up according to Turkey's plans. He further claims that the "international community, namely the European Union" fails to provide support with respect to the refugees. (The Guardian)
- Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, in charge of crafting the as yet unreleased Trump peace plan intended to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, announces his resignation. (CNN)