Portal:Current events/2023 August 23

August 23, 2023 (Wednesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Disasters and accidents

2023 Hawaii wildfires
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that around 1,110 people have been missing since the wildfires that affected Maui, Hawaii, United States. (BBC News)
2023 Mizoram bridge collapse
- Twenty-six people are killed when a railway bridge being built across a ravine collapses in Mizoram, India. (Al Jazeera)
2023 Tver Oblast plane crash
- An Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft crashes in Tver Region, Russia, killing all ten people on board. The leader of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin and mercenary Dmitry Utkin were listed as passengers. (BBC News)
Eight people are killed and several others are injured when a bus drives off the Prithvi Highway and crashes into the Trishuli River in Gajuri, Nepal. (AP)
At least two people are killed and 37 more are rescued during a building collapse in Abuja, Nigeria. (Punch)
Two people are killed and another is injured when an aircraft operated by the Lebanese Air Force crashes near Hammana, Lebanon. (Al Jazeera)
Tropical Storm Franklin makes landfall on the island of Hispaniola, with heavy rain reported in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. (AP)

Law and crime

2023 Trabuco Canyon shooting
- Three people are killed and six others are injured in a mass shooting at a biker bar in Trabuco Canyon, Orange County, California, United States. The perpetrator is killed in a shootout. (AP)
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
- The U.S. Justice Department announces that they have brought 718 law enforcement actions costing $836 million in COVID-19 fraud during the pandemic. (The Washington Post)
Southwark Crown Court in London, United Kingdom, rules that two teenagers were part of the hacking group Lapsus$ and participated in a blackmail campaign against technology companies, including Rockstar Games, the maker of the Grand Theft Auto video game series. (AP)
Cyprus says it has dismantled a criminal human smuggling ring responsible for transporting migrants on boats from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. (AP)
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and 184 of its content moderators based in Kenya agree on a mediation attempt to settle in a lawsuit seeking $1.6 billion in compensation, alleging poor working conditions, insufficient mental health support and low pay. (AP)

Politics and elections

Immigration to Germany
- Germany passes legislation to ease citizenship rules, aiming to reduce a shortage of skilled workers and to improve the integration of immigrants. (AP)
War in Amhara
- Amhara regional president Yilkal Kefale resigns after the Ethiopian government placed the region under a state of emergency. (AFP via TRT Afrika)
2023 Zimbabwean general election
- Zimbabweans vote for a president and members of the National Assembly. (AFP via France 24)
- A presidential decree extends voting by one day in 40 wards across the country due to delayed distribution of ballot papers, which the electoral commission attributes to late printing caused by court challenges. (Reuters)

Science and technology

Chandrayaan programme
- Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing near the Moon's South Pole, marking India's first landing on the Moon and the first soft landing of a spacecraft near the lunar South Pole. (CNN)
North Korean missile tests
- North Korea launches a military satellite from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. The launch fails due "to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight", according to state media, with the satellite likely crashing into the Pacific Ocean after passing over Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. (Kyodo News) (BBC News)