Portal:Current events/2018 August 3

August 3, 2018 (2018-08-03) (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
  • A suicide bomb attack at a Shi'ite mosque in Gardez, Afghanistan, kills at least 29 people and wounds at least 40 others. There is no immediate claim for the attack. (Reuters) (The Express Tribune)

Disasters and accidents

• 2018 Vietnam floods
  • 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)
• Phase-out of lightweight plastic bags
  • Chile becomes the first Latin American country to ban the commercial use of single-use plastic bags. (Sky News)
• North Korea warns that the heat wave affecting the Korean peninsula could damage important food crops and lead to shortages. (BBC)

International relations

• North Korea–United States relations, Aftermath of the 2018 North Korea–United States summit
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo states in an interview that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will ultimately set the timeline for denuclearization. (CBS News)
• Russia–United States relations
  • The United States imposes sanctions on a Russian bank that facilitated a transaction for a North Korean on an American blacklist. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations
  • Attorneys for Harvey Weinstein seek to throw out sexual assault charges against him. (New York CBS Local)
• Yazidi demonstrators at Calgary City Hall in Calgary, Alberta call for the Canadian government to help with efforts to reunite family members in Canada who fled the genocide perpetrated by ISIL in 2014 with those still living in Iraq. (Calgary Herald)

Politics and elections

• Zimbabwean general election, 2018
  • The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission declares Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling ZANU–PF party the winner of Zimbabwe's 2018 presidential election. (The Guardian)
• Deportation and removal from the United States
  • The wife of a former US Marine and Iraq War veteran whose family publicly pleaded for President Donald Trump to intervene is deported to Mexico. (NBC News)
• Cabinet of Greece
  • 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)

Science and technology

• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory releases a report officially disclosing a meteor explosion of roughly 2.1 kilotons of force near Thule Air Base in northwest Greenland on July 25. The United States Air Force confirms the explosion, adding that it did not impact operations at Thule Air Base. (The Independent)
• The Space Needle in Seattle unveils the world's first revolving glass floor. (CNN)

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