Portal:Current events/2016 August 12

August 12, 2016 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

August 2016 Thailand bombings
- A series of coordinated bombings across Thailand, mostly at sites popular with tourists, leaves at least four people dead and dozens wounded. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. (The New York Times)
Syrian Civil War
- U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say they have seized full control of Manbij in Syria's northern Aleppo Governorate after ISIL militants withdrew from their last remaining strongholds in the city. (Reuters)
- Suspected Syrian government or Russian airstrike hits the Kafr Hamra children's hospital in a village on the outskirts of Aleppo, killing a nurse and a technician and rendering the hospital's facilities unusable. (The Telegraph)

Disasters and accidents

Heavy rain on the Gulf Coast of the United States causes floods in the state of Louisiana and the southern part of Mississippi with one person drowning. (Weather)
A small plane crashes after an aborted landing at Shannon Airport near Fredericksburg, Virginia, killing six people. (Reuters)
In Canada, 20 year old Mohammad Hassan Chaudhary with mental health issues and no formal flight training issues stole a small Piper airplane. He crashed near a mall about halfway between his takeoff near Toronto and the capital in Ottawa. National security investigators ruled out terrorist or suicidal motives. Global News)

Health

Zika virus outbreak timeline
- The United States declares a public health emergency in Puerto Rico over an outbreak of the Zika virus which has infected nearly 11,000 people. (AP via St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
- Sexual abstinence, post-Zika infection, may need to be extended to six months. (BBC)

Law and crime

Brendan Dassey, the subject of Netflix's hit drama Making a Murderer is found to have been wrongly convicted of murdering the photographer Teresa Halbach. A federal judge orders that he must be released from prison within three months. (People)

Politics and elections

2016 Labour Party leadership election
- Britain's Court of Appeal, reversing Monday's High Court decision, rules the Labour Party has the right to prevent up to 130,000 new members who joined less than six months ago from voting in the party's leadership contest between incumbent Jeremy Corbyn and legislator Owen Smith. An appeal to the United Kingdom Supreme Court is possible. (AP via The Christian Science Monitor) (The Guardian)

Science and technology

Scientists say Greenland sharks are now known to be the longest-living vertebrates on Earth, after researchers at the University of Copenhagen, using radiocarbon dating, determined the ages of 28 of the animals, and estimated that one female was about 400 years old. The former vertebrate record-holder was a Bowhead whale estimated to be 211 years old. (BBC)

Sport