Portal:Current events/2016 July 20
July 20, 2016 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Ukrainian crisis
- Prominent Ukrainian-based journalist Pavel Sheremet of the Ukrainska Pravda is killed in a car bombing in Kyiv. (The Guardian)
- Second Libyan Civil War
- At least three French Armed Forces soldiers are killed after their helicopter is shot down near the city of Benghazi, Libya. The soldiers were killed while carrying out "dangerous intelligence operations", according to French President François Hollande. (BBC)
- Northern Mali conflict
- Following the Nampala attack, the government of Mali declares a three-day mourning period for the 17 soldiers killed in the attack, as well as a state of emergency for three months across the country. (Reuters)
- 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, 2016 Turkish purges
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declares a state of emergency for three months following Friday night's failed coup. (BBC News)
Business and economy
- Unilever buys Dollar Shave Club for US$1 billion. (BBC)
- Breitbart tech editor and outspoken conservative gay activist Milo Yiannopoulos with more than 338,000 registered followers is "permanently" banned from Twitter. (Guardian)
Disasters and accidents
- European migrant crisis
- A Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) ship rescues 209 people, including 50 children, from two dinghies in distress in the Mediterranean Sea but finds 22 dead bodies, 21 women and a child, lying in a pool of fuel in the bottom of one of the boats. The dinghies were 17 miles east of Tripoli, Libya. Cause of death is unknown, though an MSF official says it could be that fumes from mixed fuel and water rendered the people unconscious. The MSF ship is expected to arrive in the Sicilian port of Trapani on Friday.(Reuters)
Law and crime
- Three high-ranking officers of the Investigative Committee of Russia in Moscow are detained for accepting bribes from a crime lord. (RT)
- 2016 United States presidential election
- The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirms previous rulings that Texas' 2011 voter ID law is discriminatory and does not comply with the Voting Rights Act, and orders a lower court to resolve the problem in time for the November elections. (Reuters) (The Texas Tribune)
Politics
- 2016 Republican National Convention
- Senator Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the race for the Republican Party nomination, is booed off stage after giving a speech and refusing to endorse Donald Trump. (Vox)