Portal:Current events/2017 April 18
April 18, 2017 (Tuesday)
Arts and culture
- The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announces the discovery of eight mummies, 10 colorful sarcophagi, and numerous figurines in a 3,500-year-old tomb near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. (CNN) (Radio New Zealand)
Business and economy
- American consumer goods company Post Holdings agrees to acquire British cereal maker Weetabix Limited from China's Bright Food for $1.8 billion. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
- At least 24 people are dead after a Leomarick Trans bus falls into a ravine in the Philippines province of Nueva Ecija. (Rappler)
- Twelve Saudi Arabian military officers die after their Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk crashes in Yemen's Ma'rib Governorate. (Reuters)
- A police Sikorsky S-70 helicopter crashes in Tunceli Province, Turkey, killing 12 people. (Daily Star)
- Libyan fisherman discover the bodies of 28 migrants in a broken-down boat off the coast of Sabratha. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- The Supreme Court of the United States refuses to vacate a stay of execution issued by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas's highest court has also put on hold the execution of another inmate, Bruce Ward. The state had planned to execute eight inmates in eleven days. That schedule, as well as the use of the drug midazolam, sparked a broad range of legal challenges and humanitarian concerns about the executions. Today's planned execution of Don W. Davis would have been the state's first since 2005. (CNN) (The New York Times)
- Shooting of Robert Godwin
- Steve Stephens, the suspected "Facebook killer" accused of killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin, kills himself after a brief pursuit with the Pennsylvania State Police. (CNN)
- French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl announces that police have foiled an "imminent and violent" attack in Marseille, arresting two suspects and confiscating weapons and bomb material. (The Guardian)
- 2017 Fresno shootings
- Three people die in a shooting spree in downtown Fresno, California. The suspected gunman, who was already wanted for another murder four days earlier, and who expressed hatred of whites and the government, is arrested. (Los Angeles Times)
Politics and elections
- French presidential election, 2017
- With polls showing a close race with Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen of the National Front pledges to temporarily suspend all immigration, "legal and illegal", to France. (BBC) (CNN)
- United Kingdom general election, 2017
- British Prime Minister Theresa May proposes that a snap election for the House of Commons will be held on the 8th of June. A two-thirds majority of the House of Commons is needed to approve this, eventually tomorrow. The Labour and Liberal Democrats party leaders have expressed their support. (BBC) (The New York Times)
- Georgia's 6th congressional district special election, 2017
- Democratic candidates face off with Republican candidates in a primary for a U.S. House seat vacated by Tom Price, now Health and Human Services Secretary, in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. (Atlanta Journal Constitution) (The New York Times)
- No candidate reaches a majority vote, so the first- and second-place finishers, Jon Ossoff (48.1%) and Karen Handel (19.8%), will face off in a runoff election on June 20, 2017. (CNN) (NBC News)
- Zambian opposition leader and presidential election runner-up Hakainde Hichilema is charged with treason and "trying to overthrow the government". (Reuters)
- President Trump's Executive Orders
- As expected, during a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring U.S. federal agencies to take measures aimed at protecting U.S. workers, boost protections for some U.S. products, and examine the H-1B visa program which affords foreign workers opportunities for employment in U.S. specialty fields. (CNN)
- Turkish constitutional referendum, 2017
- The European Commission, based on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe report, calls on Turkey to launch an investigation into allegations of referendum voting irregularities. (UPI)
Science and technology
- Scientists announce, through the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, that live specimens of the rare Kuphus polythalamia (giant shipworm) have been discovered for the first time in the Philippines. (BBC)