Portal:Current events/2017 April 26
April 26, 2017 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
- The pro-government Popular Mobilization Forces militia takes control of the mostly destroyed ancient city of Hatra in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate, following clashes with ISIL, who seized the ruins in 2014. (BBC)
- Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency
- At least ten Iranian border guards are killed in an ambush in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province on the border with Pakistan. Sunni militant group Jaish ul-Adl claims responsibility. (The Guardian)
- Kamwina Nsapu rebellion
- The United Nations MONUSCO reports that 20 Chowe-Pende community members have been killed in clashes with the Lulua-Luba community in Kasaï-Central, Democratic Republic of Congo. (AP by KoamTV)[permanent dead link](Al Jazeera)
Arts and culture
- American film director Jonathan Demme, winner of the Academy Award for Best Director for The Silence of the Lambs, dies of complications from esophageal cancer. (CNN)
International relations
- North Korea–South Korea relations
- The United States deploys parts of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense in South Korea amidst high tension caused by North Korea's escalation of its missile and nuclear weapons programs. (The Guardian)
- China's foreign minister Wang Yi calls for restraint and urges all sides to take part in the resumption of negotiations. (Reuters)
- United States' policy of deterrence
- The United States test launch a Minuteman III missile from California to the Marshall Islands. (Los Angeles Times)
- Venezuela says it will withdraw from the Organization of American States after the organization decided to call a meeting without Venezuela. (Al Jazeera) (The Telegraph)
Law and crime
- The United States ended a six-year Central-African hunt for Joseph Kony. (AFP via Pulse.ng)
- Police in Anchorage, Alaska, confirm that James Dale Ritchie, killed by an Anchorage police officer whom Ritchie had tried to kill in the fall of 2016, was a serial killer who had used the same gun to kill 5 people, apparently at random. Two of the murders were double homicides, with some of the deaths occurring along Anchorage's expansive Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. (U.S. News & World Report) (Alaska Public Radio Network)
- David Hittner, U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas, rules ExxonMobil Corporation should pay a $19.95 million penalty for pollution from its Baytown, Texas, refining and chemical plant complex for 16,386 days of violations and 10 million pounds (4.5 Gg) of pollutants that were released in violation of operating permits between 2005 and 2013. (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- Two political parties with federal representation in Australia merge as the Australian Conservatives absorbs the Family First Party. (News.com.au)
- The Moroccan Assembly of Representatives votes 208 to 91 in favor of approving of a coalition cabinet led by Saadeddine Othmani. (AP via Fox News)
Science and technology
- A speculative study hypothesizes that a species of Homo may have lived in California 130,000 years ago. (National Geographic) (Ars Technica)
- Results, published in The Lancet medical journal, of the WOMAN (World Maternal Antifibrinolytic) international study that began in 2010, finds use of a cheap and widely available drug, tranexamic acid (Lysteda in the U.S. and Australia), could save the lives of thousands of women who die in childbirth from excessive bleeding. The medication is already in use for blood loss from major trauma, surgery, tooth removal, nose bleeds, and heavy menstruation. (The New York Times) (The Guardian) (The Lancet)