Portal:Current events/2018 July 26
July 26, 2018 (Thursday)
Business and economy
- Facebook stocks drop 20% (US$118 billion), setting a record as the biggest single stock market loss in one day, and marking the first time that a stock lost over $100 billion in one day. (CNBC)
- Disney announces plans to eliminate all plastic straws and plastic stirrers from their parks by mid-2019. (NOLA)
International relations
- European migrant crisis
- Hundreds of Sub-Saharan African migrants storm a border fence in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta, using home-made flamethrowers and other improvised weapons. The Spanish Civil Guard reports that 602 people succeeded in reaching Ceuta, of whom 586 were taken to a temporary reception centre, while 16 others are being treated in a hospital. Fifteen border guards were also hurt. (The Guardian)
Law and crime
- Capital punishment in Japan
- The six remaining cult members of Aum Shinrikyo who perpetrated the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack and were on death row are executed by hanging. (Japan Today)
- Cannabis in the United Kingdom
- The UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid announces that medicinal cannabis products are to be legalized by the end of this year, allowing cannabis treatments to be legally prescribed by specialist doctors following several high profile cases. (BBC) (Reuters)
- A bomb explodes outside the U.S. Embassy in China, wounding the lone assailant. (Reuters)
Science and technology
- A team of Russian scientists in collaboration with Princeton University announce in a new report that they have brought two female nematodes frozen in permafrost from around 42,000 years ago back to life. The two nematodes are now the oldest confirmed living animals on the planet. (The Siberian Times)
- Astronomers say they have observed Albert Einstein's theory of gravitational redshift for the first time while observing a star known as S2 interact with a supermassive black hole using the Very Large Telescope (VLT). (BBC)