Portal:Current events/2018 June 2
June 2, 2018 (Saturday)
Business and economy
- Artificial intelligence arms race
- Google reports that they will not renew a contract with the U.S. military to develop machine learning algorithms for drones. (BBC)
Disasters and accidents
- 2018 lower Puna eruption
- More than 80 homes have now been destroyed by the Kilauea eruption. (KTLA)
- Lava from Kīlauea boils Hawaii's Green Lake and spills across numerous highways. (NPR)
- 2018 Gaza border protests
- The funeral of a 21-year-old medic, Razan al-Najjar, draws thousands of Palestinians. Witnesses say that Razan was killed while trying to evacuate a wounded protester lying on the Israeli side of the fence. (UPI)
International relations
- Foreign relations of the Philippines
- Shortly before leaving for South Korea, the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, tells the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Diego García Sayán that "he can go to hell". (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
- The new Catalan regional government takes office in Barcelona. The 7-month-long application of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution is thus lifted, meaning that direct rule is over. (The Wall Street Journal)
- 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy
- Pedro Sánchez, a member of the Spanish Socialist Party, is sworn in as Prime Minister before King Felipe VI. Sánchez opts to take the oath without a bible or crucifix; a first in modern Spanish history. (BBC)
- Thousands protest in Amman and other Jordanian cities, despite King Abdullah II ordering a freeze on controversial fuel and electricity price increases. (Middle East Eye) (The Guardian)
Science and technology
- Asteroid close approaches to Earth in 2018
- A 2–5-metre (6 ft 7 in – 16 ft 5 in) wide asteroid named 2018 LA was estimated (before impact) to have an 82% chance of having impacted Earth today, with several corroborating reports from Botswana. An OFM media report from near Klerksdorp, North West province, South Africa, describes "'a light' falling from the sky" at 18:49 (UTC+02:00) Saturday night. (NASA) (Minor Planet Mailing List) (Project Pluto) (OFM)
Sports
- 2018 Epsom Derby
- Masar defeats the odds-on favourite Saxon Warrior to win the 2018 Epsom Derby. (BBC)
- The first legal bare-knuckle boxing match in U.S. history, titled the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships, takes place in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (Sydney Morning Herald) (USA Today)