Portal:Current events/2019 March 26
March 26, 2019 (Tuesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Iran–Israel proxy conflict, Gaza–Israel conflict, Iran and state-sponsored terrorism
- According to Israel Today, a senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that Iran's rulers ordered the rocket attack on Mishmeret in central Israel on March 25, 2019, which injured seven Israelis. The rocket attack was carried out by Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, which is heavily financed by Iran. The Hamas official said that Hamas's goal was to hurt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chances of getting reelected in the April 9 elections. (The Jerusalem Post) (Israel National News)
- Yemeni Civil War
- An airstrike carried out in north-west Yemen kills seven and injures eight others at a hospital. The airstrike occurred early when patients and staff members were arriving. (BBC News) (The Washington Post)
Arts and culture
- The all-female board of Women Church World, a monthly supplement in the L'Osservatore Romano (the Vatican City daily newspaper), resign citing a campaign to discredit them and put them "under the direct control of men". (BBC News)
Business and economy
- U.S.-owned company Uber buys Dubai-based ride-sharing company Careem for $3.1 billion in order to further solidify its Middle Eastern presence. (CNBC) (CNN)
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tells a judge in New York that she has the power to decide whether the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, violated the terms of his settlement with the SEC without holding a hearing, because there are no open issues of material fact. (SEC)
Disasters and accidents
- 2019 Jayapura flood and landslide
- 2019 Iran floods
- The death toll from a flash flood in Iran rises to 21. (CBS News)
Health and environment
- Health officials in Rockland County, New York, declare a state of emergency due to an ongoing measles outbreak. The county is prohibiting unvaccinated children under the age of 18 from public areas for 30 days. (Ars Technica)
International relations
- The Lima Group condemns the presence of Russian military planes in Venezuela as a "provocation threatening peace and security in the region." (France24)
Law and crime
- Foreign relations of North Korea
- The Spanish Audiencia Nacional reveals that an attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid on February 22 was led by a Mexican citizen residing in the United States who later offered the FBI data stolen during the incident. (Associated Press) (Euro news) (The New York Times)
- Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
- The European Parliament approves two revisions to the controversial Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. One resolution includes new requirements aimed at making companies pay licensing fees to publications such as newspapers whose work gets aggregated by online services. The second revision makes online platforms such as Google, Facebook and YouTube liable for the content posted on their services, meaning that all content providers must get permission from rights holders before uploading copyrighted material of any kind. (The Guardian)
- All charges against American actor Jussie Smollett for allegedly filing a false police report are dropped. (CNN)
- Purdue Pharma reaches a $270 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. state of Oklahoma that claimed the pharmaceutical company's opioids contributed to the deaths of thousands of people as part of the opioid epidemic. (The Washington Post)
Politics and elections
- 2019 Algerian protests
- Algeria's Chief of Staff of the People's National Army Ahmed Gaid Salah, the highest-ranked military official in the country, gives a televised address, calling on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign or be declared "unfit to serve" by the People's National Assembly. (BBC News)
- Green New Deal
- The United States Senate blocks the Green New Deal, a progressive climate change resolution aiming to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. It has faced criticism from conservatives, as well as some Democrats, who found the resolution too broad and unspecific. (The Hill)
- U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testifies before a House appropriations subcommittee about this year's DoED budget request. The committee heavily criticized Secretary DeVos for the proposed budget cuts. (Yahoo! News)
Sports
- Mixed martial artist Conor McGregor announces his retirement from the sport on Twitter. The New York Times reports that McGregor was arrested in January for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in Ireland. According to the New York Times, he was released and is under investigation by authorities. (MMA Fighting) (New York Post)