Portal:Current events/2020 February 26

February 26, 2020 (2020-02-26) (Wednesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• North East Delhi riots
  • Violent clashes between Hindu and Muslim protesters over the Citizenship Amendment Act continue in North East Delhi, India, leaving 27 people dead and at least 180 injured. (NDTV)
• Syrian civil war, Northwestern Syria offensive (December 2019–present), Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War
  • Turkey's MoD says two Turkish troops were killed in an airstrike in Syria's Idlib Governorate. (Middle East Monitor)
  • Turkey's MoD claims 114 Syrian Army troops were "neutralized" in retaliation. An air defense system, a ZU-23-2 AA gun, an antitank weapon, 3 Tanks, an ammunition vehicle and 2 engineering vehicles were destroyed while 3 tanks were captured. (Akşam)

Arts and culture

• Bob Weighton, aged 111, of Alton, Hampshire, England, is named the oldest living man in the world after the death of Chitetsu Watanabe of Japan at the age of 112. (The Guardian)

Health and environment

• COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
    • 102 more coronavirus cases are confirmed in Italy, bringing the number to 424. Another virus-related death is confirmed, bringing the death toll in the country to 12. (Sky Tg24)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Austria
    • In Josefstadt, Vienna, students at Albertgasse high school have been prohibited from leaving the school after one of their instructors was flagged as potentially carrying the virus since he had recently returned from a trip to Northern Italy. (RT)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
    • In California, San Francisco declares a public emergency. Santa Clara and San Diego counties have made similar declarations. (News AU)
  • The first case in Latin America is confirmed by the Ministry of Health of Brazil in São Paulo. (Al Jazeera)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Greece
    • Greece confirms its first case in Thessaloniki. (Reuters)
  • Romania and Georgia report their first cases. (Reuters) (Reuters)
  • A 62-year-old man in Seville becomes the first non imported infected case of coronavirus in Spain. (La Vanguardia)

Law and crime

• Six prisoners are shot dead by Papua New Guinea Police as they escape from prison in Western Highlands Province. They were among 100 inmates who escaped during a mass breakout. Scores of others are captured. (RNZ)
• Germany repeals its 2015 ban on advertisements for professional assisted suicide practices, after finding that its prohibition violated the German Constitution. Passive human euthanasia itself has been legal in the republic since 2014. (BBC News)
• Milwaukee brewery shooting
  • Six people, including the shooter, are killed in a mass shooting at the Molson Coors Beverage Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The perpetrator, who committed suicide, was an employee who was fired earlier in the day. (USA Today) (WGN-TV)
• The re-election campaign of U.S. President Donald Trump files a libel suit against The New York Times over a 2019 editorial piece that accused the Trump campaign of striking a deal with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • The Spanish and Catalan government meets for the first time after breaking the talks one year ago in the named "Dialogue Board" as a way to solve the constitutional and political crisis between both governments that erupted in 2017. (La Vanguardia)
• Lynching in the United States
  • The U.S. House of Representatives votes 410–4 to pass the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which designates lynching a federal crime. This is the first time that anti-lynching legislation has ever passed Congress. (NPR)

Science and technology

• Astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, United States, say an object known as 2020 CD3 has been captured by Earth's gravitational field and has been in orbit since 2017, becoming a temporary natural satellite of Earth. The Minor Planet Center confirms the findings and says "no link to a known artificial object has been found", implying the object is an asteroid. (New Scientist)

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