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Worldwide current events
Sports events

Topics in the news

Nursultan Nazarbayev resigns as the first President of Kazakhstan after a 29 year tenure, appointing Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as interim president.
Karen Uhlenbeck is awarded the Abel Prize in mathematics for "her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory and integrable systems," becoming the first woman to receive this award.
A gunman kills three people and injures five others in a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands.

March 20, 2019 (Wednesday)

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Business and economy

The Walt Disney Company completes its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox. (The Hollywood Reporter)

March 19, 2019 (Tuesday)

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Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian Civil War, International military intervention against ISIL, Battle of Baghuz Fawqani
- Syrian Democratic Forces declares progress in Syria after an ISIL camp on the outskirts of Baghouz is captured. (NPR) (Fox News)

Arts and culture

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awards this year’s Abel Prize to Karen Uhlenbeck for “her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory and integrable systems." Uhlenbeck is the first woman to win this prize. (The New York Times via MSN.com)

International relations

North Korea–South Korea relations
- North Korea and South Korea express interest in jointly hosting the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. (Reuters UK) (Yonhap News Agency)

Politics and elections

The President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, announces his resignation after 29 years in office. (Reuters)

2019 Guatemalan general election
- A judge issued an arrest warrant against the presidential candidate Thelma Aldana however, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal registered Aldana as a presidential candidate so she enjoys immunity and can not be arrested. (Prensa Libre)

Sports

Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels finalize a record-breaking 12-year, $430 million contract, the largest in the history of Major League Baseball. (Bleacher Report)

March 18, 2019 (Monday)

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Law and crime

2019 Utrecht shooting
- A man opens fire in a tram in the city of Utrecht, Netherlands, killing three people and injuring nine others, before fleeing. Terrorism is suspected by authorities. A 37-year-old Turkish man is arrested. (Fox News)
Christchurch mosque shootings, Internet censorship in Australia
- Telstra blocks access to several websites in Australia for hosting footage of the recent mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, which were livestreamed on Facebook, including LiveLeak, 4chan, 8chan, Voat and the blog Zero Hedge. Optus and Vodafone took similar actions but did not list which sites had been blocked. (9news)

Science and technology

Kamchatka superbolide
- NASA reports that it has detected a huge meteor explosion in Earth's atmosphere on December 18, 2018, above Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The explosion went largely unnoticed due to its location. The explosion, which was ten times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was the second largest of its kind in 30 years. (BBC)

March 17, 2019 (Sunday)

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Disasters and accidents

At least 73 people have been killed in flash floods in the province of Papua, Indonesia. (BBC)
President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi suggests the death toll of Cyclone Idai could reach over one thousand. The current official toll stands at 84. (BBC)

Politics and election

2019 Slovak presidential election
- Progressive Slovakia candidate Zuzana Čaputová, who ran on an anti-corruption campaign against the backdrop of Ján Kuciak's murder, wins the first round of Slovakia's presidential election with 40.5% of the vote while the ruling Direction – Social Democracy Party's candidate Maroš Šefčovič receives 18.6% of the vote. As no candidate reached 50%+1 votes in the first round, Čaputová and Šefčovič will take part in a second round on March 30, 2019. The ruling Direction – Social Democracy Party suffers its worst result since its founding in 1999. (Reuters) (The Guardian) (BBC) (Slovakia's Election Commission)
2020 United States presidential election, 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
- Kirsten Gillibrand 2020 presidential campaign
  - U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York formally announces she is officialy running for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election. (The New York Times)

March 16, 2019 (Saturday)

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Disasters and accidents

A fire at a refugee camp in Nigeria kills eight and leaves 15,000 homeless. The residents are people displaced by ongoing conflict with Boko Haram. (Reuters)
Flooding over large portions of Nebraska leave one dead and two missing with over 900 people using emergency shelters. Many roads and highways in the state are also closed. (USA Today)

Law and crime

Terrorism in Ireland, Terrorism in the United Kingdom
- The village of Derrylin, close to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is sealed off after a suspicious object is found. The object is later determined to be “nothing untoward”. (Irish Times)
Colombia's migration authority detains and expels an alleged spy working for Cuba's Intelligence Directorate. (El Tiempo)

Politics and elections

Yellow vests movement
- Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron enter a fourth month in Paris. Tear gas is fired at protestors throwing stones at riot police in front of the Arc de Triomphe, news stands are torched at the Champs-Élysées, and a branch of Banque Tarneaud is burned. More than 80 arrests are made. Businesses around the Champs-Élysées are looted. (Reuters)
Trial of Catalonia independence leaders, Catalan independentism
- Thousands of demonstrators protest in Madrid against the trial of Catalan independence leaders and the ongoing detention of some of them. Local police say around 18,000 protestors were involved; organisers claim almost 120,000. (BBC)

March 15, 2019 (Friday)

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Armed conflicts and attacks

Christchurch mosque shootings, Terrorism in New Zealand
- At least 50 people are killed and dozens others are injured during two attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. (NBC News)
- Four people—three men and one woman—are arrested in connection to the shootings, according to New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush. It is later learned that one of them was an armed citizen trying to help police and was released. (Sky News)
- A gunman involved in the shootings of at least one of the two mosques is identified as Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian man. (Associated Press)
2019 Tel Aviv rocket strike
- In response to a possible accidental launching of two rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Tel Aviv the day before, Israel launches hundreds of counter strikes directed at the town of Khan Yunis. (The New York Times) (Associated Press)

Health and environment

School strike for climate
- Hundreds of thousands of students protest worldwide for climate change mitigation. (ANSA) (Archynewsy.com) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Keystone pipeline expansion
- A U.S. appeals court denies TransCanada's request to lift an injunction preventing pre-construction work on the Keystone XL expansion from beginning. The company claims this will delay the project by a year. (CBC)

International relations

United States and the International Criminal Court, United States war crimes, War crimes in Afghanistan
- United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bars the entry of International Criminal Court investigators into the United States as part of the ICC's investigation into possible war crimes committed by the United States military in Afghanistan. (Associated Press)
North Korea and weapons of mass destruction, North Korea–United States relations
- North Korea has reportedly threatened to suspend negotiations with the United States regarding nuclear weaponry, as well as resume related missile testing. (The New York Times)

Law and crime

Volkswagen emissions scandal
- The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges in a court filing that Volkswagen has "perpetrated a massive fraud" and repeatedly lied to U.S. investors in connection with diesel emissions. (CNBC)

Politics and elections

2019 Algerian protests
- The 2019 Algerian protests, the largest protests since the Algerian Civil War, have led the government to cancel the Presidential elections, to replace the Prime Minister, and to promise Abdelaziz Bouteflika would not run for re-election. (The Washington Post)
National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States
- U.S. President Donald Trump issues his first ever veto after Congress attempts to block his emergency declaration to fund construction of the wall along the Mexico–United States border. (The New York Times)
Lawmakers in Mexico's lower chamber of Congress approve a constitutional reform that would allow for recall referendums to cut short the six-year presidential term limit; the measure still needs the approval of the Senate and the state legislatures. (Reuters)

March 14, 2019 (Thursday)

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Armed conflicts and attacks

2019 Tel Aviv rocket strike
- Two rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip at Tel Aviv, Israel; neither rocket was intercepted by the IDF's Iron Dome system. (The New York Times) (IDF Spokesperson)

Disasters and accidents

USS Devastator is damaged by fire while at a Bahrain dock. (Task & Purpose)

Law and crime

Bloody Sunday
- Prosecutors in Northern Ireland charge a former British Army soldier with murdering two people during the mass shooting in Derry during the Troubles in 1972, following a contemporary police investigation. The man, known only as Soldier F, is also charged with three attempted murders. It is also announced that no other charges against either soldiers or civilians will be brought due to insufficient evidence. Soldiers shot 28 unarmed protestors, killing 13. (BBC)
2019 college admissions bribery scandal
- Eight universities are sued by two Stanford University students in regards to the college admissions bribery scandal. (ABC News)
Caracas drone attack
- A CNN reporter alleges an unnamed source has provided new video details about a plot to kill Nicolás Maduro. (CNN)