Portal:Current events/2020 June 26

June 26, 2020 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan, Afghan peace process
- The government and the Taliban agree to start intra-Afghan talks by mid-July after the issue of releasing the "most dangerous" Taliban prisoners has been solved, according to a government spokesman. The group did not comment on the announcement. (Al Arabiya)
- The United States Intelligence Community claims that Russia offered Taliban-affiliated groups bounties to kill American soldiers. (The New York Times)

Business and economy

British-Dutch consumer company Unilever, owner of brands including Lipton and Dove, announces that they will suspend advertising on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for the rest of the year, saying that they have not been doing enough to counter "divisiveness and hate speech during this polarized election period in the U.S." (Reuters)
Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Intu Properties, the owner and operator of the United Kingdom's largest shopping centres such as the MetroCentre and Lakeside Shopping Centre, collapses into administration, following months of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (BBC News)

Health and environment

COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Spain
  - A University of Barcelona-led investigation uncovers traces of SARS-CoV-2 in frozen Barcelona sewage samples drawn on 12 March 2019, more than half a year before the first publicly confirmed case of COVID-19 in China. (El Mundo) (Reuters)
- COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
  - The U.S. reports 39,972 more COVID-19 cases, the largest number of new cases in a single day. (USA Today)

Law and crime

Glasgow hotel stabbings
- Six people are injured in a mass stabbing in central Glasgow, Scotland. The attacker was shot dead by police. (BBC News)
2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt
- A court in Turkey sentences 121 people to life in prison for their role in the 2016 attempted coup. Eighty-six were sentenced to "aggravated" life imprisonment for "attempting to violate the constitution". (Al Arabiya)
Iran and state-sponsored terrorism
- A Danish court sentences a Norwegian-Iranian man to seven years in prison for spying on behalf of Iranian intelligence and for conspiring to assassinate the leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz. He will be expelled permanently from the country upon the end of his sentence. (Reuters)
A court in the United Kingdom sentences an 18-year-old man to 15 years in prison for attempted murder for throwing a six-year-old French boy off the roof of the Tate Modern art gallery in London in December. He was 17 at the time of the crime, and said he "wanted to be on the television news". The boy survived but suffered life-changing injuries. (Reuters) (BBC News) (CNN)
The Chief of Police of Mexico City, Omar García Harfuch, is injured but "out of danger" in an assassination attempt upon him. Two of his bodyguards and a passerby were killed. García Harfuch blamed the attack on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). (Reuters)

Politics and elections

George Floyd protests
- Employees at Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, working in multiple U.S. locations are being sent home for refusing to take off Black Lives Matter face masks. Workers are protesting these actions. (Boston Globe) (Fox News)
Statehood movement in the District of Columbia, Proposals for a 51st state in the United States
- The United States House of Representatives passes a bill that would make Washington, D.C. a U.S. state, with the exception of important government buildings. This legislation is unlikely to pass in the Republican-held United States Senate and President Donald Trump has expressed opposition to the matter. (CNBC)

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