Portal:Current events/2024 April 4

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Kharkiv strikes
    • Russia launches multiple Shahed drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine, killing at least five people, including three rescue workers, and injuring five others. (Reuters)
  • Russian appointed officials claim that Ukrainian shelling has killed two civilians and injured nine others in Donetsk. Separately, four people are killed in drone attacks in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast. (Reuters)
  • U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Ukraine will eventually become a NATO member. (Reuters)
• Papua conflict
  • Two West Papua National Liberation Army leaders, including Abubakar Tabuni, are killed during a shootout with the Indonesian Army near the Grasberg mine in Mimika Regency, Central Papua. (AP)
• Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency
  • Eleven security forces, including five Revolutionary Guards, are killed in Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran, during an attack against the Revolutionary Guards' headquarters by members of Jaish ul-Adl. Sixteen militants are killed in the ensuing shootout. (Reuters)
• Syrian civil war
  • Former Al-Nusra Front emir Abu Maria al-Qahtani is assassinated in a suicide bombing in Sarmada, Idlib Governorate, Syria. The Islamic State are accused of being behind the attack, which also injured several others at his house. (Reuters)

Business and economy

• 99 Cents Only Stores announces an orderly wind-down, closing all of its 371 stores in the United States beginning April 5. (Newsweek)

Disasters and accidents

• Shipping lanes and airspace in the Great Belt strait in Denmark are closed for several hours after a missile launcher malfunctions on the frigate Niels Juel. (NOS) (CNN)
• Fourteen people are killed in a collision between a bus and a truck in Bolivia. (AFP via Barron's)
• Five foreigners are killed when a fire breaks out in an apartment building in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. (Al Arabiya English) (Gulf News)

Health and environment

• 2020–2024 H5N1 outbreak
  • Scientists from the Federation University Australia report that thousands of Adélie penguins have been found dead in Antarctica amid an increase in bird flu cases among wild bird populations. (Reuters)
  • Bird flu spreads to cattle herds in at least six U.S. states, while a dairy farm worker is infected in Texas, becoming the second person to ever become infected with the virus in the United States. (Bloomberg)

Law and crime

• Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa, is arrested and charged with corruption one day after resigning from office. (VOA)
• A man stabs the Governor of Murmansk Oblast Andrey Chibis at a meeting in Apatity, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. The attacker is arrested by police. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2024 Maltese presidential election
  • Myriam Spiteri Debono is sworn in as President of Malta, succeeding George Vella and becoming the third woman to hold the office. (Times of Malta)

Science and technology

• Researchers at the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument in Arizona, United States, release the largest 3D map of the universe featuring more than six million galaxies. Using this map, researchers are able to measure the acceleration of the expansion rate of the universe with unprecedented accuracy, detecting hints that the rate of expansion has been increasing over time. (The Guardian) (Berkeley Lab)