Portal:Current events/2020 June 3
June 3, 2020 (Wednesday)
Disasters and accidents
- 2020 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Cyclone Nisarga, COVID-19 pandemic in India
- Severe Cyclonic Storm Nisarga makes landfall south of Mumbai. This is the first time a tropical cyclone has targeted the megacity since 1891. About 100,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas in the western Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, areas already hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. (NPR) (India Meteorological Department)
- 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes
- A Mw 5.5 aftershock to the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes of July 2019 takes place. It is the third-largest earthquake of the sequence, taking place only 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from the Garlock Fault. (NBC Los Angeles) (The Los Angeles Times)
- Norilsk oil spill
- Russian President Vladimir Putin declares a state of emergency after 20,000 tons of oil leaked into the Ambarnaya River near the Siberian city of Norilsk within the Arctic Circle on May 26, 2020. The spill happened when a fuel tank in a Nornickel NTEK power plant collapsed. Putin lambasted the company for not reporting the incident. The World Wildlife Fund said the accident is believed to be the second-largest in modern Russian history. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
International relations
- Hong Kong–United Kingdom relations, 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces that the United Kingdom will change its immigration laws to offer a pathway to UK citizenship for all Hong Kong citizens who are eligible for BN(O) status, if the government of China imposes new security laws on the territory. (BBC News)
Law and crime
- Killing of George Floyd
- George Floyd protests
- George Floyd protests in California
- Vallejo police announce that Sean Monterrosa, a 22-year-old Hispanic resident of San Francisco, was shot and killed by police the day before at a Walgreens. Police allege that a hammer in his pocket was mistaken for a gun. Monterrosa was on his knees. (The San Francisco Chronicle)
- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti pledges to cut the budget of the Los Angeles Police Department by up to $150 million in the wake of allegations of police misconduct during protests. (Los Angeles Times)
- George Floyd protests in Texas
- Texas State University President Denise Trauth announces on social media that a 20-year-old African-American student protestor, Justin Howell, had been critically injured by a bean bag round fired by Austin police on Sunday. Police maintain that Howell was not the intended target. (Austin American-Statesman)
- Death of David Dorn
- U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R–AR) publishes a op-ed for the New York Times calling for the mobilization of American troops in response to the protests. (The New York Times)
- George Floyd protests in California
- The criminal charge for former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd is upgraded to second-degree murder, while the three officers who helped restrain Floyd are charged with aiding and abetting murder. (CNBC)
- George Floyd protests
- Papua conflict, 2019 Papua protests
- An administrative court in Jakarta rules that it was unlawful for the Government of Indonesia to shut down the internet in Papua and West Papua during heightened security tensions caused by antiracism protests in the two provinces last year. (The Jakarta Post)
- Former Lesotho First Lady Maesiah Thabane is arrested on charges of murder. Her husband, former Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane, is also accused of murder but not formally charged. (Reuters)
- A court in France orders Rwandan genocide suspect Félicien Kabuga to be handed over to a United Nations tribunal for trial. Kabuga's lawyers said that their client would not receive a fair trial at a UN tribunal and that his health was too fragile to be transferred amidst the pandemic. However, French justice said his transfer is "not incompatible" with the decision. (Reuters)
- Former President of Ecuador Abdalá Bucaram is arrested for illegal possession of weapons during a raid on his home against corruption. (CNN Español)
Science and technology
- SpaceX successfully launches and deploys 60 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to 482. (Space.com)