Portal:Current events/2017 August 4
< Portal:Current events
August 4, 2017 (Friday)
Arts and culture
- Danish royal consorts
- Denmark's Prince Henrik announces he won't be buried next to Queen Margrethe II in the Roskilde Cathedral where Danish royals have been buried since 1559. The 83-year-old, French-born Henrik has been dissatisfied with his non-equal role as Prince consort. The 77-year old Margrethe, who had a specially designed sarcophagus made for the couple, accepts Henrik's decision, according to a royal house spokeswoman. (AP via ABC News)
Business and economy
- Economy of the United States
- The U.S. economy added over 200,000 jobs last month, dropping the country's unemployment rate to match a previous 16-year low at 4.3%. Wage growth remained below the Federal Reserve Board's target of 3.5%. (CNN Money)
Disasters and accidents
- 2017 Dubai skyscraper fire
- A fire at the 79-story Dubai Torch Tower in the United Arab Emirates, which forced nighttime evacuations, was under control in a few hours with no serious injuries immediately reported. The building's exterior was still being renovated from a fire in February, 2015, which investigators had blamed, at least in part, to flammable siding, echoing the findings of this past June's Grenfell Tower fire in London. (The New York Times) (The National)
Law and crime
- Crime in New York (state)
- Former pharmaceutical company executive Martin Shkreli is convicted of three counts of securities fraud in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York.(Reuters)
- Volkswagen emissions scandal
- A former Volkswagen executive pleads guilty to defrauding the United States and violating the Clean Air Act. (BBC News)
Politics and elections
- Rwandan presidential election, 2017
- Voters in Rwanda go to the polls to elect their president. Paul Kagame, incumbent since 2000, referred to the election as a formality, despite challenges from the Democratic Greens' Frank Habineza and independent Philippe Mpayimana. Kagame is re-elected with 98.66 of the vote. (BBC) (Sky News)
- Crisis in Venezuela
- Socorro Flores Liera, Mexico's deputy foreign minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, that during the first half of 2017, 1,420 Venezuelans have sought asylum in Mexico, a nearly four-fold jump compared to the 361 total Venezuelan asylum applicants for all of 2016, as the result of Venezuela's deepening political and economic crisis. (Reuters)