Portal:Current events/2018 October 30

October 30, 2018 (Tuesday)

Disasters and accidents

2018 Pacific typhoon season
- Typhoon Yutu causes landslides in the Philippines, leaving at least four people killed and thirty-one others trapped. (Reuters)
A fire along South Africa's Garden Route in the Cape Province, kills at least seven people. (BBC)

Health and environment

Complications of pregnancy
- Research published in JAMA Internal Medicine describes that mothers should wait at least a year between giving birth and getting pregnant again to reduce health risks to mother and baby. (BBC)

Law and crime

List of serial killers by number of victims
- German convicted serial killer and former nurse Niels Högel begins his third trial (previous convictions were in 2008 and 2015), this time in Oldenburg, for additional patient murders by administering fatal doses of medication between 1999–2005 which may include his assignment as one of Germany's worst serial killers since World War II. At the beginning of the trial, Högel confesses to the murder of 100 of his patients. (BBC), (Deutsche Welle)
Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority
- A judge in Ecuador rules against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who had contested new rules imposed on him in the country's embassy in London. Assange had argued that the conditions violated his "fundamental rights and freedoms", and were intended to force him to leave. His lawyers have appealed against the ruling. Assange took refuge in the embassy six years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden in a sexual assault case that has since been dropped. (BBC)
Boston convicted organized crime boss and former FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive Whitey Bulger dies in the United States Penitentiary at Hazelton, West Virginia. (CNN)
Arrest of Juan Requesens, Human rights in Venezuela
- It is reported that imprisoned Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Requesens has been transferred from isolation to a military hospital in Caracas, after days of reports that he has been suffering an untreated dental infection as well as wounds of torture. (Venezuela al día)
John Letts, the father of the alleged British-Canadian Islamic State fighter Jack Letts who is being held by Kurdish forces in Syria, calls for the Canadian government to help secure his release. (BBC), (CTV News)

Politics and elections

United States Constitution
- U.S. President Donald Trump vows to revoke the right to automatic citizenship given to children born on United States land to illegal immigrants. According to most authorities, birthright citizenship in the United States is protected in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (BBC)
Taliban in Qatar
- Five members of the Taliban who were freed by the Obama administration from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for former captive Bowe Bergdahl join the insurgent group’s political office in Qatar. (Military Times), (The Washington Post)

Science and technology

NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft becomes the closest ever sent to the sun, by passing 42.7 million km (26.6 million miles) from the sun's surface. The previous record was set in 1976 by the Helios 2 spacecraft. Parker's elliptical orbit will eventually take it to within 6.1 million km (3.8 million miles) of the sun. (BBC)
NASA announces that the Kepler spacecraft has expended all its fuel and will be retired after nearly 10 years of service, having found more than 2,600 exoplanets. (Los Angeles Times)
The Hawaii Supreme Court affirms the permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. (Thirty Meter Telescope)