Portal:Current events/2017 August 14

August 14, 2017 (Monday)

Arts and culture

Big Ben
- London's Big Ben, atop Elizabeth Tower, will fall silent for four years beginning 21 August while essential repair works are performed. (BBC) (The Washington Post)
Deadpool 2
- American stuntwoman Joi 'SJ' Harris is killed in a motorcycle crash in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, while filming for Deadpool 2. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials
- During a protest in Durham, North Carolina, to show solidarity with the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, a Confederate monument was pulled down and destroyed; a woman has been arrested and charged in connection with the event. (CNN)

Disaster and accidents

2017 Sierra Leone mudslides
- A mudslide triggered by heavy rain near Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, kills at least 350 people with the death toll expected to rise as high as 500. (Central Queensland Radio) (BBC)

International relations

Japanese war crimes
- The National Archives of Korea has received a donation of around 6,000 records showing the forced mobilization of Koreans during Korea's colonial occupation by the Empire of Japan, some of them involving details about the controversial Hashima Island. The government agency plans to publish the records online after classification. (KBS World Radio)
2017 North Korea crisis
- The International Institute for Strategic Studies releases a report arguing that North Korea has acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine for its missile program, probably from illicit networks in Russia and Ukraine, likely produced by Yuzhmash facilities. Ukraine denies the allegations. (Reuters) (The New York Times)

Law and crime

Crime in France
- A 13-year-old girl is killed when a car is deliberately driven into a pizza restaurant's sidewalk cafe in Sept-Sorts, France. At least 12 other people are injured, four critically. The driver is arrested. Police do not believe the incident was terrorism-related. (CBS News) (The Independent)
Philippine Drug War
- Senate Majority Leader Vicente "Tito" Sotto III has lashed out at UN special rapporteurs headed by Agnes Callamard, in his privilege speech calling them "helicopter experts" for offering "solutions" to a decades-old problem of a country "they are not even familiar with". (Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Politics and elections

2016–17 Rohingya persecution in Myanmar
- India announces that it is to deport an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees including 14,000 of those registered with the U.N. refugee agency. In the months leading up to the announcement, a string of anti-Rohingya protests had been held in the country. (Reuters)
Politics of Australia
- The Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce is revealed to have unknowingly held dual citizenship with New Zealand since his election, which may have rendered him ineligible for candidacy under section 44 of the Constitution of Australia. (ABC News Australia)
Politics of London
- The Garden Bridge project is officially abandoned after Mayor of London Sadiq Khan withdraws support. (BBC)
Sanctuary cities
- California and San Francisco sue the United States Federal government over its opposition towards sanctuary cities. (Politico)

Science and technology

Aftermath of the Unite the Right rally
- Several internet companies, such as domain registrar GoDaddy and video game chat application Discord, shut down services for neo-Nazi, white supremacist, alt-right website The Daily Stormer for violation of terms of service, and in response to this weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. (The Guardian) (TechCrunch)
GW170814
- LIGO and Virgo observatories detect the gravitational wave signal from two merging black holes. (Phys.org)