Portal:Current events/2019 February 1
< Portal:Current events
February 1, 2019 (Friday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Dissident Irish Republican campaign
- Two people were shot and injured in two individual attacks in Londonderry. (BBC)
- Ammunition and a mortar tube was found at the Irish border in County Louth. (BBC News)
Arts and culture
- The Associated Press and Snopes say they are no longer providing fact-checking services for Facebook. (BBC News)
- Boy Scouts of America membership controversies, Boy Scouts of America, Gender equality
- The Boy Scouts officially changes its name to Scouts BSA and young women join as official members of the organization for the first time. (ABC6) (Scouting Newsroom)
Disasters and accidents
- January 2019 North American cold wave
- The death toll from a North American cold wave caused by a polar vortex rises to at least 21 people. (BBC News)
- A large-scale natural gas shortage in the U.S. state of Michigan is averted following the compliance of an emergency request from Consumers Energy for state residents to lower thermostats, after a fire at a natural gas compressor station threatened to halt the delivery of gas to consumers. The public's observance of the request resulted in a 10 percent decrease in natural gas usage across the state. (WNEM-TV) (Associated Press)
- Three students at a school in Johannesburg, South Africa, are killed after a footbridge connecting the main school administration to various class rooms collapses. (AA)
International relations
- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Cold War II, Russia–United States relations
- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces that the United States is suspending its role in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, an agreement made in 1987 with the USSR (and, by extension, its successor state Russia) banning both countries from possessing or testing nuclear and conventional intermediate-range missiles, as well as their launchers, citing Russian non-compliance with the treaty. (CNN)
Politics and elections
- 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
- U.S. Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker announces that he is running for the office of the presidency in the 2020 presidential election. (CNN)
- Republican and Democratic leaders call for the resignation of Governor Ralph Northam after a 1984 yearbook photograph apparently featuring Northam surfaces showing one person wearing blackface and another person wearing Ku Klux Klan attire. (The Hill)
Science and technology
- A meteorite strikes near the Cuban town of Viñales, in the western province of Pinar del Río, after sightings of a fireball over the Florida Keys. The last confirmed meteorite to hit Cuba was in 1994. (DW)
Sports
- 2019 AFC Asian Cup
- Qatar defeats Japan 3-1 to win the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, earning them their first continental championship title. (The Guardian)
- American Olympic alpine skier Lindsey Vonn announces she will retire after the 53rd Alpine Ski World Cup in Sweden, which is currently taking place and will conclude in March. (Time)