Portal:Current events/2019 June 4
< Portal:Current events
June 4, 2019 (Tuesday)
Business and economics
- British-American cruise operator Carnival Corporation & PLC is fined $20 million for environmental violations. (NPR)
International relations
- Cuba–United States relations
- The United States announces new restrictions on American travel to Cuba. Effective Wednesday, travel via cruise ships or other conveyances, including private yachts or airplanes, is prohibited. Group travel under the previous "people-to-people educational" provision is also not allowed. (BBC News) (AP via WKYT-TV)
- China–United States relations, China–United States trade war
- China expands its warnings about travel to the U.S. issued for students and academics yesterday, to now cover tourists and businesses because, "in recent days, there have been incidents of gun violence, robberies and thefts in the United States". (BBC News) (Reuters)
- The United States rejects separate requests from General Motors and Chinese-owned Volvo Cars for an exemption to the new 25 percent tariffs on their Chinese-made sport utility vehicle models. (Reuters)
- Foreign relations of Brazil
- Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms the closure of five of its embassies, the ones in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominica. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had opened more than 65 embassies in countries throughout the Global South in a bid to enhance political and economic ties with Brazil. (teleSUR)
- Nigerian diplomat Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, assuming the office on September and succeeding Peruvian María Fernanda Espinosa. (UN News)
Law and crime
- 2019 Darwin shooting
- A mass shooting in Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, leaves four people dead and another injured at five different locations. The 45-year-old suspect, who had been on parole since January, is arrested. Authorities say the shooting was not terrorism-related. (ABC News) (BBC News)
- Criminal charges brought in the Mueller special counsel investigation
- Paul Manafort, former chief of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, is set to be sent from federal prison to the New York City jail on Rikers Island. (CNBC)
- Aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
- Former Broward Sheriff Office deputy Scot Peterson is arrested for failing to act during the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (The Hill)
- Jersey authorities seize over $267 million (£210m) from a Doraville Properties Corporation bank account of former Nigerian president and army chief of staff dictator Sani Abacha (d. 1998) after courts ruled billions of dollars were stolen and laundered through the United States into the Channel Islands. (BBC News) (Metro)
Politics and elections
- Gun laws in Virginia
- Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is expected to call a special session on gun control following the deadly shooting Friday afternoon in Virginia Beach that killed 12 people plus the shooter. (NBC News)
- 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
- Tens of thousands of people gather in Hong Kong to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Hong Kong is one of the two places in China where people can openly commemorate the event, the other being Macau, to a lesser extent; elsewhere in China, the authorities have banned and blocked any reference to the crackdown. (BBC News)
- Six Change UK MPs quit the party, with several said to be defecting to the Liberal Democrats, including its interim leader Heidi Allen and spokesperson Chuka Umunna after the party failed to win a single seat in the 2019 European Parliament election. Anna Soubry, one of its remaining four MPs, becomes the party's new leader. (The Guardian)
- Immigration to the United States
- The United States House of Representatives passes the American Dream and Promise Act (HR 6), which offers a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants. (Newsweek)