August 26, 2015 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- Two NATO soldiers are shot dead by two men in Afghan military uniforms. (AFP via France24)
- Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
- ISIL has destroyed two historic Muslim shrines in Palmyra. (CNN)
- A U.S. drone strike in Syria kills Junaid Hussain, dubbed "Mr. Terror" - a British hacker for the Islamic State. (The Telegraph)
Arts and culture
- The smallest of mother Mei Xiang's two giant panda cubs born on Saturday at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. dies. (The Smithsonian Magazine)
Business and economy
- Oshkosh L-ATV
- The U.S. Army awards the $6.7 billion contract for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the replacement for the Humvee, to the Wisconsin-based company Oshkosh Corporation. (AP via FOX News)
Disasters and accidents
- European migrant crisis
- A Swedish rescue crew finds 51 dead migrants in the hold of a boat off the coast of Libya during a rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea that has saved 439 other people. In addition, three women are found dead in another migrant boat and another corpse is found during ten rescue operations on Wednesday that have saved around 3,000 people, according to the Italian coast guard. (Reuters), (AP via The Columbus Republic)[permanent dead link]
Law and crime
- Anti-corruption campaign in China, 2015 Tianjin explosions
- The People's Republic of China sacks its workplace safety chief Yang Dongliang for alleged corruption following an investigation triggered by the Tianjin explosions. (Reuters)
- Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward
- A U.S. television reporter and her cameraman, Alison Parker and Adam Ward, are shot dead during a live broadcast in Moneta, Virginia; the woman they were interviewing, Vicki Gardner, is wounded. The alleged shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan II, later uploads a video of the murder and commits suicide. (WTKR)
- 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting
- James Holmes is formally sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences plus 3,318 years for the murder of 12 people and injury of 70 others at a Century movie theater in the U.S. city of Aurora, Colorado. (AP via U.S. News & World Report), (CNN)