Portal:Current events/2015 September 14

September 14, 2015 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Five Saudi troops are killed following clashes with Houthi militants in the southern Najran region near the border with Yemen. (AFP via Yahoo!)
- Emirati troops advance on the Houthi controlled Yemeni capital, Sana'a after securing control of Marib, the capital of Marib province. (AP via Yahoo!)
- Ten people are killed, seven from the same family, in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a government building in a southern suburb of Sana'a, the Yemen capital. (Reuters)
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- Taliban insurgents storm a prison in the central Afghan province of Ghazni killing at least four prison officers and freeing about 350 prisoners. The deputy provincial governor of the Ghazni province says the attackers were well-organised and wearing military uniforms. (BBC)
Syrian Civil War, Russia's role in the Syrian Civil War
- United States Department of Defense says that Russia has deployed armoured vehicles and troops to Syria in what has been described as the "first clear sign of offensive weapons arriving in Syria" and "the largest deployment of Russian forces outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of the USSR". (Fox News)

Business and economy

Brazil announces a $17 billion austerity package after Standard and Poors further downgrades its credit rating. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
A University of Notre Dame study finds significant correlation between substantial executive stock options and future product recalls. CEOs with abundant stock options get a huge payoff when the company performs well but endure minute consequences when it doesn’t. (Fortune)

Disasters and accidents

Kyushu island's Mount Aso, Japan's largest active volcano, erupts. Numerous flights serving Kumamoto Airport are canceled. (Reuters via Trust), (CNN)
2015 Pacific typhoon season
- Tropical Storm Vamco makes landfall south of Da Nang, Viet Nam, causing flooding in the region. (Accu Weather)
At least seven people are dead and six missing after a flash flood in the American town of Hildale, Utah. (KUTV)

International relations

Law and crime

Shannon Lamb, a professor at Delta State University who was suspected of two murders in the U.S. state of Mississippi—the woman he was living with in Gautier and a fellow professor at the Delta State campus in Cleveland—dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while being pursued by police. (Fox News)
Miller v. Davis
- In the U.S., Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, involved in the litigation over same-sex marriage, states she will not block her deputies from issuing marriage licenses, but will not authorize them personally (her name will not appear on them, and they will state that they were given under a federal judicial order). (Reuters)

Politics and elections

Science and technology

The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016. This was also the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

Health and medicine

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issues a recommendation stating that, in consultation with their doctor and pharmacist, and provided the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and the very rare risk of certain hemorrhagic strokes do not outweigh the benefits in individual cases, that people aged 50 to 70 (especially those aged 50-60 and with a 10 percent risk or higher of cardiovascular disease, or CVD; mindful that the risk of bleeding, which can be dangerous, goes up as one ages) should take low-dose aspirin, for a period of at least 10 years, for preventive benefits against CVD and heart attack, as well as colorectal cancer. The evidence is inconclusive for those not at very high risk who are over 70, and below 40, and there is only weak evidence for prevention of lung cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. (U.S. Preventive Services), (NY Times Blogs)