October 19, 2018 (Friday)
Arts and culture
- 136 years after beginning construction, the Sagrada Família in Barcelona receives a building permit to complete construction. (CNN) (Newser)
Disasters and accidents
- Amritsar train disaster
- At least 59 people are dead and 100 are injured after a train runs into a Dussehra celebration near Amritsar in India's northern state of Punjab. (BBC News)
- A SH-60 Seahawk helicopter crashes on the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan, leaving 12 sailors injured. (Los Angeles Times)
International relations
- Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi
- Former Secret Intelligence Service head John Sawers says that Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammad bin Salman was behind the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (The Guardian)
- Saudi Arabia–Turkey relations
- Saudi Arabia's general prosecutor claims Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight inside the Istanbul consulate. (CNBC)
- Twitter suspends a bot network spreading pro-Saudi Arabia tweets regarding Kashoggi's disappearance. (NBC)
Law and crime
- Illegal immigration to the United States
- Hundreds of Central American migrants taking part in a migrant caravan to the United States clash with riot police on the Guatemala–Mexico border. (BBC)
- Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Social media in the United States presidential election, 2016, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections
- The United States Justice Department charges 44-year old Elena Khusyaynova of Saint Petersburg with conspiracy to defraud the United States for managing the financing of the social media troll operation that included the Internet Research Agency. (CNN)
Science and technology
- Arianespace launches the European Space Agency–Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency probe BepiColombo from Guiana Space Centre as it begins a 7-year journey to Mercury. It is the final mission of the Horizon 2000+ program. (The Guardian)