News Watch

Heavy monsoon rains caused landslides and flooding in Kerala, southwestern India, in August.

On Aug. 10, a landslide killed at least 26 people and left 69 tourists temporarily trapped at a resort in Kerala's northern Wayand District.

On Aug. 16, massive floods struck Kerala, killing more than 400 people and leaving millions homeless. At press time, thousands of people were still stranded by floodwater, awaiting rescue.

Monsoon season in India began in June, but it...

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A nearly 700-foot section of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy, collapsed on Aug. 18, killing at least 43 people and injuring dozens more. The bridge, built in the 1960s as part of the A10 motorway linking Italy with France, collapsed during a rainstorm. The cause of the collapse was under investigation at press time.

The section that fell, which crossed the Polcevera River as well as train tracks and a road more than 100 feet below, had stood over an area without heavy traffic or...

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As of July 1, more than 41,000 people living in Europe had been diagnosed with measles this year — nearly double the 23,927 infections documented in all of 2017 — and at least 37 had died. The number of documented cases in 2018 is a record, according to the World Health Organization.

Some of the hardest-hit countries, with measles cases in the thousands, are France, Greece, Russia and Serbia. In Ukraine, alone, there were 19,971 cases between Jan. 1 and June 30. Doctors...

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According to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, a research institute based in São Paulo, a record number of 63,880 people were murdered in Brazil in 2017, resulting in a murder rate of 30.8 per 100,000 people. This was 3% higher than the rate in 2016, itself a record.

The state of Rio Grande do Norte, on the northeast coast, had the highest murder rate in the country: 68 murders per 100,000. The second highest was in the northwestern state of Acre, at 63.9. São Paolo, in the south,...

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A suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan, targeted an education center on Aug. 15, killing at least 48 people and injuring 67. Most of the victims were teenage students who were there to receive tuition aid as they prepared for college entrance exams.

As of press time, no group had claimed responsibility for the attack. The Islamist group the Taliban, which is active in Afghanistan and has been responsible for recent large-scale suicide bombings, explicitly denied that it was involved...

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In eastern Ukraine, two Ukrainian soldiers and two pro-Russia rebel soldiers were killed in clashes on Aug. 18, the first such deaths in many months following a cease-fire agreement.

On Aug. 23, five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and seven were injured when pro-Russia rebels attacked a stronghold outside of the rebel-held region of Luhansk.

Each side blamed the other for the sudden escalation of the civil war that has been ongoing in Ukraine since 2014 and has left more than...

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In the city of Chemnitz in eastern Germany, people protesting immigration clashed with counterprotesters on Aug. 27, leading to injuries and arrests on both sides. It is estimated that more than 800 people were involved in the anti-immigrant protest; the number of counterprotesters was unknown at press time.

Protests began after a a man was stabbed to death on Aug. 26 during a street fair. Two other men were injured in the attack. Two men, an Iraqi and a Syrian, were arrested under...

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A man intentionally drove his car into cyclists and pedestrians outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, England, on Aug. 14, seriously injuring two people. The driver was arrested at the scene and later identified as a Sudanese national granted asylum and citizenship in the UK.

Though initially detained on charges of terrorism, the driver had no known affiliation with any terrorist group. Investigations were ongoing at press time.