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73856618 | Mayorella marianaensis | 2023-05-21 15:35:26+00:00 | Mayorella marianaensis is a species of amoebozoan protist discovered in 2023 in Mariana Trench sediments. It belongs to the order Dermamoebida, a group of naked amoebae with a thick glycocalyx.
Cells of Mayorella marianaensis were isolated and cultivated from deep-sea sediments at a depth of 3,144 meters in the vicinity of the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean. The culture was characterized as a new Mayorella species through morphological and phylogenetic analyses using SSU rRNA genes. The results were published by Xiaoli Lei, Xiaojuan Chen, Jianming Chen and Chen Liang in the journal Protist in June 2023.
Mayorella marianaensis locomotive cells have an average width of 74 μm and length of 28 μm. In addition there are three floating forms identified. The most common floating form is an irregular sphere of 25–47 μm in diameter. The second floating form has between 18 and 25 very small pseudopodia (around 9–30 μm in length), while the third has about 6 to 9 thin and radiating pseudopodia (around 25–125 μm in length). The cell coat (or cuticle) outside of the plasma membrane is around 190 to 290 nm thick and consists of two layers: an outer layer, loosely arranged, with its surface covered with hairs called glycostyles; and an inner layer, closely arranged in stripes. | 2023 |
75014801 | Pleurosigma pacificum | 2023-10-09 14:06:49+00:00 | Pleurosigma pacificum is a species of planktonic diatom discovered in the tropical Western Pacific Ocean.
Pleurosigma pacificum is a naviculoid diatom, a type of photosynthetic protist (or alga) that is similar in shape to those of the genus Navicula, said to be shaped like a boat. In particular, naviculoid diatoms of the genus Pleurosigma usually have a sigmoid valve or raphe, in the shape of a sigmoid function or the letter S. The species P. pacificum is characterized by lanceolate valves, around 45.0–51.1 μm long and 13.0–15.6 μm wide, that taper gradually towards subacute ends. Their raphe is straight, filiform, slightly curved near the poles. The center of the valve is round, while the terminal area is shaped like a funnel.
Pleurosigma pacificum is a planktonic unicellular alga known only from its type location, in the Pacific Ocean.
Pleurosigma pacificum was isolated from the tropical Western Pacific Ocean, hence its name "pacificum". Cells were obtained from phytoplankton samples collected from the upper 200 meter water column. Its morphology was studied through light microscopy and electron microscopy. Its DNA was sequenced and, through phylogenetic analyses based on two genes, SSU rDNA and rbcL, its taxonomic position within the genus Pleurosigma was confirmed. The species was described by researchers Fei-Chao Du, Yu-Hang Li and Kui-Dong Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The results were published in the journal PhytoKeys in 2023. | 2023 |
73699262 | 2024 Florida Amendment 3 | 2023-05-01 18:26:48+00:00 | Florida Amendment 3, officially titled "Adult Personal Use of Marijuana" (Florida initiative 22-05), is a voter initiative that will appear on the 2024 ballot. It would amend the state constitution to legalize cannabis in the state of Florida.
The initiative was registered with authorities around August 2022 for signature collection and assigned initiative number 22-05. To qualify for the ballot, 891,589 valid signatures were required. By December 1, 2022, it had gotten 53,982 signatures. With 294,037 validated signatures by early 2023, an automatic state supreme court legal review was triggered. 635,961 signatures were validated by the Florida Secretary of State as of April 4, and there were 841,130 validated signatures by May 1. Around June 1, the Florida Division of Elections validated 967,528 signatures – enough for the measure to qualify for the 2024 ballot. The Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling on April 1, 2024 that the initiative would appear on the November general ballot.
Hialeah mayor Esteban Bovo voice opposition to the amendment, saying "this amendment threatens to undermine the laws we've upheld and the safety of our residents". | 2023 |
73312318 | Kentucky Senate Bill 47 | 2023-03-17 14:56:19+00:00 | Kentucky Senate Bill 47 is a law enacted in 2023 to create a medical cannabis program in the state (also called medical marijuana).
House Bill 136 in the 2022 session would have created a medical cannabis program. It was passed by the house of representatives 59–34 on March 17, 2022.
The governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, said on April 7, 2022, that he was considering executive action to permit medical cannabis in his state if House Bill 136 was not approved in the state senate. When the session ended without senate consideration of the bill, Beshear issued executive order 2022-338 on June 14, 2022, that created the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee to provide recommendations on ways forward for medical cannabis. The advisory committee held its first meeting on June 20.
Governor Beshear asked the state legislature to create a legislatively authorized medical program, after some degree of opening the door to one in 2022 via his own executive order. Senate Bill 47 to create a medical cannabis program cleared a committee on March 14, prior to Senate readings. It was the first time a legalization bill had received a state senate hearing. The bill was approved 26–11 by the senate on March 16. It received its first reading in the house the same day. The bill was passed by the house of representatives on March 30, and Governor Beshear signed the bill the next day on March 31.
The bill establishes regulations for medical cannabis qualifying conditions. Under the bill, the Kentucky Center for Cannabis Research would be able to add new conditions to the list.
Patients will be able to possess a 30-day supply. Smoking cannabis is prohibited, but raw cannabis will be available for vaporizing. The bill also establishes THC limits: 35% on flower, 70% on concentrates, and 10 milligrams on edibles.
The program goes into effect January 1, 2025. | 2023 |
76967922 | Fyllingsdalstunellen | 2024-05-20 09:09:50+00:00 | Fyllingsdaltunellen (the Fyllingsdal tunnel) is a 2900 meter long tunnel through Løvstakken for pedestrians and cyclists between Fyllingsdalen and Minde in Bergen, Norway. The tunnel opened in spring 2023 and is the world's longest cycling tunnel. It runs parallel to the light rail tunnel through the same mountain, and also functions as an escape tunnel for the light rail.
The width of the road is 6 meters. 3.5 meters is a cycle lane with white asphalt, 2.5 meters is a walking lane for pedestrians, and there are also road shoulders. The lanes are separated from each other, with separate bicycle lanes for each direction, and the pedestrian lane slightly raised.
The tunnel walls are made of slanted concrete blocks to dampen reverberation and echoes.
From Fyllingsdalstunellen
The tunnel is camera monitored, and has emergency lights and telephones. Cellphone coverage and emergency network has been established, as well as access for emergecy vehicles. | 2023 |
73895543 | 2023 Cathay Pacific discrimination scandal | 2023-05-27 02:42:21+00:00 | The Cathay Pacific discrimination scandal (also known ironically as the Carpet Airline Discrimination Scandal) refers to a series of alleged discrimination incidents by the flight attendants against multiple passengers aboard Cathay Pacific Flight 987, flying from Chengdu Tianfu International Airport in mainland China to Hong Kong International Airport in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on May 21, 2023.
On 23 May 2023, an audio recording was posted to the internet in which Cathay Pacific flight attendants could allegedly be heard making fun of a passenger based on their lack of English proficiency. Later that day, after being criticized by Chinese media and tens of thousands of netizens, Cathay Pacific apologised on Chinese social media sites for their flight attendants’ discriminatory actions against non-English speakers, by saying that the airlines has "suspended the flight attendants concerned and launched an internal investigation", where any "inappropriate words and deeds" that violated its rules and professional ethics would be dealt with seriously once confirmed. The company emphasized the importance of the incident and promised to conduct a serious investigation. They reiterated their commitment to providing high-quality service to their passengers.
However, many mainland netizens considered it to be 'insincere' and 'painless' because the statement was not stamped. Some even changed Cathay Pacific's English name to 'Carpet Airlines' as a form of ridicule.
As for public reaction, many mainland Chinese netizens were not convinced by Cathay's apology. Some questioned why the apology was posted from Beijing instead of Hong Kong. Others criticised Cathay for only posting the apology in simplified Chinese on Weibo, and demanded Cathay to publish a global apology in both Chinese and English on their official website, Facebook, and Instagram.
On the 23rd, the poster of the original Xiaohongshu post stated that the director of customer service at Cathay Pacific's headquarters had contacted her to further understand the situation. She insisted that her intention was to ensure an apology from the flight attendants for their discriminatory remarks and for Cathay Pacific to apologize to any passengers who had an unpleasant experience. She stated she would not delete her posts until the flight attendants apologized.
In the afternoon, under the pressure of public opinion, Cathay Pacific issued a statement on Weibo again, 'formally apologizing' for the incident. The statement stated that the crew members involved in the incident had been suspended, an internal investigation was underway, and the results would be made public within three days.
Due to the rising discontentment, Cathay Pacific apologised for the third time, saying that the airlines dismissed the three flight attendants who made inappropriate acts against non-English speaking passengers. CEO Ronald Lam apologized on behalf of the airlines and promised that he himself will lead a cross-departmental working group to conduct a comprehensive review and re-examination of the airline's service process, personnel training and related systems to avoid similar incidents from happening again.
On the afternoon of the 23rd, a user posted personal attacks towards the poster of the original complaint post in Cantonese on Xiaohongshu, calling the incident as "a small matter that reveals the fragility of many." The user cussed the whistleblower for "shamelessly recording audio," and pointed out that "one of the recorded flight attendants was not from Hong Kong and that English was not her mother tongue", asking "why do you guys demand her to use Mandarin". In stark contrast to the Cathay Pacific's official apology statement, the post raised doubts among netizens about Cathay Pacific's sincerity in handling the incident.
The whistleblower later posted a thread on Xiaohongshu in response to the insults, stating that she "never mentioned the nationality of the flight attendants or crew in the original thread". However, the cussing post stated the nationality and mother tongue of them. Therefore, the whistleblower suggested that the user who posted the insulting thread "is very likely to be" one of the involved flight attendants and criticized the user for still not realizing the discriminatory elements in the recording and the malicious intention expressed.
On 24 May 2023, when being asked of the incident, Hong Kong chief executive John Lee said the incident had "hurt the feelings of compatriots in Hong Kong and the mainland". And at this time, CEO Ronald Lam apologized again, but in Mandarin, by saying that he will personally lead a taskforce to conduct a review into the company's code of conduct. | 2023 |
75782029 | 2023–2024 Japanese slush fund scandal | 2024-01-11 11:54:44+00:00 | Beginning in November 2023, a scandal involving the misuse of campaign funds by members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan's conservative Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai and Shisuikai factions became public after it was revealed the faction had failed to report over ¥600 million in campaign funds and stored them in illegal slush funds. The scandal has led to discussions regarding the future of the LDP and its political dominance in Japan.
On 18–19 January 2024, three factions of the Liberal Democratic Party (Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai, Kōchikai, and Shisuikai) all announced their intention to dissolve to form a war cabinet. Several Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers were indicted, including incumbent lawmakers Yasutada Ōno and Yaichi Tanigawa, who both resigned from the party following their indictments.
The Liberal Democratic Party has been the dominant party in Japanese politics since its formation in 1955. The dominance of the LDP, referred to popularly as the 1955 System, has only been interrupted twice: between 1993 and 1994, as a result of corruption scandals and the end of the Japanese asset price bubble, and from 2009 to 2012 as a result of continuing economic crisis during the Lost Decades. The LDP later recovered both times: in 1994 by forming a coalition with the Japan Socialist Party, and in 2012 as a result of the Fukushima nuclear accident a year prior.
The LDP has numerous factions, but since 2012 has been dominated by the right-wing Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai, also referred to as the Seiwakai or Abe faction. Formerly led by Shinzo Abe (for whom it is nicknamed), the Seiwakai continued to wield significant influence even after Abe resigned as Prime Minister in 2020. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is a member of the liberal Kōchikai faction, which competes with the Seiwakai for influence. Other factions include the Shisuikai, or Nikai faction, led by Toshihiro Nikai; the Shikōkai, led by Tarō Asō; and the Heisei Kenkyūkai, led by Toshimitsu Motegi, among others.
Following the assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022, the LDP's popularity was significantly shaken after the extent of political influence by the Unification Church new religious movement was revealed. Kishida reshuffled his cabinet on 10 August 2022 in an attempt to purge UC-associated ministers from the government and regain popular support, but public scrutiny continued over remaining cabinet officials with connections to the church, and support for Kishida's government dropped by a further 16% according to polls conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
Amidst continuing unpopularity, Kishida again reshuffled his cabinet on 13 September 2023, promising change. The new cabinet was primarily noted by The Japan Times as having a relatively high number of women in official positions, as well as including members of rival factions in high-ranking positions ahead of a leadership election within the LDP in 2024. The Japan Times assessed that the placement of Heisei Kenkyūkai leader Motegi as Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party was a measure to reduce his ability to criticise Kishida, while Shikōkai member Taro Kono was appointed as Minister for Digital Transformation despite controversy regarding his handling of an Individual Number Card data breach. Important Seiwakai members Kōichi Hagiuda and Hirokazu Matsuno retained their cabinet positions, as did Shikōkai leader Asō.
On 8 December 2023 Kishida, as well as other members of the LDP, were questioned by opposition lawmakers during a meeting of the National Diet. According to initial public allegations, dozens of members of the Diet from the Seiwakai were suspected of collecting at least ¥100 million from fundraising and storing the money in slush funds, in violation of Japanese campaign finance and election law. Amidst questioning, Kishida stated that the scandal was being publicly investigated and ordered the LDP to stop fundraising. Hirokazu Matsuno, Chief Cabinet Secretary, was the first individual to be named in the scandal. According to the allegations, he diverted over ¥10 million from fundraising events to a slush fund over a timeline of five years. Matsuno refused to speak about the scandal, noting that it was under investigation by police and stating that the Seiwakai was investigating its accounts.
On 13 December 2023, amidst the growing size of the scandal, Kishida announced the removal of four ministers from his cabinet: Matsuno, Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Junji Suzuki, and Minister of Agriculture Ichiro Miyashita. Deputy Minister of Defence Hiroyuki Miyazawa was also removed from office. All of the removed officials were members of the Seiwakai, while Matsuno's replacement, Yoshimasa Hayashi, was a member of the Kōchikai.
The same day as the removal of the Seiwakai ministers, the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan filed a motion of no confidence in Kishida's cabinet, which was defeated due to LDP dominance in the Diet's chambers. CDPJ and Japanese Communist Party parliamentarians criticised the government's response to the scandal, with CDPJ leader Kenta Izumi saying that the LDP lacked "self-cleansing ability" and JCP leader Kazuo Shii calling it a "bottomless, serious problem." Miyazawa said following his removal that the Seiwakai faction leadership had told him "it's okay to not enter" kickbacks received between 2020 and 2022, and therefore assumed the practice was legal.
The scandal continued to grow late into the month, as the National Police Agency (NPA) raided the Seiwakai and Shisuikai headquarters. The NPA said that five of six LDP factions, including Kishida's Kōchikai, were under investigation for improper usage of slush funds. Kishida, who was unrelated to the scandal, left the Kōchikai as information regarding their involvement in the scandal became public. He further promised legal reforms and anti-corruption measures, promising to act as a "ball of fire."
On 7 January 2024 the first arrests in the scandal were made, with former deputy Minister of Education Yoshitaka Ikeda and his aide Kazuhiro Kakinuma being charged with covering up ¥48 million received by the Seiwakai between 2018 and 2022. The NPA cited the possibility of destruction of evidence as a reason for their arrest. After information about the arrests became public, Ikeda was expelled from the LDP.
Kishida's approval ratings fell as a result of the scandal, decreasing to 23% as of 13 December 2023, the lowest such rating any Prime Minister has had since the LDP's 2012 return to power. By 22 December, Kishida's approval ratings had further declined to 17%. Per a 18 December 2023 Mainichi Shimbun poll, 79% of individuals polled disapprove of Kishida's performance as Prime Minister, the highest disapproval since the end of World War II. Support for the LDP, according to the poll, remained the highest of any party, with 17% above the CDPJ's 14%.
On 18 January 2024, Kishida announced his intention to dissolve the Kōchikai faction as a result of the scandal. The following day on 19 January, the Shisuikai and Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai factions announced their dissolutions.
Referred to by American journalist Anthony Kuhn as "Japan's worst political corruption scandal in decades," the scandal has threatened the LDP's authority and led to public speculation that the party could lose power following the next Japanese general election. Hitoshi Tanaka, a Japanese diplomat, has speculated that it could result in a change of government in Japan, potentially affecting Japan–United States relations. This notion has been disputed by University of Shizuoka professor Seijiro Takeshita, who has noted that the opposition to the LDP is fragmented and that the 2009–2012 Democratic Party of Japan government has continued to influence the unpopularity of the opposition. According to Takeshita, the scandal is likely to further increase political apathy and cynicism among the general population. Political journalist Hiroshi Izumi has claimed without evidence that the scandal is part of a broader attempt by Kishida and the Japanese judiciary to get revenge on the Seiwakai following a series of corruption scandals under Abe's premiership that went uninvestigated. | 2023 |
75315801 | Cyprus Confidential | 2023-11-14 20:16:51+00:00 | Cyprus Confidential is a journalism project investigating financial services in Cyprus and their role in allowing avoidance of international sanctions, and implementation of Russian state goals. It is conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Paper Trail Media and 69 media partners including Distributed Denial of Secrets and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and more than 270 journalists in 55 countries and territories. Other media partners included Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, the Belarusian Investigative Center, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, CBC, Der Spiegel, the Guardian, Le Monde, Politiken, Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism, Ukraine’s Slidstvo and The Washington Post.
The investigation suggests that "67 of the 105 Russian billionaires on the 2023 Forbes World’s Billionaires List used financial services firms on the island of Cyprus to hide their wealth and keep it out of reach from Western sanctions". The leaks include confidential information from financial services companies, mostly with connections to Cyprus, showing strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned.
The investigation reveals how Russian oligarchs transferred large amounts of assets to Cyprus after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union imposed sanctions on more than 1,600 individuals and entities after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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The investigation is based on 3.6 million leaked files from the mid-1990s to April 2022, and include confidential background checks, organizational charts, financial statements, bank account applications and emails. The leaks come from six Cyprus-based financial services providers and a Latvian firm that sells Cypriot corporate registry documents:
ConnectedSky
Cypcodirect
DJC Accountants
i-Cyprus
Kallias & Associates
MeritKapital
MeritServus
According to the ICIJThe leaked records from Cypcodirect, ConnectedSky, i-Cyprus and Kallias & Associates were obtained by Paper Trail Media. Distributed Denial of Secrets obtained documents from Kallias & Associates, which were then shared with Paper Trail Media and ICIJ. DJC Accountants’ records were obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
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The investigation found more than 650 companies and trusts registered in Cyprus and more than 100 in other secrecy jurisdictions that were owned or controlled by Russians who have been sanctioned since 2014. The companies and trusts used to hide properties and other investments from oversight and included mother companies of Russian holdings and subsidiaries of Russian conglomerates including Evraz, which supplies the train rails used to transport arms and ammunition to Russian troops in Ukraine.
The investigation purports to show "how 67 of the 105 Russian billionaires on the 2023 Forbes World’s Billionaires List used financial services firms on the island of Cyprus to hide their wealth and keep it out of reach from Western sanctions". The leaks contain confidential information from financial services companies, mostly with connections to Cyprus, and show that country to have strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned.
The investigation reveals how Russian oligarchs transferred large amounts of assets to Cyprus after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The US, UK and EU imposed sanctions on more than 1,600 individuals and entities after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The investigation found that Cyprus financial firms were working for more than 95 sanctioned individuals and 44 PEPs who were "linked to state-owned companies or organizations deemed to merit added scrutiny because of a heightened risk involving corruption or other illicit activity".
The investigation revealed secret talks to help Syria evade oil-industry sanctions and that German journalist Hubert Seipel had received more than $700,000 from a shell company linked to Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov as a "sponsorship" to write books about Vladimir Putin and the "political environment in the Russian Federation". The investigation also revealed how the spyware firm Intellexa exploited loopholes in Cyprus and that US surveillance giant Verint Systems's network of operations includes subsidiaries in India.
The investigation implicated Bulgarian businessman Ognian Bozarov in the payment behind the 2008 bombing and assassination of Ivo Pukanić and another journalist at the Croatian magazine Nacional, which Bozarov denied. It also revealed Sudanese businessman and alleged Hamas financier Abdelbasit Hamza's involvement with a Cyprus company that mines Egyptian gold.
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Governments including Cyprus president Nikos Christodoulides and European lawmakers began responding to the investigation's findings in less than 24 hours.
In November 2023, members of the European Parliament called for a crackdown on financial corruption and for member states that allow sanctions violations to be held accountable. Sophie in 't Veld the Parliament rapporteur for penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures said that "When it’s about corruption and financial wrongdoings, the national authorities very often are the culprits. They’re complicit. The European Union is turning into a gangster’s paradise, because there is complete impunity." That month, Cyprus president Christodoulides promised to launch a probe and Cyprus Finance Minister Makis Keravnos said a criminal investigation had been initiated against firms including PwC for Russian sanctions violations.
In December 2023, the United States announced it was sending two dozen experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to Cyprus to assist with 29 cases related to money laundering and Russian sanctions violations.
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The Greens–European Free Alliance called for EU countries to close loopholes in response to the investigation. | 2023 |
73083354 | E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump | 2023-02-19 21:38:33+00:00 | E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump is the name of two related lawsuits by author E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump, who served as the 45th president of the United States. The two suits resulted in a total of $88.3 million in damages awarded to Carroll; both cases are under appeal. Both cases were presided over by Judge Lewis Kaplan and were related to Carroll's accusation from mid-2019 (while Trump was in office) that he sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early 1996. Trump denied the allegations, prompting Carroll to sue him for defamation in November 2019 (a.k.a. Carroll I).
In November 2022, Carroll filed her second suit against Trump (a.k.a. Carroll II), renewing her claim of defamation and adding a claim of battery under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law allowing sexual-assault victims to file civil suits beyond expired statutes of limitations. This suit went to trial in April 2023. Evidence included testimony from two friends Carroll spoke to after the incident, a photograph of Carroll with Trump in 1987, testimony from two women who had separately accused Trump of sexual assault, footage from the Trump Access Hollywood tape and his October 2022 deposition. A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and ordered him to pay US$5 million in damages. Trump appealed and made an unsuccessful counterclaim. In July, Judge Kaplan clarified that the jury had found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word. In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll's accusation of "rape" is "substantially true".
In September 2023, Kaplan issued a partial summary judgment regarding Carroll I, finding Trump liable for defamation via his 2019 statements. The jury verdict from the January 2024 trial was $83.3 million in additional damages. To appeal, Trump secured a bond for this amount plus 10 percent.
On June 21, 2019, E. Jean Carroll published an article in New York magazine which stated that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early 1996 in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City. Contrary to Trump's later assertion that she was a "then almost sixty-year-old woman", she is less than three years Trump's senior, being 52 at the time, and he 49. Further details of the reputed incident were published in Carroll's 2019 book What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal. Carroll said that on her way out of the store she ran into Trump and he asked for help buying a gift for a woman. After she suggested a handbag or a hat, the two reputedly moved on to the lingerie section and joked about the other trying some on. Carroll said they ended up in a dressing room together, the door of which was shut, and Trump forcefully kissed her, pulled down her tights and raped her before she was able to escape. She stated that the alleged incident lasted less than three minutes, during which time there was no sales attendant present in the department. Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin told New York magazine that Carroll had confided with them shortly after the alleged assault.
The allegations were made during the Trump administration. In an official government statement, Trump denied that he had ever met Carroll, accused her of trying to sell books, implied she had a political agenda, compared the accusation to one against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and said Bergdorf Goodman had confirmed they had no surveillance footage of the alleged incident. Trump further called on the public to provide information indicating that Carroll was conspiring with the Democratic Party or New York magazine.: 59, 88 Trump separately stated in an interview with The Hill that Carroll was "totally lying" and that "she's not my type." Carroll provided New York with a photograph of her and her then-husband John Johnson socializing with Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump in 1987. Trump dismissed its significance, saying, "Standing with my coat on in a line—give me a break—with my back to the camera. I have no idea who she is."
Carroll initially chose not to describe the alleged sexual assault as rape, instead describing it as a fight. "My word is fight. My word is not the victim word ... I fought."
A couple of weeks after the New York magazine article was published, Carroll ran into lawyer George Conway (a Trump critic and husband of Kellyanne Conway), who told her to file a defamation lawsuit and helped her find a lawyer. Conway then wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post encouraging readers to believe Carroll.
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In November 2019, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit with the New York Supreme Court. The suit states that Trump had damaged her reputation, substantially harmed her professionally, and caused emotional pain.
Decades ago, the now President of the United States raped me. When I had the courage to speak out about the attack, he defamed my character, accused me of lying for personal gain, even insulted my appearance. No woman should have to face this. But this lawsuit is not only about me. I am filing this on behalf of every woman who has ever been harassed, assaulted, silenced, or spoken up only to be shamed, fired, ridiculed and belittled.
After the lawsuit was filed, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham described the lawsuit as "frivolous" and Carroll's story as fraudulent.
In January 2020 Carroll's attorneys served a request for a DNA sample from Trump for "analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present" on a black dress she was wearing when the alleged assault occurred. In December 2020 Carroll said she was willing to delay collecting the sample and testimony from Trump in exchange for earlier access to other relevant records. The DNA sample request included a DNA report on Carroll and five others who may have come into contact with the dress during a photo shoot.
In September 2020 government lawyers from the Department of Justice (DOJ) asserted that Trump had acted in his official capacity while responding to Carroll's accusation; they said that the Federal Tort Claims Act grants their department the right to take the case from Trump's private lawyers and move it to federal court. A White House official also argued that the act provides precedent for the government to exercise this right. Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan stated that "Trump's effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent." In October 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan (of no relation to Roberta Kaplan) rejected the DOJ's motion, ruling that the president is not a government employee and that Trump's comments were not related to his job as such. The following month, the DOJ filed an appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
In June 2021 (during the Biden administration) the DOJ argued to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that DOJ lawyers should defend Trump as a federal employee, stating, "Speaking to the public and the press on matters of public concern is undoubtedly part of an elected official's job." On September 27, 2022, the appeals court passed the question of whether Trump was shielded by his former office as U.S. president on to the District of Columbia (D.C.) appeals court. Trump's attorney Alina Habba praised the ruling as a reversal of the District Court's stance (that the comments were not executive business).
In January 2023 the District of Columbia (D.C.) appeals court held oral arguments before a full panel of judges. Trump's lawyers argued that his comments fell within the scope of his employment, while some judges pointed out that D.C. law holds employers responsible when their employees cause individuals harm in the scope of their employment but not otherwise. Judge Catharine Easterly noted that employer liability cases usually have a trial record and jury verdict to refer to, while Judge John Howard questioned whether further fact-finding was warranted.
In March 2023, Judge Kaplan ruled that the infamous Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape and the testimonies of Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff (who both allege that Trump began groping them without permission) would be admissible at the trial for the original lawsuit. He then postponed the trial for the defamation claim while the appeals court continued to deliberate.
On April 21, 2023, the Second Circuit Appeals Court said it should not be responsible for deciding the question of whether Trump had acted within the scope of his role as president when he made public comments about Carroll, and it remanded the issue to the U.S. District Court for Judge Kaplan to decide. In July, the DOJ recanted its position that Trump was acting in his official capacity.
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On October 12, 2022, Trump published a lengthy post on Truth Social against E. Jean Carroll, to which he attached a June 2019 photograph of her. Carroll would later successfully claim this post as defamatory in her lawsuit against him.
This "Ms. Bergdorf Goodman" case is a complete con job ... I don't know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event. She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, "swooned" her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. ... She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called "event" supposedly took place. The reason she doesn't know is because it never happened, and she doesn't want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong. If you watch Anderson Cooper's interview with her, where she was promoting a really crummy book, you will see that it is a complete Scam. She changed her story from beginning to end, after the commercial break, to suit the purposes of CNN and Andy Cooper. ... For the record, E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn't know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance.
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Trump was deposed by Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan on October 19. Trump said that he usually had security guards with him but was unable to name any working for him at that time.: 73–76 He denied reaching out to Bergdorf Goodman ahead of his statements in 2019, arguing that "if it did happen, it would have been reported within minutes.": 78 He accused Carroll and her lawyer of being "aligned with Hillary Clinton", an assertion he based on "somebody [having] mentioned it", but admitted that he had no knowledge of Carroll's political party or documentation of her pursuing a political agenda; he went on to repeatedly accuse Roberta Kaplan of being a political operative of Clinton or the Democratic Party. When asked if anyone had given him information on Carroll conspiring with that party or New York magazine, Trump said, "I'll let you know.": 202 He threatened to sue Carroll and Kaplan after the proceedings were complete. He also accused Carroll of attempting to sabotage his 2024 presidential campaign by keeping him "busy with litigation.": 130–131 Trump called the litigation a hoax comparable to supposed ruses against him related to both Russia and Ukraine.
Trump reiterated that Carroll was "not my type", and told the lawyer, "You would not be a choice of mine either ... under any circumstances." Trump was shown the photograph he had characterized as a reception line at a charity event, but proceeded to mistakenly identify the image of Carroll as his second wife, Marla Maples, despite his first wife Ivana Trump also being in the picture; upon recognizing his mistake, he protested that the photo was "very blurry". He then confirmed that all of his wives were his "type", and that by type he primarily meant physical type. Despite attacking Carroll for not remembering the exact year of the alleged incident, Trump was unable to state the exact years of the beginning or end of any of his marriages when asked, and claimed that he was unsure if he had any extramarital affairs during his first marriage (including with Maples, despite this affair having regularly featured in New York tabloids).
Trump reiterated in his deposition that he did not know Carroll before she sued him, calling her a "nut job" and inaccurately asserting that in her CNN interview with Anderson Cooper she "actually indicated that she loved" the alleged assault and "said it was very sexy to be raped". (Carroll had actually said, "I was not thrown on the ground and ravished, which... The word rape carries so many sexual connotations. This was not—this was not sexual. It just hurt. ... I think most people think of rape as being sexy.") He said Carroll alleged he "swooned" her, a word he said he used because he thought it would be more polite than saying fucked. When asked if he had made the statements in the Access Hollywood tape (e.g., "when you're a star, [beautiful women] let you do it. They let you do anything. ... grab 'em by the pussy"), Trump responded, "Well, historically, that's true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that's largely true, unfortunately or fortunately." He then agreed that he was such a "star".
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On November 24, 2022, Carroll sued Trump for battery under the Adult Survivors Act (a law passed the previous May which allows sexual-assault victims to file civil suits beyond expired statutes of limitations). Carroll made a renewed claim of defamation, citing Trump's statements on Truth Social from October. The second suit alleges that: Trump manhandled Carroll, "pulled down her tights", groped around her genitals and raped her; this reputedly left Carroll unable to develop sexual relationships. Carroll sought unspecified damages for the two charges and for Trump to retract his Truth Social statements about her. Lawyers for Trump said in a December 19 court filing that they would request a dismissal of the lawsuit partially on the basis that the New York law is invalid due to its allegedly contradicting the state's constitution regarding due process. Judge Kaplan set an April 25, 2023, trial date and denied the request to dismiss the lawsuit.
As the case is the second to be called E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, it is distinguished by the name Carroll II.
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One of the discovery disputes was over Trump's DNA. On February 10, Joe Tacopina, who had become Trump's lead lawyer in the case on January 31, 2023, said Trump would be willing to provide a DNA sample, though the discovery period had ended after three years of Carroll's lawyers requesting such a sample. Further, Tacopina stipulated that an appendix from Carroll's report (chiefly regarding her own DNA) must first be proffered and that Trump's DNA would be submitted only to be compared to the material on the dress. Carroll's lawyer asserted that the motion was a "bad-faith effort to taint the potential jury pool". On February 15 Judge Kaplan dismissed Trump's offer as an out-of-line delay tactic. Further, the judge argued that the presence of Trump's DNA would not conclusively prove whether a rape occurred as no sperm was detected. In late March, the judge prohibited any mention of DNA evidence at the trial.
On February 16, 2023, Trump's lawyers requested that the allegations from Leeds and Stoynoff and the Access Hollywood tape be barred as evidence (the tape having been cited by Carroll's lawyer as evidence of a larger pattern of sexual misconduct). Carroll's counsel argued that the accounts of the two women demonstrate a "consistent pattern". On March 2 Trump's lawyers again asked for the tape's dismissal, arguing that it does not demonstrate a pattern of behavior consistent with Carroll's accusation. In March, Kaplan ruled that the tape and testimony from the two women would be admissible at the trial for the second suit along with testimony from two Bergdorf Goodman employees. Trump's purported "rebuttal damage expert" was rejected because he did not qualify as an expert witness. Kaplan also denied a joint request from both parties to consolidate the two lawsuits into one trial.
On February 23 Trump's lawyers requested that the defamation claim in the second lawsuit be dismissed, arguing that his Truth Social post from October was merely a response regarding the first lawsuit which mostly repeated previous positions (despite making original incursions), and was thus protected under supposed "absolute litigation privilege" provided by New York State Civil Rights Law § 74. In late March, Judge Kaplan denied this request.
On March 11 Judge Kaplan asked Trump and Carroll if they had any objection to the use of an anonymous jury. On March 23 Kaplan ruled that the jury would be anonymous for the trial. He cited Trump's incendiary rhetoric against perceived enemies (including officials) ahead of his criminal indictment in New York related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. On April 10 Kaplan ruled that the jury would be anonymous even to the lawyers involved in the case, citing threats by Trump supporters against Judge Juan Merchan, who was overseeing the New York criminal investigation of The Trump Organization. On April 14 Kaplan upheld his ruling for an anonymous jury and denied a request from Trump's team for information about its members on the basis of possible bias after they cited negative online comments made about him on Carroll's June 2019 New York article.
On April 10 Trump and Carroll were given ten days to declare whether they would attend the trial. Defense attorney Tacopina speculated about "logistical and financial burdens upon New York City" associated with Trump's physical appearance. On April 20 the judge argued that Trump had had "ample time" to make arrangements for trial and said it would be no easier for the Secret Service to protect him at his newly announced April 27 campaign event in New Hampshire than at the simultaneous trial.
On April 11 defense attorney Tacopina asked to delay the trial by a month, arguing that media coverage of the Daniels scandal would taint the jury pool. Carroll's lawyer argued that Trump "instigated (and sought to benefit from) ... much of the very coverage about which he now complains." On April 17 Kaplan agreed with Carroll's lawyer and ruled against the delay request, arguing that there was no reason to assume jury selection would be easier to conduct in May.
On April 13 Trump's attorneys asked to reopen discovery about whether Carroll knew that her lawyer's firm had received donations from Democrat-aligned billionaire and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Judge Kaplan allowed discovery for the "carefully circumscribed examination of that narrow question". Trump's attorneys requested an extra month to make this inquiry, but Kaplan refused to delay the trial. On April 21 the judge sealed the information related to Hoffman's alleged contributions, as requested by Carroll's team.
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The trial began on April 25, 2023, in federal court at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That day, the judge selected a jury of six men and three women, anonymous even to the judge, and it was arranged that the jury would be transported by U.S. Marshals from an underground garage throughout the trial. In opening statements that day, the judge advised both counsel to tell their clients to avoid comments likely to "inspire violence".
On April 26 Carroll testified; she said she was unaware if any employees were present during the alleged incident because the department was on a different story and she was focused on riding the escalator, while also supposing that the encounter would make a humorous anecdote. She said after entering the dressing room, Trump slammed her against the wall (hurting the back of her head) and digitally penetrated her before doing so with his penis (causing vaginal pain). She said she struggled against Trump, and upon leaving the store, was "extremely rattled" and in disbelief about what happened. She talked with her friend Lisa Birnbach on the phone, thinking, "If Lisa thought it was funny then it was not a bad thing and I didn't completely do a stupid thing," Carroll recalled thinking. "I had not processed it. I had not processed what was going on." Birnbach told Carroll, who was laughing on the phone, that it wasn't funny, that Carroll was raped and should report the assault to the police, Carroll testified.
Carroll said that the following evening she told her friend and co-worker Carol Martin, who reputedly confirmed Carroll's fear that if she publicly discussed the incident, Trump would retaliate via his legal team. She further acknowledged her political distaste of Trump but said, "I'm settling a personal score because he called me a liar repeatedly and it really has decimated my reputation." She said she did not go public during Trump's 2016 campaign because "the more women who came forward to accuse him, the better he did in the polls." Additionally, Carroll said she initially thought the incident happened in 1994 or 1995, until realizing Lisa Birnbach visited Mar-a-Lago to write a February 1996 New York story on Trump (after 5–6 months of communicating by phone), which Carroll said would not have occurred if her friend knew about the alleged attack.
Also on April 26, Carroll's lawyers introduced a 2017 email exchange between her and Martin, indicating an intention to "scheme" by doing their "patriotic duty". Carroll stated that she was not scheming to "bring down Donald Trump", as Tacopina suggested the messages could imply. A former Bergdorf Goodman manager testified that departments were often left unattended and dressing rooms left open (though the doors would have automatically locked if closed). The judge ruled that evidence related to Reid Hoffman's funding of the trial was inadmissible, saying, "I've determined there is virtually nothing there in terms of credibility." Trump commented about the suit on Truth Social, calling it a scam and mentioning the (inadmissible) DNA evidence. Judge Kaplan warned Tacopina that Trump should stop making such comments, as they constitute a potential liability to him.
On April 27 Carroll was cross-examined by Tacopina, who asked why she did not scream during the alleged incident. She said she "was too much in panic to scream". She said she was surprised by the sudden turn to assault, which she alleged began with Trump pushing her against the wall and kissing her, and ended with no communication between them; she said she noticed no other customers as she left. She said she had experienced daily regret since first suing Trump due to feeling threatened, elaborating that she had received many negative comments echoing Trump's attacks. Additionally, she said she was unable to recall the specific meaning of her 2017 email response to Martin. Carroll said she omitted the incident from her diary because she thought it would force her to think about the negative experience, and said she was inspired to come forward by the #MeToo movement, especially the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases. She said that although she wanted her book to succeed, she was not struggling financially. Tacopina mentioned the dress Carroll allegedly wore during the incident, leading the judge to stop testimony for the day, though Tacopina claimed he had not planned to mention the barred DNA evidence.
Carroll finished testifying on May 1, whereat Tacopina cited inconsistencies in Carroll's account, such as her stating that she had not used the Bergdorf fitting rooms in the years after the alleged assault before saying that she actually had used them since the incident. Tacopina played an audio clip of Carroll saying that she did not blame Trump for the cessation of her romantic life, but that she "just didn't have the luck to meet that person that would cause me to be desirous again" and that "maybe in that dressing room my desire for desire was killed." Carroll had said that she was a "big fan" of Trump's show The Apprentice due to its outstanding "witty competition". She also asked on social media, "Would you have sex with Donald Trump for $17,000? Even if you could a) give the money to charity? b) close your eyes? And he's not allowed to speak." Additionally, Tacopina asked if Carroll had seen a 2012 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit involving a rape in a Bergdorf fitting room, which Carroll said she had not seen and called an "astonishing" coincidence. Tacopina also referred to an incident in which Carroll called the police to report vandalism to a mailbox, prompting her to explain, "I don't want anybody to know that I suffer. Up until now, I would be ashamed to let people know what is actually going on."
Also on May 1, Trump's team requested a mistrial, alleging that the judge was being unfair in Carroll's favor. During cross-examination Tacopina had questioned a passage from Carroll's 2019 book suggesting that all men should be sent to Montana for "retraining", and the judge explained it was an allusion to Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal (the title of which Carroll took for her 2019 book's subtitle), which satirically suggests that poor Irish people might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to the rich. Tacopina complained that the judge, by providing this clarification, had "bolstered [Carroll's] testimony". Judge Kaplan denied the request for a mistrial without comment.
On May 2 witnesses testified for Carroll. Lisa Birnbach said that in 1996, remembering having met with Trump that January for a story she was writing, said that Carroll called her, and short of breath, alleged that Trump had just assaulted her. Birnbach reputedly offered to transport Carroll to the police, but the latter refused and requested that their conversation remain secret. Birnbach said she did not talk about it again until 2019, once Carroll had decided to go public with her account. Jessica Leeds, a retired stockbroker, testified that Trump had suddenly groped her in a similar manner to Carroll while Leeds was traveling on an airplane in the late 1970s. Leeds said a flight attendant invited her to move to first class and sat her next to Donald Trump, whom she did not know, and that he groped her breast and tried to kiss her, but that she broke away when he started reaching up her skirt. She recalled passengers sitting behind them, who did not intervene, and reasoned that the incident may have lasted less than a minute. Leeds said she did not speak about the incident but that Trump later saw her and referred to her as "that cunt from the airplane". Also on May 2, Tacopina confirmed that Trump would not testify at the trial.
On May 3 video of Trump's deposition was shown to the jury. Trump stated that he rarely shopped at Bergdorf Goodman and reiterated that he did not read Carroll's written accusations in either her book or in her New York magazine article. A clinical psychologist testified that she evaluated Carroll and found that she had been harmed by the alleged rape but found no signs of mental disorder. Journalist Natasha Stoynoff testified that while visiting Mar-a-Lago in December 2005, Trump brought her to look at a room while his wife Melania was changing outfits; he allegedly forced her against a wall and kissed her while she tried to push him off and told her they were going to have an affair, citing the well-known "best sex I've ever had" quote attributed to his previous wife Marla Maples. Stoynoff said she only told a limited number of people because she did not want it to affect her career. A clip was played to the jury of Trump denying Stoynoff's claim while running for president, in which he implies she is unattractive. Additionally, on May 3 Tacopina announced that Trump's team would not present a defense case. Tacopina said that, due to health concerns, they decided not to call an expert witness they had proposed.
On May 4 news anchor Carol Martin testified and corroborated Carroll's account of their conversation following the alleged assault, thinking it occurred sometime between 1994 and 1996, and remembering Carroll saying she had also told Birnbach. Martin said she and Carroll did not "scheme" against Trump, though the former demonstrated hate for Trump in some of her text messages. Clips of Trump's deposition were played. Both the prosecution and defense rested their case on May 4. That day Trump made a statement from Ireland indicating he might come to the trial. The judge allowed Trump to move to reopen the case, but Trump did not respond by the May 7 deadline.
On May 8 closing arguments were made. Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan cited her client's attire during the alleged assault—a wool dress with tights—as indicating the weather at the time, which Carroll had narrowed down to after Birnbach's collaboration with Trump on a February 1996 article, further thinking it happened on a Thursday because the store was open late. Additionally, it reputedly happened while Carroll hosted a talk show on America's Talking (1994–1996), which Kaplan argued Trump likely saw in part because it was on immediately before an interview with him filmed in the same building for the same network. Kaplan argued that Carroll "was trying to come to grips with the fact that she was being attacked", which she remembered in "great detail". Kaplan cited the moment in Trump's deposition when he mixed up Carroll with his wife, evidently debunking his claim that she was not his "type"; further, Kaplan asserted that Trump followed an established pattern of behavior of his when caught in wrongdoing by making an excuse (that the photograph was reputedly blurry). Another of Carroll's lawyers argued that Tacopina relied on rhetoric rather than evidence and cited Trump's failure to deny the charges in person, further ridiculing the idea that Carroll, Birnbach, and Martin secretly conspired to take down Trump based on the plot of an episode of Law & Order: SVU. Tacopina focused on the gaps in the plaintiff's case, particularly the unknown date of the incident, asserting that she "tailored her testimony" by saying she realized it was on a Thursday, and accused her of failing to bring the case to police because it "would never make it through a police investigation in a million years". Tacopina repeated Trump's dismissal of the Access Hollywood tape as "locker room talk" and argued that it shows Trump bragging about "women letting you do something" rather than sexual assault. He argued that Leeds's story was false because other airline passengers would not have sat by and let it happen. He also asserted that the prosecution could have called Trump as a witness but, "Instead, what they want is for you to hate him enough to ignore the facts."
Verdict and aftermath (May 2023–present)
The jury reached a unanimous decision on May 9, 2023, after deliberating for less than three hours. Considering the preponderance of the evidence, the jury delivered a verdict that first stated that Carroll had not proven that Trump raped her, and next stated that Carroll did prove that Trump had sexually abused her, and also stated that Trump defamed Carroll with false statements made with actual malice in the October 2022 Truth Social post; thus the jury awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in damages from Trump.
In an appearance on CNN the day after the verdict, Trump continued to disparage Carroll; he called her a "whack job", said the trial was "rigged", denied raping Carroll and said "I didn't do anything else either", and claimed "I don't know who the hell she is." This led Carroll to consider a third defamation lawsuit against Trump concerning these comments.
On May 11, 2023, Trump appealed the verdict. On June 8, Trump's team requested the award to be reduced to under $1 million or that a new trial should be held regarding damages, citing the jury's supposed rejection of the rape claim. Carroll's lawyers said that Trump mischaracterized the verdict (that he sexually abused Carroll) as supporting his contention that he did not rape her. On June 23, Trump's lawyers proffered $5.55 million to a federal court in case the appeal failed.
On June 27, Trump filed a counterclaim alleging that Carroll had defamed him, particularly when she told CNN "yes he did" rape her in response to a question about the jury not finding him liable for that offense. According to Carroll's lawyer, four other statements made in the counterclaim occurred outside New York's one-year statute of limitations. On August 7, Judge Kaplan dismissed the counterclaim and wrote that Carroll's accusation of "rape" is "substantially true". A few days later, Trump appealed the dismissal.
On July 19, Judge Kaplan denied Trump's bid for a new trial, as there was no "seriously erroneous result" nor "miscarriage of justice". Analyzing Trump's arguments, Kaplan found that Trump "misinterprets the jury's verdict", as in actuality, the "proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll's vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm". Kaplan affirmed that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common meaning of the word and ruled against altering the award amount.
On May 14, 2024, Carroll's lawyers requested an expedited appeal, arguing that its completion by July 2024 would lessen the chance of Trump seeking delays related to other trials or his potential presidency.
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On May 9, 2023, Judge Kaplan explained to jurors a verdict form, discussing three types of battery for which Trump could be liable to pay damages under New York law: rape, sexual abuse, and forcible touching.
Seeking $10 million in damages, Carroll amended her original defamation suit on May 22, 2023, to include additional comments Trump made following the verdict against him that month, both on a CNN town hall broadcast and Truth Social. After that amendment was filed, Trump made further negative remarks about Carroll on Truth Social, in which he admitted he had met her as captured by the 1987 photograph, despite having otherwise claimed (including in his 2019 official statement) that he had not.
In court filings on May 26 and June 5, Trump's lawyers sought to prevent Carroll from amending her case, including her replacement of the word 'rape' with 'sexual assault', on the basis that the May verdict rejected Carroll's claim that Trump raped her. In fact, the jury only found that the rape accusation was unproven as compared to sexual abuse. On June 13, Judge Kaplan ruled that Carroll could amend her lawsuit. Two days later, Kaplan ruled that the trial would begin on January 15, 2024, unless the case had "been entirely disposed of" by that date.
On June 1, Kaplan denied a Trump ally's request to dismiss the case on the basis that Trump was being persecuted for being a white Christian.
Trump's team asked for the case to be dismissed partially based on free speech protections and purported presidential immunity; on June 29, Kaplan denied this request, arguing that novel defenses (e.g., absolute immunity) had been introduced too late. Trump's team appealed this decision and requested for the trial to be delayed during the appeal effort; on August 18, Kaplan denied the delay. On September 12, Alina Habba argued to a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Appeals Court that District Court proceedings should be stayed until the appeals court "resolves whether a president may raise his immunity defense". The next day, the appeals court denied the stay request but granted an expedited appeal process, which would also cover the matter of Trump's dismissed counterclaim. During an October 23 hearing, Circuit Judge Denny Chin defended Kaplan's opinion that Trump's immunity defense had been introduced too late. On December 13, the 2nd Circuit ruled that Trump could not use presidential immunity as a defense because he had raised it too late. On January 8, the 2nd Circuit declined to take up Trump's appeal again.
On July 11, 2023, the DOJ dropped its prior position that Trump had been acting in the scope of his office when making his initial responses to Carroll's allegations.
On September 6, 2023, Kaplan issued a partial summary judgment in favor of Carroll, ruling that Trump was liable for defaming Carroll via statements he made in 2019. Kaplan ruled that the jury's verdict in Carroll II "plainly established that Mr. Trump's 2019 statements were false", with the "substantive content" of Trump's defamatory 2022 statement being "identical to the substantive content" of Trump's 2019 statements; in both statements, Trump accused Carroll of "concocting a sexual assault allegation for improper purposes"; since "the jury considered and decided issues that are common to both cases" and concluded that "the sexual assault occurred", this indicated that "Carroll did not lie about it". As a result, the 2024 trial was expected to primarily focus on determining the amount of additional damages Trump will owe Carroll.
On November 3, Kaplan announced that the jury would again be anonymous, citing Trump's statements about the court and case. On November 13, Trump's team moved to add "a new rebuttal expert", after the court twice rejected proposed expert witness Robert Fisher (who argued Carroll "benefitted from this public dispute"). On November 29, Trump posted on Truth Social that the Adult Survivors Act was unconstitutional, further disparaging Carroll and calling the case "election interference" (as he had said about a number of other unsettled legal matters).
On December 21, less than a month before the trial's start date, Trump's team requested a 90-day delay to allow further appeal planning (possibly including a strategy of asking for the case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court), citing Special Counsel Jack Smith's recent description of the question of immunity as being "weighty and consequential" in the federal criminal case against Trump for alleged election obstruction. On December 28, a three-judge panel for the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court denied the delay request.
Also on December 21, Carroll's lawyer asked Judge Kaplan to indicate quotes from the New York civil investigation of The Trump Organization he intended to cite in the trial. The judge responded that Trump's testimony related to his wealth would be relevant to the jury's calculation of punitive damages he must pay Carroll.
Trump's lawyers requested on December 28 that the transcript of his October 2022 deposition be omitted as evidence from the 2024 trial because he might provide new testimony. On January 4, 2024, Judge Kaplan denied the request as frivolous. That morning, Trump posted 31 links on Truth Social (in about as many minutes and without comment) to negative stories and online posts about Carroll, as well as video clips stripped of context to make her statements about sexual assault seem fetishistic. On January 6, Trump mocked Carroll at a political rally for not screaming during the "made up" attack. That night, the judge ruled that Trump's lawyers could not argue before the jury that Trump did not rape Carroll. On January 9, Kaplan further ruled that the defense could not argue about Carroll's choice of lawyer, who was paying her legal fees, her romantic/sexual proclivities, or that Trump did not sexually abuse her or act with actual malice when making disparaging comments about her. Discussion of DNA evidence by either party was also barred. The judge affirmed that, contrary to implications by the defense, the trial would not be a "do over" of past proceedings and was to focus (as established) on additional damages owed to Carroll. Additionally on January 14, Kaplan ruled that Trump could not present Anderson Cooper's interview with Carroll or suggest she hoped to boost book sales.
On January 12, 2024, Carroll's lawyer asked Judge Kaplan to ensure that if Trump testified, Trump first be required to tell the jury that he would keep his comments to the matter at hand and not make barred arguments, saying "his recent statements and behavior [e.g. in his New York business trial] strongly suggest that he will seek to sow chaos". Carroll's lawyer also asked that Trump be required to admit he sexually abused Carroll and disparaged her with actual malice. Also on January 12, the judge denied a request from Trump to delay the trial by a week so he could attend the funeral of his mother-in-law, prompting an incendiary Truth Social post. On January 13, Carroll's lawyer argued that Trump's counsel misrepresented the reason for his unavailability on January 17, as a campaign event was scheduled for that day. On January 14, the judge granted a continuance allowing Trump to testify on January 22, even if all other matters in the trial had concluded.
After his being frequently mentioned by the defense in the first trial, on January 13, lawyer George Conway said he would be "admitted into evidence" in the case. On January 15, Tacopina withdrew from Trump's counsel. A few days later, Tacopina told MSNBC that "It was just my time," and said he had withdrawn for both personal and moral reasons.
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The trial began on January 16, 2024, with Trump in attendance and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan presiding. A nine-member jury was selected, again being anonymous even to the lawyers and judge, who recommended using nicknames for further protection. Ahead of opening statements, Trump's Truth Social account made 22 posts about Carroll, which the latter's counsel cited in opening statements. Habba argued that Carroll's attackers were not inspired by Trump because Carroll was first attacked online before Trump denied her allegations. Habba insinuated that Carroll wanted "Trump to pay her for the mean tweets". The judge scolded Habba for repeating some arguments about topics he had already ruled on.
On January 17, Carroll testified and was cross-examined. Her counsel complained that during testimony, Trump could be heard saying things like "witch hunt" and "con job"; he also reportedly pounded the table. The judge warned Trump that he could force him to leave. Trump replied that he "would love it". Trump posted on Truth Social that he felt obligated to attend "every moment" of the trial, in addition to attacks on the judge and asserting that he was the one who was owed damages. Judge Kaplan corrected Habba on trial procedure multiple times, including the process of entering evidence.
Trump did not attend trial on January 18, as he attended his mother-in-law's funeral. A Northwestern University professor serving as an expert witness for Carroll argued that $12.1 million could be fairly spent on paying conservative pundits to repair Carroll's reputation. In her cross-examination by Habba, Carroll testified that she would prefer to have the reputation she did before accusing Trump as opposed to the popularity she gained, which she said "lowered" her reputation. After that day's proceedings, the court adjourned for the week.
During the trial, Habba again targeted the connection between Carroll and George Conway, prompting the latter to state that "there's no secret there." On January 19, Habba requested a mistrial in this case on the basis that Carroll had deleted emails containing death threats. (Judge Kaplan eventually denied the request for a mistrial; he explained that starting the trial over again would not remedy the deleted emails.) In a January 20 court filing, Roberta Kaplan said she intended to present new evidence on January 22, including out-of-court comments by Trump during the trial.
On January 22, court proceedings ended early because a juror and Habba reported they were feeling unwell. Afterwards, Trump made numerous Truth Social posts disparaging Carroll. Habba requested that trial not be held on January 23, as Trump would be involved with the New Hampshire primary that day. On the night of January 24, Trump posted 37 times to Truth Social about Carroll.
On January 25, Carroll's counsel cited Trump testimony from the New York civil real-estate trial in which he argued he was worth billions of dollars, supporting Carroll's request for $10 million or more in damages as being relatively conservative. Carroll's team rested its case that day. Trump briefly testified, saying he stood by his 2022 testimony that Carroll's claim was a "hoax" and a "con job". He also said he had never instructed anyone to hurt Carroll and (in a comment stricken from the record) that he "just wanted to defend" himself, his family and the presidency. The defense then rested its case.
Trump arrived late on January 26. As Habba talked out of turn, the judge told her she was "on the verge of spending some time in the lockup". Shortly afterward, minutes into Roberta Kaplan's closing argument, during which she argued for $12 million in damages, Trump suddenly stood up and left the courtroom.
Verdict and aftermath (January 2024–present)
On January 26, 2024, the jury deliberated for three hours and awarded Carroll $7.3 million in emotional damages, $11 million in reputation-related damages, and $65 million in punitive damages, totaling $83.3 million. The jury found Trump had committed sexual abuse and forcible touching, two of the three elements of Carroll's battery claim. Trump said he would appeal.
The judge advised the jurors not to disclose that they had served on the trial and forbade them from revealing other jurors' identities.
In a January 29 letter to Judge Kaplan, Habba cited an article from the New York Post asserting that Kaplan, as a senior litigation partner, had served as something like a mentor to junior litigation associate Roberta Kaplan during their nearly two years of overlapping time at the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm in the 1990s. The following day, Roberta Kaplan called the allegations "utterly baseless" and said she could not recall directly interacting with Lewis Kaplan at all during their shared time at the firm. Habba said Roberta Kaplan's response had seemingly resolved the issue.
On January 30, New York Governor Kathy Hochul mentioned the case during a bill-signing ceremony for a law expanding the state's legal definition of rape to include nonconsensual vaginal, anal, and oral contact, effective non-retroactively on September 1, 2024.
On February 19, a lawyer for Carroll stated on MSNBC that their team was continuing to monitor Trump in a legal capacity, as he had that preceding weekend repeated his claim that he had not known Carroll prior to when she made her allegation against him.
= Efforts to reduce, stay or overturn judgment (February–April 2024) =
On February 23, arguing that the penalty would likely be reduced or rescinded, Trump's lawyers requested a suspension of the payment deadline until a month after Kaplan was to rule on post-trial motions (scheduled to be done by March 7), or allowing a lower payment around $24–40 million. On February 24, Judge Kaplan denied the stay on the basis that the payment remained unsecured and Trump's team had not "first ... afforded [Carroll] a meaningful opportunity to be heard".
On March 5, Trump's lawyers requested a reduction of damages or that a new trial be held on the basis that evidence about Trump's state of mind while commenting about Carroll had been excluded. According to Trump's team, the judge failed to instruct the jury to determine whether he acted with malice as defined by common law, which dictates that it was his "sole, exclusive desire to harm" Carroll. On March 7, the judge denied the request, stating that Trump had "waited until 25 days after the jury verdict" to file the motion.
An appeal effort required Trump to either pay the award money to the court (which would hold onto it during his appeal) or else seek a creditor to help him with an appeal bond. On March 8, Trump filed an appeal notice and secured a $91.63 million bond (based on the 110% typically required by the district court to cover interest), underwritten by a subsidiary of the insurance company Chubb. On March 11, Carroll's lawyers asked the judge to approve the bond but requested the nullification of text in the bond agreement which added a 30-day delay to the damages payment deadline (following the appeal), plus an addition of 30 days for Chubb to pay it if Trump could not. The judge ordered that this stipulation be removed and approved the bond the following day.
On April 25, Kaplan upheld the judgment, finding it to pass "constitutional muster", and denied a motion for a new trial, calling the defense's arguments both legally and factually "entirely without merit". While Trump claimed that the awarded damages were excessive, Kaplan disagreed, citing "evidence that Mr. Trump used the office of the presidency — the loudest 'bully pulpit' in America and possibly the world — to issue multiple statements castigating Ms. Carroll", while also highlighting that "Trump's malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people ... They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll's health and safety. The jury was entitled to conclude that Mr. Trump derailed the career, reputation, and emotional well-being of one of America's most successful and prominent advice columnists and authors". | 2023 |
75280059 | FBI investigation into Eric Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign | 2023-11-10 21:19:29+00:00 | In spring 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began a corruption investigation into alleged straw donors from the government of Turkey through construction company KSK Construction to the 2021 campaign of New York City mayor Eric Adams.
Adams's fundraising efforts have attracted scrutiny. In 2018, real estate developer David Schwartz met with Adams, then-borough president of Brooklyn, and donated to his campaign. Adams endorsed zoning changes sought by Slate Property Group, Schwartz's company, to construct a skyscraper taller than as allowed by zoning laws. In May 2021, employees of the Brooklyn construction firm KSK Construction donated a total of US$14,000 to Adams's mayoral campaign, allowing the campaign to qualify for US$18,000 in public matching funds. According to Politico, of the firm's eleven employees, ten had not made a prior political donation; co-owner Erden Arkan last donated to former Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz's campaign in 2009.
Adams has boasted his support for Turkey, stating that no other mayor in New York City history had visited the country as much as he did. In August 2015, the consulate-general of Turkey paid for Adams's trip to the country. After securing the Democratic mayoral primary in July, Adams urged then-fire commissioner Daniel A. Nigro to allow the government of Turkey to occupy the Turkish House; the New York City Fire Department declined to sign off on the building, citing fire safety issues. During his borough presidency, Adams met with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
On November 2, 2023, investigators raided the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, Adams's chief fundraiser. The search warrant, obtained by The New York Times, states agents seized three iPhones, two laptops, contribution card binders, and other documents. The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched a dozen locations that day, including the residence of former Turkish Airlines executive Cenk Öcal and international affairs aide Rana Abbasova. On November 3, investigators questioned Nigro over the Turkish House. Days after the raid at Suggs's home, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized at least two of Adams's cellphones and an iPad. Adams's campaign cooperated with the FBI's request. The New York Times initially reported the seizures.
On February 29, 2024, The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two houses owned by Winnie Greco, Adams's Asian affairs advisor. On April 5, the Times reported that the FBI is investigating flight upgrades Adams purportedly received on Turkish Airlines flights.
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Adams canceled several meetings at the White House to discuss the New York City migrant housing crisis following the raid. At a Day of the Dead celebration at Gracie Mansion that night, Adams stated that his campaign was up to the "highest ethical standards". Adams denied the accusations at a press conference at New York City Hall press conference the following week, disclosing that he had retained the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.
Following a report from The New York Times that Adams was being investigated over the construction of the Turkish House, Adams further denied wrongdoing and assured that he would continue to cooperate with investigators. Adams and the City Hall's chief counsel requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation cease leaks of its investigation.
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Brooklyn Democratic Party chairwoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn questioned if the inquiry was related to Adams' race. State senator Leroy Comrie called the investigation a witch hunt.
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Representative Brandon Williams accused the investigation of being a "weaponization of the justice system" against Adams' critical comments towards president Joe Biden. New York City Council minority leader Joe Borelli defended Adams on Twitter.
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The New York Post's editorial board questioned if the investigation could be political retribution. Politico compared the rhetoric among Adams's supporters with Donald Trump's supporters.
Kim, Elizabeth (November 9, 2023). "What to expect from the investigation into Mayor Adams' campaign". Gothamist. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
Lach, Eric (November 13, 2023). "What Kind of Trouble Is Eric Adams In?". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 14, 2023.
Lane, Charles; Campbell, Jon (November 9, 2023). "How the Brooklyn company involved in Mayor Adams' FBI probe avoided fundraising disclosures". Gothamist. Retrieved November 12, 2023. | 2023 |
73479031 | 2022–23 in skiing | 2023-04-06 06:54:00+00:00 | This topic lists the snow ski sports for the 2022–23 season.
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January 19–25: World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships 2023 in St Anton am Arlberg
Junior Downhill winners: Rok Ažnoh (m) / Stefanie Grob (f)
Junior Super-G winners: Livio Hiltbrand (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
Junior Giant Slalom winners: Alban Elezi Cannaferina (m) / Hanna Aronsson Elfman (f)
Junior Slalom winners: Corrado Barbera (m) / Hanna Aronsson Elfman (f)
Junior Team Alpine Combined winners: Italy (m) / Switzerland (f)
Junior Mixed Team Parallel winners: Sweden (Cornelia Öhlund, Emil Nyberg, Liza Backlund, & Lucas Kongsholm)
February 6–19: FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2023 in Courchevel–Méribel
Downhill winners: Marco Odermatt (m) / Jasmine Flury (f)
Super-G winners: James Crawford (m) / Marta Bassino (f)
Giant Slalom winners: Marco Odermatt (m) / Mikaela Shiffrin (f)
Slalom winners: Henrik Kristoffersen (m) / Laurence St-Germain (f)
Alpine Combined winners: Alexis Pinturault (m) / Federica Brignone (f)
Parallel winners: Alexander Schmid (m) / Maria Therese Tviberg (f)
Mixed Team Parallel winners: United States (Nina O'Brien, River Radamus, Paula Moltzan, & Tommy Ford)
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October 2022
October 22 & 23: World Cup #1 in Sölden
The Women's Giant Slalom event was cancelled.
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Marco Odermatt
October 26–30: World Cup #2 in Zermatt
The two Men's Downhill events are cancelled.
November 2022
November 2–6: World Cup #3 in Breuil-Cervinia
The two Women's Downhill events are cancelled.
November 12 & 13: World Cup #4 in Lech–Zürs
Both Parallel events are cancelled.
November 19 & 20: World Cup #5 in Levi
Women's Slalom winner: Mikaela Shiffrin (2 times)
November 22–27: World Cup #6 in Lake Louise Ski Resort #1
One of the Men's Super-G events was cancelled.
Men's Downhill winner: Aleksander Aamodt Kilde
Men's Super-G winner: Marco Odermatt
November 26 & 27: World Cup #7 in Killington Ski Resort
Women's Giant Slalom winner: Lara Gut-Behrami
Women's Slalom winner: Anna Swenn-Larsson
November 29 – December 4: World Cup #8 in Beaver Creek Resort
One of the Men's Downhill events was cancelled.
Men's Downhill & Super-G winner: Aleksander Aamodt Kilde
November 29 – December 4: World Cup #9 in Lake Louise Ski Resort #2
Women's Downhill winner: Sofia Goggia (2 times)
Women's Super-G winner: Corinne Suter
December 2022
December 10 & 11: World Cup #10 in Val-d'Isère
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Marco Odermatt
Men's Slalom winner: Lucas Braathen
December 10 & 11: World Cup #11 in Sestriere
Women's Giant Slalom winner: Marta Bassino
Women's Slalom winner: Wendy Holdener
December 14–17: World Cup #12 in Val Gardena
The Men's Super-G event was cancelled.
Men's Downhill winners: Vincent Kriechmayr (#1) / Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (#2)
December 14–18: World Cup #13 in St. Moritz
Women's Downhill winners: Elena Curtoni (#1) / Sofia Goggia (#2)
Women's Super-G winner: Mikaela Shiffrin
December 18 & 19: World Cup #14 in Alta Badia
Men's Giant Slalom winners: Lucas Braathen (#1) / Marco Odermatt (#2)
December 22: World Cup #15 in Madonna di Campiglio
Men's Slalom winner: Daniel Yule
December 26–29: World Cup #16 in Bormio
Men's Downhill winner: Vincent Kriechmayr
Men's Super-G winner: Marco Odermatt
December 27–29: World Cup #17 in Semmering
Women's Giant Slalom & Slalom winner: Mikaela Shiffrin (3 times)
January 2023
January 4: World Cup #18 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen #1
Men's Slalom winner: Henrik Kristoffersen
January 4 & 5: World Cup #19 in Zagreb
One of the Women's Slalom events was cancelled.
Women's Slalom winner: Mikaela Shiffrin
January 7 & 8: World Cup #20 in Adelboden
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Marco Odermatt
Men's Slalom winner: Lucas Braathen
January 7 & 8: World Cup #21 in Kranjska Gora #1
Women's Giant Slalom winners: Valérie Grenier (#1) / Mikaela Shiffrin (#2)
January 10: World Cup #22 in Flachau
Women's Slalom winner: Petra Vlhová
January 10–15: World Cup #23 in Wengen
Men's Super-G & Downhill winner: Aleksander Aamodt Kilde
Men's Slalom winner: Henrik Kristoffersen
January 12–15: World Cup #24 in St Anton am Arlberg
Women's Super-G winners: Federica Brignone (#1) / Lara Gut-Behrami (#2)
January 17–22: World Cup #25 in Kitzbühel
Men's Downhill winners: Vincent Kriechmayr (#1) / Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (#2)
Men's Slalom winner: Daniel Yule
January 18–22: World Cup #26 in Cortina d'Ampezzo #1
Women's Downhill winners: Sofia Goggia (#1) / Ilka Štuhec (#2)
Women's Super-G winner: Ragnhild Mowinckel
January 24 & 25: World Cup #27 in Schladming
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Loïc Meillard
Men's Slalom winner: Clément Noël
January 24 & 25: World Cup #28 in Kronplatz
Women's Giant Slalom winner: Mikaela Shiffrin (2 times)
January 26–29: World Cup #29 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen #2
The Men's Downhill event was cancelled.
January 28 & 29: World Cup #30 in Špindlerův Mlýn
Women's Slalom winners: Mikaela Shiffrin (#1) / Lena Dürr (#2)
January 28 & 29: World Cup #31 in Cortina d'Ampezzo #2
Men's Super-G winner: Marco Odermatt (2 times)
February 2023
February 4: World Cup #32 in Chamonix
Men's Slalom winner: Ramon Zenhäusern
February 23–26: World Cup #33 in Crans-Montana
The Women's Super-G event was cancelled.
Women's Downhill winner: Sofia Goggia
February 25 & 26: World Cup #34 in Palisades Tahoe
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Marco Schwarz
Men's Slalom winner: Alexander Steen Olsen
March 2023
March 1–5: World Cup #35 in Aspen
One of the Men's Downhill events was cancelled.
Men's Downhill winner: Aleksander Aamodt Kilde
Men's Super-G winner: Marco Odermatt
March 1–5: World Cup #36 in Kvitfjell
Women's Super-G winners: Cornelia Hütter (#1) / Nina Ortlieb (#2)
Women's Downhill winner: Kajsa Vickhoff Lie
March 10 & 11: World Cup #37 in Åre ski resort
Women's Giant Slalom & Slalom winner: Mikaela Shiffrin
March 11 & 12: World Cup #38 in Kranjska Gora #2
Men's Giant Slalom winner: Marco Odermatt (2 times)
March 13–19: World Cup #39 (final) in Soldeu
Downhill winners: Vincent Kriechmayr (m) / Ilka Štuhec (f)
Super-G winners: Marco Odermatt (m) / Lara Gut-Behrami (f)
Giant Slalom winners: Marco Odermatt (m) / Mikaela Shiffrin (f)
Slalom winners: Ramon Zenhäusern (m) / Petra Vlhová (f)
Team Parallel winners: Norway (Thea Louise Stjernesund, Rasmus Windingstad, Maria Therese Tviberg, & Timon Haugan)
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November 28 & 29, 2022: EC #1 in Mayrhofen (Women's only)
Giant Slalom winner: Doriane Escané
Slalom winner: Moa Boström Müssener
December 1 & 2, 2022: EC #2 in Zinal (Women's only)
Super-G winners: Karen Smadja-Clément (1st) / Janine Schmitt (2nd)
December 1 & 2, 2022: EC #3 in Obergurgl (Men's only)
Giant Slalom winners: Josua Mettler (1st) / Sam Maes (2nd)
December 5 & 6, 2022: EC #4 in Zinal (Women's only)
Giant Slalom winners: Asja Zenere (1st) / Jessica Hilzinger (2nd)
December 6 & 7, 2022: EC #5 in Santa Caterina di Valfurva (Men's only)
Super-G winners: Josua Mettler (1st) / Andreas Ploier (2nd)
December 12 & 13, 2022: EC #6 in Zinal (Men's only)
Giant Slalom winners: Livio Simonet (2 times)
December 13 & 14, 2022: EC #7 in Ponte di Legno (Women's only)
Giant Slalom winners: Asja Zenere (2 times)
December 15, 2022: EC #8 in Obereggen (Men's only)
Slalom winner: Steven Amiez
December 16, 2022: EC #9 in Val di Fassa (Men's only)
Slalom winner: Alex Vinatzer
December 16 & 17, 2022: EC #10 in Valle Aurina (Women's only)
Slalom winners: Paula Moltzan (1st) / Nicole Good (2nd)
December 19–22, 2022: EC #11 in St. Moritz (Men's only)
Downhill winner: Cameron Alexander (2 times)
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November 30 – December 3, 2022: NAC #1 in Copper Mountain (Women's only)
Giant Slalom winner: Britt Richardson (2 times)
Slalom winners: Allie Resnick (1st) / Kiki Alexander (2nd)
December 5–10, 2022: NAC #2 in Copper Mountain
Men's Downhill winners: Sam Morse (1st) / Erik Arvidsson (2nd)
Women's Downhill winner: Patricia Mangan (2 times)
Men's Super-G winners: Kyle Negomir (2 times)
Women's Super-G winners: Kiki Alexander (2 times)
December 12–15, 2022: NAC #3 in Beaver Creek (Men's only)
Giant Slalom winners: Jacob Dilling (1st) / Cooper Cornelius (2nd)
Slalom winners: Jimmy Krupka (2nd) / Justin Alkier (2nd)
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August 5–7, 2022: SAC #1 in Chapelco
Giant Slalom winners: Nicolás Pirozzi (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
August 9–13, 2022: SAC #2 in Cerro Catedral
Giant Slalom winners: Andres Figueroa (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
Slalom #1 winners: Andres Figueroa (m) / Francesca Baruzzi (f)
Slalom #2 winners: Andres Figueroa (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
August 27, 2022: SAC #3 in El Colorado
Giant Slalom winners: Delfin Van Ditmar (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
August 28, 2022: SAC #4 in La Parva
Slalom winners: Akira Sasaki (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
August 29 – September 2, 2022: SAC #5 in La Parva
Downhill #1 winners: Miha Hrobat (m) / Vanessa Nußbaumer (f)
Downhill #2 winners: Jacob Schramm (m) / Sabrina Maier (f)
Super-G #1 winners: Johan Clarey (m) / Patricia Mangan (f)
Super-G #2 winners: Cyprien Sarrazin (m) / Patricia Mangan (f)
Alpine Combined winners: Henrik von Appen (m) / Lara Colturi (f)
September 12–16, 2022: SAC #6 in Cerro Castor
Men's Giant Slalom winners: Giovanni Borsotti (1st) / Alex Vinatzer (2nd)
Women's Giant Slalom winners: Sara Hector (1st) / Hilma Lövblom (2nd)
Men's Slalom winners: Juan del Campo (1st) / Joaquim Salarich (2nd)
Women's Slalom winners: Hanna Aronsson Elfman (1st) / Chiara Pogneaux (2nd)
September 26 – October 1, 2022: SAC #7 in Corralco
Downhill #1 winners: Henrik von Appen (m) / Malin Sofie Sund (f)
Downhill #2 winners: Henrik von Appen (m) / Malin Sofie Sund (f)
Alpine Combined winners: Tiziano Gravier (m) / Malin Sofie Sund (f)
Super-G winners: Henrik von Appen (m) / Malin Sofie Sund (f)
Here first two Alpine combined competitions are cancelled.
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August 22–30, 2022: ANC #1 in Coronet Peak
Slalom #1 winners: Isaiah Nelson (m) / Katie Hensien (f)
Slalom #2 winners: Benjamin Ritchie (m) / Zoe Zimmermann (f)
Super-G #1 winners: Willis Feasey (m) / Candace Crawford (f)
Super-G #2 winners: Willis Feasey (m) / Candace Crawford (f)
Giant Slalom #1 winners: Isaiah Nelson (m) / Candace Crawford (f)
Giant Slalom #2 winners: Andreas Žampa (m) / Alice Robinson (f)
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January 25–29: 2023 IBU Open European Championships in Lenzerheide
Individual winners: Endre Strømsheim (m) / Lisa Maria Spark (f)
Pursuit winners: Vebjørn Sørum (m) / Selina Grotian (f)
Sprint winners: Erlend Bjøntegaard (m) / Anastasiya Merkushyna (f)
Single Mixed Relay winners: Norway (Juni Arnekleiv & Endre Strømsheim)
Mixed Relay winners: Norway (Maren Kirkeeide, Karoline Erdal, Erlend Bjøntegaard, & Vebjørn Sørum)
February 8–19: Biathlon World Championships 2023 in Oberhof
March 4–12: Biathlon Junior World Championships 2023 in Shchuchinsk
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November 29 – December 4, 2022: World Cup #1 in Kontiolahti
Individual winners: Martin Ponsiluoma (m) / Hanna Öberg (f)
Pursuit winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Julia Simon (f)
Sprint winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Lisa Theresa Hauser (f)
Men's 4x7.5 km Relay winners: Norway (Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, Sturla Holm Lægreid, Tarjei Bø, & Johannes Thingnes Bø)
Women's 4x6 km Relay winners: Sweden (Linn Persson, Anna Magnusson, Hanna Öberg, & Elvira Öberg)
December 8–11, 2022: World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen
Pursuit winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Julia Simon (f)
Sprint winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Denise Herrmann-Wick (f)
Men's 4x7.5 km Relay winners: Norway (Sturla Holm Lægreid, Filip Fjeld Andersen, Johannes Thingnes Bø, & Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen)
Women's 4x6 km Relay winners: France (Lou Jeanmonnot, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, Chloé Chevalier, & Julia Simon)
December 15–18, 2022: World Cup #3 in Annecy
Pursuit winners: Sturla Holm Lægreid (m) / Elvira Öberg (f)
Sprint winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Anna Magnusson (f)
Mass Start winners: Johannes Dale (m) / Lisa Theresa Hauser (f)
January 5–8: World Cup #4 in Pokljuka
Men's Pursuit & Sprint winner: Johannes Thingnes Bø
Women's Pursuit & Sprint winner: Elvira Öberg
Single Mixed Relay winners: Norway (Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen & Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold
Mixed Relay winners: France (Fabien Claude, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, & Julia Simon)
January 11–15: World Cup #5 in Ruhpolding
Individual winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Lisa Vittozzi (f)
Mass Start winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Julia Simon (f)
Men's 4x7.5 km Relay winners: Norway (Sturla Holm Lægreid, Tarjei Bø, Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, & Johannes Thingnes Bø)
Women's 4x6 km Relay winners: Norway (Karoline Offigstad Knotten, Ragnhild Femsteinevik, Marte Olsbu Røiseland, & Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold)
January 19–22: World Cup #6 in Antholz-Anterselva
Pursuit winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Denise Herrmann-Wick (f)
Sprint winners: Johannes Thingnes Bø (m) / Dorothea Wierer (f)
Men's 4x7.5 km Relay winners: Norway (Sturla Holm Lægreid, Tarjei Bø, Johannes Thingnes Bø, & Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen)
Women's 4x6 km Relay winners: France (Lou Jeanmonnot, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, Chloé Chevalier, & Julia Simon)
March 2–5: World Cup #7 in Nové Město na Moravě
March 9–12: World Cup #8 in Östersund
March 16–19: World Cup #9 (final) in Oslo Holmenkollen
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November 24–27, 2022: IBU Cup #1 in Sjusjøen
All events here were cancelled.
November 30–December 3, 2022: IBU Cup #2 in Idre
Individual winners: Endre Strömsheim (m) / Janina Hettich-Walz (f)
Pursuit winners: Martin Uldal (m) / Marthe Krakstad Johansen (f)
Men's Sprint winner: Endre Strömsheim (2 times)
Women's Sprint winners: Marthe Krakstad Johansen (#1) / Selina Grotian (#2)
December 15–18, 2022: IBU Cup #3 in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna
Pursuit winners: Mats Överby (m) / Maren Kirkeeide (f)
Sprint winners: Endre Strömsheim (m) / Federica Sanfilippo (f)
Mass Start 60 winners: Martin Uldal (m) / Gilonne Guigonnat (f)
January 5–8: IBU Cup #4 in Brezno-Osrblie
Sprint winners: Eric Perrot (m) / Eleonora Fauner (f)
Super Sprint Final winners: Eric Perrot (m) / Maren Kirkeeide (f)
Single Mixed Relay winners: Norway (Mats Ŏverby & Frida Dokken)
Mixed Relay winners: Norway (Isak Frey, Endre Strömsheim, Juni Arnekleiv, & Maren Kirkeeide)
January 13–15: IBU Cup #5 in Arber
Individual Short winners: Sindre Fjellheim Jorde (m) / Hannah Auchentaller (f)
Men's Sprint winners: Sindre Fjellheim Jorde (#1) / Vebjørn Sørum (#2)
Women's Sprint winners: Hanna Kebinger (#1) / Paula Botet (#2)
February 2–4: IBU Cup #6 in Obertilliach
February 23–26: IBU Cup #7 in Canmore #1
March 1–4: IBU Cup #8 (final) in Canmore #2
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February 22 – March 5: FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2023 in Planica
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November 25–27, 2022: World Cup #1 in Rukatunturi
Individual Start Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Ebba Andersson (f)
Pursuit Free winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Frida Karlsson (f)
Sprint Final Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Emma Ribom (f)
December 2–4, 2022: World Cup #2 in Lillehammer
Individual Start Free winners: Iver Tildheim Andersen (m) / Jessie Diggins (f)
Mass Start Classic winners: Pål Golberg (m) / Frida Karlsson (f)
Sprint Final Free winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Emma Ribom (f)
December 9–11, 2022: World Cup #3 in Beitostølen
Individual Start Classic winners: Pål Golberg (m) / Kerttu Niskanen (f)
Sprint Final Classic winners: Richard Jouve (m) / Nadine Fähndrich (f)
4x5 km Relay Classic/Free winners: Norway (Lotta Udnes Weng, Mikael Gunnulfsen, Silje Theodorsen, & Simen Hegstad Krüger)
December 17 & 18, 2022: World Cup #4 in Davos
Individual Start Free winners: Simen Hegstad Krüger (m) / Jessie Diggins (f)
Sprint Final Free winners: Federico Pellegrino (m) / Nadine Fähndrich (f)
December 31, 2022 & January 1: World Cup #5 in Val Müstair
Pursuit Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Tiril Udnes Weng (f)
Sprint Final Free winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Nadine Fähndrich (f)
January 3 & 4: World Cup #6 in Oberstdorf
Men's Individual Start Classic & Pursuit Free winner: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo
Women's Individual Start Classic & Pursuit Free winner: Frida Karlsson
January 6–8: World Cup #7 in Fiemme Valley
Mass Start Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Katharina Hennig (f)
Mass Start Free winners: Simen Hegstad Krüger (m) / Delphine Claudel (f)
Sprint Final Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Lotta Udnes Weng (f)
January 21 & 22: Original World Cup #8 in Milan
All events here are cancelled.
January 21 & 22: Replaced World Cup #8 in Livigno
Sprint Final Free winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Jonna Sundling (f)
Men's Team Sprint Free winners: France (Renaud Jay & Richard Jouve)
Women's Team Sprint Free winners: Sweden (Linn Svahn & Maja Dahlqvist)
January 27–29: World Cup #9 in Les Rousses
Individual Start Free winners: Harald Østberg Amundsen (m) / Ebba Andersson (f)
Mass Start Classic winners: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (m) / Ebba Andersson (f)
Sprint Final Classic winners: Richard Jouve (m) / Kristine Stavås Skistad (f)
February 3–5: World Cup #10 in Toblach
Individual Start Free winners: (m) / (f)
Sprint Final Free winners: (m) / (f)
4x7.5 km Relay Classic/Free winners:
March 11 & 12: World Cup #11 in Oslo
March 14: World Cup #12 in Drammen
March 17–19: World Cup #13 in Falun
March 21: World Cup #14 in Tallinn
March 24–26: World Cup #15 (final) in Lahti
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Australia/New Zealand Cup
July 30 & 31, 2022: ANC #1 in Falls Creek Alpine Resort
Sprint Classic winners: Lars Young Vik (m) / Katerina Paul (f)
Men's 15 km Freestyle winner: Phillip Bellingham
Women's 10 km Freestyle winner: Zana Evans
August 20 & 21, 2022: ANC #2 in Perisher Ski Resort
Sprint Freestyle winners: Lars Young Vik (m) / Katerina Paul (f)
Men's 10 km Classic winner: Seve de Campo
Women's 5 km Classic winner: Phoebe Cridland
East European Cup
November 13–15, 2022: EEC #1 in Shchuchinsk
Sprint Classic winners: Konstantin Bortsov (m) / Anna Melnik (f)
Men's 10 km Individual Classic winner: Vitaliy Pukhkalo
Women's 10 km Individual Classic winner: Kseniya Shalygina
Men's 15 km Individual Free winner: Vitaliy Pukhkalo
Women's 15 km Individual Free winner: Kseniya Shalygina
North American Cup
November 30 – December 4, 2022: NAC #1 in Vernon
Sprint Classic winners: Magnus Bøe (m) / Hailey Swirbul (f)
Mass Start winners: Tom Mancini (m) / Anna-Maria Dietze (f)
Sprint Freestyle winners: Andreas Kirkeng (m) / Hailey Swirbul (f)
10 km Classic winners: Andreas Kirkeng (m) / Hailey Swirbul (f)
South American Cup
September 2–4, 2022: SAC #1 in Cerro Catedral
Sprint Classic winners: Franco Dal Farra (m) / Maira Sofía Fernández Righi (f)
Men's 10 km Individual Classic winner: Franco Dal Farra
Women's 5 km Individual Classic winner: Agustina Groetzner
Men's 10 km Individual Free winner: Franco Dal Farra
Women's 5 km Individual Free winner: Nahiara Díaz
September 21 & 22, 2022: #2 in Corralco
Men's 10 km Individual Free winner: Franco Dal Farra
Women's 7.5 km Individual Free winner: María Cecilia Domínguez
Sprint Freestyle winners: Franco Dal Farra (m) / María Cecilia Domínguez (f)
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February 19 – March 4: FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships 2023 in Bakuriani
March 20–26: 2023 FIS Junior Freestyle Moguls and Aerials World Ski Championship in Airolo
March 27 & 28: 2023 FIS Junior Freestyle Ski Cross World Ski Championship in San Pellegrino Pass
August 27 – September 8: 2023 FIS Junior Freeski World Championship in Cardrona
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October 21, 2022: FS World Cup #1 in Chur
Big Air winners: Birk Ruud (m) / Tess Ledeux (f)
November 18 & 19, 2022: FS World Cup #2 in Stubai
Slopestyle winners: Birk Ruud (m) / Johanne Killi (f)
November 24 & 25, 2022: FS World Cup #3 in Falun
Both Freeskiing Big Air events are cancelled.
December 14–17, 2022: FS World Cup #4 in Copper Mountain
Big Air winners: Birk Ruud (m) / Megan Oldham (f)
Halfpipe winners: Birk Irving (m) / Rachael Karker (f)
January 12–14: FS World Cup #5 in Font Romeu
Both Freeskiing Slopestyle events are cancelled.
January 18–22: FS World Cup #6 in Laax
Slopestyle winners: Andri Ragettli (m) / Johanne Killi (f)
January 19–21: FS World Cup #7 in Calgary
Men's Halfpipe winners: Jon Sallinen (#1) / Alex Ferreira (#2)
Women's Halfpipe winner: Eileen Gu (2 times)
February 1–4: FS World Cup #8 in Mammoth Mountain
Halfpipe winners: (m) / (f)
Slopestyle winners: (m) / (f)
March 9–11: FS World Cup #9 in Secret Garden
Both Freeskiing Halfpipe events are cancelled.
March 16–18: FS World Cup #10 in Tignes
March 23–25: FS World Cup #11 (final) in Silvaplana
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December 3 & 4, 2022: MA World Cup #1 in Rukatunturi
Aerials winners: Pirmin Werner (m) / Danielle Scott (f)
Moguls winners: Mikaël Kingsbury (m) / Jakara Anthony (f)
December 10 & 11, 2022: MA World Cup #2 in Idre Fjäll
Moguls winners: Nick Page (m) / Jakara Anthony (f)
Dual Moguls winners: Mikaël Kingsbury (m) / Elizabeth Lemley (f)
December 16 & 17, 2022: MA World Cup #3 in Alpe d'Huez
Men's Moguls & Dual Moguls winner: Ikuma Horishima
Women's Moguls winner: Jakara Anthony
Women's Dual Moguls winner: Anri Kawamura
January 21 & 22: MA World Cup #4 in Le Relais
Men's Aerials winners: Quinn Dehlinger (#1) / Noé Roth (#2)
Women's Aerials winners: Marion Thénault (#1) / Laura Peel (#2)
January 27 & 28: MA World Cup #5 in Val Saint-Côme
Moguls winners: Mikaël Kingsbury (m) / Anri Kawamura (f)
Dual Moguls winners: Walter Wallberg (m) / Anri Kawamura (f)
February 2–4: MA World Cup #6 in Deer Valley
Aerials winners: (m) / (f)
Moguls winners: (m) / (f)
Dual Moguls winners: (m) / (f)
February 11: MA World Cup #7 in Chiesa in Valmalenco
Dual Moguls winners: (m) / (f)
March 5: MA World Cup #8 in Engadin
March 17–20: MA World Cup #9 (final) in Almaty
=
November 4 & 5, 2022: SC World Cup #1 in Les Deux Alpes
Both Ski Cross events were cancelled.
December 7–9, 2022: SC World Cup #2 in Val Thorens
Men's Ski Cross winners: Johannes Rohrweck (#1) / Mathias Graf (#2)
Women's Ski Cross winner: Sandra Näslund (2 times)
December 11 & 12, 2022: SC World Cup #3 in Arosa
Ski Cross winners: Terence Tchiknavorian (m) / Sandra Näslund (f)
December 20–22, 2022: SC World Cup #4 in Innichen
Men's Ski Cross winners: Mathias Graf (#1) / Reece Howden (#2)
Women's Ski Cross winner: Sandra Näslund (2 times)
December 27–29, 2022: SC World Cup #5 in Alleghe
All Ski Cross events were cancelled.
January 20–22: SC World Cup #6 in Idre Fjäll
Men's Ski Cross winners: David Mobärg (#1) / Reece Howden (#2)
Women's Ski Cross winner: Sandra Näslund (2 times)
January 27–29: SC World Cup #7 in Megève
All Ski Cross events were cancelled.
February 15–17: SC World Cup #8 in Reiteralm
Men's Ski Cross winners: (#1) / (#2)
Women's Ski Cross winners: (#1) / (#2)
March 3–5: SC World Cup #9 in Oberwiesenthal
March 10–12: SC World Cup #10 in Veysonnaz
March 17–19: SC World Cup #11 (final) in Craigleith
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November 20, 2022: EC #1 in Pitztal
Ski Cross winners: Mathias Graf (m) / Daniela Maier (f)
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August 1–5, 2022: ANC #1 in Perisher Ski Resort
Freeski Slopestyle #1 winners: Cameron Waddell (m) / Mabel Ashburn (f)
Freeski Slopestyle #2 winners: Bailey Johnson (m) / Mabel Ashburn (f)
Freeski Big Air winners: Cameron Waddell (m) / Daisy Thomas (f)
August 30 & 31, 2022: ANC #2 in Perisher Ski Resort
Moguls #1 winners: Matt Graham (m) / Anri Kawamura (f)
Moguls #2 winners: Matt Graham (m) / Anri Kawamura (f)
August 31 – September 3, 2022: ANC #3 in Mount Hotham
Ski Cross #1 winners: Satoshi Furuno (m) / Abby Evans (f)
Ski Cross #2 winners: Satoshi Furuno (m) / Lin Nakanishi (f)
Ski Cross #3 winners: Douglas Crawford (m) / Lin Nakanishi (f)
September 1–4, 2022: ANC #3 in Cardrona
Freeski Halfpipe winners: Gustav Legnavsky (m) / Hanna Faulhaber (f)
Freeski Slopestyle winners: Luca Harrington (m) / Ruby Andrews (f)
September 2 & 3, 2022: ANC #4 in Mount Buller
Dual Moguls winners: Matt Graham (m) / Avital Carroll (f)
October 1–8, 2022: ANC #4 in Cardrona
Freeski Big Air winners: Luca Harrington (m) / Daisy Thomas (f)
Freeski Slopestyle winners: Luca Harrington (m) / Caoimhe Heavey (f)
Freeski Halfpipe winners: Gustav Legnavsky (m) / Sylvia Trotter (f)
=
August 4–7, 2022: SAC #1 in La Parva
Freeski Slopestyle #1 winners: Francisco Salas (m) / Dominique Ohaco (f)
Freeski Slopestyle #2 winners: Cristóbal Colombo (m) / Dominique Ohaco (f)
August 8 & 9, 2022: SAC #2 in El Colorado
Freeski Big Air #1 winners: Francisco Salas (m) / Dominique Ohaco (f)
Freeski Big Air #2 winners: Francisco Salas (m) / No events
August 10–12, 2022: SAC #3 in La Parva
Cancelled.
September 7–12, 2022: SAC #4 in Cerro Catedral
Men's Freeski Slopestyle winner: Francisco Salas (2 times)
Women's Freeski Slopestyle winner: Dominique Ohaco (2 times)
Men's Freeski Big Air winner: Cristóbal Colombo (2 times)
Here, Women's Freeski Big Air is cancelled.
September 15–17, 2022: SAC #5 in La Parva
Men's Ski Cross winners: Valentin Signe (1st) / Kay Holscher (2nd)
Women's Ski Cross winners: Maria Jesus Bartel (2 times)
September 19–23, 2022: SAC #7 in Chapelco
Men's Freeski Slopestyle winner: Francisco Salas
Here, Women's Freeski Slopestyle and Freeski Big Air competitions are cancelled.
=
January 27 – February 5: 2023 Nordic Junior World Ski Championships in Whistler
February 22 – March 5: FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2023 in Planica
=
November 24–27, 2022: World Cup #1 in Rukatunturi
Men's Gundersen Large Hill winners: Julian Schmid (#1) / Jarl Magnus Riiber (#2)
Men's Mass Start Large Hill winner: Jarl Magnus Riiber
December 1–4, 2022: World Cup #2 in Lillehammer
Men's Gundersen Large Hill winner: Jarl Magnus Riiber
Men's Gundersen Normal Hill winner: Jens Lurås Oftebro
Women's Gundersen Normal Hill winner: Gyda Westvold Hansen (2 times)
December 15–18, 2022: World Cup #3 in Ramsau am Dachstein
Men's Gundersen Normal Hill winners: Jarl Magnus Riiber (#1) / Vinzenz Geiger (#2)
Women's Gundersen Normal Hill winner: Gyda Westvold Hansen (2 times)
January 5–8: World Cup #4 in Otepää
The Women's Mass Start event was cancelled.
Men's Gundersen Normal Hill winner: Julian Schmid
Women's Gundersen Normal Hill winner: Gyda Westvold Hansen
Men's Mass Start winner: Johannes Lamparter
Team winners: Norway (Jens Lurås Oftebro, Ida Marie Hagen, Gyda Westvold Hansen, & Jørgen Graabak)
January 19–22: World Cup #5 in Klingenthal
Men's Gundersen & Mass Start Large Hill winner: Johannes Lamparter
January 20–22: World Cup #6 in Chaux-Neuve
Both Men's Gundersen Large Hill events was cancelled.
January 26–29: World Cup #7 in Seefeld in Tirol
Men's Gundersen Normal Hill winners: (#1) / (#2) / (#3)
Women's Gundersen Normal Hill winners: (#1) / (#2)
February 3–5: World Cup #8 in Oberstdorf
February 10–12: World Cup #9 in Schonach im Schwarzwald
March 8–12: World Cup #10 in Oslo
March 24–27: World Cup #11 (final) in Lahti
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August 26–28, 2022: GP #1 in Oberwiesenthal
Winners: Ilkka Herola (m) / Ema Volavšek (f)
Team event winners: Germany I (Julian Schmid, Jenny Nowak, Nathalie Armbruster, Johannes Rydzek)
August 30 & 31, 2022: GP #2 in Oberstdorf
Winners: Franz-Josef Rehrl (m) / Gyda Westvold Hansen (f)
September 2–4, 2022: GP #3 in Tschagguns
Men's winners: Jens Lurås Oftebro (1st) / Eero Hirvonen (2nd)
Women's winners: Nathalie Armbruster (1st) / Gyda Westvold Hansen (2nd)
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August 8, 2022: OPA #1 in Klingenthal (Women's only)
Winner: Anne Häckel
August 12 & 13, 2022: OPA #2 in Bischofsgrün (Women's only)
Cancelled.
September 9 & 10, 2022: OPA #3 in Oberstdorf (Men's only)
Winner: Marco Heinis (2 times)
September 17 & 18, 2022: OPA #4 in Schwäbisch Gmünd (Women's only)
Winners: Magdalena Burger (1st) / Thea Haeckel (2nd)
September 24 & 25, 2022: OPA #5 in Villach
Men's winner: Marco Heinis (2 times)
Women's winner: Anne Häckel (2 times)
October 8 & 9, 2022: OPA #6 in Gérardmer
Men's winner: Marceau Liardon
Women's winner: Katharina Gruber
Men's Team winners: Austria (Levi Hofmann, Moritz Krismayr, Kenji Grossegger)
Women's Team winners: Germany I (Mara-Jolie Schlossarek, Pia Loh, Fabienne Klumpp)
=
September 2 & 3, 2022: YC1 & YC2 in Tschagguns
YC1 #1 winners: Lovro Serucnik Percl (m) / Emilia Vidgren (f)
YC2 #1 winners: Jan John (m) / Kjersti Græsli (f)
YC1 #2 winners: Kenji Grossegger (m) / Anna-Sophia Gredler (f)
YC2 #2 winners: Jan John (m) / Ingrid Laate (f)
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February 22 – March 5: FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2023 in Planica
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November 4–6, 2022: World Cup #1 in Wisła
Men's winner: Dawid Kubacki (2 times)
Women's winners: Silje Opseth (#1) / Eva Pinkelnig (#2)
November 25–27, 2022: World Cup #2 in Rukatunturi
Men's winners: Anže Lanišek (#1) / Stefan Kraft (#2)
December 2–4, 2022: World Cup #3 in Lillehammer #1
Women's winners: Katharina Althaus (#1) / Silje Opseth (#2)
December 8–11, 2022: World Cup #4 in Titisee-Neustadt
Men's winners: Anže Lanišek (#1) / Dawid Kubacki (#2)
Women's winner: Katharina Althaus
Mixed Team winners: Austria (Marita Kramer, Michael Hayböck, Eva Pinkelnig, & Stefan Kraft)
December 16–18, 2022: World Cup #5 in Engelberg
Men's winners: Anže Lanišek (#1) / Dawid Kubacki (#2)
December 27–29, 2022: World Cup #6 in Villach
Women's winner: Eva Pinkelnig (2 times)
December 28 & 29, 2022: World Cup #7 in Oberstdorf
Men's winner: Halvor Egner Granerud
December 30, 2022 – January 1: World Cup #8 in Ljubno ob Savinji
Women's winners: Anna Odine Strøm (#1) / Eva Pinkelnig (#2)
December 31, 2022 & January 1: World Cup #9 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Men's winner: Halvor Egner Granerud
January 3 & 4: World Cup #10 in Innsbruck
Men's winner: Dawid Kubacki
January 5 & 6: World Cup #11 in Bischofshofen
Men's winner: Halvor Egner Granerud
January 6–8: World Cup #12 in Sapporo #1
Women's winners: Katharina Althaus (#1) / Silje Opseth (#2)
January 12–15: World Cup #13 in Zaō
Women's individual winners: Alexandria Loutitt (#1) / Eva Pinkelnig (#2)
Women's team winners: Austria (Chiara Kreuzer & Eva Pinkelnig)
January 13–15: World Cup #14 in Zakopane
Men's individual winner: Halvor Egner Granerud
Men's team winners: Austria (Daniel Tschofenig, Michael Hayböck, Manuel Fettner, & Stefan Kraft)
January 19–22: World Cup #15 in Sapporo #2
Men's winners: Ryōyū Kobayashi (#1; 2 times) / Stefan Kraft (#2)
January 27–29: World Cup #16 in Kulm Mitterndorf
Men's winners: (#1) / (#2)
January 27–29: World Cup #17 in Hinterzarten
Women's winners: (#1) / (#2)
February 2–5: World Cup #18 in Willingen
February 10 & 11: World Cup #19 in Hinzenbach
February 10–12: Original World Cup #20 in Iron Mountain
The two Men's Ski Jumping events were cancelled.
February 10–12: Replaced World Cup #20 in Lake Placid
Men's individual winners: (#1) / (#2)
Men's team winners:
February 17–19: World Cup #21 in Râșnov
March 10–12: World Cup #22 in Oslo
March 13–16: World Cup #23 in Lillehammer #2
March 15 & 16: World Cup #24 in Trondheim
The individual Men's & Women's events were cancelled.
March 17–19: World Cup #25 in Vikersund
March 23–26: World Cup #26 in Lahti
March 30 – April 2: World Cup #27 (final) in Planica
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September 3 & 4, 2022: CC #1 in Lillehammer
Men's winners: Sondre Ringen (2 times)
Women's winners: Abigail Strate (2 times)
September 17 & 18, 2022: CC #2 in Stams (Men's only)
Winners: Michael Hayböck (1st) / Aleksander Zniszczoł (2nd)
September 24 & 25, 2022: CC #3 in Klingenthal (Men's only)
Winners: Sondre Ringen (1st) / Michael Hayböck (2nd)
October 7–9, 2022: CC #4 in Lake Placid
Men's winner: Michael Hayböck (3 times)
Women's winners: Abigail Strate (3 times)
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Summer
July 22–24, 2022: GP #1 in Wisła
Men's winners: Dawid Kubacki (1st) / Kamil Stoch (2nd)
Women's winners: Urša Bogataj (1st) / Nika Križnar (2nd)
August 5–7, 2022: GP #2 in Courchevel
Winners: Manuel Fettner (m) / Urša Bogataj (f)
September 16–18, 2022: GP #3 in Râșnov
Winners: Ren Nikaido (m) / Eva Pinkelnig (f)
Men's team winners: Austria (Daniel Tschofenig & Manuel Fettner)
Mixed team winners: Austria (Julia Mühlbacher, Jan Hörl, Eva Pinkelnig, Daniel Tschofenig)
September 24 & 25, 2022: GP #4 in Hinzenbach (Men's only)
Winner: Dawid Kubacki
September 30 – October 2, 2022: GP #5 in Klingenthal
Winners: Dawid Kubacki (m) / Urša Bogataj (f)
Mixed team winners: Norway (Silje Opseth, Marius Lindvik, Thea Minyan Bjørseth, Daniel-André Tande)
=
August 7 & 8, 2022: OPA #1 in Klingenthal (Women's only)
Winner: Lilou Zepchi (2 times)
August 10 & 11, 2022: OPA #2 in Pöhla (Women's only)
Winner: Lilou Zepchi (2 times)
August 12 & 13, 2022: OPA #3 in Bischofsgrün (Women's only)
Winner: Ajda Košnjek
September 10 & 11, 2022: OPA #4 in Oberstdorf (Men's only)
Winner: Maksim Bartolj (2 times)
September 17 & 18, 2022: OPA #5 in Schwäbisch Gmünd (Women's only)
Winner: Taja Bodlaj (2 times)
September 24 & 25, 2022: OPA #5 in Liberec (Men's only)
Winner: Rok Masle (2 times)
October 8 & 9, 2022: OPA #6 in Gérardmer
Men's winner: Alexei Urevc
Women's winner: Tina Erzar
Men's Team winners: Slovenia I (Kai Zakelšek, Blaž Jurčić, Alexei Urevc)
Women's Team winners: Slovenia II (Ula Vodlan, Živa Andrić, Tina Erzar)
=
Summer
July 30 & 31, 2022: FC #1 in Otepää
Cancelled due to organizational problems.
August 12 & 13, 2022: FC #2 in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm (Men's only)
Winners: Eric Fuchs (1st) / Janni Reisenauer (2nd)
August 20 & 21, 2022: FC #3 in Szczyrk
Men's winners: Niklas Bachlinger (1st) / Maximilian Lienher (2nd)
Women's winners: Hannah Wiegele (1st) / Ajda Košnjek (2nd)
August 26–28, 2022: FC #4 in Einsiedeln
Men's winners: Marco Wörgötter (1st) / Jonas Schuster (2nd)
Women's winner: Nicole Konderla (2 times)
September 2 & 3, 2022: FC #5 in Kranj
Men's winners: Anže Lanišek (1st) / Janni Reisenauer (2nd)
Women's winners: Nika Križnar (1st) / Nika Prevc (2nd)
September 10 & 11, 2022: OPA #6 in Villach
Men's winners: Tomasz Pilch (1st) / Francesco Cecon (2nd)
Women's winners: Nika Prevc (1st) / Hannah Wiegele (2nd)
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February 26 – March 4: 2023 World Championship of Ski Mountaineering in Boí Taüll Resort
March 25: 2023 ISMF Long Distance Team World Championships in Ponte di Legno–Tonale
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November 25–27, 2022: World Cup #1 in Val Thorens
Sprint Race winners: Arno Lietha (m) / Emily Harrop (f)
Women's U23 Sprint Race winner: Emily Harrop
Mixed Relay Race winners: France (Emily Harrop & Thibault Anselmet)
December 16–18, 2022: World Cup #2 in Ponte di Legno-Tonale
Individual winners: Rémi Bonnet (m) / Axelle Mollaret (f)
Sprint Race winners: Arno Lietha (m) / Celia Perillat-Pessey (f)
January 21 & 22: World Cup #3 in Arinsal–La Massana
Individual winners: Thibault Anselmet (m) / Axelle Mollaret (f)
Vertical winners: Rémi Bonnet (m) / Axelle Mollaret (f)
February 7–10: World Cup #4 in Morgins
February 16: World Cup #5 in Val Martello
March 18: World Cup #6 in Schladming
April 11: World Cup #7 (final) in Tromsø
=
February 19 – March 4: FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships 2023 in Bakuriani
March 24–27: 2023 FIS Snowboard Alpine Junior World Championship in Bansko
March 30 & 31: 2023 FIS Snowboard Cross Junior World Championship in San Pellegrino Pass
August 28 – September 8: 2023 FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe Junior World Championship in Cardrona
=
December 10 & 11, 2022: AS World Cup #1 in Winterberg
Parallel Slalom winners: Alexander Payer (m) / Sabine Schöffmann (f)
Team Parallel Slalom winners: Switzerland (Gian Casanova & Ladina Jenny)
December 15, 2022: AS World Cup #2 in Carezza Dolomites
Parallel Giant Slalom winners: Andreas Prommegger (m) / Michelle Dekker (f)
December 17, 2022: AS World Cup #3 in Cortina d'Ampezzo
Parallel Giant Slalom winners: Roland Fischnaller (m) / Gloria Kotnik (f)
January 10 & 11: AS World Cup #4 in Bad Gastein
Parallel Slalom winners: Maurizio Bormolini (m) / Daniela Ulbing (f)
Team Parallel Slalom winners: Austria (Andreas Prommegger & Daniela Ulbing)
January 14: AS World Cup #5 in Scuol
Parallel Giant Slalom winners: Oskar Kwiatkowski (m) / Carolin Langenhorst (f)
January 21 & 22: AS World Cup #6 in Bansko
Men's parallel Slalom winners: Dario Caviezel (#1) / Maurizio Bormolini (#2)
Women's parallel Slalom winner: Julie Zogg (2 times)
January 26 & 27: AS World Cup #7 in Blue Mountain
Men's parallel Giant Slalom winners: (#1) / (#2)
Women's parallel Giant Slalom winners: (#1) / (#2)
March 11 & 12: Original AS World Cup #8 in Piancavallo
All Parallel Slalom events were cancelled.
March 11 & 12: Replaced AS World Cup #8 in Livigno
Parallel Giant Slalom winners: (m) / (f)
Parallel Slalom winners: (m) / (f)
March 15: AS World Cup #9 in Rogla Ski Resort
March 18 & 19: AS World Cup #10 (final) in Berchtesgaden
=
October 22, 2022: HBS World Cup #1 in Chur
Big Air winners: Takeru Otsuka (m) / Reira Iwabuchi (f)
November 24–26, 2022: HBS World Cup #2 in Falun
Both Big Air events are cancelled.
December 9 & 10, 2022: HBS World Cup #3 in Edmonton
Big Air winners: Valentino Guseli (m) / Jasmine Baird (f)
December 14–17, 2022: HBS World Cup #4 in Copper Mountain
Big Air winners: Marcus Kleveland (m) / Mari Fukada (f)
Halfpipe winners: Scotty James (m) / Queralt Castellet (f)
January 13 & 14: HBS World Cup #5 in Kreischberg
Big Air winners: Taiga Hasegawa (m) / Anna Gasser (f)
January 18–21: HBS World Cup #6 in Laax
Both Halfpipe events are cancelled.
Slopestyle winners: Marcus Kleveland (m) / Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (f)
February 1–4: HBS World Cup #7 in Mammoth Mountain Ski Area
February 9–12: HBS World Cup #8 in Calgary
March 10–12: HBS World Cup #9 in Secret Garden
Both Halfpipe events are cancelled.
March 24–26: HBS World Cup #10 (final) in Silvaplana
=
December 2–4, 2022: SC World Cup #1 in Les Deux Alpes
Individual winners: Martin Nörl (m) / Josie Baff (f)
December 15–17, 2022: SC World Cup #2 in Breuil-Cervinia
Men's Individual winners: Alessandro Hämmerle (#1) / Loan Bozzolo (#2)
Women's Individual winners: Chloé Trespeuch (#1) / Charlotte Bankes (#2)
December 18–20, 2022: SC World Cup #3 in Montafon
All Snowboard Cross events were cancelled.
January 27 & 28: SC World Cup #4 in Cortina d'Ampezzo
Individual winners: (m) / (f)
February 3–5: SC World Cup #5 in Mont-Sainte-Anne
March 10–12: SC World Cup #6 in Sierra Nevada Ski Station
March 15 & 16: SC World Cup #7 (final) in Veysonnaz
=
November 24, 2022: EC #1 in Pitztal
Snowboard Cross winners: Martin Nörl (m) / Francesca Gallina (f)
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August 1–5, 2022: ANC #1 in Perisher Ski Resort
Slopestyle #1 winners: Matthew Cox (m) / Mia Brookes (f)
Slopestyle #2 winners: Valentino Guseli (m) / Mia Brookes (f)
Big Air winners: Valentino Guseli (m) / Mia Brookes (f)
September 1–4, 2022: ANC #2 in Cardrona
Halfpipe winners: Lee Cha-eun (m) / Choi Ga-on
Slopestyle winners: Jesse Parkinson (m) / Mari Fukada (f)
September 1–4, 2022: ANC #3 in Mount Hotham
Snowboard Cross #1 winners: Adam Lambert (m) / Josie Baff (f)
Snowboard Cross #2 winners: Adam Lambert (m) / Josie Baff (f)
Snowboard Cross #3 winners: Cameron Bolton (m) / Josie Baff (f)
October 1–8, 2022: ANC #4 in Cardrona
Slopestyle winners: Ryoma Kimata (m) / Lucia Georgalli (f)
Halfpipe winners: Jason Wolle (m) / Sara Shimizu (f)
Big Air winners: Ryoma Kimata (m) / Mari Fukada (f)
=
August 4–7, 2022: SAC #1 in La Parva
Big Air #1 winners: Federico Chiaradio (m) / Amanda Cardone (f)
Big Air #2 winners: Valentín Moreno (m) / No events
August 8 & 9, 2022: SAC #2 in El Colorado
Big Air #1 winners: Federico Chiaradio (m) / Amanda Cardone (f)
Big Air #2 winners: Valentín Moreno (m) / No events
August 10–12, 2022: SAC #3 in La Parva
Cancelled.
August 29 & 30, 2022: SAC #4 in Corralco
Snowboard Cross #1 winners: Connor Schlegel (m) / Madeline Lochte-Bono (f)
Snowboard Cross #2 winners: Noah Bethonico (m) / Madeline Lochte-Bono (f)
September 7–12, 2022: SAC #5 in Cerro Catedral
Men's Slopestyle winners: Federico Chiaradio (1st) / Manuel Fasola (2nd)
Men's Big Air winners: Álvaro Yáñez (2 times)
Here, Women's Slopestyle and Big Air events are cancelled.
September 15–17, 2022: SAC #6 in La Parva
Men's Snowboard Cross winners: Noah Bethonico (2 times)
Here, Women's Snowboard Cross competitions are cancelled.
September 19–23, 2022: SAC #7 in Chapelco
Men's Slopestyle winner: Álvaro Yáñez
Here, Women's Slopestyle and Big Air events are cancelled. | 2023 |
72989714 | 2023 European Cricket League | 2023-02-09 19:20:22+00:00 | The 2023 European Cricket League (abbreviated as ECL23) was a T10 cricket competition organised by the European Cricket Network. It was the third edition of the European Cricket League and was once again held at the Cartama Oval in Málaga, Spain.
It was announced that the tournament would be taking place between February 27 and March 24, with Finals Week starting on March 20. The 30 team format from the previous edition would remain in place, with 30 'National Champions' taking part in 6 groups across 6 weeks, with the winners of the groups joining 2022 winners Pak I Care Badalona in the Finals Week to determine the overall winner.
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This tournament was viewed by about 35 million people globally.
The following teams were invited to take part as champions of their domestic leagues, or an ECN-related 'Super Series'. The draw was made on January 13, 2023. Previous Champions Pak I Care Badalona will participate in the Finals Week only.
The finals were made up of the 6 group winners, plus ECL22 winners Pak I Care Badalona
The Group Stage is to be played across the first 3 weeks of the tournament, with each group lasting 4 days. Each group kicked off with a single-round robin stage, before entering a knockout, with seedings based on group standings. The Super 3 stage was eliminated, with teams instead advancing into a single knockout stage following the groups
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73358156 | 2023 in ice sports | 2023-03-23 00:38:28+00:00 | March 28 – April 2: The 2023 Bandy World Championship for Men & Women in Åby, Växjö
Men: Sweden defeated Finland, 3–1, to win their 13th Bandy World Championship title.
Norway won the bronze medal.
Women: Sweden defeated Finland, 15–0, to win their fifth consecutive and 11th overall Women's Bandy World Championship title.
The United States won the bronze medal.
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December 9 & 10, 2022: 2022 IBSF World Push Championships in Lake Placid
Two-man bobsleigh winners: United States (Kristopher Horn & Adrian Adams)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: United States (Kristopher Horn, Adrian Adams, Manteo Mitchell, & Martin Christofferson)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Lisa Buckwitz & Neele Schuten)
Women's Monobob winner: Lisa Buckwitz
Skeleton winners: YIN Zheng (m) / Mystique Ro (f)
January 13–15: IBSF Junior World Championships 2023 in Winterberg
Junior Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Adam Ammour & Benedikt Hertel)
Junior Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Nico Semmler, Oliver Peschk, Rupert Schenk, & Marvin Paul)
Junior Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Maureen Zimmer & Lauryn Siebert)
Junior Women's Monobob winner: Maureen Zimmer
Junior Skeleton winners: Cedric Renner (m) / Hannah Neise (f)
U23 Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laurin Zern & Marvin Orthmann)
U23 Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laurin Zern, Jörn Wenzel, Tim Kesseler, & Marvin Orthmann)
U23 Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Charlotte Candrix & Cynthia Kwofie)
U23 Women's Monobob winner: Charlotte Candrix
U20 Skeleton winners: Roman Tanzer (m) / Hallie Clarke (f)
January 20–22: IBSF European Championships 2023 in Altenberg
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Erec Bruckert)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Great Britain (Brad Hall, Greg Cackett, Taylor Lawrence, & Arran Gulliver)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laura Nolte & Neele Schuten)
Women's Monobob winner: Laura Nolte
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Tina Hermann (f)
January 26 – February 5: IBSF World Championships 2023 in St. Moritz
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Georg Fleischhauer)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich, Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer, & Alexander Schüller)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Kim Kalicki & Leonie Fiebig)
Women's Monobob winner: Laura Nolte
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Susanne Kreher (f)
Skeleton Mixed Team winners: Germany (Susanne Kreher & Christopher Grotheer)
January 27: IBSF Para Sport European Championships 2023 in Innsbruck
Para Bobsleigh winner: Arturs Klots
February 2 & 3: IBSF Para Sport World Championships 2023 in St. Moritz
Para Bobsleigh winner: Hermann Ellmauer
February 17: IBSF Junior European Skeleton Championships 2023 in Innsbruck
Junior Skeleton winners: Livio Summermatter (m) / Tabitha Stoecker (f)
U20 Skeleton winners: Roman Tanzer (m) / Sara Schmied (f)
February 17 & 18: IBSF Junior European Championships 2023 in Winterberg
Junior Two-man bobsleigh winners: Romania (Mihai Tentea & Ciprian Daroczi)
Junior Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Nico Semmler, Rupert Schenk, Marvin Paul, & Tim Becker)
Junior Two-woman bobsleigh winners: France (Margot Boch & Talia Solitude)
Junior Women's Monobob winner: Maureen Zimmer
U23 Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laurin Zern & Marvin Orthmann)
U23 Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Alexander Czudaj, Jörn Wenzel, Tim Kesseler, & Nino Vogel)
U23 Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Diana Filipszki & Sarah Neitz)
U23 Women's Monobob winner: Diana Filipszki
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November 24–26, 2022: IBSF World Cup #1 in Whistler
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich & Alexander Schüller)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich, Alexander Schüller, Thorsten Margis, & Candy Bauer)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Kim Kalicki & Anabel Galander)
Women's Monobob winner: Bianca Ribi
Skeleton winners: Marcus Wyatt (m) / Hannah Neise (f)
December 1–3, 2022: IBSF World Cup #2 in Park City
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich & Thorsten Margis)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Thorsten Margis, & Alexander Schüller)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Kim Kalicki & Leonie Fiebig)
Women's Monobob winner: Kaillie Humphries
Skeleton winners: Christopher Grotheer (m) / Mirela Rahneva (f)
December 16–18, 2022: IBSF World Cup #3 in Lake Placid
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Georg Fleischhauer)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Great Britain (Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Arran Gulliver, & Greg Cackett)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: United States (Kaillie Humphries & Kaysha Love)
Women's Monobob winner: Laura Nolte
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Tina Hermann (f)
January 6–8: IBSF World Cup #4 in Winterberg
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Georg Fleischhauer)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Alexander Schüller, & Thorsten Margis)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laura Nolte & Neele Schuten)
Women's Monobob winner: Laura Nolte
Skeleton winners: Christopher Grotheer (m) / Kimberley Bos (f)
January 13–15: IBSF World Cup #5 in Altenberg #1
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Georg Fleischhauer)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Great Britain (Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Arran Gulliver, & Greg Cackett)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Lisa Buckwitz & Kira Lipperheide)
Women's Monobob winner: Kaillie Humphries
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Tina Hermann (f)
January 20–22: IBSF World Cup #6 in Altenberg #2
Same results as the IBSF European Championships 2023 above, except for the following:
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: United States (Kaillie Humphries & Kaysha Love)
Women's Mononbob winner: Kaillie Humphries
February 10–12: IBSF World Cup #7 in Innsbruck
Note: The two-man bobsleigh results are unknown.
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Thorsten Margis, & Alexander Schüller)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laura Nolte & Neele Schuten)
Women's Monobob winner: Lisa Buckwitz
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Kimberley Bos (f)
February 17–19: IBSF World Cup #8 (final) in Sigulda
Note: The four-man bobsleigh results are unknown.
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Johannes Lochner & Georg Fleischhauer)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laura Nolte & Neele Schuten)
Women's Monobob winner: Kaillie Humphries
Skeleton winners: Matt Weston (m) / Tina Hermann (f)
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November 9–13, 2022: North American Cup #1 in Whistler
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: (Michael Vogt & Silvio Weber)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: (Simon Friedli & Andreas Haas)
Four-man bobsleigh #1 winners: United Kingdom (Brad Hall, Arran Gulliver, Rory Willicombe, & Taylor Lawrence)
Four-man bobsleigh #2 winners: (Taylor Austin, Davidson De Souza, William Ashley, & Cyrus Gray)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: (Bianca Ribi & Niamh Haughey) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winners: Kaillie Humphries (#1) / Cynthia Appiah (#2)
Men's Skeleton winners: Austin Florian (#1) / Florian Auer (#2)
Women's Skeleton winners: Hallie Clarke (#1) / Anna Fernstädt (#2)
November 18–23, 2022: North American Cup #2 in Park City
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: (Kim Jin-su & Jung Hyun-woo)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: (Kim Jin-su & Lee Kyung-yeon)
Two-woman bobsleigh #1 winners: (Viktória Čerňanská & Lucia Kršková)
Two-woman bobsleigh #2 winners: (Lauren Brzozowski & Sydney Milani)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: South Korea (Kim Jin-su, Jung Hyun-woo, Kim Hyeong-geun, & Lee Kyung-yeon) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winners: Lauren Brzozowski (#1) / Viktória Čerňanská (#2)
Men's Skeleton winner: Brendan Doyle (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winners: Jaclyn Laberge (#1) / Kellie Delka (#2)
December 1–4, 2022: North American Cup #3 in Lake Placid #1
Note: The both two-woman bobsleigh events were cancelled.
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: Brazil (Edson Bindilatti & Edson Martins)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: South Korea (Suk Young-jin & KIM Sun-wook)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: South Korea (Suk Young-jin, LEE Geon-u, JUNG Hyun-woo, & LEE Kyung-yeon) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winners: Viktória Čerňanská (#1) / Lauren Brzozowski (#2)
Men's Skeleton winners: Jared Firestone (#1) / Sebastian Zeleznik (#2)
Women's Skeleton winner: Agathe Bessard (2 times)
March 23–27: North American Cup #4 (final) in Lake Placid #2
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: United States (Frank del Duca & Darius Joseph)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: Canada (Pat Norton & Keaton Bruggeling)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: United States (Frank del Duca, Kristopher Horn, Levi Shelter, & Darius Joseph) (2 times)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Laura Nolte & Lena Neunecker) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winners: Breeana Walker (#1) / Laura Nolte (#2)
Men's Skeleton winner: Jacob Salisbury (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winner: Mystique Ro (2 times)
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November 16–20, 2022: European Cup #1 in Lillehammer
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: (Maximilian Illmann & Philipp Wobeto)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: (Maximilian Illmann & Lukas Koller)
Four-man bobsleigh #1 winners: Germany (Maximilian Illmann, Henrik Proske, Philipp Wobeto, & Joshua Tasche)
Four-man bobsleigh #2 winners: Germany (Maximilian Illmann, Henrik Proske, Philipp Wobeto, & Lukas Koller)
Two-woman bobsleigh #1 winners: (Margot Boch & Carla Senechal)
Two-woman bobsleigh #2 winners: (Margot Boch & Talia Solitude)
Women's Monobob winner: Margot Boch (2 times)
Men's Skeleton winner: Haifeng Zhu (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winners Freya Tarbit (#1) / Mystique Ro (#2)
November 28 – December 3: European Cup #2 in Altenberg
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: Germany (Adam Ammour & Benedikt Hertel)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: Germany (Maximilian Illmann & Lukas Koller)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Nico Semmler, Oliver Peschk, Rupert Schenk, & Marvin Paul) (2 times)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Switzerland (Martina Fontanive & Mara Morell) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winner: Breeana Walker (2 times)
December 2 & 3, 2022: European Cup #3 in Bludenz
Men's Skeleton winner: Stefan Röttig (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winner: Mystique Ro (2 times)
December 8–10, 2022: European Cup #4 in Innsbruck
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Adam Ammour & Nick Stadelmann)
Four-man bobsleigh #1 winners: Germany (Nico Semmler, Marvin Paul, Oliver Peschk, & Rupert Schenk)
Four-man bobsleigh #2 winners: Latvia (Emīls Cipulis, Edgars Nemme, Dāvis Spriņģis, & Matīss Miknis)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: Germany (Maureen Zimmer & Lauryn Siebert)
Women's Monobob winners: Breeana Walker (#1) / Maureen Zimmer (#2)
January 19–21: European Cup #5 in Sigulda
Two-man bobsleigh #1 winners: Germany (Nico Semmler & Max Neumann)
Two-man bobsleigh #2 winners: Germany (Maximilian Illmann & Lukas Koller)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: France (Margot Boch & Carla Senechal)
Women's Monobob winner: Giada Andreutti
Men's Skeleton winner: Amedeo Bagnis (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winners: Amelia Coltman (#1) / Kim Meylemans (#2)
February 16 & 17: European Cup #6 in Innsbruck
Men's Skeleton winner: Stefan Röttig (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winners: Julia Erlacher (#1) / Tabitha Stoecker (#2)
February 17 & 18: European Cup #7 (final) in Winterberg
Two-man bobsleigh winners: Romania (Mihai Tentea & Ciprian Daroczi)
Four-man bobsleigh winners: Germany (Nico Semmler, Tim Becker, Marvin Paul, & Rupert Schenk) (2 times)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: France (Margot Boch & Carla Senechal) (2 times)
Women's Monobob winner: Maureen Zimmer
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November 11–13, 2022: Intercontinental Cup #1 in Lillehammer
Men's Skeleton winner: Mattia Gaspari (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winners: Mystique Ro (#1) / Valentina Margaglio (#2)
November 26 & 27, 2022: Intercontinental Cup #2 in Winterberg
Men's Skeleton winner: Alexander Gassner (2 times)
Women's Skeleton winner: Jacqueline Lölling (2 times)
December 17 & 18, 2022: Intercontinental Cup #3 in PyeongChang
Men's Skeleton winners: Lukas David Nydegger (#1) / Alexander Gassner (#2)
Women's Skeleton winners: Jacqueline Lölling (#1) / Amelia Coltman (#2)
February 17 & 18: Intercontinental Cup #4 (final) in Innsbruck
Men's Skeleton winners: Laurence Bostock (#1) / Lukas David Nydegger (#2)
Women's Skeleton winners: Mystique Ro (#1) / Corinna Leipold (#2)
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November 19 & 20, 2022: Para Sport World Cup #1 in Lake Placid
Para Bobsleigh winners: Guillermo Castillo (#1) / Israel Blanco (#2)
January 26 & 27: Para Sport World Cup #2 in Innsbruck
Para Bobsleigh winners: Guillermo Castillo (#1) / Arturs Klots (#2)
February 11 & 12: Para Sport World Cup #3 (final) in Lillehammer
Para Bobsleigh winners: Hermann Ellmauer (#1) / Corie Mapp (#2)
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March 10 & 11: Sanctioned Race in PyeongChang
Note: The four-man bobsleigh event was cancelled.
Two-man bobsleigh winners: South Korea (Suk Young-jin & KIM Sun-wook)
Two-woman bobsleigh winners: South Korea (Kim Yoo-ran & JEON Eun-ji)
Women's Monobob winner: Kim Yoo-ran
Skeleton winners: SIM Hyung-jun (m) / YANG Seok-ju (f)
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October 15–22, 2022: 2022 World Mixed Curling Championship in Aberdeen
Canada (Skip: Jean-Michel Ménard) defeated Scotland (Skip: Cameron Bryce), 7–4, to win their third consecutive World Mixed Curling Championship title.
Switzerland (Skip: Ursi Hegner) took third place.
October 31 – November 6, 2022: 2022 Pan Continental Curling Championships in Calgary (debut event)
Men's A: Canada (Skip: Brad Gushue) defeated South Korea (Skip: Jeong Byeong-jin), 11–3, to win the inaugural Pan Continental Curling Championships title.
The United States (Skip: Korey Dropkin) took third place.
Women's A: Japan (Skip: Satsuki Fujisawa) defeated South Korea (Skip: Ha Seung-youn), 8–6, to win the inaugural Pan Continental Curling Championships title.
Canada (Skip: Kerri Einarson) took third place.
November 19–26, 2022: 2022 European Curling Championships in Östersund
Men: Scotland (Skip: Bruce Mouat) defeated Switzerland (Skip: Yannick Schwaller), 5–4, to win their 15th European Curling Championships title.
Italy (Skip: Joël Retornaz) took third place.
Women: Denmark (Skip: Madeleine Dupont) defeated Switzerland (Skip: Silvana Tirinzoni), 8–4, to win their second European Curling Championships title.
Scotland (Skip: Rebecca Morrison) took third place.
February 25 – March 4: 2023 World Junior Curling Championships in Füssen
Men: China (Skip: Fei Xueqing) defeated Germany (Skip: Benjamin Kapp), 8–7, to win China's first World Junior Curling Championships title.
Scotland (Skip: Orrin Carson) took third place.
Women: Scotland (Skip: Fay Henderson) defeated Japan (Skip: Yuina Miura), 9–7, to win Scotland's tenth World Junior Curling Championships title.
Norway (Skip: Torild Bjørnstad) took third place.
March 4–12: 2023 World Wheelchair Curling Championship in Richmond
China (Skip: Wang Haitao) defeated Canada (Skip: Mark Ideson), 5–2, to win China's second consecutive and third overall World Wheelchair Curling Championship title.
Scotland (Skip: Hugh Nibloe) took third place.
March 4–12: 2023 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Richmond
Latvia (Poļina Rožkova & Agris Lasmans) defeated the United States (Pam Wilson & David Samsa), 11–8, to win Latvia's first World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship title.
Canada (Collinda Joseph & Dennis Thiessen) took third place.
March 18–26: 2023 World Women's Curling Championship in Sandviken
Switzerland (Skip: Silvana Tirinzoni) defeated Norway (Skip: Marianne Rørvik), 6–3, to win Switzerland's fourth consecutive and tenth overall World Women's Curling Championship title.
Canada (Skip: Kerri Einarson) took third place.
April 1–9: 2023 World Men's Curling Championship in Ottawa
Scotland (Skip: Bruce Mouat) defeated Canada (Skip: Brad Gushue), 9–3, to win Scotland's sixth overall World Men's Curling Championship title.
Switzerland (Skip: Yannick Schwaller) took third place.
April 22–29: 2023 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Gangneung
April 22–29: 2023 World Senior Curling Championships in Gangneung
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September 21–25, 2022: 2022 PointsBet Invitational in Fredericton (debut event)
Men: Team Reid Carruthers defeated Team Matt Dunstone, 8–4, to win the inaugural PointsBet Invitational title.
Women: Team Jennifer Jones defeated Team Casey Scheidegger, 7–4, to win the inaugural PointsBet Invitational title.
Note for Women: Kristie Moore replaced Casey Scheidegger.
February 17–26: 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops
Team Canada (Skip: Kerri Einarson) defeated Team Manitoba (Skip: Jennifer Jones), 10–4, to win her fourth consecutive Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship.
March 3–12: 2023 Tim Hortons Brier in London
Team Canada (Skip: Brad Gushue) defeated Team Manitoba (Skip: Matt Dunstone), 7–5, to win his second consecutive and fifth Tim Hortons Brier championship.
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October 4–9, 2022: 2022 National in North Bay
Men: Team Brad Gushue defeated Team Niklas Edin, 5–4, to win their fourth National title.
Women: Team Silvana Tirinzoni defeated Team Kerri Einarson, 7–3, to win their first National title.
October 18–23, 2022: 2022 Tour Challenge in Grande Prairie
Men's Tier 1: Team Niklas Edin defeated Team Matt Dunstone, 7–3, to win their second Tour Challenge title.
Note for Men's Tier 1: Oskar Eriksson was the skip for the semifinal and final of this event.
Women's Tier 1: Team Tracy Fleury defeated Team Kerri Einarson, 8–4, to win their second Tour Challenge title.
December 6–11, 2022: 2022 Masters in Oakville
Men: Team Joël Retornaz defeated Team Bruce Mouat, 6–2, to win their first Masters title.
Women: Team Kerri Einarson defeated Team Tracy Fleury, 6–5, to win their first Masters title.
January 10–15: 2023 Canadian Open in Camrose
Men: Team Brendan Bottcher defeated Team Niklas Edin, 5–3, to win Alberta's eighth Canadian Open title.
Women: Team Satsuki Fujisawa defeated Team Kerri Einarson, 5–3, to win Japan's first Canadian Open title.
April 11–16: 2023 Players' Championship in Toronto
Men: Team Kevin Koe defeated Team Yannick Schwaller, 5–4, to win their third Players' Championship title.
Women: Team Isabella Wranå defeated Team Silvana Tirinzoni, 6–5, to win their first Players' Championship title.
May 2–7: 2023 Champions Cup in Regina
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January 23–29: 2023 European Figure Skating Championships in Espoo
Men's Singles winner: Adam Siao Him Fa
Ladies' Singles winner: Anastasia Gubanova
Pairs winners: Italy (Sara Conti & Niccolò Macii)
Ice Dance winners: Italy (Charlène Guignard & Marco Fabbri)
February 7–12: 2023 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Colorado Springs
Men's Singles winner: Kao Miura
Ladies' Singles winner: Lee Hae-in
Pairs winners: Japan (Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara)
Ice Dance winners: United States (Madison Chock & Evan Bates)
February 27 – March 5: 2023 World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Calgary
Junior Men's Singles winner: Kao Miura
Junior Ladies' Singles winner: Mao Shimada
Junior Pairs winners: United States (Sophia Baram & Daniel Tioumentsev)
Junior Ice Dance winners: Czech Republic (Kateřina Mrázková & Daniel Mrázek)
March 20–26: 2023 World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama
Men's Singles winner: Shoma Uno
Ladies' Singles winner: Kaori Sakamoto
Pairs winners: Japan (Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara)
Ice Dance winners: United States (Madison Chock & Evan Bates)
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October 21–23: 2022 Skate America in Norwood
Men's Singles winner: Ilia Malinin
Ladies' Singles winner: Kaori Sakamoto
Pairs winners: United States (Alexa Knierim & Brandon Frazier)
Ice Dance winners: United States (Madison Chock & Evan Bates)
October 28–30: 2022 Skate Canada International in Mississauga
Men's Singles winner: Shoma Uno
Ladies' Singles winner: Rinka Watanabe
Pairs winners: Japan (Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara)
Ice Dance winners: Canada (Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier)
November 4–6: 2022 Grand Prix de France in Angers
Men's Singles winner: Adam Siao Him Fa
Ladies' Singles winner: Olga Mikutina
Pairs winners: Canada (Deanna Stellato & Maxime Deschamps)
Ice Dance winners: Italy (Charlène Guignard & Marco Fabbri)
November 11–13: 2022 MK John Wilson Trophy in Sheffield
Men's Singles winner: Daniel Grassl
Ladies' Singles winner: Mai Mihara
Pairs winners: United States (Alexa Knierim & Brandon Frazier)
Ice Dance winners: Italy (Charlène Guignard & Marco Fabbri)
November 18–20: 2022 NHK Trophy in Sapporo
Men's Singles winner: Shoma Uno
Ladies' Singles winner: Kim Ye-lim
Pairs winners: Japan (Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara)
Ice Dance winners: Canada (Laurence Fournier Beaudry & Nikolaj Sørensen)
November 25–27: 2022 Grand Prix of Espoo in Espoo
Men's Singles winner: Ilia Malinin
Ladies' Singles winner: Mai Mihara
Pairs winners: Italy (Rebecca Ghilardi & Filippo Ambrosini)
Ice Dance winners: Canada (Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier)
December 8–11: 2022–23 Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Torino
Senior Men's Singles winner: Shoma Uno
Senior Ladies' Singles winner: Mai Mihara
Senior Pairs winners: Japan (Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara)
Senior Ice Dance winners: Canada (Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier)
Junior Men's Singles winner: Nikolaj Memola
Junior Ladies' Singles winner: Mao Shimada
Junior Pairs winners: Australia (Anastasia Golubeva & Hektor Giotopoulos Moore)
Junior Ice Dance winners: Canada (Nadiia Bashynska & Peter Beaumont)
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August 24–27: ISU Junior Grand Prix in France in Courchevel
Men's Singles winner: Shunsuke Nakamura
Ladies' Singles winner: Hana Yoshida
Ice Dance winners: South Korea (Hannah Lim & Ye Quan)
August 31 – September 3: ISU Junior Grand Prix in the Czech Republic in Ostrava
Men's Singles winner: Nozomu Yoshioka
Ladies' Singles winner: Mao Shimada
Pairs winners: United States (Sophia Baram & Daniel Tioumentsev)
Ice Dance winners: Czech Republic (Kateřina Mrázková & Daniel Mrázek)
September 7–10: ISU Junior Grand Prix in Latvia in Riga
Men's Singles winner: Nikolaj Memola
Ladies' Singles winner: Shin Ji-a
Pairs winners: United States (Cayla Smith & Andy Deng)
Ice Dance winners: Germany (Darya Grimm & Michail Savitskiy)
September 21–24: ISU Junior Grand Prix in Armenia in Yerevan
Event cancelled.
September 28 – October 1: ISU Junior Grand Prix in Poland in Gdańsk #1
Men's Singles winner: Lucas Broussard
Ladies' Singles winner: Mao Shimada
Pairs winners: Australia (Anastasia Golubeva & Hektor Giotopoulos Moore)
Ice Dance winners: Canada (Nadiia Bashynska & Peter Beaumont)
October 5–8: ISU Junior Grand Prix in Poland in Gdańsk #2
Men's Singles winner: Takeru Amine Kataise
Ladies' Singles winner: Ami Nakai
Pairs winners: Australia (Anastasia Golubeva & Hektor Giotopoulos Moore)
Ice Dance winners: Canada (Nadiia Bashynska & Peter Beaumont)
October 12–15: ISU Junior Grand Prix in Italy in Egna
Men's Singles winner: Lucas Broussard
Ladies' Singles winner: Hana Yoshida
Ice Dance winners: Czech Republic (Kateřina Mrázková & Daniel Mrázek)
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February 27 – March 5: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division III – Group B in Sarajevo
Kyrgyzstan was promoted to Division III – Group A. Malaysia was relegated to Division IV.
March 23–26: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division IV in Ulaanbaatar
The Philippines was promoted to Division III – Group B.
April 15–21: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division II – Group A in Madrid
Spain was promoted to Division I – Group B. Iceland was relegated to Division II – Group B.
April 17–23: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division II – Group B in Istanbul
The United Arab Emirates was promoted to Division II – Group A. Mexico was relegated to Division III – Group A.
April 17–23: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division III – Group A in Cape Town
Chinese Taipei was promoted to Division II – Group B. North Korea withdrew from tournament and was relegated to Division III – Group B.
April 23–29: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division I – Group B in Tallinn
Japan was promoted to Division I – Group A. Serbia was relegated to Division II – Group A.
April 29 – May 5: 2023 IIHF World Championship Division I – Group A in Nottingham
Great Britain and Poland were promoted to the Top Division. Lithuania was relegated to Division I – Group B.
May 12–28: 2023 IIHF World Championship in Tampere & Riga
Canada defeated Germany, 5–2, to win their 28th IIHF World Championship title.
Latvia defeated the United States, 4–3 in overtime, to win the bronze medal.
Hungary and Slovenia were relegated to Division I – Group A.
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December 11–17, 2022: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Division I Group A in Asker
Norway was promoted to the Top Division. Slovenia was relegated to Division I – Group B.
December 11–17, 2022: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Division I Group B in Bytom
Japan was promoted to Division I – Group A. South Korea was relegated to Division II – Group A.
December 11–17, 2022: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Division II Group A in Kaunas
Croatia was promoted to Division I – Group B. Romania was relegated to Division II – Group B.
December 26, 2022 – January 5: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Halifax & Moncton
Canada defeated Czechia, 3–2 in overtime, to win their second consecutive and 20th overall WJIH title.
The United States defeated Sweden, 8–7 in overtime, to win the bronze medal.
Austria was relegated to Division I – Group A.
January 16–22: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Division II Group B in Reykjavík
China was promoted to Division II – Group A. Mexico was relegated to Division III.
January 26 – February 2: 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Division III in Istanbul
Australia was promoted to Division II – Group B.
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March 12–18: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division III Group A in Akureyri
Israel was promoted to Division II Group B. Luxembourg was relegated to Division III Group B.
March 13–16: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division III Group B in Cape Town
New Zealand was promoted to Division III Group A.
March 27 – April 2: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division II Group B in Sofia
The Netherlands was promoted to Division II Group A. Belgium was relegated to Division III Group A.
April 9–15: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division II Group A in Belgrade
Lithuania was promoted to Division I Group B. Spain was relegated to Division II Group B.
April 10–16: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division I Group B in Bled
Austria was promoted to Division I Group A. Poland was relegated to Division II Group A.
April 20–30: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championships in Basel & Porrentruy
The United States defeated Sweden, 3–2 in overtime, to win their eleventh World U18 Championship title.
Canada defeated Slovakia, 4–3 in overtime, to win the bronze medal.
Germany was relegated to Division I Group A.
April 23–29: 2023 IIHF World U18 Championship Division I Group A in Angers
Kazakhstan was promoted to the Top Division. France was relegated to Division I Group B.
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February 20–26: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division II – Group B in Cape Town
Belgium was promoted to Division II – Group A. Croatia was relegated to Division III – Group A.
March 26–31: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division III – Group B in Tnuvot
Serbia was promoted to Division III – Group A.
April 2–7: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division II – Group A in Mexico City
Latvia was promoted to Division I – Group B. North Korea withdrew from tournament and was relegated to Division II – Group B.
April 3–9: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division III – Group A in Brașov
Hong Kong was promoted to Division II – Group B. Estonia was relegated to Division III – Group B.
April 5–16: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship in Brampton
The United States defeated Canada, 6–3, to win their tenth World Women's Championship title.
Czechia defeated Switzerland, 3–2, to win their second consecutive bronze medal.
Hungary and France were relegated to Division I – Group A.
April 17–23: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division I – Group B in Suwon
South Korea was promoted to Division I – Group A. Kazakhstan was relegated to Division II – Group A.
August 20–26: 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship Division I – Group A in Shenzhen
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January 8–15: 2023 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship in Östersund
Canada defeated Sweden, 10–0, to win their second consecutive and seventh World Women's U18 Championship title.
The United States won the bronze medal.
Japan was relegated to Division I – Group A.
January 9–15: 2023 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship Division I – Group A in Ritten
Germany was promoted to Top Division. Norway was relegated to Division I – Group B.
January 9–15: 2023 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship Division I – Group B in Katowice
Denmark was promoted to Division I – Group A. China was relegated to Division II – Group A.
January 21–27: 2023 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship Division II – Group A in Dumfries
Australia was promoted to Division I – Group B. Mexico was relegated to Division II – Group B.
January 26 – February 1: 2023 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship Division II – Group B in Sofia
Kazakhstan was promoted to Division II – Group A.
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October 7, 2022 – April 13, 2023: 2022–23 NHL season
Presidents' Trophy and Eastern Conference winners: Boston Bruins
Western Conference winners: Vegas Golden Knights
Art Ross Trophy winner: Connor McDavid ( Edmonton Oilers)
January 2: 2023 NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park in Boston
The Boston Bruins defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2–1.
February 4: 2023 National Hockey League All-Star Game at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise
Fastest skater: Andrei Svechnikov ( Carolina Hurricanes)
Hardest shot: Elias Pettersson ( Vancouver Canucks)
Breakaway challenge: (Tie) Sidney Crosby ( Pittsburgh Penguins) & Alexander Ovechkin ( Washington Capitals)
Accuracy shooting: Brock Nelson ( New York Islanders)
The Atlantic Division defeats the Central Division, with the score of 7–5.
February 18: 2023 NHL Stadium Series at Carter–Finley Stadium in Raleigh
The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Washington Capitals, with the score of 4–1.
April 17 – June 13: 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs
Eastern Conference champions: Florida Panthers
Western Conference champions: Vegas Golden Knights
The Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Florida Panthers, 4–1 in games played, to win their first Stanley Cup title.
Conn Smythe Trophy winner: Jonathan Marchessault ( Vegas Golden Knights)
June 28 & 29: 2023 NHL Entry Draft at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville
#1 overall pick: Connor Bedard (to the Chicago Blackhawks from the Regina Pats)
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September 1, 2022 – February 26: 2022–23 KHL season
Continental Cup and Western Conference winners: SKA Saint Petersburg
Eastern Conference winners: Ak Bars Kazan
March 1 – April 29: 2023 Gagarin Cup playoffs
CSKA Moscow defeated Ak Bars Kazan, 4–3 in games played, to win their second consecutive and third overall Gagarin Cup title.
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American Hockey League
October 14, 2022 – April 16: 2022–23 AHL season
Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy and Western Conference winners: Calgary Wranglers
Eastern Conference winners: Providence Bruins
April 18 – TBD: 2023 Calder Cup playoffs
ECHL
October 21, 2022 – April 16: 2022–23 ECHL season
Brabham Cup and Western Conference winners: Idaho Steelheads
Eastern Conference winners: Newfoundland Growlers
April 19 – June 9: 2023 Kelly Cup playoffs
The Florida Everblades defeated the Idaho Steelheads, 4–0 in games played, to win their second consecutive and third overall Kelly Cup title.
United States Hockey League
September 9, 2022 – April 18: 2022–23 USHL season
Anderson Cup and Western Conference winners: Fargo Force
Eastern Conference winners: Chicago Steel
April 21 – May 19: 2023 Clark Cup playoffs
The Youngstown Phantoms defeated the Fargo Force, 3–0 in games played, to win their first Clark Cup title.
Most Outstanding Player: Jacob Fowler ( Youngstown Phantoms)
Junior (OHL/QMJHL/WHL)
September 22, 2022 – March 25: 2022–23 QMJHL season
Jean Rougeau Trophy and East Division winners: Quebec Remparts
Central Division winners: Sherbrooke Phoenix
Maritimes Division winners: Halifax Mooseheads
West Division winners: Gatineau Olympiques
March 31 – May 21: 2023 QMJHL playoffs
The Quebec Remparts defeated the Halifax Mooseheads, 4–2 in games played, to win their sixth Gilles-Courteau Trophy title.
September 23, 2022 – March 26: 2022–23 WHL season
Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy and East Division winners: Winnipeg Ice
B.C. Division winners: Kamloops Blazers
Central Division winners: Red Deer Rebels
U.S. Division winners: Seattle Thunderbirds
March 31 – May 19: 2023 WHL playoffs
The Seattle Thunderbirds defeated the Winnipeg Ice, 4–1 in games played, to win their second Ed Chynoweth Cup title.
September 29, 2022 – March 26: 2022–23 OHL season
Hamilton Spectator Trophy and East Division winners: Ottawa 67's
Central Division winners: North Bay Battalion
Midwest Division winners: London Knights
West Division winners: Windsor Spitfires
March 30 – May 21: 2023 OHL playoffs
The Peterborough Petes defeated the London Knights, 4–2 in games played, to win their tenth J. Ross Robertson Cup title.
May 26 – June 4: 2023 Memorial Cup at Sandman Centre in Kamloops
The Quebec Remparts defeated the Seattle Thunderbirds, 5–0, to win their third Memorial Cup title.
College (NCAA Division I)
March 9 – 19: 2023 NCAA National Collegiate women's ice hockey tournament (Frozen Four at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth)
The Wisconsin Badgers defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes, 1–0, to win their seventh NCAA National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey title.
Most Outstanding Player: Cami Kronish ( Wisconsin Badgers)
March 23 – April 8: 2023 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament (Frozen Four at Amalie Arena in Tampa)
The Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers, 3–2 in overtime, to win their first NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey title.
Most Outstanding Player: Jacob Quillan ( Quinnipiac Bobcats)
Women (Premier Hockey Federation)
November 5, 2022 – March 12: 2022–23 PHF season
Regular season winners: Boston Pride
March 16 – 26: 2023 Isobel Cup playoffs
The Toronto Six defeated the Minnesota Whitecaps, 4–3 in overtime, to win their first Isobel Cup title.
MVP: Tereza Vanišová ( Toronto Six)
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Champions Hockey League
September 1, 2022 – February 18: 2022–23 Champions Hockey League
Tappara defeated Luleå HF, 3–2, to win their first Champions Hockey League title.
MVP: Christian Heljanko ( Tappara)
IIHF Continental Cup
September 23, 2022 – January 15: 2022–23 IIHF Continental Cup
HK Nitra; Ducs d'Angers; Cardiff Devils
Euro Hockey Tour
November 10, 2022 – May 7: 2022–23 Euro Hockey Tour
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Asia League
September 3, 2022 – March 26: 2022–23 Asia League season
HL Anyang defeated Red Eagles Hokkaido, 3–2, to win their seventh Asia League title.
IIHF Asia and Oceania Championship
March 11 – 17: 2023 IIHF U18 Asia and Oceania Championship in Ulaanbaatar
Uzbekistan; Turkmenistan; Mongolia
April 30 – May 7: 2023 IIHF Women's Asia and Oceania Championship in Bangkok
Thailand defeated Iran, 3–1, to win their second consecutive Women's Asia and Oceania Championship title.
Singapore defeated India, 3–1, to win the bronze medal.
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September 14–18, 2022: 2022 Amerigol LATAM Cup in Coral Springs
Men's Division 1: Puerto Rico; Argentina; Mexico Selects
Puerto Rico defeated Argentina, 4–3, to win their first Men's LATAM Cup Division 1 title.
Men's Division 2: Egypt Pharaohs; Stars of Israel; Chile
Egypt Pharaohs defeated Stars of Israel, 3–0, to win their first Men's LATAM Cup Division 2 title.
U20: Puerto Rico; Team Caribbean; Colombia
Puerto Rico defeated Team Caribbean, 8–1, to win their first U20 LATAM Cup title.
Women's: Mexico Warriors; Chile; Colombia
Mexico Warriors defeated Chile, 9–4, to win their first Women's LATAM Cup title.
May 2–6: 2023 IIHF Development Cup in Bratislava
Liechtenstein; Argentina; Colombia
May 7–13: 2023 Arab Cup in Kuwait City
Lebanon defeated Kuwait, 9–4, to win their first Arab Cup title.
Oman defeated Bahrain, 6–3, to win the bronze medal.
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December 16 & 17, 2022: 2022 FIL Junior European Luge Championships in Altenberg
Junior Singles winners: Kaspars Rinks (m) / Antonia Pietschmann (f)
Men's Junior Doubles winners: Latvia (Kaspars Rinks & Vitalijs Jegorovs)
Women's Junior Doubles winners: Austria (Lisa Zimmermann & Dorothea Schwartz)
Junior Team winners: Germany (Antonia Pietschmann, Marco Leger, & Moritz Jäger and Valentin Steudte)
December 16 & 17, 2022: 2022 FIL America-Pacific Luge Championship in Park City
Singles winners: Tucker West (m) / Emily Sweeney (f)
Men's Doubles winners: United States (Zack DiGregorio & Sean Hollander)
Women's Doubles winners: Canada (Caitlin Nash & Natalie Corless)
December 17, 2022: 2022 FIL Asian Luge Championships in PyeongChang
Individual winners: Kobayashi Seiya (m) / WANG Jiaxue (f)
January 14 & 15: 2023 FIL European Luge Championships in Sigulda
Singles winners: Max Langenhan (m) / Anna Berreiter (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
Women's Doubles winners: Italy (Andrea Vötter & Marion Oberhofer)
Team Relay winners: Latvia (Elīna Ieva Vītola, Kristers Aparjods, & Mārtiņš Bots and Roberts Plūme)
U23 Singles winners: Gints Bērziņš (m) / Elīna Ieva Vītola (f)
U23 Men's Doubles winners: Latvia (Eduards Ševics-Mikeļševics & Lūkass Krasts)
U23 Women's Doubles winners: Latvia (Anda Upīte & Sanita Ozoliņa)
January 14 & 15: 2023 FIL World Junior Championships in Bludenz
Junior Singles winners: Kaspars Rinkns (m) / Yulianna Tunytska (f)
Junior Men's Doubles winners: Latvia (Kaspars Rinkns & Vitālijs Jegorovs)
Junior Women's Doubles winners: Latvia (Viktorija Ziediņa & Selīna Zvilna)
Junior Team winners: Germany (Anka Jänicke, Marco Leger, & Moritz Jäger and Valentin Steudte)
January 28 & 29: 2023 FIL World Luge Championships in Oberhof
Singles winners: Jonas Müller (m) / Anna Berreiter (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
Women's Doubles winners: Germany (Jessica Degenhardt & Cheyenne Rosenthal)
Relay winners: Germany (Anna Berreiter, Max Langenhan, Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
Sprint winners: Felix Loch (m) / Dajana Eitberger (f)
U23 Singles winners: Timon Grancagnolo (m) / Merle Fräbel (f)
U23 Men's Doubles winners: United States (Zack DiGregorio & Sean Hollander)
U23 Women's Doubles winners: Germany (Jessica Degenhardt & Cheyenne Rosenthal)
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December 3 & 4, 2022: World Cup #1 in Innsbruck
Singles winners: Nico Gleirscher (m) / Madeleine Egle (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Austria (Juri Thomas Gatt & Riccardo Martin Schöpf)
Women's Doubles winners: Austria (Selina Egle & Lara Michaela Kipp)
December 9 & 10, 2022: World Cup #2 in Whistler
Singles winners: Felix Loch (m) / Madeleine Egle (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
Women's Doubles winners: Italy (Andrea Vötter & Marion Oberhofer)
Relay winners: Germany (Julia Taubitz, Felix Loch, Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
December 16 & 17, 2022: World Cup #3 in Park City
Singles winners: Dominik Fischnaller (m) / Dajana Eitberger (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
Women's Doubles winners: Italy (Andrea Vötter & Marion Oberhofer)
Women's Sprint winner: Julia Taubitz
Men's Sprint Doubles winners: Germany (Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
Women's Sprint Doubles winners: Austria (Selina Egle & Lara Michaela Kipp)
January 7 & 8: World Cup #4 in Sigulda
Singles winners: Kristers Aparjods (m) / Dajana Eitberger (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Latvia (Mārtiņš Bots & Roberts Plūme)
Women's Doubles winners: Latvia (Anda Upite & Sanija Ozoliņa)
Relay winners: Latvia (Elīna Ieva Vītola, Kristers Aparjods, Mārtiņš Bots & Roberts Plūme)
February 4 & 5: World Cup #5 in Altenberg
Singles winners: Max Langenhan (m) / Julia Taubitz (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Toni Eggert & Sascha Benecken)
Women's Doubles winners: Italy (Andrea Vötter & Marion Oberhofer)
Relay winners: Austria (Madeleine Egle, Wolfgang Kindl, Yannick Müller & Armin Frauscher)
February 11 & 12: World Cup #6 in Winterberg #1
Singles winners: Max Langenhan (m) / Julia Taubitz (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
Women's Doubles winners: Germany (Jessica Degenhardt & Cheyenne Rosenthal)
Women's Sprint Doubles winners: Latvia (Anda Upite & Sanija Ozoliņa)
February 18 & 19: World Cup #7 in St. Moritz-Celerina
Singles winners: Max Langenhan (m) / Dajana Eitberger (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
Women's Doubles winners: Germany (Jessica Degenhardt & Cheyenne Rosenthal)
Relay winners: Germany (Dajana Eitberger, Max Langenhan, Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
February 25 & 26: World Cup #8 (final) in Winterberg #2
Singles winners: Max Langenhan (m) / Madeleine Egle (f)
Men's Doubles winners: Germany (Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt)
Women's Doubles winners: Austria (Selina Egle & Lara Michaela Kipp)
Relay winners: Austria (Madeleine Egle, Jonas Müller, Juri Thomas Gatt, & Schoepf, Riccardo Martin Schöpf)
Women's Sprint winner: Julia Taubitz
Women's Sprint Doubles winners: Latvia (Anda Upite & Sanija Ozoliņa)
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December 2–4, 2022: 2022 ISU Four Continents Speed Skating Championships in Quebec City
500 m winners: Laurent Dubreuil (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Laurent Dubreuil (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1500 m winners: Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu (m) / Nadezhda Morozova (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Vitaliy Chshigolev
Women's 3000 m winner: Valérie Maltais
Mass Start winners: Chung Jae-won (m) / Valérie Maltais (f)
Men's Team Pursuit winners: South Korea (Chung Jae-won, Um Cheon-ho, & YANG Ho-jun)
Women's Team Pursuit winners: Canada (Béatrice Lamarche, Maddison Pearman, & Valérie Maltais)
Men's Team Sprint winners: Canada (Christopher Fiola, Laurent Dubreuil, & David La Rue)
Women's Team Sprint winners: China (ZHANG Lina, PEI Chong, & YANG Binyu)
January 6–8: 2023 European Speed Skating Championships in Hamar
Men's 500 m Sprint winners: David Bosa (#1) / Merijn Scheperkamp (#2)
Women's 500 m Sprint winners: Femke Kok (#1) / Jutta Leerdam (#2)
Men's 1000 m Sprint winner: Hein Otterspeer (2 times)
Women's 1000 m Sprint winner: Jutta Leerdam (2 times)
All-round 500 m winners: Patrick Roest (m) / Antoinette de Jong (f)
All-round 1500 m winners: Sander Eitrem (m) / Antoinette de Jong (f)
All-round 5000 m winners: Sander Eitrem (m) / Ragne Wiklund (f)
All-round Men's 10000 m winner: Patrick Roest
All-round Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
February 10–12: 2023 World Junior Speed Skating Championships in Inzell
500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Serena Pergher (f)
1000 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Angel Daleman (f)
1500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Angel Daleman (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Sigurd Henriksen
Women's 3000 m winner: Momoka Horikawa
Mass Start winners: Lukáš Steklý (m) / Angel Daleman (f)
Men's Team Pursuit winners: Netherlands (Sijmen Egberts, Tim Prins, & Remco Stam)
Women's Team Pursuit winners: Netherlands (Chloé Hoogendoorn, Jade Groenewoud, & Angel Daleman)
Men's Team Sprint winners: United States (Jonathan Tobon, Auggie Herman, & Jordan Stolz)
Women's Team Sprint winners: Netherlands (Pien Hersman, Pien Smit, & Angel Daleman)
March 2–5: 2023 World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships in Heerenveen
500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Femke Kok (f)
1000 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Antoinette de Jong (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Patrick Roest
Men's 10000 m winner: Davide Ghiotto
Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
Women's 5000 m winner: Irene Schouten
Mass Start winners: Bart Swings (m) / Marijke Groenewoud (f)
Men's Team Pursuit winners: Netherlands (Patrick Roest, Beau Snellink, & Marcel Bosker)
Women's Team Pursuit winners: Canada (Valérie Maltais, Ivanie Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann)
Men's Team Sprint winners: Canada (Christopher Fiola, Laurent Dubreuil, & Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu)
Women's Team Sprint winners: Canada (Brooklyn McDougall, Carolina Hiller, & Ivanie Blondin)
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November 11–13, 2022: LTSS World Cup #1 in Stavanger
500 m winners: Yuma Murakami (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Miho Takagi (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Patrick Roest
Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
Mass Start winners: Felix Rijhnen (m) / Ivanie Blondin (f)
Team Pursuit winners: United States (m) / Canada (f)
November 18–20, 2022: LTSS World Cup #2 in Heerenveen
500 m winners: Laurent Dubreuil (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Ning Zhongyan (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Connor Howe (m) / Antoinette de Jong (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Patrick Roest
Women's 3000 m winner: Irene Schouten
Mass Start winners: Bart Hoolwerf (m) / Irene Schouten (f)
Team Sprint winners: China (m) / Netherlands (f)
December 9–11, 2022: LTSS World Cup #3 in Calgary #1
500 m winners: Laurent Dubreuil (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Hein Otterspeer (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Wesly Dijs (m) / Miho Takagi (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Patrick Roest
Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
Mass Start winners: Andrea Giovannini (m) / Irene Schouten (f)
Team Pursuit winners: United States (m) / Canada (f)
December 16–18, 2022: LTSS World Cup #4 in Calgary #2
500 m winners: Kim Jun-ho (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Kjeld Nuis (m) / Miho Takagi (f)
Men's 10000 m winner: Davide Ghiotto
Women's 5000 m winner: Irene Schouten
Mass Start winners: Bart Swings (m) / Irene Schouten (f)
Team Sprint winners: Poland (m) / United States (f)
February 10–12: LTSS World Cup #5 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki #1
500 m winners: Wataru Morishige (m) / Kim Min-sun (f)
1000 m winners: Hein Otterspeer (m) / Kimi Goetz (f)
1500 m winners: Kjeld Nuis (m) / Marijke Groenewoud (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Davide Ghiotto
Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
Mass Start winners: Bart Swings (m) / Marijke Groenewoud (f)
Team Pursuit winners: Norway (m) / Canada (f)
February 17–19: LTSS World Cup #6 (final) in Tomaszów Mazowiecki #2
500 m winners: Yuma Murakami (m) / Vanessa Herzog (f)
1000 m winners: Wesly Dijs (m) / Jutta Leerdam (f)
1500 m winners: Jordan Stolz (m) / Ragne Wiklund (f)
Men's 5000 m winner: Sander Eitrem
Women's 3000 m winner: Ragne Wiklund
Mass Start winners: Bart Hoolwerf (m) / Momoka Horikawa (f)
Team Sprint winners: Canada (m) / United States (f)
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November 10–12, 2022: 2023 Four Continents Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Salt Lake City
500 m winners: Steven Dubois (m) / Shim Suk-hee (f)
1000 m winners: Park Ji-won (m) / Courtney Sarault (f)
1500 m winners: Park Ji-won (m) / Courtney Sarault (f)
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: China (LI Kun, LIU Guanyi, SONG Jiahua, & ZHONG Yuchen)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: South Korea (Choi Min-jeong, KIM Gil-li, LEE So-youn, & Shim Suk-hee)
Mixed Relay winners: United States (Andrew Heo, Marcus Howard, Kristen Santos-Griswold, & Corinne Stoddard)
January 13–15: 2023 European Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Gdańsk
500 m winners: Pietro Sighel (m) / Suzanne Schulting (f)
1000 m winners: Stijn Desmet (m) / Hanne Desmet (f)
1500 m winners: Jens van 't Wout (m) / Suzanne Schulting (f)
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Itzhak de Laat, Friso Emons, Jens van 't Wout, & Melle van 't Wout)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Selma Poutsma, Suzanne Schulting, Yara van Kerkhof, & Xandra Velzeboer)
Mixed Relay winners: Netherlands (Itzhak de Laat, Suzanne Schulting, Jens van 't Wout, & Xandra Velzeboer)
January 27–29: 2023 World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Dresden
500 m winners: Michał Niewiński (m) / Florence Brunelle (f)
1000 m winners: LEE Dong-hyun (m) / KIM Gil-li (f)
1500 m winners: LEE Dong-hyun (m) / KIM Gil-li (f)
Men's 3000 m Relay winners: South Korea (LEE Do-gyu, LEE Dong-hyun, LEE Dong-min, & SHIN Dong-min)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: South Korea (KIM Gil-li, KIM Ji-won, OH Song-mi, & SEO Su-ah)
March 10–12: 2023 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Seoul
500 m winners: Pietro Sighel (m) / Xandra Velzeboer (f)
1000 m winners: Park Ji-won (m) / Xandra Velzeboer (f)
1500 m winners: Park Ji-won (m) / Suzanne Schulting (f)
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: China (Li Wenlong, Lim Hyo-jun, LIU Guanyi, & ZHONG Yuchen)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Selma Poutsma, Suzanne Schulting, Yara van Kerkhof, & Xandra Velzeboer)
Mixed Relay winners: Netherlands (Teun Boer, Suzanne Schulting, Jens van 't Wout, & Xandra Velzeboer)
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October 28–30, 2022: STSS World Cup #1 in Montreal
Men's 500 m winner: Steven Dubois
Men's 1000 m winners: Roberts Kruzbergs (#1) / Pascal Dion (#2)
Men's 1500 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: South Korea (HONG Kyung-hwan, Lee June-seo, LIM Yong-jin, & Park Ji-won)
Women's 500 m winner: Xandra Velzeboer
Women's 1000 m winners: Xandra Velzeboer (#1) / Suzanne Schulting (#2)
Women's 1500 m winner: Suzanne Schulting
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Selma Poutsma, Suzanne Schulting, Michelle Velzeboer, & Xandra Velzeboer)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: South Korea (HONG Kyung-hwan, Kim Geon-hee, LIM Yong-jin, & Shim Suk-hee)
November 4–6, 2022: STSS World Cup #2 in Salt Lake City
Men's 500 m winners: Maxime Laoun (#1) / Jens van 't Wout (#2)
Men's 1000 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 1500 m winner: Jens van 't Wout
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: Canada (Pascal Dion, Steven Dubois, Maxime Laoun, & Jordan Pierre-Gilles)
Women's 500 m winners: Kim Boutin (#1) / Xandra Velzeboer (#2)
Women's 1000 m winner: Suzanne Schulting
Women's 1500 m winner: KIM Gil-li
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: South Korea (Kim Geon-hee, KIM Gil-li, Seo Whi-min, & Shim Suk-hee)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: China (Li Wenlong, WANG Xinran, Zhang Chutong, & ZHONG Yuchen)
December 9–11, 2022: STSS World Cup #3 in Almaty #1
Men's 500 m winner: KIM Tae-sung
Men's 1000 m winner: Jens van 't Wout
Men's 1500 m winners: HONG Kyung-hwan (#1) / Park Ji-won
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: Canada (Steven Dubois, Maxime Laoun, Jordan Pierre-Gilles, & Felix Roussel)
Women's 500 m winner: Kim Boutin
Women's 1000 m winner: Courtney Sarault
Women's 1500 m winners: Suzanne Schulting (#1) / Hanne Desmet (#2)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Canada (Kim Boutin, Rikki Doak, Claudia Gagnon, & Courtney Sarault)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: South Korea (Choi Min-jeong, HONG Kyung-hwan, KIM Gil-li, & LIM Yong-jin)
December 16–18, 2022: STSS World Cup #4 in Almaty #2
Men's 500 m winners: Diane Sellier (#1) / Denis Nikisha (#2)
Men's 1000 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 1500 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: Canada (William Dandjinou, Pascal Dion, Maxime Laoun, & Jordan Pierre-Gilles)
Women's 500 m winners: Suzanne Schulting (#1) / Yara van Kerkhof (#2)
Women's 1000 m winner: Suzanne Schulting
Women's 1500 m winner: Courtney Sarault
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: South Korea (KIM Gil-li, LEE So-youn, Seo Whi-min, & Shim Suk-hee)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: South Korea (KIM Gil-li, LIM Yong-jin, Park Ji-won, & Shim Suk-hee)
February 3–5: STSS World Cup #5 in Dresden
Men's 500 m winner: Lim Hyo-jun
Men's 1000 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 1500 m winners: Lee June-seo (#1) / Park Ji-won (#2)
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: China (Li Wenlong, Lim Hyo-jun, LIU Guanyi, & ZHONG Yuchen)
Women's 500 m winner: Suzanne Schulting
Women's 1000 m winner: Suzanne Schulting
Women's 1500 m winners: Choi Min-jeong (#1) / KIM Gil-li (#2)
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Selma Poutsma, Suzanne Schulting, Yara van Kerkhof, & Xandra Velzeboer)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: Italy (Thomas Nadalini, Arianna Sighel, Pietro Sighel, & Arianna Valcepina)
February 10–12: STSS World Cup #6 (final) in Dordrecht
Men's 500 m winner: Lim Hyo-jun
Men's 1000 m winners: Steven Dubois (#1) / Park Ji-won (#2)
Men's 1500 m winner: Park Ji-won
Men's 5000 m Relay winners: South Korea (KIM Tae-sung, LEE Dong-hyun, LIM Yong-jin, & Park Ji-won)
Women's 500 m winner: Xandra Velzeboer
Women's 1000 m winners: Kim Boutin (#1) / Courtney Sarault (#2)
Women's 1500 m winner: Hanne Desmet
Women's 3000 m Relay winners: Canada (Kim Boutin, Rikki Doak, Courtney Sarault, & Renée Marie Steenge)
Mixed 2000 m Relay winners: Netherlands (Itzhak de Laat, Suzanne Schulting, Jens van 't Wout, & Xandra Velzeboer) | 2023 |
76428505 | Bite Maker: The King's Omega | 2024-03-24 01:34:28+00:00 | Bite Maker: The King's Omega (Bite Maker～王様のΩ～, Baito Mēka ~ Ōsama no Omega ~) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Miwako Sugiyama. It was serialized in Shogakukan's &Flower web magazine from October 2018 to December 2022.
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Written and illustrated by Miwako Sugiyama, Bite Maker: The King's Omega was serialized in Shogakukan's &Flower web magazine from October 5, 2018, to December 2, 2022. Its chapters were collected into eleven shinsōban volumes from January 25, 2019 to March 24, 2023. The series is licensed in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment.
A sequel manga, titled Bite Maker: AK, began serialization on Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE app on May 27, 2023. The sequel's chapters have been collected into two tankōbon volumes as of February 2024.
Volumes
Bite Maker: AK
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A voice comic adaptation was released on the Flower Comics YouTube channel on April 26, 2021. It featured the voices of Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Yurina Amami, Yūki Ono, Junpei Baba, Yuki Sakakihara, Miki Hase, and Aoi Goda.
A voice comic adaptation of the sequel manga, Bite Maker: AK, was released on the same channel on February 26, 2024. It featured the voices of Atsumi Tanezaki and Ryōhei Kimura.
By February 2024, the series had over 5 million copies in circulation.
The series was ranked fourteenth in Honya Club's Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2020. | 2023 |
75461997 | Firefly Wedding | 2023-12-02 06:09:48+00:00 | Firefly Wedding (ホタルの嫁入り, Hotaru no Yomeiri) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Oreco Tachibana. It began serialization on Shogakukan's Ura Sunday manga website and MangaONE app in January 2023.
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Written and illustrated by Oreco Tachibana, Firefly Wedding began serialization on Shogakukan's Ura Sunday manga website and MangaONE app on January 1, 2023. The series is licensed in English by Comikey. Its chapters have been collected into four tankōbon volumes as of April 2024. In May 2024, Viz Media announced that they would release volumes of the series in Q2 2025.
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A voice comic commemorating the release of the first volume was released on Flower Comics' YouTube channel on June 19, 2023. A television commercial and promotional video commemorating the release of the second volume was released on MangaONE's YouTube channel on September 12, 2023. The voice comic features the performances of Yui Ishikawa as Satoko Kirigaya and Koki Uchiyama as Shinpei Goto, while the promotional video and commercial features only Uchiyama reprising his role as Shinpei.
The series had 1 million copies in circulation by December 2023.
The series was ranked fifth for the Tsutaya Comic Award. The series also ranked ninth in the 2024 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook for the best manga for female readers. The series won the grand prize at NTT Solmare's "Minna ga Erabu!! Denshi Comic Taishō 2024" competition in 2024. The series was ranked first in the Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics list of 2024. The series was also nominated for the 48th Kodansha Manga Award in the shōjo category. The manga has been nominated for the 2024 Next Manga Award in the web category. | 2023 |
74489384 | Good Night World | 2023-07-31 10:33:13+00:00 | Good Night World (Japanese: グッド・ナイト・ワールド, Hepburn: Guddo Naito Wārudo) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Uru Okabe. It was serialized in Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE service from December 2015 to January 2017, with its chapters collected into five tankōbon volumes.
An original net animation (ONA) series adaptation by NAZ premiered in October 2023 on Netflix.
A dysfunctional family of four (consisting of shut-in gaming addict Taichiro Arima, his overachieving younger brother Asuma, their estranged and disregarded father Kojiro, and their disorganized and neglectful mother Sayaka) all cope with their real-world struggles by playing Planet, a virtual reality MMORPG that involves socializing with other players, forming teams, clashing with other guilds, having adventures, and fighting monsters all under the same end goal of being the first to overpower a final boss monster called the "Black Bird of Happiness". In doing so, the Arimas unknowingly form a simulated happy family unit in a team they call "The Akabane Family" with each other, a far more stable simulated family than their real-world counterparts for as long as they follow their one "family rule": no prying information on each other's offline lives. However, when the game eventually becomes part of the real world, learning each other's true identities could make or break their family bond in both realities as well as determine the fate and survival of themselves and others.
Taichirō Arima (有間 太一郎, Arima Taichirō) / Ichi (イチ)
Voiced by: Daisuke Hirose (Japanese); Nicolas Roye (English)
Asuma Arima (有間 明日真, Arima Asuma) / AAAAA (あああああ)
Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese); Kieran Regan (English)
Kojirō Arima (有間 小次郎, Arima Kojirō) / Shirō (士郎, Shirō)
Voiced by: Akio Otsuka (Japanese); Christopher Swindle (English)
Sayaka Arima (有間 雅, Arima Sayaka) / May (メイ, Mei)
Voiced by: Aya Endō (Japanese); Erin Yvette (English)
Pico (ピコ, Piko)
Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese); Jeannie Tirado (English)
Leon (レオン, Reon)
Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese); Todd Haberkorn (English)
Sasumata (サスマタ)
Voiced by: Hiroki Nanami (Japanese); Benjamin Diskin (English)
Shigatera (シガテラ)
Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese); Ray Chase (English)
Hana Kamuro (神室 花, Kamuro Hana)
Voiced by: Rie Takahashi (Japanese); Carrie Keranen (English)
Aya Arima (有間 綾, Arima Aya)
Voiced by: Inori Minase (Japanese); Anne Yatco (English)
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Written and illustrated by Uru Okabe, Good Night World was serialized in Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE service from December 28, 2015, to January 8, 2017. Five tankōbon volumes were published from April 2016 to March 2017.
A prequel series, titled Good Night World End (グッドナイト・ワールドエンド), began serialization on the MangaONE service on August 1, 2023. The prequel is set to end serialization on May 21, 2024. The prequel's chapters have been collected into two tankōbon volumes as of March 2024.
Volumes
Good Night World End
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An original net animation adaptation was announced on July 31, 2023. It is produced by NAZ and directed by Katsuya Kikuchi, with scripts written by Michiko Yokote, character designs handled by Rena Okuyama, and music composed by Takatsugu Wakabayashi. The series premiered on Netflix on October 12, 2023. The opening theme song is "Black Crack" by VTuber Kuzuha of Nijisanji, while the ending theme song is "Salvia" by Nornis, a vocal unit composed of Nijisanji members Machita Chima and Inui Toko.
Episodes | 2023 |
74326365 | 1st Astra Creative Arts TV Awards | 2023-07-12 02:04:40+00:00 | The 1st Astra Creative Arts TV Awards, presented by the Hollywood Creative Alliance, recognized and celebrated outstanding achievements in television across various genres. The winners were announced on January 8, 2024, alongside the 3rd Astra TV Awards. The creative arts awards were created as a companion to the Astra TV Awards to reward specific technical categories as well as categories that were previously presented at the main ceremony in 2021 and 2022.
"We are thrilled to announce our inaugural Creative Arts Awards, an event dedicated to celebrating those behind the scenes who don't often get the level of recognition they deserve," states HCA President Nikki Fowler.
The nominations were announced on July 11, 2023, alongside the nominations for the 3rd Astra TV Awards. In terms of the Creative Arts TV Awards, The Last of Us led the nominations with six, followed by The Boys, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Saturday Night Live (all with five each). Channelwise, HBO led the nominations with 22, followed by Netflix with 17; ABC and Prime Video both received 16 each. This year, the Astra TV Awards spread across 25 Broadcast and Cable, 22 Streaming, and 26 Creative Arts categories.
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76288352 | 4th Critics' Choice Super Awards | 2024-03-07 21:58:24+00:00 | The 4th Critics' Choice Super Awards, presented by the Critics Choice Association, honored the best in genre fiction film and television, including Superhero, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Horror, and Action. The nominees were announced on March 7, 2024. The winners were announced on April 4, 2024.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Last of Us led the film and television fields with five and seven nominations respectively. Godzilla Minus One, Dead Reckoning, Poor Things and Talk to Me won two awards each, while The Last of Us won all seven nominations.
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75132573 | 5th Critics' Choice Real TV Awards | 2023-10-24 07:47:18+00:00 | The 5th Critics' Choice Real TV Awards, presented by the Broadcast Television Journalists Association and NPACT, which recognizes excellence in nonfiction, unscripted and reality programming across broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, were held on June 15, 2023. The ceremony was not held in-person due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, instead a television special saluting the winners was aired the day after on KTLA.
The nominations were announced on May 15, 2023, with RuPaul's Drag Race leading with five.
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).
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Impact Award
Lisa Vanderpump | 2023 |
75218411 | 14th Hollywood Music in Media Awards | 2023-11-03 23:49:16+00:00 | The 14th Hollywood Music in Media Awards recognized the best in music in film, TV, video games, commercials, and trailers of 2023. The ceremony was held on November 15, 2023, at The Avalon in Hollywood.
The nominations were announced on November 2, 2023. Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy film Barbie led the nominations with five, followed by Disney's live-action adaptation remake of The Little Mermaid and musical fantasy film Wonka with four each. American composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman was honored with the Career Achievement Award.
The category "Original Song – Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film" was revived after being discontinued in 2019, while the categories "Music Design – Trailer" and "Song – Onscreen Performance (TV Show/Limited Series)" were introduced.
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75339521 | 17th Cinema Eye Honors | 2023-11-17 18:40:19+00:00 | The 17th Cinema Eye Honors, destined to recognize outstanding artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking of 2023, will take place at the New York Academy of Medicine in East Harlem, New York on January 12, 2024.
The broadcasts category nominees as well as the annual shorts list and the Unforgettable honorees were announced on October 19, 2022. The full set of nominations were announced on November 16, 2023.
In the feature film categories, Kokomo City led the nominations with six, followed by 20 Days in Mariupol, 32 Sounds, and The Eternal Memory, with five each. In the broadcast categories, The 1619 Project and Nothing Lasts Forever were the most nominated programs, with three nominations.
The winners will be listed first and in bold.
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TBA | 2023 |
75642798 | Cœur (song) | 2023-12-25 16:00:21+00:00 | "Cœur" (French pronunciation: [kœʁ], lit. 'Heart') is a song by French singer Zoé Clauzure, released as a single on 27 September 2023.
It was France's winning entry in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2023. Zoé Clauzure, aged 13 at the time, won the competition with a total of 228 points, 27 points ahead of second-placed Spain, earning France its second consecutive and third overall victory at the contest.
The song is about school bullying. It was written by Noée Francheteau and composed by Julien Comblat and Jérémy Chapron.
Zoé had previously dealt with the topic in her song "Ma place" (lit. "My Place"), but this new track was more on the "sunny side", delivering a strong positive, supportive message. While not making any direct references to school bullying, the singer encourages the listeners to "move forward towards victory" despite some people wanting to see the listener fail. In the chorus, she communicates the sentiment of togetherness with her listeners and highlights the excitement of performing for them on stage and making their existence known to the world: "My heart beats in rhythm, it beats so fast when I sing for you. When I sing, I want the whole world to see us exist."
According to the singer, she received messages from people saying that her song saved their lives.
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On 27 September 2023, France Télévisions announced Zoé had been internally selected to represent France at the 2023 Junior Eurovision Song Contest with her song "Cœur". On the same day, the song was released as a single.
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The music video was released online on 18 October 2022 at 18:00 CET. It was directed by Alexandre Saltiel and choreographed by Cain and Céline Kitsaïs (founders of a dance school named Neodance Academy) and Sabrina Lonis.
It has an emphasis on the colors red and white.
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The contest took place on November 26 at the Nikaïa Concert Hall in Nice, France. Zoé's stage performance had her surrounded by backing dancers in a "Barbie pink" ambiance.
Zoé Clauzure won the competition, scoring 228 points, ahead of Spain with 201 and Armenia with 180 points. This was France's second consecutive and third overall victory in the contest. | 2023 |
73856490 | San Salvador crowd crush | 2023-05-21 15:05:40+00:00 | On 20 May 2023, a crowd crush killed 12 people during a football match at Estadio Cuscatlán, a stadium in San Salvador, El Salvador. The incident happened during a Primera División match between clubs Alianza and FAS.
Estadio Cuscatlán is one of the largest stadiums in El Salvador, with a capacity of over 53,400 spectators. It is home to Alianza, who play in the Primera División, the country's top flight of association football.
Alianza hosted the second leg of a 2023 Clasura quarterfinal against FAS, in which they were trailing 1–0 on aggregate. Before the game began, a group of fans gathered outside the stadium to enter, while others were entering the stadium.
Many of the first people who were already in the stadium watching the game were trapped as a result of the massive entry of people into the stadium, causing many moments of tension at that time. At least 12 people were killed and dozens of others were injured. Nine people were killed in the stadium and the other victims died in hospitals.
Although the reasons behind the tragedy are largely unknown, it has been confirmed that several supporters of the teams tried to force their way into the stadium to watch the football match. This caused a large crowd rush of hundreds of people making their way into the stadium despite the ongoing match.
All national level football matches that were due to take place the following day were suspended. Some football clubs and teams showed support via Twitter for the people affected by the tragedy, such as Cádiz, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, and Atlético Madrid. Later, FESFUT stated that Alianza fans would be banned from the stadium for a year and that they had until July 21, 2023 to pay a $30,000 fine following the tragedy. | 2023 |
73595525 | Sanaa crowd crush | 2023-04-20 01:20:07+00:00 | On 19 April 2023, a crowd crush occurred in the Old City of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, after people gathered in front of a school to receive the traditional alms of Zakat al-Fitr before the end of Ramadan. Shots fired by the Houthi militia, ostensibly for crowd control, caused an accidental explosion and panic. At least 90 people died and 322 people were injured in the ensuing crush.
In 2012, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled for 31 years, was overthrown during the Yemeni Revolution. Post-revolution Yemen suffered a series of incidents and the Iran-backed Houthi movement captured large swaths of territory from government forces, which has led to the ongoing Yemeni civil war, considered a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. As of April 2023, the country has plunged into "one of the world's largest humanitarian crises" according to UNICEF. According to a March 2023 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimate, at least 80% or 21.6 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance, representing almost two-thirds of the country's population.
The crush happened on 19 April 2023, at about 20:20 in front of a school in the Old City of Sanaa, two days before Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, when hundreds of people were gathered hoping to receive about 5,000 Yemeni riyals (about US$9) per person as Zakat al-Fitr, from a local merchant in a financial aid distribution event in Houthi-controlled Sanaa. According to eyewitnesses, during the aid distribution, the de facto administration Houthi militia fired shots into the air in an attempt to control the crowd, accidentally hitting an electrical wire, which caused it to explode, creating a panic that led to the crowd collapse. The crowd included women and children, and consisted mainly of low-income people who had gathered for the event organized by merchants.
According to Motaher al-Marouni, a senior health official, at least 90 people died and 13 individuals were critically injured, as reported by the Houthis' Al-Masirah TV channel. Hamdan Bagheri, the deputy director of Sanaa's al-Thowra Hospital, stated that the hospital received at least 73 injured people. At least 322 people were injured.
Following the incident, Houthis promptly sealed off the school and denied access to people, including journalists. Two event organizers were detained.
The Houthi-run Interior Ministry said that the crowd crush was caused by the "random distribution of sums of money by some merchants and without coordination with the Ministry of Interior". The Ministry confirmed that it had apprehended the two organizers and had initiated an investigation. The Houthi "General Authority for Zakat" announced that it would compensate each family of the victims with 1,000,000 Yemeni rials (about US$4,000) and each injured person with 200,000 Yemeni rial (about US$800).
Other sources reported that the family of a victim would receive a sum of $2,000 and that Sanaa's Union of Chambers of Commerce would recompense each family $5,000.
Saudi-backed media outlet Asharq Al-Awsat accused Houthis of using the opportunity to attack the commercial group which organised the event. | 2023 |
73953855 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023 video game) | 2023-06-04 01:27:02+00:00 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is a 2023 first-person shooter game developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. It is the twentieth installment of the Call of Duty series and is the third entry in the rebooted Modern Warfare sub-series, following Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). The game was released on November 10, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Modern Warfare III retains the realistic, modern setting of its predecessors and continues the sub-series storyline. The story follows multi-national special operations unit Task Force 141 tracking down Vladimir Makarov, a Russian ultranationalist and terrorist planning to trigger a third World War. The game's multiplayer includes sixteen remastered maps from 2009's Modern Warfare 2, with at least twelve new maps planned for inclusion post-launch. A Zombies mode, co-created by Black Ops sub-series developer Treyarch and built around an open world player versus environment experience, is also included.
After wrapping development on Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), Sledgehammer Games were reportedly assigned by Activision to develop an expansion pack for Modern Warfare II, which changed to a full, standalone release in the Call of Duty series. After a series of leaks in early-to-mid 2023, the game was officially revealed in August 2023, with a showcase event and public beta also taking place in October. Upon release, Modern Warfare III received mixed reviews, with criticism for its campaign mode.
Modern Warfare III features similar gameplay to its predecessor and other games in the Call of Duty series. The game's single player campaign features a mixture of linear missions, and open-world missions known as "Open Combat Missions". In these missions, players have greater freedom to choose how they want to approach designated objectives, choosing between open combat to stealth and ambush tactics. Players have access to an on-screen map of the area, including a tactical map that outlines objectives and usual equipment, with caches of weapons, gear and specialized equipment on hand. Enemies react accordingly during such missions, searching for players if they lose sight of them, and calling in reinforcements as their numbers decrease in combat.
In Multiplayer, all sixteen maps from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) are available to play on, with the added ability to vote for maps while in a matchmade lobby (which was absent in some recent titles), and increased player health for longer "time-to-kill" (TTK). The "red dot" minimap that was absent in Modern Warfare (2019) and Modern Warfare II also returns, allowing players to see enemies on their radar when they fire a weapon without a suppressor. In addition, players are also able to cancel sliding animations (i.e "slide cancel"). Classic game modes such as "Kill Confirmed" and "Hardpoint" return alongside a new game mode titled "Cutthroat", where three teams of three players go head to head. Players can also engage in the 32v32 "Ground War" mode with a selection of dedicated maps, as well as the "War" mode, returning from 2017's Call of Duty: WWII. The game features moderation powered by artificial intelligence, listening in on in-game interactions and immediately reporting any overly-toxic behavior. At least twelve new 6v6 multiplayer maps have been confirmed to release post-launch, while fan-favorite Modern Warfare II maps will also be added every season.
An open world player versus environment (PvE) Zombies mode, developed by Treyarch in collaboration with Sledgehammer Games, is also included in the game. The game mode is structured similarly to the DMZ mode in Call of Duty: Warzone, rather than the round-based survival experience from older Zombies modes. Up to 24 players play together as separate squads in a large-sized map, which is also used as the new battle royale map for Warzone. Each team can tackle zombies, as well as AI-controlled human enemies, to complete objectives around the map, as well as collect loot and sell them at buy stations, or extract them via exfiltration. In place of rounds, the map is divided into "zones", with varying levels of threat indicating the difficulty. After 45 minutes of in-match time, an "Aether Storm" begins to expand and cover the map, leaving players with 15 minutes to exfil with their loot. Core mechanics from previous Zombies modes return, such as weapon wallbuys, Perk-a-Cola drinks, and the Mystery Box. Players can also extract "acquisitions", which are items that can be stored or brought into subsequent matches for use, or "schematics", which allow them to craft said items, with a cooldown limit. Story quests are also featured in the mode, which further progress the narrative.
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Modern Warfare III's campaign takes place several months after the events of Modern Warfare II's post-launch seasons, and features a number of fictional locations introduced in previous Modern Warfare games, including the city of Verdansk, Kastovia, and the country of Urzikstan. The game's primary antagonist is ultranationalist terrorist Vladimir Makarov (Julian Kostov), the commander of the Russian private military company Konni Group; his appearance was first teased at the end of Modern Warfare II's campaign. Task Force 141 returns as the central protagonists, comprising: SAS Captain John Price (Barry Sloane), Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley (Samuel Roukin), Sergeant Kyle "Gaz" Garrick (Elliot Knight), and Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish (Neil Ellice). Also returning from previous Modern Warfare games are: CIA Station Chief Kate Laswell (Rya Kihlstedt), Urzikstan Liberation Force Commander Farah Karim (Claudia Doumit), former CIA officer and ULF second-in-command Alex Keller (Chad Michael Collins), Chimera PMC leader Nikolai (Stefan Kapičić), United States Army General Herschel Shepherd (Glenn Morshower), and Shadow Company PMC Commander Phillip Graves (Warren Kole). New characters include: Andrei Nolan (Nikolai Nikolaeff) and Ivan Alexxeve (Lev Gorn), Konni operatives working for Makarov; Milena Romanova (Tina Ivlev), the financier of Konni Group; and Yuri Volkov (Raphael Corkhill), a Russian colonel who is acquainted with Laswell and Nikolai.
The Zombies story takes place in the city of Zaravan, Urzikstan in 2021, several months after the events of Modern Warfare (2019) and its post-launch seasons, and nearly 40 years after the events of Black Ops Cold War. Players take on the role of operators working for Operation Deadbolt, a CIA contingency plan formed to combat and contain the undead outbreak in Zaravan. In addition to Soap, Laswell and the operators, members of Deadbolt include: Special Security Officer Selma Greene (Debra Wilson), de facto commander of Deadbolt; Specialist Sergei Ravenov (Andrew Morgado), a former Spetsnaz captain who allied with the CIA task force Requiem to thwart zombie incursions during the Cold War; Captain Amy Fang (Erika Ishii), who handles infiltration and exfiltration for Deadbolt operators; Drone Pilot Lucas "Luke" Dobbs (Noshir Dalal), who provides mission reconnaissance for the operators; Quartermaster Corporal Krystal Miller (Salli Saffioti), who handles requisitions for the operation; Chief Mechanic Color Sergeant Rupinder "Roops" Kapoor (Rahul Kohli), who provides mechanical expertise on vehicle systems employed by the operators in the field; and Doctor Hugo Barrera (Antony Del Rio), a researcher who studies various Dark Aether phenomena. Opposing Deadbolt operators is the private military company Terminus Outcomes, led by ex-NZDF operative Jack Fletcher (Luke Cook), working on behalf of Victor Zakhaev (Dave B. Mitchell), a Russian ultranationalist arms dealer who was thought to have died in Verdansk. Another central character in the story is Doctor Ava Jansen (Denise Hoey), an Aetherium researcher who was employed by Zakhaev before she defected to join Deadbolt. The former members of Requiem: Grigori Weaver, Elizabeth Grey (Amy Pemberton), Oskar Strauss, and Mackenzie Carver, appear in limited or non-speaking roles.
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Campaign
In November 2023, operatives working for the Russian private military company Konni Group raid the Zordaya Prison Complex in Verdansk, Kastovia. There, they locate and free their commander, Vladimir Makarov, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment at the complex following his capture by SAS operatives John "Soap" MacTavish and John Price during a terrorist attack at the Verdansk Stadium in April 2019. Hours later, Konni assaults a port in Urzikstan, where the Urzikstan Liberation Force, led by Farah Karim and ex-CIA officer Alex Keller, was planning to obtain ballistic missiles from the American PMC Shadow Company and their commander, Phillip Graves, who faked his death after his encounter with special forces unit Task Force 141 in Las Almas, Mexico. The missiles are stolen, though Farah manages to place trackers on them.
Having learned of Makarov's escape from CIA Station Chief Kate Laswell, Price leads 141 to an abandoned nuclear power plant to prevent Konni from securing nuclear material left behind following the death of General Roman Barkov. They find, however, that the plant is actually carrying leftover chemical materials that Barkov had hidden within and that Makarov plans to refine it into a deadly chemical weapon. Konni escapes with the material, detonating some to thwart 141's efforts and nearly killing Price in the resultant chemical gas it creates.
To determine Makarov's plans, Laswell infiltrates the Arklov Military Base in Verdansk and meets with Colonel Yuri Volkov, who supplies a flash drive containing information on the chemical weapons Barkov had been producing. Laswell leaves with the information, moments into an attack on the base with the stolen missiles. Meanwhile, Makarov has a Kastovian airliner destroyed, using a vest bomb forced onto a former ULF fighter who was traveling aboard. To prevent an escalation of tensions between the East and West, Farah and Alex swiftly remove any evidence of ULF involvement at the plane's crash site in Urzikstan before local authorities arrive, despite Konni's efforts to prevent this.
In wake of the attacks, Price reluctantly accepts assistance from Graves and General Herschel Shepherd, who is seeking to return to the United States after being forced into hiding, when they both make contact with Laswell; through their intel, Soap and Simon "Ghost" Riley locate and interrogate Makarov's financier, Milena Romanova. Price and Kyle "Gaz" Garrick use Romanova's information and deploy in Saint Petersburg, where they apprehend Konni operative Andrei Nolan, leading them to intercept a convoy moving across Siberia to a former Soviet prison. Price is shocked to find that the convoy's cargo is Shepherd, who had been captured by Makarov, and decides to give him an ultimatum – either give 141 all of his intel on Makarov's plans and agree to testify to his actions before the United States Congress, or be left to freeze to death in Siberia. Shepherd agrees, revealing that Makarov plans to destroy the Gora Dam in Verdansk to flood the city and kill its populace.
While Soap and Ghost lead a task force to prevent Konni from destroying the Gora Dam, Farah, Alex, Price, and Gaz lead an assault on a Konni base in Urzikstan, reluctantly accepting aid from Graves and Shadow Company. After resolving both issues, Shepherd and Graves return to the United States and testify to Congress about their actions, while effectively turning on each other during questioning. Meanwhile, 141 returns to London to continue their pursuit of Makarov. Shadowing a Konni contact, the group discovers Makarov has received a flash drive that can allow him control of the UK's train network, and that he intends to destroy the Channel Tunnel. Backed up by a counter-terrorism unit, Price leads the assault to free hostages and stop Makarov. He and Soap locate a dirty bomb in the tunnel and attempt to defuse it, but are ambushed by Makarov, who tries to execute Price. Soap manages to intervene, but is killed by Makarov, who escapes. Ghost and Gaz arrive with reinforcements and help Price defuse the bomb. Afterwards, Price, Gaz, and Ghost scatter Soap's ashes off a cliff in Scotland while honoring his memories.
In a mid-credits scene, Price, with Laswell's aid, infiltrates Shepherd's office and assassinates him for his actions in Mexico.
Zombies
In 2021, arms dealer Victor Zakhaev leads an assault on police forces in Zaravan, Urzikstan with the assistance of ex-NZDF operative Jack Fletcher and his PMC, Terminus Outcomes. After killing several officers, Zakhaev and Fletcher breach the subterranean level of a nearby hotel, where they recover two vials filled with a substance of extradimensional origin, named "Aetherium". As Zakhaev and Fletcher prepare to exfil, they are intercepted by police reinforcements, who kill most of their men. Zakhaev throws one of the vials at the officers before fleeing the area with Fletcher in an armored vehicle; the resulting blast stuns the police and transforms the dead into zombies. Weeks later, as part of Operation Deadbolt – a CIA contingency plan formed to combat and contain the undead threat, Soap and ex-Spetsnaz captain Sergei Ravenov, alongside a strike team of elite operators, are sent by Laswell and SSO Selma Greene to assess the situation and ensure that nothing is able to escape from the Zaravan exclusion zone.
Shortly after establishing their foothold, Deadbolt finds an encrypted message from Doctor Ava Jansen, a physicist who specializes in researching Aetherium. Jansen, who was previously employed by Zakhaev, requests Deadbolt's help in extracting her from Zaravan. The Deadbolt strike team is deployed to help her exfil. Upon returning to Deadbolt HQ, Jansen is interrogated by Greene, Soap, and Ravenov. The former claims that Zakhaev currently possesses weapons-grade Aetherium, and only she knows how to stop him. Greene accepts Jansen's offer, and assigns the strike team with helping her build an Aetherium Neutralizer device, which is capable of destabilizing Aetherium crystals within its blast radius. Though the first test on raw Aetherium crystals was successful, Jansen points out that Zakhaev has managed to refine his Aetherium, requiring the Neutralizer to be upgraded before it can be deployed against Terminus. She proposes they acquire research data from late scientist Oskar Strauss, a former lead of the classified task force Requiem, to upgrade the Neutralizer. The strike team launches an assault on a Terminus fortress in Zaravan, and kills its commander "Legacy" Baranov, who was in possession of Strauss' research data.
With the Neutralizer complete and ready for use against Zakhaev, Deadbolt deploys to Zakhaev's Aetherium refining plant and prepares to activate the Neutralizer, but faces opposition from Terminus forces as well as a gigantic Dark Aether worm creature, Orcus. After a lengthy battle, Jansen rushes to the Neutralizer and activates it, killing Orcus and destabilizing Zakhaev's vial. A Dark Aether vortex appears, sucking up everything in its wake and forcing Fletcher to retreat from the plant with Zakhaev. The vortex lifts Jansen into the air and an entity appears before her, demanding entry. Jansen screams and faints, floating down to the ground as the vortex closes. Ravenov quickly rushes to help Jansen as she opens her eyes, revealing a brief dark purple glow. Afterwards, Deadbolt drone pilot Lucas "Luke" Dobbs informs Ravenov that although the initial activation of the Neutralizer was a success, Dark Aether contacts are beginning to reappear across Zaravan, along with an energy spike appearing in the "high threat" zone.
Following his failure to defeat Deadbolt, Zakhaev retreats from Zaravan, leaving Terminus Outcomes to operate independently. Meanwhile, shortly after the incident with the Neutralizer, the Deadbolt strike team is deployed to Zaravan once more to investigate a new anomaly. They discover a rift portal that takes them into the Dark Aether dimension. After a brief encounter with the same entity that Jansen previously met, the team exfils from the dimension. Back at Deadbolt HQ, Jansen suffers from a hallucination while researching about a Requiem-backed project, codenamed "Janus", and all the individuals involved, including the former leads of Requiem and ex-BND operative Samantha Maxis, who had seemingly sacrificed herself in 1985 to contain a powerful Dark Aether entity, known as "the Forsaken".
Some time later, a second rift appears in Zaravan, and the strike team, Ravenov, and opposing Terminus forces led by Fletcher, enter. Inside, the Terminus and Deadbolt forces are forced to work together to survive. They find parts of Jansen's Neutralizer left behind after its activation, and use it to open a rift to return home. Fletcher betrays his soldiers and allows them to be turned into zombies to facilitate his own escape. Ravenov and the strike team clear the area and also manage to depart. As he tends to his wounds, Ravenov is confronted by Jansen, who demands him to explain his affiliation with Requiem. Ravenov tells Jansen that Requiem attempted, but failed, to rescue Maxis from the Dark Aether following her sacrifice, and promises to tell her more about Requiem after dealing with the Zaravan outbreak. As Jansen leaves, Ravenov privately remarks that her parents would be proud of her.
As the Entity continues to influence Jansen, she is eventually lured into the Dark Aether, forcing Ravenov and the strike team to follow her. Entering a newly appeared rift in Zaravan, they pursue Jansen, who becomes possessed by the Entity. The strike team weakens the Entity by breaking various seals around the area, and killing the zombie horde defending it. The Entity ultimately disappears, and the team manages to extract Jansen to safety. Later, Ravenov reprimands Jansen for blindly pursuing Elizabeth Grey's research. He decides to show her a recording of Grey from 1996, which reveals that Jansen is the biological daughter of Maxis, and Grey gave birth to her via DNA samples acquired by Requiem which included Ravenov’s DNA as he was considered one of Jansen’s fathers who watched over her while she was brought up by a different family of her namesake. Due to Maxis' exposure to the Dark Aether, Jansen was born with a strong bond to the dimension, and the Entity was a dark reflection of Jansen born at the same time as her. Angered at the revelation, Jansen scolds Ravenov for lying to her before storming off once more.
Multiplayer/Warzone
In December 2023, Nolan escapes captivity, and resumes his duties as Konni's second-in-command. He rallies Konni forces to Zaravan, Urzikstan for a new operation. In response, Graves sends Shadow Company operatives and other independent contractors to Zaravan to conduct missions against Konni.
In February 2024, Konni forces occupy a Mediterranean island, known as "Fortune's Keep", and set up a research facility underneath its surface. However, an earthquake occurs, destroying parts of the island and forcing Konni to undertake repairs. Some time later, Konni expands their operations to Rebirth Island, a former Nova 6 production facility once helmed by the Soviet spy organization Perseus.
In a flashback to May 22, 2022, Soap is deployed to Zaravan as part of a secret operation to secure a chemical bomb threat. He is unable to stop the bombs from detonating, but later learns that additional bombs are also deployed globally, including Tokyo and Paris.
Modern Warfare III was developed by Sledgehammer Games, and is the fifth mainline Call of Duty title that the studio has worked on, after co-creating 2011's Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward and developing 2014's Advanced Warfare, 2017's WWII and 2021's Vanguard.
After wrapping development on Vanguard, Sledgehammer Games reportedly began early work on a sequel to Advanced Warfare, but Activision chose to shelve the project before it could get far into production; instead, Activision assigned the studio to create an expansion pack for the then-upcoming Modern Warfare II (2022). According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the expansion was originally intended to feature a new, smaller-scale single-player campaign, which was planned to be set in Mexico, along with new content for Modern Warfare II's multiplayer component.
By Summer 2022, however, Activision chose to reboot the project entirely, tasking Sledgehammer Games with creating a direct, fully-fledged sequel to Modern Warfare II that would feature a rebooted version of original Modern Warfare trilogy antagonist Vladimir Makarov. This decision reportedly left the studio's developers with roughly sixteen months to develop Modern Warfare III, which was a similar schedule to what they faced when developing Vanguard. Treyarch, the lead developer behind the Black Ops sub-series, were also tasked with creating a Zombies mode for Modern Warfare III, making it the first Modern Warfare title to feature a Zombies mode.
In another report from Schreier, some developers at Sledgehammer Games claimed that they had initially not been made aware of the decision to turn the project into a full release, leading to crunch. In addition, certain developers were also frustrated with executives at Infinity Ward, who had reportedly stepped in at numerous times during development to make significant (and sometimes unwanted) changes to the project. Aaron Halon, Sledgehammer Games' studio head, has publicly denied Schreier's reporting, stating that plans for the game began "long before we wrapped up our previous game" and that Modern Warfare III was "a labor of love" that had been "years in the making".
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A large amount of content for Modern Warfare III was leaked before being officially revealed. Around July 17, 2023, the "red dot" minimap, War mode, and new perks were leaked from an internal alpha build. On July 24, 2023, the game's key art was leaked in a Monster Energy promotion, featuring an image of Captain Price behind the Modern Warfare III logo. Around the time of the key art leak, several new weapons were datamined. The key art leak was confirmed real by Activision, who issued copyright takedowns and acknowledged the leak via Twitter with sarcastic tweets.
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Walter Mair composed the score for Modern Warfare III, following Sarah Schachner's departure from the rebooted Modern Warfare sub-series over challenges in the working dynamic with Infinity Ward's audio director. Mair has previously worked with the Call of Duty franchise on Call of Duty: Mobile. In addition to Mair's score, Modern Warfare III also features a Zombies score composed by Jack Wall, who frequently partners with Treyarch on the Black Ops sub-series. Additional music was composed by Steve Ouimette, who previously worked on Modern Warfare II season 2's soundtrack.
The soundtrack for Modern Warfare III was released to digital platforms simultaneously with the game's release on November 10, 2023. In addition, rapper 21 Savage released a song in promotion of the game, titled "Call Me Revenge", featuring singer d4vd. The song is featured in the game's credits sequence.
The score for Modern Warfare III was nominated for the Best Original Video Game Score Ivor Novello Award on 23 May 2024.
On August 7, 2023, a teaser trailer was posted, confirming the title. Around this time, a phone number was set up by Activision that was shared via social media. This phone number, after participants agreed to a few terms, would begin sending anonymous messages to participants, such as "we need someone like you, with experience in Al Mazrah." This phone number was noted to give unusual responses when sent the word "zombies" or the names of multiplayer maps from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (ex. "Rust"). A day later, on August 8, 2023, Activision confirmed that Modern Warfare II operators, weapons and cosmetic items would carry over into Modern Warfare III and released a blog post detailing the specifics of the carry-over.
On August 17, 2023, a full reveal took place inside of a Call of Duty: Warzone event and concluded with a reveal trailer. Pre-orders were also opened, with players being able to play the campaign up to a week early, as well as gain access to new operator skins and an open beta for the multiplayer mode.
Modern Warfare III was released on November 10, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Similar to Modern Warfare II, the campaign was released in early access for all digital pre-orders, starting from November 2, 2023.
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As with previous Call of Duty titles, Modern Warfare III features free seasonal content updates with an in-game store selling cosmetic item bundles via microtransactions.
Similar to past Call of Duty season updates, Activision partners with several media franchises to feature celebrities and licensed characters in the playable roster for multiplayer and Zombies modes. New additions include: Paul Atreides and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from the film Dune: Part Two; A-Train and Firecracker from Amazon Prime Video's The Boys TV series; Rick Grimes and Michonne from AMC's The Walking Dead TV series; the comedy duo Cheech & Chong; and basketball player Devin Booker. Additional themed cosmetic packs were also released in promotion of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, the MonsterVerse film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the Gundam franchise, and the Fallout franchise.
The pre-release reviews of Modern Warfare III's campaign were negative, with critics highlighting that it felt shallow, short, and rushed. IGN gave the campaign a 4/10, describing it as "bizarrely cobbling together pieces of the Warzone mode into actively bad sandbox missions".
Upon the game's official release, it received "mixed or average reviews" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, with 13% of critics recommending the game on aggregator OpenCritic. It is the lowest-rated mainline Call of Duty installment on Metacritic.
Bleacher Report called the campaign "disappointing", but praised the technical aspects as "top notch". Both The Guardian and Windows Central gave the game a 4 out of 5 star rating and particularly praised the multiplayer component, with the latter stating that it "perfectly executes blending old maps with modern gameplay."
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In the United Kingdom, Modern Warfare III topped the sales charts for the month of November 2023. However, sales figures were reported to be around 38% down from Modern Warfare II's figures during the first three weeks of its launch. In the United States, Modern Warfare III was the second overall best-selling game of 2023, behind Hogwarts Legacy. In Japan, the PlayStation 5 version of Modern Warfare III was the fourth best-selling retail game during its first week of release, with 22,132 physical copies being sold.
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74721982 | Festivali i Këngës 62 | 2023-09-01 08:35:38+00:00 | Festivali i Këngës 2023 was the 62nd edition of the annual Albanian music competition Festivali i Këngës, organised by Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH). It was held between 19 and 22 December 2023 at the Palace of Congresses in Tirana, and it was hosted by Adriana Matoshi and Kledi Kadiu with Xhuliano Dule and Krisa Çaushi. The winner was Mal Retkoceri with "Çmendur". For the second year in a row, a separate televoting determined which contestant would represent Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, whereby Besa Kokëdhima with "Zemrën n'dorë" emerged as the winner.
The 62nd edition of Festivali i Këngës consisted of two semi-finals on 19 and 20 December 2023, a "nostalgia night" on 21 December 2023 and a final on 22 December 2023. Details on the format were revealed at a press conference on 1 November 2023.
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An 11-member jury voted to determine the eight newcomers advancing to the final from the qualifying phase, announced at the end of the third night, as well as the winner of the final; established artists automatically qualified for the final, but still performed in the semi-finals. The televote, introduced in the previous edition, again constituted a separate selection dedicated to the Albanian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest, and was open after the second night until the final. The two votings were originally devised to be combined in a 50/50 or 60/40 ratio to determine a single winner.
The members of the jury were Aleksandër Gjoka, Indrit Mesiti, Adelina Ismaili, Fitnete Tuda, Elena Kadare, Natasha Lako, Anila Aliu, Shpëtim Kushta, Victor Van Vugt, Zana Shuteriqi and Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj.
RTSH opened an application period for artists and composers interested in participating in the 62nd Festivali i Këngës on 1 September 2023, later setting a deadline of 10 October 2023. At the closing of the submission period, over 80 entries had been received. Despite the initial plan to select 14 established artists and 13 newcomers, a total of 31 artists appeared on the list of selected competing acts, which was published on 17 October. However, after the press conference on 1 November 2023, Kejsi Tola and Samanta Karavella, who had appeared on the participants list, announced their withdrawal from the competition; they were replaced by Irma Lepuri and PeterPan Quartet. On 1 December 2023, Sardi Strugaj also announced his withdrawal; he was replaced by Eden Baja. Among the selected contestants, which ultimately included 14 established artists and 17 newcomers, was Elsa Lila, who won the 1996, 1997 and 2022 festivals.
For the first time, the selection panel was only informed of the identities of the applicants after the process, in order to secure a fairer outcome; it was also the first time that two poets formed part of the panel.
Key: Withdrawn Replacement entry
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The semi-finals of Festivali i Këngës took place on 19 December and 20 December 2023 at 21:00 CET. The running order for both semi-finals was drawn during a press conference held on 1 November.
Umberto Tozzi and Viola Gjyzeli featured as special guests on semi-final 1; Aleksandër Gjoka, Indrit Mesiti and Rachelle Andrioti were the guest performers of semi-final 2.
Key:
Did not qualify
Qualified
Automatic qualifier
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The "nostalgia night" of Festivali i Këngës took place on 21 December 2023 at 21:00 CET. Contestants performed songs from the history of Festivali i Këngës and Eurovision in duet with other contestants or guest performers.
Adelina Ismaili featured as a special guest.
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The final of Festivali i Këngës took place on 22 December 2023 at 21:00 CET. 22 acts performed and competed for the win, whilst all 31 acts (both qualifiers and non-qualifiers) were eligible to win the right to represent Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.
The guest performers of the final were Aurela Gaçe (winner of Festivali i Këngës 38, 40 and 49), Nik Xhelilaj and La Fazani (winner of the first edition of Festivali i Këngës në RTK in Kosovo).
The winner was the song "Çmendur" performed by Mal Retkoceri. The televote winner was the song "Zemrën n'dorë" performed by Besa Kokëdhima. She represented Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. At the contest, the song was performed in an English version, titled "Titan". Besa failed to qualify from the second semi-final, placing 15th out of 16 with 14 points.
Key:
Winner
Second place
Third place
Televote winner/Eurovision entry
The four shows of Festivali i Këngës were broadcast live on RTSH in Albania, on RTK in Kosovo, on MRT in North Macedonia and on RTCG in Montenegro. RTSH further provided international live streaming of the shows through their official website and YouTube channel. | 2023 |
75228505 | 2023 Mr. Olympia | 2023-11-05 07:29:26+00:00 | The 2023 Mr. Olympia contest was an IFBB Pro League professional bodybuilding competition and expo held from November 2–5, 2023, at the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, Florida. It was the 59th Mr. Olympia competition held. Other events at the exhibition included the 2023 212 Olympia Showdown, as well as finals in Men's Classic, Men's Physique, 2023 Ms. Olympia, Fitness, 2023 Figure, 2023 Bikini Olympia, among other contests.
In 2023, the Mr. Olympia competition once again found its home in Orlando, Florida. However, the previous year saw a shift from tradition as it returned to its traditional hosting venue in Las Vegas, Nevada. This change marked a significant moment for the event, which had spent the prior two years in Orlando, Florida, as a response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges faced during that period, the Olympia has successfully regained its pre-COVID size, drawing numerous competitors and fans from all corners of the globe. The continued global appeal of the event was evident as it maintained its practice of live streaming, allowing a worldwide audience to witness the pinnacle of bodybuilding excellence.
Derek Lunsford won the 59th edition of Mr. Olympia Men's Open competition in 2023, with a prize of $400,000. Hadi Choopan came in second with a prize of $150,000. Ten other winners from multiple divisions were crowned during the two days of division finals, including Chris Bumstead, who won the Classic Physique title for the fifth consecutive time.
Days before the competition, 2022 3rd Place Winner, Nick Walker, was forced to withdrawal due to an injury (torn hamstring). | 2023 |
73630181 | 2023 Ms. Olympia | 2023-04-24 03:29:40+00:00 | The 2023 Ms. Olympia was an International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness Professional League (IFBB Pro League) professional female bodybuilding contest and part of Joe Weider's Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend 2023. This was the 39th Ms. Olympia contest to be held.
1st - $50,000
2nd - $20,000
3rd - $12,000
4th - $7,000
5th - $6,000
Total: $95,000
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Michaela Aycock, Alcione Barreto, Andrea Shaw, Angela Yeo, Sherry Priami (switched with Natalia Kovaleva) and Natalia (switched with Sherry)
Chelsea Dion, Reshanna Boswell, MayLa Ash and Julia Whitesel
Angela and Andrea
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Reshanna, MayLa, Michaela, Natalia, Chelsea and Julia
Alcione, Andrea, Angela and Sherry
1st - Andrea Shaw
2nd - Angela Yeo
3rd - Alcione Barreto
4th - Sherry Priami
5th - Natalia Kovaleva
6th - Michaela Aycock
7th - MayLa Ash
8th - Chelsea Dion
9th - Reshanna Boswell
10th - Julia Whitesel
Comparison to previous Olympia results:
Same - Andrea Shaw
Same - Angela Yeo
+5 - Alcione Barreto
Same - Michaela Aycock
+4 - MayLa Ash
+1 - Chelsea Dion
+7 - Reshanna Boswell
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4th Ms. Olympia attended - MayLa Ash, Reshanna Boswell and Andrea Shaw
3rd Ms. Olympia attended - Michaela Aycock
2nd Ms. Olympia attended - Alcione Barreto and Chelsea Dion
1st Ms. Olympia attended - Natalia Kovaleva, Sherry Priami and Julia Whitesel
Andrea Shaw won her 4th Ms. Olympia consecutively, beating Sergio Oliva and Frank Zane's record three consecutive Ms. Olympia wins and tying with Kim Chizevsky-Nicholls' record four consecutive Ms. Olympia wins, along with Jay Cutler's record four Mr. Olympia wins.
This contest had only 10 contestants competing, the fewest contestants competing in Ms. Olympia ever. The reason for this is because of the removal of the point system for the 2023 Olympia Qualification System, along with Helle Trevino and Kristina Mendoza dropping out of attending the contest. | 2023 |
74243022 | 2023 CAF Women's Champions League | 2023-07-05 17:24:26+00:00 | The 2023 CAF Women's Champions League was the 3rd edition of the annual African women's association football club tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football, it was hosted by Ivory Coast from 5 to 19 November 2023. The winners of this edition will automatically qualify for the group stage of the following edition of the tournament. The qualification draw was conducted on 5 July 2023 at the Mohammed VI Football Academy in Rabat, Morocco.
AS FAR are the defending champions.
Qualification for this edition like the previous two editions of the tournament were made up of 6 sub-confederation qualifying tournaments which was contested between August and September 2023 with each confederation having a representative. As defending champions, AS FAR qualified automatically for the main phase of the tournament.
The draw of this edition of the tournament was held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on 9 October 2023 at 16:00 CET (16:00 GMT). The 8 confirmed teams was drawn into two groups of four teams. As club competition hosts, Athlético Abidjan was allocated to position A1.
Referees
Assistant referees
Video assistant referees
The group stage kick-off times are in West Africa Time (WAT) (UTC+01:00).
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This is the list of the top ten scorers in the main phase of this tournament:
Per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by a penalty shoot-out are counted as draws.
The CAF Women's Champions League technical study group selected the following as the best of the tournament.
The CAF Technical Study Group has announced the tournament’s Best XI as follows:
Coach: Jerry Tshabalala | 2023 |
75328796 | 2023 CAF Women's Champions League final | 2023-11-16 13:12:25+00:00 | The 2023 CAF Women's Champions League final is the final match of the 2023 CAF Women's Champions League, the third edition of Africa's premier women's club football tournament organised by CAF. It was played at Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium in Korhogo, Côte d'Ivoire on 19 November 2023
The final of the third CAF Women's Champions League was played as a single match at a pre-selected venue by CAF, similar to the format used in the previous editions. The Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium in Korhogo, Côte d'Ivoire. | 2023 |
74254909 | 2023 CAF Women's Champions League qualification | 2023-07-06 01:16:39+00:00 | Qualification for the 2023 CAF Women's Champions League began on 5 August and concluded on 14 September 2023.
Qualification was made up of 6 sub-confederation qualifying tournaments which commenced on 12 August within COSAFA for Southern Africa and the CECAFA for mostly East Africa and a bit of Central Africa. Qualification ended on 14 September with the participating teams reduced to the final 8 which consisted of one winning team each from the 6 CAF sub-confederations (WAFU is split into two zones), the tournament's defending champions and the host nation's league-winning team. These 8 teams would proceed to the main tournament phases currently being held in Ivory Coast.
All participating teams qualified for the qualification phase via winning their respective national league titles and had their club licensing applications accepted by CAF. A total of 37 (out of 54) countries have a participant club in this edition.
Associations which did not enter a team
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74533371 | 2023 CAF Women's Champions League CECAFA Qualifiers | 2023-08-06 07:26:09+00:00 | The 2023 CAF Women's Champions League CECAFA Qualifiers was the 3rd edition of the annual women's association football club championship organized by CECAFA to determine its representative at the 2023 CAF Women's Champions League in Ivory Coast. It was held in Kampala, Uganda from 12 to 30 August 2023.
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The draw for this edition of the tournament was held on 5 July 2023 at 11:00 UTC (13:00 CAT) in Egypt. The nine teams were drawn into 2 group of 4 and 5 teams with the teams finishing first and second in the groups qualifying for the knockout stages.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.
Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Drawing of lots.
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There have been 55 goals scored in 20 matches, for an average of 2.75 goals per match (as of 30 August 2023).
own goal | 2023 |
74574656 | 2023 CAF Women's Champions League COSAFA Qualifiers | 2023-08-12 08:11:03+00:00 | The 2023 CAF Women's Champions League COSAFA Qualifiers, commonly known as the 2023 COSAFA Women's Champions League, was the 3rd edition of the annual women's association football club championship organized by COSAFA for its nations. It was sponsored by South African sports betting company Hollywoodbets and took place in Durban, South Africa for the third straight year from 30 August to 8 September.
The following 8 teams took part in this edition of the tournament:
This edition of the tournament was held entirely at the Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium and the Princess Magogo Stadium (for the last day) in Durban, South Africa.
The draw for this edition of the tournament was held on 10 August 2023 at 11:00 UTC (13:00 CAT) in Morocco. The eight teams were drawn into 2 group of 4 teams with teams finishing first and second in the groups qualifying for the knockout stages.
Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.
Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied meet in the last group stage round;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Drawing of lots.
All times are South African Standard Time (UTC+2).
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The winner would qualify for the 2023 CAF Women's Champions League as COSAFA representatives.
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There have been 41 goals scored in 12 matches, for an average of 3.42 goals per match (as of 4 september 2023).
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75374191 | 2023 Brazzaville crowd crush | 2023-11-21 18:57:09+00:00 | On 21 November, 2023, a crowd crush in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, occurred on the final day of a military recruitment drive in the Michel d'Ornano Stadium, causing at least 32 deaths and 144 injuries.
The Congolese army announced a week prior to the disaster that it was planning to recruit 1,500 people of ages 18 to 25 in a campaign that started on 14 November at the Michel d’Ornano Stadium in Brazzaville. There were reportedly 700 people who signed up on a daily basis prior to the incident.
The youth unemployment rate in the Republic of the Congo is at 42%, and joining the army is seen as a rare job opportunity.
Thousands of youth had reportedly gathered outside the stadium early on 20 November, which was said to be the last day of the recruitment drive. Survivors and residents said that many had waited until the evening, with some "impatient" applicants forcing their way into the stadium, causing the crush. Some of the applicants forced the stadium's gates open while others jumped over the walls.
At least 31 people were killed and 145 others were injured. The death toll was initially reported at 37 before it was found that six deaths occurred elsewhere. Another person died of her injuries on 25 November, raising the death toll to 32.
A crisis unit was created under Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso, while the public prosecutor said an investigation would be launched. The government said it would shoulder funeral expenses for the fatalities and medical treatment for the injured, while the army said it would suspend its recruitment drives until further notice.
A day of mourning for the victims of the disaster was declared on 22 November, with flags set at half-mast and "bars, dance clubs, beverage outlets, and festive venues" closed. | 2023 |
72631560 | 2023 in Antarctica | 2023-01-01 00:21:35+00:00 | This is a list of events occurring in Antarctica in 2023.
Ongoing: COVID-19 pandemic in Antarctica
February 15: A joint study by the British Antarctic Survey and the US Antarctic programme finds that glaciers on the icy continent may be more sensitive to changes in sea temperature than previously thought. Researchers used sensors and an underwater robot beneath the Thwaites glacier to study melting.
February 16: The National Snow and Ice Data Center of the United States reports that the Antarctic sea ice decreased to 1.91 million square kilometers (740,000 sq mi) within the week, the smallest since records began in 1979.
November 27: The British Antarctic Survey confirms that the world's largest iceberg, A23a, is now leaving the Weddell Sea and drifting into the Southern Ocean after being in the Weddell Sea for more than 30 years. The iceberg is expected to follow the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and continue to drift away from Antarctica. | 2023 |
72836722 | Iceberg A-81 | 2023-01-24 18:01:52+00:00 | Iceberg A-81 is an iceberg that calved from the Brunt Ice Shelf in January 2023. The detachment happened near the British-operated Halley Research Station, which is located only 20 km away from the point of rupture. The iceberg is estimated to measure 1,550 square kilometres (600 sq mi).
The iceberg was first spotted on 22 January by the British Antarctic Survey and was later confirmed by the U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) using satellite imagery.
As of 31 March 2023, the iceberg was located at 76°48' South and 33°41' West and had a length of 28 nautical miles and width of 25 nautical miles. | 2023 |
75063127 | Festivali i Këngës (Kosovo) | 2023-10-15 19:23:01+00:00 | Festivali i Këngës në RTK (Albanian: [fɛstiˈvali i ˈkəŋɡəs nə ɾətəˈkə]; transl. "The Festival of Song on RTK"), simply known as Festivali i Këngës and informally as Fest, is an annual music competition in Kosovo organised by the national broadcaster Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) since 2023. It is broadcast on RTK 1, RTK 2 and Radio Kosova 1, as well as on RTSH in Albania and on MRT 2 in North Macedonia.
The contest was modelled on the basis of the festival of the same name held in Albania since 1962 and used as the Albanian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest since 2003. Kosovo, formerly part of Yugoslavia, has never participated in the Eurovision Song Contest on its own, but the contest has been broadcast in the territory since 1961 and a number of Kosovan artists have represented Albania or Serbia in the event.
Despite its inability to become a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in order to take part in the contest, in February 2023 Kosovan broadcaster RTK started to develop the format, with the long-term aim of using it as its national selection for Eurovision. The format was ultimately defined on 7 March 2023. In October 2023, shortly before the launch of its first edition, the festival's director Adi Krasta reported that he had been in contact with people at EBU who had expressed "extreme enthusiasm" regarding the event. Director-general of the EBU Noel Curran made a remote appearance during the first night of the festival to express his congratulations.
RTK stated it would apply for EBU membership in June 2024, having reaffirmed the intention to participate in Eurovision and use the next edition of the festival to select its 2025 entrant.
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The inaugural edition of Festivali i Këngës was held at the Great Hall of the Palace of Youth and Sports in Pristina, directed by Adi Krasta and co-hosted by Krasta and Besim Dina (all shows) alongside Edona Kasapolli (first night), Anjeza Shahini (second night) and Edona Reshitaj (third night); it consisted of two qualification shows on 26 and 27 October 2023 and a final on 28 October 2023. The artistic director for this edition was Florent Boshnjaku, while performances were conducted by Alfred Kaçinari, Edon Ramadani and Valton Beqiri; the four, as well as Shpëtim Saraçi and Visar Kuçi, also served as orchestrators.
A submission period was open between 2 June and 9 September 2023 to select eighteen competing entries. At the festival, a 5-member jury – consisting of Adi Hila, Alban Nimani, Zake Prelvukaj, Ulla Sjöström and chair Alma Bektashi – voted to determine ten qualifiers from the first phase and the first three places in the final. The winner was La Fazani (Arbër Salihu) with "Oj Kosovë".
A number of guest performers also made an appearance in this edition, namely Bektashi herself, Alban Nimani, Dafina Zeqiri, Enver Petrovci, Fitnete Tuda, Genc Salihu, Ilire Vinca and her daughters, Irma Libohova, Kamela Islamaj and Teuta Kurti, Timo Flloko, Shpat Deda, and Xuxi.
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The second edition of Festivali i Këngës is set to be held in late October 2024, directed by Adi Krasta with Florent Boshnjaku as artistic director and Arta Avdiu as executive producer. A submission period is open between 31 May and 31 August 2024 to select the competing entries. | 2023 |
73229450 | ASIC v GetSwift Ltd | 2023-03-07 13:12:57+00:00 | ASIC v GetSwift Ltd is a 2023 decision of the Federal Court of Australia brought by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) against technology company GetSwift Ltd which resulted in the largest ever penalty awarded for corporate misconduct and resulted in reforms to listing rules on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
In June 2020 ASIC began proceedings in the Federal Court against GetSwift Ltd alleging GetSwift and its directors Bane Hunter, Joel Macdonald and Brett Eagle made representations in a series of ASX announcements relating to client agreements, between February 2017 and December 2017 that were misleading and that it failed to notify the ASX of material information in relation to these client agreements.
In November 2021 the Federal Court found the directors were knowingly involved in multiple continuous disclosure breaches and made multiple deceptive contraventions and breached their director duties. GetSwift appealed decision before later withdrawing its appeal.
In February 2023 the Federal Court handed down the largest ever penalty for corporate misconduct, with $18m in penalties issued to Getswift and its directors Hunter, Macdonald and Eagle and disqualifying each director from managing Australian corporations for 15 years, 12 years and 2 years respectively.
The case caused the ASX to tighten its rules now requiring all public directors to "provide evidence of their good fame and character".
In 2013 Former AFL footballers Joel Macdonald, James Strauss and Rohan Bail launched alcohol delivery service Liquorun. In 2015 after raising seed investment, the company pivoted to providing software to delivery services and rebranded as GetSwift.
The newly rebranded GetSwift listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in October 2016.
Six months later, the company raised $24 million in funding in June 2017 from new and existing investors including US institutions Horney, IFM and Regal. In this capital raise Hunter was quoted in saying "Data talks, Bullshit walks" and reported annual revenues of $336,356.
On 1 December 2018, the ASX placed GetSwift into a temporary trading halt after shares spiked 83% to $3.60 following an announcement by the company about a deal with retail giant Amazon. At the same time, the company also announced a deal with YUM! Foods, the operator of KFC and Pizza Hut in Australia, which like the Amazon announcement did not include any information on how the deal would affect the company's financials. The company had announced a partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia with an estimated aggregate transaction value of $9billion.
Less than a week after having its shares suspended, GetSwift issued 18,750,000 shares at $4 each raising $75 million.
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On 19 January 2018, several weeks after the trading halt an investigation by the Australian Financial Review claimed the company had twice failed to update the market that it had lost significant contracts with Australian businesses, with many of its announced partnerships failing to proceed beyond pilot stage. At the time, the company had made 18 such announcements.
On 22 January, GetSwift entered into a voluntary trading halt after its shares dropped 55 percent following the investigation. After issuing the halt, the ASX put 28 questions to the company. In its responses GetSwift denied it had ever failed to adequately update the market. However the ASX found the responses unsatisfactory and the company remained suspended.
In February 2019 the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) commenced civil proceedings against Directors Bane Hunter and Joel Macdonald and alleged that each made multiple misleading statements to the public and that they failed to discharge their duties to the public. ASIC later amended its proceedings to include non executive director and company solicitor Brett Eagle.
In June 2020 ASIC presented its case to the Federal Court. ASIC alleged GetSwift and its directors misled investors in 2017 in a series of announcements that sent its share price up 1900 per cent.
In November 2021 the Federal Court found in favour of ASIC in a 800 page ruling.
Justice Lee ruled Bane Hunter was “knowingly involved” in 16 of the 22 continuous disclosure breaches, 29 of the misleading and deceptive conduct contraventions and had breached his director's duties.
Justice Lee found Joel MacDonald was “knowingly involved” in 20 of the 22 continuous disclosure breaches, 33 of the misleading and deceptive conduct contraventions and had breached his director's duties.
Justice Lee found Brett Eagle was “knowingly involved” in three of the 22 continuous disclosure breaches and had breached his director's duties.
In February 2023, the Federal Court handed down the largest ever penalty in Australia's history against GetSwift and its directors Joel Macdonald, Bane Hunter and Brett Eagle in a x page ruling.
Former executive chairman and CEO Bane Hunter was fined $2 million and disqualified from managing corporations for 15 years.
Managing director and former CEO Joel Macdonald was fined $1 million and disqualified from managing corporations for 12 years.
Solicitor and non-executive director Brett Eagle was fined $75,000 and disqualified from managing corporations for 2 years.
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In making his ruling, Justice Lee considered the lack of remorse by those involved and in particular said Mr Hunter was “unrepentant and lacks any insight into his conduct” and “should not be in charge of the affairs of a company”, adding ASIC had been unable to “explore where all the money raised from investors went”. He also found Mr Macdonald was focused on making money and had “little understanding or regard for his legal obligations as a director”.
In deciding to award the largest ever penalty, Justice Lee said “There is no evidence of contrition or remorse by the two of the company’s senior officers primarily responsible,” and “Indeed, such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction. That Mr Macdonald feels a ‘level of peace’ is not only cold comfort to those that have suffered loss, but also reflects a troubling and defiant lack of insight into the scale and seriousness of the wrongdoing set out in excruciating detail in the [court ruling].”
In delivering the ruling, Federal Court Justice Lee said:"GetSwift and those primarily responsible for its wrongful conduct, could be described as representing the unacceptable face of start-up capitalism,""Mr Hunter is a man who is presently wholly unsuited to be in a position of responsibility in a public company," Justice Lee said.
"Mr Macdonald has little understanding or regard for his legal obligations as a director, when they get in the way of pursuing a strategy to make money."
ASIC v GetSwift Limited (Liability Hearing)
ASIC v GetSwift Limited (Penalty Hearing) | 2023 |
74092842 | Home Affairs Act 2023 | 2023-06-21 05:56:10+00:00 | The Home Affairs Act 2023 (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia to cancel the Russian Federation's lease on a new embassy site within 500 metres of Parliament House. The Albanese Government introduced the Act in light of the Federal Court's decision in Government of the Russian Federation v Commonwealth of Australia Anor that the National Capital Authority's decision to terminate the lease was invalid.
Although the Act is only seven sections long, it is notable for how quickly Parliament enacted the legislation, taking 1 hour and 15 minutes to pass the House of Representatives and Senate. In each chamber, the Bill was debated for less than five minutes, and was granted Royal Assent on the same day.
Dismissing Ukraine's interest in the site, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill claims that the site will not be used for any other diplomatic purposes in the future due to its proximity to Parliament. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was disappointed by the decision, saying that Australia should not fuel anti-Russian sentiment.
On 23 June, a spokesperson for O'Neill revealed that Russia is preparing to challenge the legislation in the High Court of Australia on constitutional grounds. | 2023 |
74569535 | Stanley v. Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) | 2023-08-11 12:45:17+00:00 | Stanley v. Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) is a decision of the High Court of Australia.
The case concerned an administrative law appeal under the writ of certiorari, against a decision of the NSW Court of Appeal to impose a criminal sentence.
Stanley had been convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment for contraventions of the Firearms Act 1996 (NSW). When this happened, the judge declined to make an 'intensive correction order' (ICO), which would have made the sentence served 'by way of intensive correction in the community'.
The convicted person then appealed to the District Court of NSW against the severity of the sentence. On appeal, which was conducted as a de novo review, they asked the district court to make an ICO. Section 66(2) of the Sentencing Procedure Act provided that 'community safety' is a 'paramount consideration', and that when considering community safety, the court must assess between whether an ICO or full-time detention would be more likely to address an offender's risk of reoffending. The district court dismissed the appeal, without making any express reference or findings in relation to s66(2).
They then appealed to the NSW Court of Appeal under the writ of certiorari, attempting to quash the district court's decision. It found, by majority, that non-compliance with s66(2) did not amount to a jurisdictional error.
By 4:3 majority, the High Court allowed the appeal, holding that the jurisdiction to make an ICO calls for a subsequent and separate decision to be made after a decision on sentencing is imposed. It found that the district court failed to consider the 'paramount consideration' of s66(1) by assessing 'community safety' as described in s66(2). From this, the High Court decided that the district court didn't understand the function it was supposed to have performed; and so didn't act within jurisdiction. In doing so the majority said:"Given the invalidity, there has been no decision on the issue of an ICO at all. As there is a duty to consider whether to grant an ICO in cases where the power is engaged (as it clearly was in this case), this duty remains unperformed. Therefore, the District Court failed to perform its duty and did not determine the appellant's appeal according to law. It was therefore appropriate to set aside the order of the District Court dismissing the appellant's appeal, and order the Court to determine her appeal according to law." - Gordon, Edelman, Steward and Gleeson JJThe majority then ordered that Stanley's appeal to the NSW District Court be heard and determined according to law.
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In three separate dissenting judgements, justices Kiefel, Gageler, and Jagot each wrote in support of dismissing the appeal.
Jagot found that although the District Court judge had not adequately discharged their obligation to give reasons for their decision. However, the mere failure to give reasons was not a jurisdictional error. This failure to give reasons was a separate issue to whether or not the judge had made the assessment required by s66(2) at all. Jagot didn't agree that, in context, it could be argued from the judge's reasons that they'd failed to undertake the assessment at all.
Gageler found that in the context of the whole act, including the construction and intention of s5(4) which preserved the validity of some decisions even in the event of other non-compliance by a court; s66 shouldn't be interpreted as requiring its elements to be treated as jurisdictional facts.
Kiefel found that it 'It is not possible to infer that Parliament intended the obligation under s 66(2) to condition the validity of the sentencing process. Section 66(2) cannot be read in isolation and thereby elevated to a condition upon the exercise of the power under s 7(1)'. | 2023 |
74570033 | Unions NSW & Ors v. State of New South Wales | 2023-08-11 14:33:38+00:00 | Unions NSW & Ors v. State of New South Wales is a decision of the High Court of Australia.
The decision is significant as an application of Australia's the 'freedom of political communication' doctrine under the Australian Constitution.
The court applied the doctrine to decide that provisions in NSW's Electoral Funding Act. The provision as worded capped election-related political spending by political actors who aren't directly participating in the election ('third-party campaigners'). One of the resultant effects of the act was that trade unions were legally constrained in their ability to participate financially during an election.
Unions NSW challenged the act as unconstitutional. During the proceeding, a legislative committee of the NSW Parliament delivered a report recommending that the existing expenditure cap within the act of $20,000 be raised to $198,750. The NSW Government then conceded and submitted to the court that that the act should be held invalid in its prior form. The High Court then agreed that it was invalid because in that form; it had not justified the burden the section imposed on political communication.
An additional provision of the act made it an offence for third-party campaigners to act in concert with other people to incur electoral expenditure exceeding the applicable cap. Two weeks before the hearing, the NSW Parliament repealed that section. Unions NSW sought a declaration that the section as it stood prior to repeal was invalid. The High Court unanimously held that it was unable to provide relief as the act's repeal meant there was no 'matter' for it to engage with. | 2023 |
74574084 | Vunilagi v. The Queen | 2023-08-12 05:22:28+00:00 | Vunilagi v The Queen is a significant decision of the High Court of Australia concerning the nature of the laws of the self-governing Territories.
It is relevant to Australian constitutional law due to its application of the Kable doctrine, as well as for its finding that section 80 of the Australian Constitution does not require indictable offences under the laws of the ACT to be tried by jury.
The appeal concerned the constitutional validity of a provision in the Supreme Court Act 1933 (ACT). In reaction to the pandemic the ACT Supreme Court had suspended jury trials. The following day the legislative section s68BA was added to the act, empowering the court to order trial by judge alone without consent of the accused; for the duration of the pandemic.
Vulnilagi was convicted and argued on appeal that these provisions were invalid. His appeal was dismissed by the ACT Court of Appeal.
He then appealed to the High court, which held that the Kable doctrine did not render the legislation invalid. This was in part because the legislation required judges to exercise discretion in deciding whether or not to force a jury trial; and because the exercise of that discretion allowed for the accused to submit arguments about how it should be exercised, meaning that procedural fairness was given to the accused.
The court additionally held that the legislation did not infringe s80 of the constitution. The basis for this finding was that the section did not apply as the laws weren't Commonwealth indictable offences; and instead were laws of the ACT. | 2023 |
75023079 | Indonesia Hospital | 2023-10-10 14:15:08+00:00 | Indonesia Hospital (Arabic: المستشفى الإندونيسي, romanized: al-Mustashfá al-Indūnīsī, Indonesian: Rumah Sakit Indonesia) is a hospital located in Bait Lahia, North Gaza Governorate, Gaza Strip, Palestine.
The hospital has 100 ward beds, 4 operating theaters, and a 10-bed intensive care unit. The hospital had 400 staff members employed by the Health Minister of the Gaza Strip, and several volunteers from Indonesia.
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Construction of the hospital began in 2011 on 16,000 square meters of land donated by the government of Gaza. The project cost IDR 126 billion and was funded by donations from Indonesian people and organizations such as the Indonesian Red Cross Society and Muhammadiyah, collected through the Indonesian humanitarian organization Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C). Then-Indonesian Vice-president Jusuf Kalla inaugurated the hospital on 9 January 2016.
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On 20 November 2023, as part of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, the IDF completely surrounded and besieged the hospital. Israel claims that Hamas fighters were using the hospital for military purposes, although this is disputed. As of December 2023, the occupied building was later turned into an IDF military base.
The Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi issued the "harshest of condemnations" after the assault. She declared this during a diplomatic visit to China, who holds the presidency of the UNSC in November 2023, as an effort to push for a ceasefire on moral grounds.
Al Jazeera reported that on Friday, 24 November, Israeli forces attacked the hospital, leaving much of it damaged. A Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson and other reports said the patients and personnel were then evacuated.
In June 2024, the hospital reopened to patients as the only medical facility in northern Gaza. | 2023 |
74809118 | The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi | 2023-09-12 23:54:06+00:00 | The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is a 2023 historical fantasy novel by Shannon Chakraborty. It is the first novel in a planned trilogy.
In a frame story, pirate captain Amina al-Sirafi narrates her tale to the scribe Jamal.
After retiring, Amina lives a quiet life with her daughter Marjana. A woman named Salima tells Amina that her granddaughter Dunya is missing. Dunya’s father was Asif, one of Amina’s crew members who died under unclear circumstances. Dunya has disappeared after meeting with a Frankish mercenary and occultist named Falco Palamenestra. Amina recruits a team of her former crewmates to retrieve Dunya. These include Dalila, an expert poisoner; Tinbu, her first mate; and Majed, her navigator. They sail aboard the Marawati.
Amina learns that Dunya is leading Falco to the Moon of Saba, a pearl rumored to have magical powers. The pearl is said to have been given to Queen Bilqis by the moon manzil Al-Dabaran. The Marawati tracks Falco to Socotra. There, Amina is confronted by a demon named Raksh. Raksh is Amina’s husband, Marjana’s father, and the creature responsible for Asif’s death. He is still bound to Amina by their marriage contract and unbeknownst to Raksh, the existence of their daughter.
The Marawati rescues Dunya. She tells Amina that the Moon of Saba is not a pearl at all, but a wash basin that holds the spirit of Al-Dabaran. Dunya admits that she was not kidnapped; she went with Falco willingly because she has been questioning her gender identity and is fleeing an arranged marriage. Falco and his captive marid capture the Marawati. In exchange for Dunya’s cooperation, Falco agrees to let the Marawati’s crew live. He stabs Amina and throws her overboard.
Amina and Raksh wash ashore on a magical island. Amina drinks water from the island, which grants her magical powers. This violates the laws of the peri who rule the island; they believe in a strict separation between human and magical realms. Amina is granted permission to leave the island in exchange for hunting down five magical artifacts, including the Moon of Saba.
Amina has a flashback to the night that Asif died. Asif had died from a plague, but as a result of a contract with Raksh, his corpse rose from the dead and became violent. Amina was forced to burn the reanimated corpse, traumatizing herself and the rest of the crew.
Back on Socotra, Amina reaches Dunya and Falco just as they retrieve the Moon of Saba. Amina and Dunya destroy the Moon of Saba, free Al-Dabaran, and kill Falco. Amina and her crew agree to continue hunting down magical relics. Amina returned to her family. Dunya embraces the name Jamal and lives as a trans man. Amina refuses to return him to Salima. She begins to recount her adventures to Jamal and Marjana.
The story is narrated by Amina in first person narration as she speaks to a scribe. Throughout the book, interludes relate tales of the Moon of Saba.
The novel is set in the same universe as Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy, though it is set several centuries earlier.
In an interview with Kalyani Saxena, Chakraborty explains that she wrote the book during the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly between the hours of 4 A.M. and 6 A.M. before her daughter's online school began. This inspired the theme of motherhood which is explored in the novel. Chakraborty also stated that Amina's journey away from Islam and back to faith is "an intrinsic part of my religion and my journey ... I wanted to show that you can fail and you can do terrible things and you can still even struggle ... but that that’s okay."
Bookpage gave the novel a starred review, calling it "a swashbuckling high seas quest that’s rousing, profound, and irresistible." The review praised the chemistry between the main characters as well as the "impressively researched history" underpinning the setting. Kirkus gave the novel a starred review, writing that the novel has "swashbuckling that puts Sindbad to shame". The review praised Chakraborty's decision to use a middle-aged mother as a protagonist as opposed to the more common "young, inexperienced hero or ... grizzled loner veteran". Amina "exists in a society where women are expected to stay home and tend to family", and must balance her love for her daughter and her love for adventure.
Writing for the New York Times, author Tochi Onyebuchi noted that "there's a reason why 'one last job' remains such a popular and powerful subgenre". Onyebuchi also noted that "what is most refreshing about [the novel] is how concerned Amina is for the state of her soul." Despite the fact that she often drinks alcohol and misses prayer, he feels that "Amina's religiosity feels intimate and lived-in". He also praised the "adroit commentary on class conflict, piety, warfare and gender politics, particularly how these things are perpetuated through myth and storytelling". A review by Chris Kluwe in Lightspeed notes that the novel feels "like a heist movie à la Ocean’s Eleven or The Italian Job." Kluwe also commented on the snappy dialogue and the novel's complex portrayal of the major characters. Lacy Baugher Milas of Paste Magazine wrote that the novel is "one part traditional heist story and one part magical adventure". She believes that the novel pushes back against the traditional tropes in pirate stories, which can include "swordfights, rum, probably some treasure, [and] maybe a little misogyny". In contrast to many fantasy stories, in which the heroine may start as a young woman who goes on a journey of self-discovery, the novel starts in the middle of Amina's life. This is "a perspective and a character type we see very infrequently in this genre".
A review in Grimdark Magazine praised the "nuanced treatment of queer characters within the historical and religious context of the story" as well as the "weaving in of stories, using the past as something of a mythologized tale to create a larger-than-life version of Amina". Publishers Weekly praised the novel, stating "this swashbuckling adventure is sure to delight". The review positively commented on the cast, the plot, and the dry humor.
A review for Tor.com notes that the ending is "maybe a little too wacky", but praised the characterization of Amina and her crew. | 2023 |
75511378 | The Archive Undying | 2023-12-08 00:14:45+00:00 | The Archive Undying is a 2023 science fiction novel by Emma Mieko Candon. It is the first novel in a planned duology entitled The Downworld Sequence.
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Many city-states were once ruled by artificial intelligences. AIs were treated as gods; human archivists served as their priests. Over the centuries, many AIs became corrupted and died.
The Harbor, a group of human-run city-states, creates ENGINES cobbled together from pieces of dead AIs. An ENGINE is a mech that requires both an archive and a relic to pilot it. Relics are humans who are interfaced with an AI at the time of its corruption. An archive is a copy of an AI's memories; however, an archive is not sentient and has no self-coherence, requiring a human relic to direct it.
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Iterate Fractal is an AI and god of the city-state Khuon Mo. It is corrupted and destroys the city. Sunai is an archivist who becomes a relic as Iterate Fractal dies. He finds that after his resurrection, he is unable to age or be killed. After Iterate Fractal's death, the Harbor is unable to take complete control of Khuon Mo. They share the city with business magnate Madam Wei and her Ginger Company.
Seventeen years later, Sunai works as a salvager. He frequently indulges in alcohol, drugs, and casual sex while hiding from the Harbor. He is hired to join the crew of the salvage rig “Third Scrap”. Sunai has sex with Veyadi Lut, the rig's owner. Veyadi is one of Iterate Fractal's former archivists; Sunai worries that this indiscretion will expose his identity.
Sunai, Veyadi, and their crew explore the ruins of Chom Dan, where Veyadi served as an archivist after Iterate Fractal's death. Nearby, they discover a shrine that is home to an unknown AI. When Sunai tries to interact with the AI, it embeds itself into Sunai's mind and becomes his passenger.
Sunai reunites with Imaru, a former business partner and friend, who advises him on a potential job in Khuon Mo. The Harbor has finally found a way to create an ENGINE from Iterate Fractal's remains. Imaru wants to kill the ENGINE. Sunai and Veyadi join Imaru's rig “Never Once”, which is backed by Madam Wei. Wei plans to kill Iterate Fractal's relics whenever they are discovered; this is to prevent the Harbor from operating the ENGINE and gaining control of the city.
The party confronts Iterate Fractal's ENGINE. The ENGINE is also known as the Maw, as it tends to kill its relics accidentally. The Maw tries to assimilate Sunai, but fails and flees. The party reaches Khuon Mo. They meet Ruhi, one of Sunai's former lovers and a liaison for the Harbor. Sunai learns that Veyadi is also relic of Iterate Fractal. They are the only two surviving relics that can operate the Maw. Sunai realizes that there is no relic controlling the Maw, meaning that it is practically an independent AI. (The Harbor has kept this fact secret, as it goes against their stated anti-AI beliefs).
Imaru helps the Maw merge with Sunai. This kicks the passenger out of Sunai's brain and into Veyadi. The passenger reveals that it is the cause of all AI corruption; it was created by AI themselves as a check against their power. Ruhi has been working with the passenger; he attacks the city and tries to destroy Iterate Fractal's remaining archives. Veyadi and Sunai fight against Ruhi; Sunai bites out his throat and kills him.
Sunai and Veyadi weave the passenger into Ruhi's corpse, imprisoning it. They are both joined to the Maw, two relics sharing one ENGINE while retaining most of their individuality. They hope to keep Khuon Mo safe as the Harbor and remaining AI city-states jockey for control.
According to a review from Kirkus, the story contains interludes narrated by two different AIs, one of which is supposedly dead. These interludes are told in the second person. Additionally, "it's not always possible to tell who is narrating or experiencing various moments of the story, as consciousnesses merge and only incompletely separate."
In an interview published by LitHub, Candon wrote that the Harbor was inspired by Japanese history and her experiences as a fourth generation Japanese-American living in Hawaii. According to Candon, Japan's empire committed "incredible brutalities against China, against the Philippines, in Indonesia, all up and down the East Asian seaboard and down into Southeast Asia." At the same time, Japan's population was traumatized by the dropping of two atomic bombs on their population. In this way, Candon states that "[Japan] suffered, but is also responsible in some cultural regard for carrying the history of the brutalities it visited upon people." Candon writes that the mech genre is also tied to the trauma of World War II. In the novel, she states that "the Harbor and its original city state, all of the language that it uses, is very much Japanese adjacent". Additionally, the Harbor is "this group of people, after suffering one of these corruption events where their AI dies in a terrible way, decide we can never trust these entities again."
Publishers Weekly called the novel's setting "a fascinating if sometimes disorienting world of AI gods, dissolute hermits, and fantastical biotech constructs". The review praised the "emotional thread of trauma, guilt, and grief", while noting that the "elaborate, often evasive style" would be confusing to some readers. Molly Templetone of Tor.com called the novel "immersive and glorious", giving special praise to the complexity of Sunai's role as protagonist. Templeton also wrote that "the world is so densely, incredibly imagined, and tugs the reader along so swiftly, that it can sometimes feel like The Archive Undying is the second book in a series that skipped the first." Despite this criticism, the review concludes by calling The Archive Undying "transformative, lush, and dizzying ... an auspicious start to an intriguing series."
A review for Kirkus called the novel "intriguing but difficult to follow". The review stated that readers may wish for more explanations, and also wrote that there is "some important point being made about the nature of sentience, but it’s not 100% clear what that point is." Writing for the New York Times, author Amal El-Mohtar stated that "undeniably avid and assured intelligence animates the story". Nonetheless, El-Mohtar called the execution "mushy and oblique", stating that "giant robot fights are indisputably cool, but it’s hard to be invested in them when you don’t know why they’re fighting or what will happen if they win or lose." | 2023 |
75071839 | Blackouts (Torres novel) | 2023-10-16 18:51:04+00:00 | Blackouts is a 2023 historical fiction novel by Justin Torres, published by Macmillan Publishers. The book uses historical documents including the 1941 report Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns by the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants in addition to historical photographs and illustrations to supplement the narrative. The real life Sex Variants study was based on the research of journalist Helen Reitman (who was also known as Jan Gay), who conducted hundreds of interviews with gay and lesbian people in Europe and New York City in the 1920s and 30s. Eighty of these interviews and case histories were eventually included in the 1941 Sex Variants study, published by Dr. George W. Henry, which concluded that homosexuality is a pathological condition. Excerpts from these firsthand accounts, in redacted form (redacted by Torres for literary effect), are interspersed throughout the book.
The book won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction.
The book tells the story of Juan Gay, an old man who is living in an isolated institution known as The Palace. He is visited by the unnamed narrator (known affectionately by the nickname Nene) who has an interest in the life of Gay. Nene and Juan met briefly about a decade before when both were institutionalized at a mental hospital. And now Nene, suffering from gaps in his memory due to mental fugues, seeks the advice of Juan, whom he feels he can confide in. Gay had earlier discovered a copy of the 1941 medical book Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns and is distraught that the work of Jan Gay, the journalist who conducted the interviews featured in the book, has been co-opted by medical professionals who described homosexuality in a derisive way. Juan, who is nearing death, tasks the narrator with completing the work of Jan Gay as well as his own work; formulating a new narrative of queer identity and history to pass onto future generations.
According to the online review aggregator Book Marks, the novel received mostly "rave" reviews from critics. Regarding the novel's unconventional narrative, Charles Arrowsmith of The Washington Post stated: "In some ways it’s more like collage, an ingenious assemblage of research, vignette, image and conceit. Its “Blinkered Endnotes,” “Postface” and picture credits point to a thousand avenues of further interest." Writing for The New York Times, Joshua Barone stated that the novel is "A dreamy novel that unfurls among mixed media and Socratic dialogues, moving freely between fact and fiction as it proposes and complicates questions about how history is made..." Also writing for The New York Times, historian Hugh Ryan commended Torres for his ability to metaphorically depict how queer identity has been suppressed from the records throughout history, stating: "The supreme pleasure of the book is its slow obliteration of any firm idea of reality — a perfect metaphor for the delirious disorientation that comes with learning queer history as an adult."
Blackouts won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. | 2023 |
75956861 | Brainwyrms | 2024-01-30 17:06:39+00:00 | Brainwyrms is a 2023 body horror novel by the English author Alison Rumfitt, published by Cipher Press.
Brainwyrms is divided into three sections. While most of the book is told in the third person, the narrative is occasionally interrupted by the author directly addressing the reader. Throughout the book, the flow of time is non-linear, and the thoughts and emotions of the characters are often conveyed through the use of flashbacks, dreams, and stream of consciousness.
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Frankie, a British trans woman that works at a gender identification clinic, is the survivor of a terrorist attack at her workplace. Frankie is heavily involved in the London kink scene, and fantasises about being impregnated. At a sex club, Frankie is drawn to a young enby called Vanya Niedzwiecki. After striking up a conversation about their fetishes, Frankie pulls Vanya into a bathroom stall and urinates on their face. Vanya stays the night at Frankie’s flat, and wakes up after Frankie has gone to her new job as a content moderator for a social media website. Panicking, Vanya calls their dom, Gaz, who tells them that they will be punished for their disobedience. Samantha, a self-professed transsexual, attends a meeting with a group of gender critical feminists. Jennifer Caldwell, a famous children's author that has been cancelled for expressing gender critical views, has been invited as an honoured guest. When Caldwell arrives, she expresses her contempt for Samantha's gender identity and naivety. It is revealed that Caldwell’s body is host to a colony of parasitic alien worms. As Samantha is “one of the good ones,” Caldwell tells her that she will be spared from the horrors that are to come. The members of the meeting descend on Samantha, and have sex with one another over her mutilated corpse.
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As their relationship with Frankie deepens, Vanya reminisces about their childhood. Vanya's older brother, who now lives in Poland, went unpunished for sexually assaulting them as a teenager. Vanya's mother, a care worker, is cold towards her child, and is disgusted by Vanya's weight and burgeoning sexuality. As a teenager, Vanya joins a message board for fetishists that deliberately infect themselves with parasites. Gaz, Vanya's future dom, welcomes them into the community. Vanya is groomed by Gaz into inserting fox faeces into their vagina. When the resulting infection hospitalises them, Vanya runs away to live with Gaz, who enables their self-infestation. Vanya's mother, who has become increasingly radicalised by anti-trans material on the internet, disowns them. In the present, Gaz throws a party at his father’s mansion for Vanya. Frankie is off-put by Gaz’s wealth, pomposity, and use of transphobic slurs. Gaz offers Frankie a drink and tells her that Vanya is waiting in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Frankie engages in cunnilingus with Vanya, but is horrified when she sees that Vanya’s vagina is infected with worms. Screaming obscenities at Vanya, Frankie locks herself in the bathroom, and passes out after trying to purge her body of the worms. Frankie wakes up to Vanya giving her a bath, who tells her that she was hallucinating. When Frankie tells Vanya that Gaz spiked her drink, Vanya says that they were hurt by Frankie's behaviour, and asks her to never contact them again. Frankie enters a depressive spiral, and becomes addicted to doom scrolling. After several days of binge reading anti-trans posts on Twitter, Frankie posts a death threat towards Jennifer Caldwell.
Xavier, Vanya's trans younger brother, is a member of an LGBT+ youth group. His father is supportive, but he suggests to Xavier that he hides his attendance from his mother for the time being. After attending the group, Xavier comes home to find that his mother has beaten his father to death with a rolling pin. His mother reveals that she knew Xavier was attending the youth group behind her back, and she boasts that she blew up the gender identity clinic to stop him from transitioning. She stabs Xavier to death with a kitchen knife, and takes her own life by sinking the knife into her face.
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Frankie is fired after her death threat is picked up by The Times. As she sinks further into self-harm and suicidal ideation, a vodka billboard near Frankie’s flat featuring two trans women is set on fire. After drunkenly wandering to Gaz’s house, Frankie realises that she would not be welcome, and walks to a seedy gay bar for casual sex. After sharing her impregnation fetish with a man in the toilets, Frankie is slammed to the floor. The man covers Frankie's face with her tights, and she is bundled into a taxi to Gaz’s house. In the basement, Gaz and his father are hosting an orgy for some of the most influential figures in Britain, all of whom have been infected with the worms. Jennifer Caldwell attempts to impregnate Frankie and transport her to the worms’ home dimension. Frankie's face covering is removed, and the ritual is interrupted by Vanya when they recognise Frankie. Enraged that their offering is incapable of getting pregnant, Gaz tells the revellers to seize them, but Vanya and Frankie escape through a portal opened by Caldwell.
As they walk along the coastline of an alien world, Frankie’s stomach begins to swell, and she realises that the “pregnancy” has taken hold. An enormous white worm erupts from her abdomen and ascends into the sky, “an enemy that humanity could be united in its stand against it.” As Frankie lays dying on the beach, she hopes that her child will make humanity pay.
The characters and events of Brainwyrms draw heavy inspiration from the history of the gender critical movement in the 2010s and early 2020s. Real-world British newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian are mentioned throughout the text, as is their alleged complicity in providing a platform for transphobic bigotry. J. K. Rowling, an English author that publicly aligned herself with gender critical figures in the late 2010s, shares several similarities with Jennifer Caldwell, the primary antagonist of the novel. Caldwell's best-selling book series about "a little girl and her witch friends," an innuendo of Rowling's Harry Potter series, made her a billionaire. Prior to her involvement in the gender critical movement, Caldwell was lauded for using her wealth to found a charity for sick children; an allusion to Lumos, a charity founded by Rowling in 2005. In Part Two, there is a reference to "an old sitcom about men working in an IT department." This is an allusion to The IT Crowd, a sitcom by the Irish gender critical activist Graham Linehan. Frankie, the transgender protagonist of the novel, describes her transition as "irreparable damage," a play on the title of Irreversible Damage by the American journalist Abigail Shrier.
On Goodreads, Brainwyrms has an aggregate rating of 3.73 out of 5. Megan Milks of The New York Times reviewed the book positively, calling it "smart, seething social horror that is forthright in its use of fiction to react to real-world terrors." Paula Lacey of The Skinny gave the book 4 stars out of 4, describing it as "an eviscerating exploration of queer dating and shame." Josh Hanson of FanFiAddict gave a critical review: "In the end, the allegory feels as weak as a biting internet comment, [...] and the ideas are finally not very interesting. Rumfitt’s analysis of TERF ideology as sexual fetish offers little more than warmed-over Freudianism." | 2023 |
73545391 | Canadian Pacific Kansas City | 2023-04-14 12:50:54+00:00 | Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, doing business as CPKC, is a Canadian railway holding company that resulted from the merger of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) on April 14, 2023. It operates about 32,000 kilometres (20,000 mi) of rail in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and is the only single-line railway ever to connect the three countries. CPKC is headquartered in Calgary and led by President and CEO Keith Creel.
Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) announced on March 21, 2021, that it was planning to purchase Kansas City Southern (KCS) for US $29 billion.
Thirty days later, Canadian National Railway (CN) issued a competing offer of $33.7 billion. But in August, the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) blocked the CN deal, ruling that the company could not use a voting trust to assume control of KCS because it might reduce competition in the railroad industry.
On September 12, 2021, KCS accepted a new $31 billion offer from CP and terminated its agreement with CN. KCS's shareholders voted to approve the merger on December 10, 2021. The STB had already ruled that CP's plan to use a voting trust to take control of KCS would not hamper competition. The voting trust allowed CP to become the beneficial owner of KCS in December 2021, but the two railroads operated independently until receiving approval for a merger of operations from the STB. Keith Creel, President and CEO of CP and future CEO of the merged company, chose the name for the new company as a way to honor the long history of the two companies.
Union Pacific and BNSF Railway raised objections to the merger with the STB. Both companies were concerned about CPKC's projected increase in traffic because it would unduly congest UP owned tracks through the Houston area (Houston, West Belt, East Belt, Beaumont, Harrisburg and Glidden Subdivisions), where both UP and BNSF (the latter of which operates in the Houston area through a combination of owned tracks and trackage and haulage rights on UP tracks) operate a large amount of daily traffic. CPKC has trackage rights from Beaumont to Rosenberg.
At the STB hearings, CP and KCS defended their merger proposal, arguing that Houston has sufficient capacity to support the projected increases in traffic. Creel argued that receiving and departure tracks at the west end of Englewood Yard, UP's main yard in Houston, could be lengthened to accommodate longer trains. UP responded that although they had a plan to expand the yard, it could not proceed until environmental cleanup around Englewood was completed. (Decades ago, Southern Pacific operated a facility in Englewood for the creosote treatment of railroad ties, and accidental spills of the substance caused severe contamination in the neighborhoods surrounding the yard.) The STB suggested, to mediate between the disputing parties, the possibility that, pending approval of the merger, KCS apply to UP for trackage rights from Texarkana to Laredo, via San Antonio and Austin to reroute some of its north-south traffic through there, bypassing Houston.
The two companies demanded that CPKC perform construction work on new sidings on both the lines that meet in the Houston area and on Brownsville Subdivision between Placedo and Robstown, near Corpus Christi, where CPKC trains leave the UP tracks in South Texas.
Metra also opposed the merger, along with a group of West suburban Chicago communities (DuPage County, Bartlett, Bensenville, Elgin, Itasca, Hanover Park, Roselle, Wood Dale and Schaumburg) on the Milwaukee District West Line, arguing that the projected increase in traffic would bring delays in the provision of Metra's passenger rail service, as well as a decrease in the quality of life and the negative consequences on economic development in the communities located along the line.
In STB hearings, Canadian National, who had already lost KCS to CP, presented a plan to acquire the KCS line—the former Gateway Western, which linked Kansas City to Springfield, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and East St. Louis, Illinois—tie it to its former Illinois Central Gilman Subdivision, and thus create via both Springfield and via St. Louis a new corridor between Kansas City, Michigan and eastern Canada. This would bypass Chicago, and, according to the plan presented by CN, divert 80,000 long-haul truck shipments to rail annually. The plan included the improvement of the corridor, valued at more than US$250 million. A few months later, CN resigned its intentions to purchase the Springfield Line to try to obtain trackage rights on the line, always with the same intention of creating the corridor proposed in the original plan to purchase the line filed with the STB. The STB would ultimately reject plans submitted by CN to operate on the Springfield Line.
Despite all the objections raised at the hearings, the final approval of the merger came on March 15, 2023, and the merger was completed on April 14, 2023.
The merger created the first and only single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with an approximately 32,000-kilometre (20,000 mi) network. Fully integrating the two railroads is expected to take up to three years.
Seven days after the merger, the company announced that it had landed its first major contract, handling Schneider National intermodal traffic between the U.S. and Mexico. On April 25, it signed a similar agreement with Knight-Swift. The announcement was seen as backing up pre-merger projections that CPKC's single-line service would enable it to compete in the Chicago–Mexico corridor that had been dominated by the Union Pacific and BNSF. In response, on April 24, Union Pacific responded by announcing a partnership with Canadian National Railway and Grupo México (owner of Ferromex and Ferrosur) to work together to accelerate the exchange of intermodal traffic between Mexico and Chicago or further north into Canada.
On May 11, 2023, CPKC launched its new service "Mexico Midwest Express (MMX)", numbered I180 and I181, which is mainly oriented to intermodal and automobile transportation, and also provides an approximate travel time of 98 hours between Chicago and Kansas City to Monterrey and San Luis Potosi, shorter travel times than those offered by the "Falcon Premium" service of UP, CN and Grupo México. Previously, and as part of preparatory moves for the day after the merger, CP and KCS launched a series of test interline services between the Lázaro Cárdenas Port in the Michoacán Mexican state, and the Bensenville Yard in Chicago.
On June 28, 2023, CPKC announced the intent to jointly acquire with CSX Transportation the Meridian and Bigbee Railroad (MNBR). The MNBR creates a connection 168 miles (270 km) between CSX in Montgomery, Alabama and Meridian, Mississippi, where it joins the Meridian Speedway westbound. Under the proposed agreement, CPKC would acquire the 50.4 miles (81.1 km) segment of the line between Meridian and Myrtlewood, Alabama, so-called Western Line, while CSX, in a nearly separate transaction, will resume operations on the so-called Eastern Line, between Myrtlewood and Montgomery, terminating the lease currently in place with MNBR. MNBR will cease operating between Myrtlewood and Montgomery, although it may continue to operate between Meridian and Myrtlewood and serve existing customers on that segment of the line. If the STB approves the transaction, this will provide a new direct connection between the two companies' networks (CSX and CPKC already have connections New Orleans and in St. Louis, Missouri). In compensation, MNBR owner Genesee & Wyoming would receive CPKC properties in Alberta along with rights on CPKC lines. The connection through the MNBR line will allow CSX traffic destined for Mexico to be delivered directly to CPKC, eliminating the need for a third intermediary railroad to move such traffic. Currently, CSX traffic bound for Mexico is exchanged with the Union Pacific in New Orleans, who then takes it to the cross-border gateway in Laredo, Texas, where it is delivered to CPKC.
On April 24, 2024, as part of the company's first anniversary celebrations, the Steam locomotive CPR #2816 known as "The Empress" was launched on a historic transnational tour that will travel most of CPKC's network from Calgary, ending June 25 in Mexico City.
CPKC operates approximately 32,000 kilometres (20,000 mi) of rail across Canada, Mexico and the United States. As of April 2023, CPKC has around 20,000 employees. CPKC has its global headquarters in Calgary, Alberta Canada with its U.S headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, and its Mexico headquarters in Mexico City and Monterrey.
Company executives said that merging CP and KCS would be "straightforward" because the railroads only touch at Kansas City, and interchange volumes were relatively low, with about four trains per day as of September 2021. They also cited that the two companies largely used the same back-office information technology systems.
The railroad maintains its own police force, the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Police.
CPKC inherited and renewed CP's existing sponsorship of the Canadian Women's Open golf tournament in July 2023, extending it through 2026.
In October 2023, CPKC and the Kansas City Current of the National Women's Soccer League announced a 10-year naming rights deal for the Current's new stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, the first stadium ever constructed specifically for a professional women's sports team. | 2023 |
73915879 | European Sleeper | 2023-05-30 03:08:00+00:00 | European Sleeper (stylised as european sleeper) is a Belgian-Dutch cooperative which operates a thrice-weekly open-access night train service between Brussels and Prague, with plans to expand to daily service in the near future. There are also plans for services linking Amsterdam, Brussels and Barcelona via France, expected to commence during the spring of 2025.
European Sleeper was launched in 2021, with an announcement in April 2021 of a proposal to operate a sleeper train service between Brussels and Prague, with Czech operator RegioJet announced as a partner, providing rolling stock as well as hauling the service in Germany and the Czech Republic. The National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB) would be responsible for hauling the service in Belgium, and at the time an operator had not been selected yet to haul the service in the Netherlands. The service was expected to begin in spring of 2022, and a second service was slated to begin in December that year.
Around the same time, Belgian startup Moonlight Express announced its intention to commence night train services between Berlin and Brussels, via Liège, with an expected commencement date of April 2022. Having been announced at around the same time, coincidentally, both services from European Sleeper and Moonlight Express were also scheduled to begin at around the same time.
In May 2021, European Sleeper launched a crowdfunding campaign and managed to raise €500,000 in seed capital by selling shares in the cooperative to more than 350 small investors, reportedly in just fifteen minutes.
One month later, in June 2021, it was announced European Sleeper and Moonlight Express would join forces, with the combined entity taking up the European Sleeper name and pursuing the European Sleeper proposal of a Brussels to Prague route with a start date of spring 2022.
A subsequent fundraising round was launched just before the summer of 2022, with €2,000,000 worth of shares sold to 1400 investors. Around the same time, the company announced that the Brussels to Prague route would be indefinitely delayed, with no revised start date provided.
In June 2022, a partnership with tour operator Sunweb Group was announced, with plans to start new night train services between the Netherlands and French ski resorts by the summer of 2023, and an extension to Southern France the following year. In November, it was announced by the two parties that these plans would be put on hold, citing difficulties in securing rolling stock, track access rights and an operator for the services.
The cooperative announced in December that the planned Brussels to Prague route would initially terminate in Berlin due to track capacity constraints imposed for 2023, with German authorities only permitting one long-distance train every two hours south of Dresden due to infrastructure works. The scaled-back route would commence operations on 25 May 2023 with a view to extending service to Prague to complete the original proposal in December 2023, dependent on whether track rights can be secured. The company cited the lack of availability of suitable rolling stock as its biggest challenge, and said that the service would initially operate with leased rolling stock, with plans to purchase new rolling stock afoot, with plans eventually calling for services to be operated with a mix of new and refurbished rolling stock.
European Sleeper's proposed service from Amsterdam to Barcelona was selected in January 2023 to be a pilot project as part of the European Commission's efforts to improve cross-border rail service and encourage new links to be established. It joins two other night train proposals from Snälltaget and Midnight Trains.
Bookings for the service opened on 20 February, with tickets only able to be purchased through the European Sleeper website. Work is in progress to allow tickets to be booked with Interrail passes.
Services commenced on 25 May 2023, with the inaugural service running from Berlin towards Brussels, arriving at its Belgian terminus 45 minutes behind schedule. Deputy Prime Minister and Mobility Minister of Belgium Georges Gilkinet met the service at Brussels South on its arrival on the morning of the 26th and saw off the train on its return leg to Berlin that evening.
In June 2023, a third fundraising round for €3 million of growth capital was announced, which will open on 21 June and be available to both new and existing investors, who can invest at a starting price of €250, with shares worth €3 to be issued. The cooperative announced it would be the last fundraising opportunity for some time. Funds raised would go towards enabling technical integrations to sell tickets through additional sales channels, hiring a restaurant car for the existing service, preparing service expansions to Prague as well as the proposed services between Amsterdam and Barcelona and ordering new rolling stock. At the same time, the cooperative announced it had sold 10,000 tickets for its existing Berlin-Brussels service, with expectations that €5-6 million worth of tickets would be sold by the year's end. It also announced that Interrail and Eurail passes would be able to be used on services from 1 July, with reservations able to be made from 12 June.
European Sleeper's only service between Berlin and Brussels commenced operations on the 25 May 2023. The service was thrice-weekly, with trains from Brussels to Berlin via Amsterdam leaving on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and trains from Berlin to Brussels via Amsterdam leaving on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. As of 26 March 2024, European Sleeper extended this service to Prague.
In an article in The Sunday Times about the inaugural Brussels to Berlin service, travel writer Kate Leahy commented, "Orient Express-style luxury this is not," but concluded they were "undeniably an adventure." The Man in Seat Sixty-One praised the friendly staff, beds and meals provided. | 2023 |
73775913 | TransPennine Express | 2023-05-11 08:47:31+00:00 | TransPennine Trains Limited, trading as TransPennine Express, is a British train operating company that has operated the TransPennine Express franchise area services since 28 May 2023. It runs regional and inter-city rail services between the major cities and towns of Northern England and Scotland. The company, which is government-owned, was established following poor performance by the previous operator, also called TransPennine Express. It has carried over the rolling stock, passenger services, and branding.
During the early 2020s, the incumbent operator of the TransPennine Express franchise, FirstGroup's TransPennine Express, suffered severe disruption of its services, which was largely attributable to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022–2023 United Kingdom railway strikes.
On 11 May 2023, following numerous cancellations and service disruptions, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced that First Group's contract to operate the franchise would not be renewed and, as a result, TPE would cease operations on 28 May 2023. In its place, operations were taken over by operator of last resort (OLR) TransPennine Trains.
The performance of TransPennine Trains has been criticised, being amongst the least punctual train operators during 2023 and having a cancellation rate that exceeded one in eight trains during summer 2023. In October 2023, the operator announced that it would be temporarily cutting services from 320 services per day to 300, reducing off-peak trains between the cities of Leeds and Manchester, with the goal of improving both punctuality and reliability. TransPennine Trains' managing director, Chris Jackson, stated that this move allowed for greater driver training and helped to stabilise the timetable, and that the operator would reintroduce the full timetable by December 2024 at the latest. Shortly thereafter, the company released a new timetable comparison tool to aid customers in interpreting the service levels and changes enacted.
During early December 2023, TransPennine Trains' services were disrupted by industrial action as the train drivers belonging to the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) trade union implemented a ban on overtime and a series of rolling strikes. That same month, the operator reinstated direct train services between Castleford and York for the first time in 50 years; this service change was facilitated by recent infrastructure improvement work undertaken as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU).
TransPennine Trains took over all services operated by its predecessor, TransPennine Express, on 28 May 2023.
The TransPennine Express routes are subdivided into three operations:
North Route, which includes all routes that pass through the core section between Manchester station group and Leeds;
Anglo-Scottish Route, which consists of services on the West Coast Main Line;
South Route, which includes services running on the Hope Valley line and the South Humberside Main Line.
As of December 2023, the following services operate off-peak, seven days a week:
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Following the December 2023 timetable change the following changes are made to services during peak hours:
A Northern Trains service between Huddersfield and Castleford was transferred to TransPennine Express. This was converted to a peak hour extension of the Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield service to extend to York calling additionally at Deighton, Mirfield, Wakefield Kirkgate, and Normanton. This service runs 1 train every 2 hours at peak times.
The Hull Paragon to Manchester Piccadilly service terminates at Manchester Victoria instead of Manchester Piccadilly and does not stop at stations between Leeds and Huddersfield. It also makes an additional stop at Stalybridge. 2 trains a day run to Liverpool Lime Street calling additionally at Lea Green (2tpd) and Newton-le-Willows (1tpd). Only the first train makes a return trip to Hull Paragon calling at Lea Green.
Additional hourly services are added between Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds and some Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield services are extended to Leeds. These services have varying stopping patterns ranging from stopping at all stations to only stopping at Huddersfield. These services allow for more express services between Manchester and Leeds as well as ensuring 2tph to stations between Manchester and Leeds during peak times
Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle services will sometimes not stop at Stalybridge or Dewsbury during peak times due to the Manchester Victoria to Hull Paragon (Stalybridge) and Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds (Dewsbury) services stopping at these stations instead. 1tpd in each direction will not stop at Lea Green due to the Liverpool Lime Street to Hull Paragon service calling there instead.
Upon commencing operations, TransPennine Express inherited the fleet of the previous franchisee. Various minor refurbishment programmes were quickly enacted. The oldest trains in the fleet, the Class 185 multiple-units, were subject to an interior deep clean, which included the replacement of all carpets. Furthermore, all of the seats were recovered and improvements to the onboard toilet facilities were made. By late 2023, TransPennine Express had also formulated its new trains programme, a longer-term initiative in which the operator stated its intention to introduce new technologies to support decarbonisation, the acceleration of efforts to cascade and eventually entirely remove diesel trains from its fleet, and enact a new long-term depot and maintenance strategy.
During September 2023, following a radical review by the DfT, it was announced that TransPennine Express's Nova 3 train sets, comprising Class 68 diesel locomotives hauling rakes of Mark 5A carriages, had been scheduled for withdrawal. This rolling stock was relatively new, yet had been beset by multiple challenges including technical issues, driver training, a downturn in passengers due to COVID-19, and noise complaints from neighbours of the Scarborough maintenance facility, which resulted in a persistently low utilisation rate being achieved. The DfT believes that the withdrawal of the Nova 3 sets can be adequately offset by maximising the utilisation of other trains, such as 19 Class 802 bi-mode train sets and the Class 185 DMUs. Chris Jackson, managing director of TransPennine Express, has advocated for the need to simplify the operator's fleet, resource planning, and overall business strategy.
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72635493 | 16bit Sensation | 2023-01-01 10:32:50+00:00 | 16bit Sensation: Watashi to Minna ga Tsukutta Bishōjo Game (Japanese: 16bitセンセーション 私とみんなが作った美少女ゲーム, Hepburn: Jūroku Bitto Sensēshon Watashi to Minna ga Tsukutta Bishōjo Gēmu, "16bit Sensation: The Bishōjo Game Made by All of You and I") is a Japanese manga conceptualized by Misato Mitsumi, Tatsuki Amazuyu, and Tamiki Wakaki and illustrated by Wakaki. It was first launched as a dōjinshi at Comic Market 91 in December 2016; Kadokawa Shoten started publishing it in collected tankōbon volumes in September 2020, with two volumes released as of November 2021. An anime television series adaptation, titled 16bit Sensation: Another Layer and produced by Studio Silver, aired from October to December 2023.
Konoha Akisato (秋里 コノハ, Akisato Konoha)
Voiced by: Aoi Koga
A 19-year-old budding illustrator working at the video game company Blue Bell, who finds herself in the year 1992 and does part-time work for Alcohol Soft. She is very passionate about bishōjo games. She usually speaks in the third person. Konoha is an anime-original character, although she appears in the final chapter of the manga series.
Mamoru Rokuda (六田 守, Rokuda Mamoru)
Voiced by: Atsushi Abe
He works as a programmer at Alcohol Soft, and is the son of the company owner. Some years later, he is still at the company, but refuses to make a game on a computer system using Windows 95 as he is very dedicated to the PC-98 platform. In the seventh episode of the anime, he is transported back in time. In the present timeline, he assists Konoha in her time travels. He is the only staff member in Alcohol Soft who knows that Konoha came from the future.
Kaori Shimoda (下田 かおり, Shimoda Kaori)
Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi
She works at Alcohol Soft as a concept art, line art, and CG illustrator. In 1992, she and Maiko bring Konoha into the building after she asks Mamoru for help. Later, she asks Konoha to bring back Mamoru, who refuses to work on any game except one produced with PC-98. In the original manga series, and in some episodes of the anime adaptation, she is often seen wearing a cat hat.
Meiko Uehara (上原 メイ子, Uehara Meiko)
Voiced by: Yui Horie
The protagonist of the original manga series. She works at Alcohol Soft as a concept and line art illustrator, and is learning to become a programmer. She pushes to give Konoha a chance at Alcohol Soft.
Masaru Rokuda (六田 勝, Rokuda Masaru)
Voiced by: Kentarō Itō
The manager of Alcohol Soft. He is Mamoru's father. He later gets unknowingly involved with financial fraud, almost bringing down Alcohol Soft.
Kiyoshi Gomikawa (五味川 清, Gomikawa Kiyoshi)
Voiced by: Jun Fukushima
He is a scenario writer at Alcohol Soft and often wears a mask covering his eyes.
Toya Yamada (山田 冬夜, Yamada Tōya)
Voiced by: Aya Yamane
A 19-year-old shy girl who Konoha meets, when she time travels to 1996, and buys eroge bishōjo games with Konoha's moral support. When she comes upon Konoha later, in 1999, she is a well-known illustrator who is promoting her game. In the future, she becomes the CEO of a large video game company.
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Illustrated by Tamiki Wakaki, in collaboration with Misato Mitsumi and Tatsuki Amazuyu on the story, and based on their real-life experiences at Aquaplus, 16bit Sensation was first distributed as a dōjinshi at Comic Market on December 31, 2016. Kadokawa Shoten started publishing the manga in collected tankōbon volumes on September 14, 2020. As of November 6, 2021, two volumes have been released.
Volumes
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In December 2022, it was announced that the manga would receive an anime adaptation. The adaptation was later announced by Aniplex at AnimeJapan to be a television series titled 16bit Sensation: Another Layer. It was animated by Studio Silver and directed by Takashi Sakuma, with an original story written by Tatsuya Takahashi and Wakaki, character designs by Masakatsu Sakaki, and music composed by Yashikin. It aired from October 5 to December 28, 2023, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme song is "65535", performed by Shoko Nakagawa, while the ending theme song is "Link~past and future~", performed by Aoi Koga as her character Konoha Akisato. Crunchyroll licensed the series. Muse Communication licensed the series in Southeast Asia.
Episodes
The anime adaptation was received positively. Christopher Farris reviewed the first three episodes for Anime News Network, arguing it is a series steeped in "niche nostalgia" with references that only some would know, arguing that Konoha is an energetic and effective guide to introduce audiences to this nostalgia, and praising the performance of her voice actress, Aoi Koga. Farris also notes the cultural framework of the adaptation, which is partially a spinoff from the original manga which "entirely took place in the 1990s," and notes the unique approach of the series to its material, and to otaku culture. In her review of the first episode, Cy Catwell of Anime Feminist noted that it tells a story of how Konoha gets a "second chance" to use her passion to more than "her current job" in 2023, called it "really cute", and said there was a potential for the series to become a feminist series which engages with "the feminine experience with eroticism and adult media".
In the three-episode check-in on Anime Feminist, Alex Henderson said the series was becoming "something entertaining and pretty interesting," as a "love letter" to the 1990s, said they are enjoying the characters, and hoped that Mamoru and Konoha did not become "love interests". Steven Blackburn of Screen Rant said that the series offers "a unique twist on the typical isekai genre," with parallels between her predicament in 2023 and where she ends up after opening a game. Hosts of Anime News Network's "This Week in Anime" noted that Konoha proselytizes about the "storied output" of Key and other works, describing Konoha as a "wondrous recreation of a modern nerd".
大物クリエイターと人気漫画家が強力タッグ！ 在りし日の「美少女ゲーム業界」が赤裸々に描かれる. Da Vinci News (in Japanese). Kadokawa Corporation. October 20, 2020.
1990年代のエロゲー業界漫画『16bitセンセーション』はいかにして生まれた？ 作者・若木民喜、原案・みつみ美里＆甘露樹に直撃. Famitsu (in Japanese). December 27, 2020. | 2023 |
73754882 | All That We Loved | 2023-05-08 16:03:55+00:00 | All That We Loved (Korean: 우리가 사랑했던 모든 것) is a 2023 South Korean teen romance comedy television series written by Kang Yoon, directed by Kim Jin-sung, and starring Sehun, Jo Joon-young and Jang Yeo-bin. It was released on TVING in South Korea from May 5 to 26, 2023, every Friday at 14:00 (KST). It is also available for streaming on Viki and Viu in selected regions.
It tells about the friendship and love that everyone has thought about at least once in their childhood. A high-teen romance with cellular memory that takes place when 18-year-old best friends Go Yoo and Go Joon-hee, who become similar to each other after a kidney transplant, and fall in love with a transfer student Han So-yeon at the same time.
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Sehun as Go Yoo: a basketball genius who donates a kidney to his best friend Joon-hee.
Ki Eun-yoo as young Go Yoo
Cho Jun-young as Go Joon-hee: Yoo's best friend who is weak and needs a kidney transplant but experiences a 'cellular memory' after receiving it.
Kim Si-woo as young Go Joon-hee
Jang Yeo-bin as Han So-yeon: a girl who's both Yoo and Joon-hee fall in love. She boasts a pretty appearance and a clear brain, but does not get close to people well.
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Jung Hye-sun as Madam Mo: Joon-hee's biological grandmother and Yoo's adoptive grandmother.
Lee Seung-joon as Yoo's father
Park Eun-hye as Yoo's mother
Jeon Yeong-in as Ahn Soon-tak: Yoo and Joon-Hee's classmate.
Baek Min-hyun as adult Ahn Soon-tak: a second doctor at Go Psychiatric Center.
Myung Jae-hwan as the homeroom teacher
Kwon Hyuk-beom as Jeon Sang-gyu: a bully transfer senior student.
Kwon Oh-geon as Go Joon-young: Joon-hee's older brother.
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Song Jae-rim as Doctor Go: a psychiatrist at Go Psychiatric Center.
Jung Yoo-jin as adult Han So-yeon
Woo Ji-won as a teacher
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Developed under the working title Love, Do It (Korean: 시랑, 하라고; RR: Sarang, harago), All That We Loved was written by Kang Yoon, directed by Kim Jin-sung, who worked on MBC TV hit dramas such as Queen Seondeok and Gu Family Book. Filming began in April 2022.
Studio HIM managed the production of the series.
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In March 2022, media reported that Sehun, Jang Yeo-bin, and Cho Jun-young were cast to play the lead characters for the series, and they were officially confirmed on July 27, 2022.
All That We Loved was supposed to be released in 2022 but months later it was changed to 2023. TVING then confirmed the release date which unveiled on May 5, 2023, releasing two episodes every Friday at 14:00 (KST), with a total of eight episodes. It is also available to stream on Viki and Viu in selected regions. | 2023 |
73008007 | Theodor Andrei | 2023-02-11 22:22:16+00:00 | Theodor-Octavian Andrei (Romanian: [te.oˈdor oktaviˈan anˈdrej]; born 9 October 2004), known professionally as Theodor Andrei, is a Romanian singer-songwriter and actor, most famous for representing Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "D.G.T. (Off and On)".
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Theodor Andrei made himself known while participating in the 2017 talent show Vocea României Junior, the Romanian version of The Voice Kids, where he reached the semi-final. In 2020, he took part in the local version of X Factor, where he stopped at bootcamps.
His debut album, Fragil., was released in 2022. In 2022, he received the Myosotis Award at Radar de Media Awards for the best creation of a singer-songwriter, for the song "Artist".
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In December 2022, Andrei participated in Selecția Națională 2023, to select the Romanian Eurovision representative. "D.G.T. (Off and On)", his song for the competition, had been released as an album track in collaboration with Luca Udățeanu; he released a 3-minute solo version for the contest. On 11 February he was voted the winner.
At Eurovision he participated in the second semi-final on 11 May 2023, but failed to qualify for the grand final. It was later revealed that he had finished in second-to-last place in the semi-final, tied with San Marino on 0 points. Since then Andrei spoke out about the treatment that he faced working with TVR such as rejecting all the ideas he had for staging for his performance in Liverpool and imposing a slower revamp to his song.
Theodor Andrei took this opportunity to announce his first UK concert in London organised by Platform '96 called Stage 002 on the 28th of July at The Water Rats, a renowned venue steeped in music history with Bob Dylan, The Pogues, and Oasis playing their first gigs. Platform '96 promised Stage 002 to be his redemption arc. His set was one hour long and included songs from his album Fragil., Eurovision Medleys, as well as covers from various artists of various genres, such as Frank Sinatra, Eminem, Madcon, Bruno Mars, Måneskin, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more. Theodor also invited his girlfriend Diana as a special guest to surprise the audience with duos and dance breaks.
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72953212 | Brunette (singer) | 2023-02-05 20:59:27+00:00 | Elen Yeremyan (Armenian: Էլեն Երեմյան; born 27 May 2001), known professionally as Brunette (Armenian: Բրյունետ), is an Armenian singer-songwriter. She represented Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "Future Lover", finishing in 14th place.
Brunette has been singing since the age of four and writing music since the age of fifteen.
Brunette released her debut single "Love the Way You Feel" at the age of 18 in collaboration with Nvak Foundation in September 2019. She later became a member of Project 12, a Yerevan-based musical collective performing at night clubs. Brunette is also a member of the girl group "En aghjiknery" (ThoseGirlz), which is known for the 2022 single "Menq". In 2022, Brunette released the singles "Gisher", "Smoke Break" and "Bac kapuyt achqerd"; the latter of the two went viral on social media.
On 1 February 2023, it was announced that Brunette was internally chosen to represent Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. Her Eurovision song "Future Lover" was released on 15 March 2023. Brunette performed at the second semi-final on 11 May 2023, placing sixth and qualifying for the final. She ultimately placed 14th, with a score of 122 points, in the final on 13 May 2023.
In May 2024, Brunette was selected to announce Armenia's jury points at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.
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73009522 | The Busker | 2023-02-12 02:25:24+00:00 | The Busker is a Maltese indie pop band founded in 2012, consisting of three members, namely David "Dav.Jr" Meilak (born 11 October 1994), Jean Paul Borg (born 27 August 1993), and Sean Meachen (born 19 November 1993). The band represented Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "Dance (Our Own Party)", which peaked at number one in their home country of Malta for 13 consecutive weeks and was the country's most played song of 2023.
The Busker was formed in October 2012 by singer and guitarist Dario Genovese and percussionist Jean Paul Borg. The band began by busking on the streets of Malta, hence the band's name. Not long after, they started posting covers and original music on YouTube. Two years later, bassist and keyboardist David Grech and saxophonist Sean Meachen joined. The group draws inspiration from 1960s pop bands such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys.
The band went on to release four extended plays, which led up to the launch of their debut album, "Telegram", released in 2017. Another album was released the following year, entitled "Ladies and Gentlemen", which won Best Album of the Year at the Lovin Music Awards. Genovese and Grech eventually left the group, and shortly after, Meilak joined the band as the lead singer and frontman. The band subsequently released their fifth extended play, "X", on 1 September 2021.
In November 2022, The Busker was confirmed to be among the 40 participants in the Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2023, the festival used to select the Maltese representative in the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Their competing song, "Dance (Our Own Party)", was submitted the following month. After qualifying first from the quarter-finals and then the semi-finals of the Malta Eurovision Song Contest, on 11 February 2023, the band performed in the final, where they won with the combined support of the judging and televoting. Their victory granted them the right to represent Malta at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool. They performed in the first semi-final, but did not qualify to the grand final. After Eurovision, the band went on to release two singles, both of which peaked at number two in Malta.
In June 2023, The Busker made a special appearance in Love Island Malta. Subsequently, the band performed at the opening ceremony of the 2023 UEFA European Under-19 Championship. On 18 July 2023, the band performed at Isle of MTV, which were co-headlined by OneRepublic and Alesso. On 15 September 2023, they performed at EuroPride held at Pjazza Tritoni in Valletta together with other Eurovision artists like Conchita Wurst, The Roop, and Katrina Leskanich from Katrina and the Waves. The band's released songs in 2023 were nominated for 88.7 Vibe End of the Year Hot 100 and 89.7 Bay Radio Best of 2023.
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David "Dav.Jr" Meilak – lead vocals, guitars
Jean Paul Borg – drums
Sean Meachen – saxophone
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Dario Genovese – vocals, guitar
David Grech – bass
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75286950 | 25th Quebec Cinema Awards | 2023-11-11 17:39:43+00:00 | The 25th Quebec Cinema Awards were held on December 10, 2023, to honour achievements in the Cinema of Quebec in 2022 and 2023. The ceremony was broadcast by Noovo, and hosted by Jay Du Temple.
The awards were delayed from their traditional June scheduling after Ici Radio-Canada Télé, which had been the ceremony's broadcaster since 2003, announced in fall 2022 that due to declining ratings in recent years, it would not televise the 2023 awards, and was instead planning alternative ways to highlight Quebec film in its programming.
In February 2023, Québec Cinéma indicated that it was in negotiations with other broadcasters to carry the 2023 awards. In May 2023, by which time the nominees would ordinarily have been announced, the organization confirmed only that the ceremony would not take place in its usual June scheduling. The broadcast deal with Noovo, and the awards' scheduling in December, were announced in July.
Due to the scheduling change, the awards covered a longer qualifying period than usual, with films eligible for submission if they were released between March 6, 2022, and August 31, 2023.
Nominees were announced on November 14. It was the first time that four films received twelve or more nominations, with Viking receiving a leading eighteen nominations, a new record. For his performances in both Viking and Babysitter, Steve Laplante became the eighth performer and fifth actor to receive two acting nominations during the same ceremony. Luc Picard received his tenth acting nomination for his role in his film Confessions of a Hitman (Confessions), competing for Best Actor against his son Henri Picard for his role in The Dishwasher (Le plongeur).
The Iris Tribute was given to actor and host of the 1st and 15th Jutra Awards Rémy Girard. Girard had previously received two Best Actor and five Best Supporting Actor nominations, but had never won a competitive award, making him the actor with the most nominations without a win.
The artisans' gala, presenting the awards in technical and craft categories, was held on December 7 and hosted by actress Fabiola Nyrva Aladin.
Viking won eleven awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Steve Laplante. It became only the second film to win more than ten awards after C.R.A.Z.Y.. Babysitter received fourteen nominations but went home empty handed, tying the record with The Rocket (Maurice Richard) for most nominations without a win.
Red Rooms (Les chambres rouges) received thirteen nominations and won two acting awards: Best Supporting Actress for Laurie Babin and Revelation of the Year for Juliette Gariépy. The Dishwasher (Le plongeur) received twelve nominations and Charles-Aubey Houde won Best Supporting Actor. For her performance in Noemie Says Yes (Noémie dit oui), Best Actress winner Kelly Depeault received her second acting award, having previously won Revelation of the Year for Goddess of the Fireflies (La déesse des mouches à feu). | 2023 |
74695336 | 2023 Atlantic International Film Festival | 2023-08-29 02:51:07+00:00 | The 2023 edition of the Atlantic International Film Festival, the 43rd edition in the event's history, took place from September 14 to 21, 2023 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Some screenings at the festival were disrupted by Tropical Storm Lee, but the festival was not cancelled and all affected screenings were rescheduled for another time. Following the conclusion of the official in-person festival, the Atlantic Canadian films from the program were also made available on a dedicated streaming platform for three additional days to help publicize the films in the rest of the region.
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74768732 | 2023 Calgary International Film Festival | 2023-09-07 14:53:03+00:00 | The 2023 edition of the Calgary International Film Festival, the 24th edition in the event's history, took place from September 21 to October 1, 2023 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The festival opened with Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life, a documentary film by Dan Covert about Calgary-born artist Geoff McFetridge, and closed with Cody Lightning's comedy film Hey, Viktor!.
In 2023, the festival introduced a new CA$5,000 juried prize for Best Canadian Narrative Feature sponsored by Air Canada, as a complement to its existing RBC Emerging Artist Award for first-time Canadian filmmakers. New filmmakers remained eligible for the RBC Award, while Canadian films by more established directors were eligible for the Air Canada award.
Juried award winners were announced on September 25, with audience-voted award winners announced at the conclusion of the festival.
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76015550 | 12th Canadian Screen Awards | 2024-02-06 16:15:41+00:00 | The 12th Canadian Screen Awards were presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television to honour achievements in Canadian film, television and digital media production in 2023. They were held at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto from 28–31 May 2024, as part of Canadian Screen Week, with highlights of the final gala ceremony broadcast in a CBC Television special on 31 May 2024.
Nominations were announced on 6 March; television drama Little Bird led in overall nominations with 19, while Matt Johnson's film BlackBerry received 17 nominations—becoming the most-nominated film in the history of the ceremony.
Due to venue availability issues in Toronto, the ceremony was delayed from a provisional April scheduling to May 2024. In addition, the ceremonies were held at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre rather than Meridian Hall as in past years. To streamline the event, the ceremony for children's and animated programming was discontinued, with its awards dispersed into the six remaining ceremonies.
In response to criticism over the format of CBC Television's presentation of the 11th Canadian Screen Awards, the Academy announced that a television special focusing upon the final gala would air 31 May. As with the previous year's ceremony, the special will remain tape delayed and condensed into a one-hour format. Academy CEO Tammy Frick stated that broadcasting the special on the same day as the final gala (as opposed to the Sunday afterward) would help preserve its "energy" and immediacy, while still allowing time to edit out "industry-heavy elements" that may not be interesting to television audiences.
The main gala was hosted by comedian Mae Martin. The Canadian Screen Week events were hosted by Sarah Davis (news, entertainment and sports), Andrew Phung (television craft), Keshia Chanté (television program and performance), Anne-Marie Mediwake (documentary, factual, lifestyle, and reality), and Sabine Daniel (cinematic arts).
Reviewing the television broadcast, Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail wrote that while it still had significant problems, it had succeeded in being better than the previous year's "utter disaster". He noted a technical snafu which left viewers who were watching the broadcast on the CBC Gem streaming platform unable to hear the sound for the first few minutes, and the fact that the condensed one-hour format had left too many memorable moments from the presentations on the cutting-room floor, but praised Martin as a solid host who "anchored the show with an energetic, sharp mix of self-deprecation and confidence", and noted that the highlights of the broadcast were the heartfelt special award acceptance speeches of Tonya Williams and Denis Villeneuve. While granting that the 2024 awards' scheduling in May was attributable to the last-minute venue change, he also felt that even the typical April scheduling no longer makes sense, and opined that the awards should shift to being presented in February to capitalize on award-season energy, or September to capitalize on the industry activity around the Toronto International Film Festival.
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The Best Lead Performance in a Film and Best Supporting Performance in a Film categories were split into separate categories for comedy and drama films. They were also accompanied by a new award for Best Performance in a Live Action Short Drama. The number of nominees in each acting category remain at eight. The categories for best director, best original and adapted screenplay and the John Dunning Award for best first film are now allowed to name six nominees instead of five if the number of eligible submissions reaches or exceeds nine. A new category was also introduced for Best Sound Design in a Documentary.
Television
The award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series were split into separate new lead and supporting awards, and new awards were introduced for best ensemble performance in comedy and drama.
The former category for Best Talk Program or Series, which considered talk and interview programming regardless of its topic and format, was split into distinct new categories: Best Talk Series for entertainment and cultural talk series, and Best Political News Program or Series for news-oriented shows. One-off entertainment talk specials which may formerly have been considered under the old category are now restricted to Best Entertainment News Program or Series. The former category for Best News Special was also split into two separate categories, distinguishing planned news specials about prescheduled events, such as election coverage, from breaking news specials about unforeseen news events.
A new category for Best Comedy Special has been introduced, therefore stand-up comedy specials are no longer eligible for Best Variety or Entertainment Special and Best Performing Arts Program.
Adult animation productions are now eligible for submission to Best Comedy Series.
A new category was introduced for Best Picture Editing in Animation.
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The awards for Best Virtual Reality Game and Best Children's Video Game, which existed as distinct submission categories but had not consistently been presented in recent years due to high variability in the number of eligible submissions, were discontinued. All games in those categories will remain eligible for the main Best Video Game category.
A new category was introduced for Best Picture Editing in a Web Program or Series.
The first special award recipients were announced in March 2024: Several further special awards were announced in early April, with a third round of honorees announced on May 1.
Lifetime Achievement: Marilyn Denis
Board of Directors Tribute: John Brunton, Jeff Barnaby
Changemaker Award: Tonya Williams
Radius Award: Devery Jacobs, Lamar Johnson
Gordon Sinclair Award: Paul Workman
Sustainable Production Award: Science North, Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope
Academy Icon Award: Denis Villeneuve
Industry Leadership Award: Michael MacMillan
Earle Grey Award: Patrick Huard
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One major category is currently presented without regard to the distinction between film, television or web media content. | 2023 |
73927658 | 2022–23 in Lebanese football | 2023-05-31 15:50:44+00:00 | The 2022–23 season was the 90th season of competitive football in Lebanon. The season officially began on 12 July 2021 with the Lebanese Elite Cup.
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2023 Intercontinental Cup
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2023 SAFF Championship
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2022 WAFF Women's Championship
2024 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament
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Lebanese FA Cup
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Lebanese Elite Cup
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Lebanese Challenge Cup
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Lebanese Super Cup
The 2022 Lebanese Super Cup was due to be the 22nd Lebanese Super Cup, an annual football match played between the winners of the previous season's Lebanese Premier League and Lebanese FA Cup. The match was scheduled on 28 August 2022, at Amin AbdelNour Stadium in Bhamdoun, between league winners Ahed and FA Cup winners Nejmeh. Due to violence between opposing fans before the encounter, the match was scrapped altogether.
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Final four | 2023 |
73297103 | 2023 in artistic gymnastics | 2023-03-15 15:34:27+00:00 | Below is a list of notable men's and women's artistic gymnastics international events scheduled to be held in 2023 as well as the medalists.
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Continental Championships
World Cup series
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Continental Championships
World Cup series
Note: Only the scores of senior gymnasts from international events have been included below. Only one score per gymnast is included.
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Uneven bars
Balance beam
Floor exercise
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Pommel horse
Rings
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Horizontal bar | 2023 |
72764716 | 2023 in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship | 2023-01-16 11:26:46+00:00 | The year 2023 was the 6th year in the history of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, a bare-knuckle fighting promotion based in Philadelphia.
The 2023 season started with Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 35 on January 27, 2023. BKFC is available on FITE TV PPV.
Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 35: Cedeno vs. Slaveski was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on January 27, 2023, at the John T. Rhodes Sports Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA.
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The event featured a welterweight title eliminator bout between Yosdenis Cedeno and Gorjan Slaveski.
The event was expected to have a rematch between BKFC Bantamweight Champion Johnny Bedford and former champion Dat Nguyen; however, the bout was cancelled after Bedford retired from combat sports just a few days into the camp.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship: KnuckleMania 3 was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on February 17, 2023, at the Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
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The event was headlined by the BKFC Light Heavyweight Championship unification bout between the reigning champion Lorenzo Hunt and the interim champion Mike Richman
The event also featured the bare-knuckle debut of former WBA (Regular) Light Middleweight champion Austin Trout as he faced UFC Hall of Famer Diego Sanchez.
Also, former NFL defensive end and mixed martial artist Greg Hardy made his bare-knuckle debut on the card against Josh Watson. Additionally, the Albuquerque native, The Ultimate Fighter 14 winner and two-time UFC title challenger John Dodson and his brother Eric appeared on the card.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 36: Adams vs. Belcher was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on February 24, 2023, at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, Louisiana, USA.
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The event was headlined by the heavyweight contender Alan Belcher challenging the reigning champion Arnold Adams.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 37: Tierney vs. Lindsey was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on March 4, 2023, at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London, England.
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The event was headlined by a bout between Connor Tierney and Jake Lindsey.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 38: Buakaw vs. Saenchai was scheduled to be a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on March 18, 2023.
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The event was scheduled to be headlined by a special rules bare-knuckle Muay Thai bout between Muay Thai legends Buakaw Banchamek and Saenchai. However, In mid-February it was announced that due to legal implications regarding the use of name muay thai in marketing, the bout was indefinitely postponed. Being the only published bout, the event was removed from the organization's event schedule altogether.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 39: Barnett vs. Alvarez was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on March 24, 2023.
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The event was initially scheduled to be headlined by the BKFC Bantamweight Championship bout between Reggie Barnett Jr. and Gustaf Cedermalm. However, Cedermalm withdrew from the bout and was replaced by Daniel Alvarez.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 38: Nguyen vs. Straus was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on April 21, 2023. The event was initially scheduled to take place on March 17, but due to undisclosed reasons it was postponed on the day of the event.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 40: Holmes vs. Christie was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on April 22, 2023.
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The event was initially scheduled to be headlined by welterweight bout between Elvin Brito and Jamie Cox, but the bout was cancelled after Cox withdrew.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 41: Colorado was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on April 29, 2023. This event featured the debut of former UFC Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold, former UFC Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and former UFC Featherweight title contender Chad Mendes.
Former UFC Lightweight and Featherweight champion Conor McGregor was in attendance for this sold-out event.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Eddie Alvarez vs. Chad Mendes
Knockout of the Night: Dillon Winemiller
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 42: Greenville was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on May 12, 2023.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Tony Soto vs. Tyler Goodjohn
Knockout of the Night: Brandon Allen
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 43: Omaha was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on May 19, 2023.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 44: Montana was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on June 9, 2023.
The card was headlined by Kai Stewart vs. Louie Lopez for the inaugural BKFC Featherweight Championship.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Kai Stewart vs. Louie Lopez
Knockout of the Night: Leo Bercier
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 45: Hollywood was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on June 23, 2023.
The event was headlined by double champion Luis Palomino defending his BKFC Lightweight title against James Lilley.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 46: Newcastle was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on July 1, 2023.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 47: Lakeland was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on July 14, 2023.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Ryan Reber vs. Travis Thompson
Knockout of the Night: Brandon Allen
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 48: Albuquerque was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on August 11, 2023.
The event was headlined by John Dodson vs. JR Ridge, which crowned the inaugural BKFC Flyweight Champion.
Social media influencer Bryce Hall made his debut in the sport against Gee Perez at this event and was victorious.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Anthony Sanchez vs. Gene Perez
Knockout of the Night: Keith Richardson
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BKFC Prospects Series 1 was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on August 24, 2023. It was the first edition of the BKFC Prospects Series.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 49: Miami was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on August 25, 2023.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fights of the Night: Freddy Masabo vs. Bovar Khanakov and John Michael Escoboza vs. Esteban Rodriguez
Knockout of the Night: Matthew Russo
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 50: Denver was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on September 22, 2023.
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The event was headlined by the two-division champion Lorenzo Hunt defending his BKFC Cruiserweight Championship for the first time against UFC veteran Chris Camozzi.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Knockout of the Night: Andrew Strode
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 51: Salem was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on September 30, 2023.
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The event was headlined by Britain Hart defending her BKFC Women's Strawweight Championship for the second time against Melanie Shah.
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BKFC Prospects Series 2 was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on October 14, 2023.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 52: South Carolina was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on October 20, 2023.
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The event was headlined by Reggie Barnett Jr. defending his BKFC Bantamweight Championship against Keith Richardson.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Tony Soto vs. Kevin Croom
Knockout of the Night: Brandon Bushaw
Performance of the Night: Keith Richardson
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 53: Orlando was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on November 3, 2023.
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BKFC Thailand 5 was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on November 4, 2023.
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The event was headlined by a Special Rules Bare Knuckle Thai Fight featuring Muay Thai icons Buakaw Banchamek vs. Saenchai, who were scheduled to face each other in March 2023.
The co-main event featured a title match between defending champion Fani Peloumpi and Po Denman for the BKFC Thailand Strawweight Championship. Also on the card was a title fight for the vacant BKFC Thailand Featherweight Championship between Krisana Srisang and Sarun Srioumboo.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Pongpisan Chunyong vs. Tha Pyay Nyo
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 54: Bulgaria was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on November 17, 2023.
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This event was notable in part because all of the fighters were new to the BKFC.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 55: Leeds was a bare-knuckle fighting event held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on November 18, 2023.
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Antonio Moscatiello was set to face Patryk Sagan, however Sagan withdrew prior to the event for undisclosed reasons, and was replaced by Hynek Hospodarsky.
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Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 56: Utah is a bare-knuckle fighting event being held by Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship on December 2, 2023.
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This event featured former UFC fighter Mike Perry against former UFC Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. This also had the bareknuckle debut of former UFC fighter Jeremy Stephens.
A Heavyweight bout between Ben Rothwell and Todd Duffee was scheduled for the co-main event. However, on November 30, it was announced the bout was cancelled due to Rothwell having an illness. The bout was rescheduled for BKFC: Knucklemania IV on April 27, 2024. A bout between Nick Rossborough and Kevin Brooks was cancelled prior to the event.
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded bonuses:
Fights of the Night: Kai Stewart vs. Howard Davis and Esteban Rodriguez vs. Keegan Vandermeer
Knockout of the Night: Mick Terrill
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75538020 | Sonam Yangden Wangchuck | 2023-12-11 14:39:18+00:00 | Sonam Yangden Wangchuck (born 9 September 2023) is the third child of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan and his wife, Queen Jetsun Pema. She is third in line to the throne after her brothers Crown Prince Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck and Jigme Ugyen Wangchuck.
On 9 September 2023, the King announced that the Queen had delivered their third child and only daughter at the Lingkana Palace. The baby's name, Sonam Yangden Wangchuck, was announced on 9 December 2023.
Sonam is a Bhutanese name meaning merit, longevity and good fortune. The name Yangden (or Yangdon), meaning precious jewel, signifies prosperity and well-being.
The princess accompanied her parents and siblings on the state visit to Bangladesh that took place in March 2024.
9 September 2023 – present: Her Royal Highness Princess Sonam Yangden Wangchuck, Gyalsem (Princess) of Bhutan. | 2023 |
73470239 | 2023 Al-Aqsa clashes | 2023-04-05 07:34:24+00:00 | A series of violent confrontations occurred between Palestinians and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem in April 2023. After the evening Ramadan prayer, Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the mosque, prompted by reports that Jews planned to sacrifice a goat at the site (which is forbidden by Israeli law). In response, Israeli police raided the mosque in riot gear, injuring 50 people and arresting at least 400.
In the aftermath of the clashes, Palestinian militant groups fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon – acts broadly construed as a response to the events at Al-Aqsa.
The clashes occurred during a period of increased Israeli–Palestinian tensions due to the convergence of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jewish holiday of Passover, and the Christian Holy Week.
Since the beginning of Ramadan on 22 March, Muslim worshippers had attempted to stay overnight in the Al-Aqsa mosque, a practice usually permitted only in the last 10 days of the holiday (11–21 April). Israel Police had entered the mosque to evict worshippers nightly over Ramadan.
On 3 April, Israel Police detained a Jewish activist with the Temple Mount Administration in an attempt to head off attempts by Jewish groups to contravene the ban on Jewish prayer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and perform a ritual sacrifice for Passover, which would begin the evening of 4 April. The same day, the National Security Minister Ben-Gvir advocated for Jewish groups to go to Temple Mount during Passover, but refrain from ritual sacrifice. According to the status quo, Jews are allowed to visit the Temple Mount site but not pray there.
The confrontations began on the night of 4 April, when a few hundred Palestinians barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa mosque after Ramadan prayers amid concern that Jews might head to the Temple Mount to perform a ritual sacrifice, despite its prohibition. In response, Israeli police raided the mosque in riot gear. According to Palestinians, police threw stun grenades, fired rubber bullets, and beat Palestinians on the floor with batons, injuring at least 50 people and arresting 400. According to the Israeli police, Palestinians threw stones and launched fireworks at police. A video released by Israeli police showed that fireworks were used inside the mosque. One police officer was injured. The events heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and have drawn international attention to the ongoing conflict in the region.
The next night, Palestinian worshippers barricaded themselves in the mosque again and were forcibly removed by Israeli police.
The Times of Israel reported a senior Israeli official's assessment that police "went too far" in their treatment of the Palestinians, that it lent weight to the al-Aqsa is in danger rallying cry, encouraged Israel’s enemies, and damaged Israel's reputation. The official called for a review of the officers' conduct, as they had been ordered to act with restraint. However, he stated that the police were compelled to enter the mosque after receiving intelligence that numerous Palestinians had stored weapons there with the intention to attack security personnel and Israeli civilians. Another Israeli security official blamed the Jordan-appointed Jerusalem Waqf for not doing enough against Palestinian rioters.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas condemned the Israeli police action, which they described as a crime. Israeli authorities defended their actions as necessary to maintain public order and safety.
Lead spokesperson for the external affairs of the European Union Peter Stano said that the EU is "deeply concerned" by the violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and calls on all parties to show restraint at a time of religious holidays.
Leader of Turkey's Republican People's Party Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu condemned the attack.
Emir of Kuwait Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah condemned Israeli aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed concern and called for a de-escalation of violence.
In a statement by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, "strongly condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli police ... and emphasized that worshipers should not barricade themselves inside the mosque and places of worship with weapons and explosives.".
The Foreign Ministry of Oman issued a statement denouncing and condemning the Israeli occupation forces' storming Al Aqsa Mosque.
Furthermore, the actions of the Israeli Police have been condemned by the ministries of foreign affairs of Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Following the incident, Palestinian militant groups warned of further confrontation. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that nine rockets were fired from Gaza Strip toward Israel.
On 6 April, the IDF stated that some rockets were fired from Lebanon. The rockets were reportedly fired by Palestinian factions. There was no immediate comment from Lebanon's army. In a written statement, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) described the situation as "extremely serious" and urged restraint. It said UNIFIL chief Aroldo Lazaro was in contact with authorities on both sides.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a major surprise attack on Israel with rocket barrage and an incursion. The commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, claimed the attack was conducted in response to "desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque". | 2023 |
75580716 | Killing of Yuval Castleman | 2023-12-16 21:09:33+00:00 | The killing of Yuval Castleman occurred on 30 November 2023, during the Givat Shaul shooting in Jerusalem when Yuval Doron Castleman (Hebrew: יובל דורון קסטלמן), an Israeli civilian, charged at the attackers in the shooting, killing one of them, and was subsequently shot by Aviad Freija, an IDF soldier, who mistook him for a terrorist.
Castleman was a 38-year-old lawyer from Mevaseret Zion who worked for the Civil Service Commission. He was a former soldier in the Israeli security forces.
On 30 November 2023, at 7:38 a.m., two Hamas-affiliated militants from Sur Baher exited their car, went to a bus stop by Ben-Gurion Boulevard at the Jerusalem exit and shot and killed 3 people, and wounded others. They returned to their car following the shooting, and Castleman, driving in the opposite lane, got out of his car, drew his gun, urged civilians to evacuate, and charged towards the attackers, firing one bullet at one of the perpetrators, killing him.
Two soldiers at the scene ran to the back of the building and got to the floor, got back up, and approached the terrorists' car. Roi Eisenbach, a reserve soldier from the Golani Brigade, went to the sidewalk and shot the car to his right, killing one of the terrorists. During the neutralization of one of the perpetrators, Castleman was hit by one of the soldiers, either Eisenbach or Aviad Freija, who was farther from the car at the time. Castleman threw down his gun and got to his knees, and stripped his jacket to show he was not hiding any other weapons. Witness testimony alleges that he raised his hands and shouted "I'm Israeli, do not shoot." Freija claims that he did not hear Castleman talk. Castleman was hit again with a bullet, and got to his feet to try to gain the troops' attention that he was not a threat. Freija approached and shot him again. Castleman fell to the ground, and as he collapsed, threw his wallet in the direction of the shooter to show that he was Israeli and not the terrorist.
Castleman was critically wounded, and was determined to have been shot three times by Israeli police. The first emergency responders to arrive at the scene believed he was a terrorist, and did not come to his aid. He was later evacuated and brought to Shaare Zedek Medical Center where he underwent emergency surgery, but succumbed to his injuries, being pronounced dead in the evening. He was buried the following day, stated in an announcement by his employer.
The same day, at 10:00 a.m., following the attack, journalist Yinon Magal called Freija to speak about the incident. Freija stated "There was a terrorist there, and we shot him", and Magal corrected him and stated that there were two terrorists, and not one. Freija was also asked if they had verified the killing, and responded saying "Yes, we shot until they fell", and stated that he did not know if it was his shots that had killed Castleman or Eisenbach's.
Castleman's family was informed of the shooting in the afternoon, when a police officer called them and informed them that Castleman's gun, phone, and wallet were in police custody. It was reported by the evening that Castleman was not one of the terrorists, and was shot by Freija despite not being one of the terrorists.
The attack was initially only investigated by the Jerusalem District Police, without involvement of the Military Police Investigation Unit. Following public pressure, the MPIU joined the investigation. Eisenbach and Freija, the two soldiers who fired at the scene, were interrogated and Freija was arrested.
On the morning of December 5 at a hearing, the presiding judge, Lieutenant Colonel Toby Hart, ruled that "the suspect [Freija] was fired unlawfully, not out of operational necessity, but out of frivolity regarding the possilibility of someone's death who no longer posed any danger", and added that no bullets were found in the body of the deceased according to police accounts (that would later be corrected), and that no autopsy had been conducted. He further stated "it is highly doubtful whether it will be possible to determine beyond a reasonable doubt at what stage the brain was injured and what injuries would have led to his eventual death." That evening, the court place Freija on house arrest. In the morning on December 7, Freija and Eisenbach each performed their own re-enactment at the scene in front of the military police investigators.
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Police had initially released Castleman's body for burial before performing an autopsy, with justification being that the bullets had passed through Castleman's body and were not visible on a CT scan. The officers assigned to the case did not speak to the doctors who operated on Castleman when he initially arrived in a deteriorated condition at the hospital. They called the hospital security officer, who stated that if there were shrapnel or bullets found in Castleman's body, the police would be informed. However, Channel 13 revealed that the CT scan report from the hospital indeed did find metallic remnants of bullet fragments in Castleman's chest and head, and recommended that Castleman's body be exhumed for an autopsy.
The MAG Corps presented the developments from the scan to Castleman's family, and offered to exhume the body and perform a full autopsy expediently. They also offered to have a representative from the National Center for Forensic Medicine view the body, which would help give crucial insight into the investigation. The family agreed to the terms and the body was transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine. On December 10, an autopsy was performed, showing that an M16 rifle bullet and other bullet fragments were found, contrary to the claim in court that freed Freija from custody and placed him under house arrest.
Two weeks after the shooting, it was revealed that the investigators from the police forensics department who had examed Castleman's jacket found no gunshot wounds in it. They concluded that the fatal shooting was carried out only after he took off his coat and got down on his knees. The finding was forwarded to the military police investigative unit before the autopsy was released.
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The police commissioner ordered a senior commissioner to examine the autopsy results and the conduct of the investigation. State attorney Amit Eiseman instructed the Police Investigation Department to open an investigation into the conduct of the police detective team, and blocked the conduction of an independent police investigation.
Following the incident, videos of Castleman were posted across news websites and social media, which led to intense public debate. Topics raised in the discourse included rules of engagement, extrajudicial executions of terrorists, medical assistance to wounded terrorists, and a policy of distributing weapons to civilians. Moshe Castleman, Yuval's father, said, "They just executed him." and demanded an indictment against Freija.
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Israel has rules of engagement, which is a procedural law that defines when firearms carriers, especially soldiers, may fire their weapons, without receiving direct firing orders, and specifies the steps to be taken before opening fire. The rules are subject to criticism from various groups in Israel, especially in light of terrorist attacks and in relation to terrorists. Various sources claimed that terrorists who carried out an attack should be shot to death, even if they did not pose an immediate danger.
Many prominent voices of commentary of the shooting, including one editoral in Haaretz, criticized the campaign to encourage execution of terrorists on the ground, regardless of the risk they pose, claiming it led directly to Castleman's killing. Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer similarly criticized the campaign for executions at the scene of a terrorist attack, arguing that in a state of law, the authority to kill a person as punishment does not lie with soldiers or civilians. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi addressed the incident, saying: "We commend the heroism of a civilian who ran bravely into the fire to stop the killing of civilians", adding: "Do not rush to fire when the risk decreases, and we do not shoot those who raise their hands."
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As a part of public discourse, it was argued that the policy of expanding the distribution of weapons to civilians, which has significantly increased since the October 7 surprise attack, could cause similar casualty incidents. In response to a question from journalists about the "trigger-happy" hand of Freija and public executions by soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the latter, saying: "This is the policy and there are costs – this is life." Netanyahu's remarks caused a storm in the news and on social media. The head of the National Unity coalition Benny Gantz responded to Netanyahu's remarks, stating: "This is not life", and said that the incident requires lessons to be learned. Netanyahu later called Castleman's father, saying that Yuval's death was a terrible tragedy, and that he was a hero of Israel. He also said an investigation would be conducted and those found responsible would be prosecuted. | 2023 |
75446722 | 2023 Givat Shaul shooting | 2023-11-30 16:10:54+00:00 | On 30 November 2023, two Palestinian gunmen killed three and wounded 16 Israeli civilians at a bus stop on the Givat Shaul Interchange in Jerusalem during the ceasefire of the Israel–Hamas war. A fourth individual, Yuval Castleman (an armed bystander who shot at the gunmen), was shot and killed by responding IDF soldiers who mistook him for one of the attackers. Hamas claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The Givat Shaul neighborhood, located in the western part of the city, is one of the primary entrances to Jerusalem, and has been a target of attacks in the past. The 2023 shooting occurred within the context of the violent 2023 Israel-Hamas war, just hours after Hamas and Israel, the 2 primary belligerents in the war, agreed to the extension of a ceasefire.
According to Israeli Police, both attackers had been imprisoned in the past due to their affiliation with Hamas. Murad Nemer was imprisoned for 10 years because of his intention to carry out terrorist operations; his brother, Ibrahim Nemer was imprisoned in 2014 for the same reason. The men were both in their 30s and from the Sur Baher neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
According to the Israeli Police and amateur camera footage, the two gunmen, 38-year-old Murad Nemer and 30-year-old Ibrahim Nemer, arrived at the bus stop in a car at around 7:30 a.m. local time. They exited the car carrying an M16 and a handgun. The attackers' vehicle contained a "large amount of ammunition," according to police. They then opened fire at the people waiting at the bus stop, killing 3 and injuring 16. Israeli police received reports of gunfire at about 7:40 a.m. local time. A bystander identified as 37-year-old Yuval Doron Castleman, who noticed the attack while driving, opened fire on the attackers during the shooting.
The attack ended when two IDF soldiers, including a soldier heading back to base after being on a break from service in Gaza, and Castleman, an armed civilian, returned fire, killing both gunmen. However, Castleman was shot by an Israeli soldier after being mistaken for an attacker. Despite throwing away his gun, kneeling, and raising his hands, he was shot again. As IDF soldiers assumed he was an attacker, Haaretz stated Castleman received no medical assistance after being shot. Castleman later died at the hospital.
Initial reports named the three dead by the attackers as 73-year-old rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, 67-year-old Chana Ifergan, and 24-year-old Livia Dickman. A fourth individual Yuval Doron Castleman was shot and killed by the responding IDF soldiers. Livia Dickman was pregnant and died at the scene of the attack. The fetus could not be saved. Wasserman and Ifergan were pronounced dead at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Six other people were transported to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, of whom three were in serious condition.
After an initial investigation, the Israeli Police confirmed the identities of the attackers as Murad and Ibrahim Nemer, as well as confirming the deaths and injuries. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that "The operation came as a natural response to unprecedented crimes conducted by the Occupation".
The police conducted raids on the attacker's family's homes, arresting 6 members of their family. The highway on which the attack took place, Highway 1 at the Motsa Junction, was closed immediately afterwards. The US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, and the EU Ambassador to Israel Dimiter Tzantchev, both condemned the attack on social media.
The family of Yuval Doron Castleman, the bystander who was mistakenly shot by IDF soldiers, labeled his death as an "execution" and called for a thorough investigation. The IDF, initially stating that it had no plans to investigate the incident, later decided to involve its Military Police's investigatory unit following an initial probe by the Shin Bet and Israel Police. Police acknowledged the mistaken identification and expressed sorrow for Castleman's death. | 2023 |
72865643 | 2023 Neve Yaakov shooting | 2023-01-27 19:42:01+00:00 | On 27 January 2023, a Palestinian gunman killed at least seven civilians in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov, in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank. The suspect is also reported as having shot at worshippers exiting a synagogue, and, according to the police, was shot and killed after he opened fire on the attending officers. It was Israel's deadliest peacetime Palestinian attack since the Jerusalem yeshiva attack in 2008.
Palestinian militant groups did not claim the suspect as a member, but called the attack a natural retaliation for the raid in Jenin the day prior that killed 10 Palestinians, while the Palestinian Authority blamed the Israeli government for "dangerous escalation".
Many nations and international organizations issued statements condemning the attack while others called for restraint. Palestinian and Israeli sources stated that between 42 and 50 people had been arrested since the attack, mostly family members of the perpetrator.
According to Haaretz, the attacker first walked 200 metres past the Neve Yaakov synagogue and killed four passersby and a motorcyclist. People who had heard the shots began to emerge from the synagogue and the attacker fired at them and then, on the way back to his car, killed two more people at an intersection.
The gunman fled the scene towards the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina, where he was confronted by police officers and shot dead after opening fire on them while attempting to flee on foot.
Seven people were killed in the attack, five men and two women. The victims ranged from ages 14 to 68. At least three other people were wounded. One of the women killed was confirmed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to have been a Ukrainian citizen.
The shooting took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which some commentators suggested could be connected to the attack. On the other hand, there is just as much to suggest that it was an act of revenge driven by biographical motives.
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Neve Yaakov, the location where the attack took place, is an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem established in 1972 on land expropriated from three neighboring Palestinian towns; it forms part of a belt of settlements interspersed among the area's Palestinian neighborhoods. Writing in Mondoweiss, Jalal Abukhater argues that Neve Yaakov "in its entirety is built on private and titled lands, whose Palestinian owners were never consulted or compensated before the hostile takeover", in addition to being home of the Israeli Defence Force's Central Command over the West Bank, and the "attack cannot be separated from this context."
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The attacker was identified as Khairi Alqam, a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem. An eighteen-year-old relative of his had been killed two days before the attack by Israeli authorities after he reportedly threatened them with a gun which turned out to be a toy.
Alqam's grandfather, whom he was named after, was killed in the 1997–99 Jerusalem stabbings alongside three other Palestinians in 1998.
Musa Alqam, the father of the attacker, said he had no knowledge of his son having planned for such an attack or if he was motivated by revenge. He told Arab media he was proud of his son, and said that "Today is his wedding. I married him today. God will help me and make him better tomorrow."
Palestinian and Israeli sources stated that between 42 and 50 people have been arrested since the attack, mostly members of the family of the perpetrator. Additionally, Israel is planning on demolishing the perpetrator's house. On 28 January, his home was evacuated and sealed in preparation for demolition.
Following the attack, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, reported that the Cabinet was pushing to strip the residency and citizenship rights of the families of the perpetrator of this attack and others, and also possibly forcibly deport them from the country to the occupied West Bank. The office also said social security benefits would be cancelled for the families of attackers.
Human rights groups pointed out that such measures are collective punishment. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the measures a "grave violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions, a collective punishment, and an extension of the Israeli policies aimed at affecting the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem."
Netanyahu himself pledged a "strong, swift and precise" response, and also announced plans to make it easier for Israelis to obtain firearms.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, published a statement saying that "the government of Israel is fully responsible for this dangerous escalation."
Palestinian militant groups called the attack a retaliation for the Jenin raid. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem referred to the attack as "jihadist and resistance action in the city of Jerusalem" and stated that the battle against the occupation "continues and continues". PIJ spokesman Tariq Ezz El-Din praised what he referred to as a "suicide operation" in response to the "Jenin massacre" the day prior.
Dozens of Palestinians congregated in impromptu gatherings across the Gaza Strip to celebrate the attack. Similar celebrations, including fireworks, sweets, gunfire and car honking, were reported in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, and the East Jerusalem locality of Beit Hanina.
Many nations and international organizations issued statements of condemnation following the shooting attack. According to two UN diplomats, it was also unanimously condemned by the 15 members of the UN Security Council in a closed session.
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France – The French government issued a statement that "France condemns in the strongest terms the appalling terrorist attack that targeted a synagogue in Jerusalem, killing at least seven people and injuring many more [...] This attack against civilians, at the time of prayer, and on the day of the international commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust is particularly despicable. France stands alongside the victims of this attack, as well as their families. In a context of growing tensions, we call on all parties to avoid actions that could fuel the spiral of violence".
Germany – Olaf Scholz, German Chancellor said "There have been deaths and people wounded in the heart of Israel", and added he was "deeply shocked" by the "terrible" attacks. "My thoughts are with the victims and their families. Germany stands by the side of Israel".
India – Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, stated: "We strongly condemn last night's terror attack in Jerusalem. We extend heartfelt condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and wish the injured a speedy recovery".
Jordan – Jordanian Foreign Ministry condemned the deadly shooting attack, and called on the parties to "stop all unilateral steps and provocations that encourage an escalation."
Saudi Arabia – In an unusual move, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that "the situation between Palestinians and Israelis will slide into further serious escalation," and added that "the Kingdom condemns all targeting of civilians."
Turkey – Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs release a statement saying: “We strongly condemn the terror attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem where many people lost their lives. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims, the Israeli government and people. We wish a speedy recovery to the wounded".
United Arab Emirates – UAE Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement expressing "its strong condemnation of the criminal act and its permanent rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism aimed at undermining security and stability in contravention of human values and principles."
United Kingdom – James Cleverly, UK Foreign Secretary said: “To attack worshippers at a synagogue on Holocaust Memorial Day, and during Shabbat, is horrific. We stand with our Israeli friends.” UK ambassador in Israel Neil Wigan wrote: “I am appalled by reports of the terrible attack in Neve Yaakov tonight. Attacking worshippers at a synagogue on Erev Shabat is a particularly horrific act of terrorism. The UK stands with Israel".
United States – Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State said: "Our thoughts are with the Israeli people following the terrorist attack in Jerusalem. It is particularly tragic on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We condemn this attack and express our condolences to the victims' families. May their memory be a blessing".
The attack was also condemned and condolences were extended by foreign ministers from Poland, Sweden, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Japan.
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European Union – Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU stated that "The European Union fully recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns, as evidenced by the latest terrorist attacks, but it has to be stressed that lethal force must only be used as a last resort when it is strictly unavoidable in order to protect life". EU ambassador to Israel, Dimiter Tzantchev, condemned the shootings. He described them as "senseless violence," and added, "Terror is never the answer."
United Nations – António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, stated that "It is particularly abhorrent that the attack occurred at a place of worship, and on the very day we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day. There is never any excuse for acts of terrorism. They must be clearly condemned and rejected by all". | 2023 |
72995747 | 2023 Ramot Junction attack | 2023-02-10 12:30:58+00:00 | On 10 February 2023, three Israelis were killed and four more were injured when a Palestinian man rammed his car into a bus stop in Ramot, an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem. The assailant was shot dead at the scene by a police officer. The fatalities included two children aged 6 and 8 and a 20-year-old man. Police labeled the attack as an act of terrorism.
The attacker was identified as 31-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel named Hussein Qaraqa, a resident of Isawiya. Social media (primarily Facebook) activity showed that Qaraqa had made statements in support of Palestinian militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Lions' Den. During the 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes he expressed his support for the PIJ. He regularly praised Palestinians who carried out attacks on Israelis, both soldiers and civilians.
Qaraqa had been released from a psychiatric hospital a few days prior to the attack. His uncle told Palestinian media that Qaraqa suffered from severe back pain. Israeli police arrested a Qaraqa's relative and his brother for expressing their intention to carry out similar attacks.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad both praised the attack as "heroic". The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of the West Bank's governing Fatah party also welcomed the attack.
In response, the Israeli cabinet approved the legalization of nine settlement outposts deep in the West Bank. Israeli authorities announced 300 bus stops will be fortified to prevent future attacks, while the Jerusalem municipality will later fortify an additional 700 stops in areas where the need is deemed less urgent. In addition, the Knesset passed a law to revoke Israeli citizenship of convicted terrorists who receive payments from the Palestinian Authority.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had recently visited Israel, said, "The deliberate targeting of innocent civilians is repugnant and unconscionable. We stand firmly with Israel in the face of this attack."
The United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on its website, conveying condolences to Israel, strongly condemning the "terrorist attack", and rejecting "all forms of violence and terrorism aimed at undermining security and stability in contravention of human values and principles."
European Union Ambassador to Israel Dimiter Tzantchev tweeted his horror and sadness and stated that "the EU strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism". UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert also issued public statements condemning the attack and extending their condolences to the families of the victims.
US Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, called on all concerned parties to avoid actions that would "aggravate the situation on the ground" and instead protect "the prospect of a political solution to the mounting security crises." | 2023 |
72959237 | Binibining Pilipinas 2023 | 2023-02-06 09:48:13+00:00 | Binibining Pilipinas 2023 was the 59th edition of Binibining Pilipinas, held on May 28, 2023 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
At the end of the event, Nicole Borromeo crowned Angelica Lopez of Palawan as Binibining Pilipinas International 2023 and Chelsea Fernandez crowned Anna Lakrini of Bataan as Binibining Pilipinas Globe 2023. Only two titles were awarded after Binibining Pilipinas Charities, Inc. lost the franchise for Miss Grand International and Miss Intercontinental.
ABS-CBN broadcast the coronation night via Kapamilya Channel and A2Z. The pageant was simulcast on ABS-CBN's Metro Channel and livestreamed on iWantTFC and YouTube. The competition was hosted by Catriona Gray, Nicole Cordoves, and Mary Jean Lastimosa, and with a performance from Vice Ganda.
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On January 6, 2023, the organization launched its search for the next set of Filipinas who will represent the Philippines at different international pageants. The final submission of the application was on January 31, 2023. The final screening and selection of the official contestants were done on February 6, 2023.
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The following served as members of Binibining Pilipinas 2023 board of judges:
Hidilyn Diaz – Olympic gold medalist
William Vincent Araneta Marcos – software engineer and the youngest son of Philippine president, Bongbong Marcos
Jasmin Selberg – Miss International 2022 from Germany
Peter Zwiener – President and Co-Founder of Wolfgang's Steakhouse
Hon. Honey Lacuna-Pangan – first female Mayor in the City of Manila and Chairman of the Board of Judges
Piolo Pascual – Actor
Small Laude – social media personality, content creator and businesswoman
Anton San Diego – Editor-in-Chief of Philippine Tatler
Dolly de Leon – actress and the first Filipino actor to be nominated at the BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards
Josh Cullen – singer, rapper and member of SB19
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§ – Bingo Plus fan-vote winner
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Forty candidates competed for the two titles. | 2023 |
72765720 | Femina Miss India 2023 | 2023-01-16 14:22:22+00:00 | Femina Miss India 2023 was the 59th edition of the Femina Miss India beauty pageant. After a two-year hiatus, it was held on 15 April 2023 at Imphal, Manipur, with contestants from 29 states (including Delhi) and a collective representative for all Union Territories adding up to 30 participants competed for the title.
At the end of the event, Sini Shetty of Karnataka crowned Nandini Gupta of Rajasthan as her successor, who will represent India at Miss World 2024. Rubal Shekhawat of Rajasthan, crowned Shreya Poonja of Delhi as the first runner-up and Shinata Chauhan of Uttar Pradesh crowned Strela Thounaojam Luwang of Manipur as the second runner-up.
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Manipur hosted the grand finale of Femina Miss India 2023 in April 2023; this marked the first time the pageant was held outside Mumbai since 2002. In the presence of Manipur's Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, and Times of India Managing Director Vineet Jain at the CM's Secretariat in Imphal, an agreement to formalise the cooperation was signed between the Tourism Department, Government of Manipur, and the Times Group. MP Leishemba Sanajaoba, ministers Yumnam Khemchand Singh, Govindas Konthoujam, Awangbow Newmai, Dr Sapam Ranjan Singh, H Dingko Singh, Leishangthem Susindro Meitei, MLA Losii Dikho, Chief Secretary Rajesh Kumar, and Rohit Gopakumar, Chief Operational Officer, Miss India Organisation, were also present.
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After two years of online pageant operations, from registration to auditions, Femina Miss India 2023 was held entirely offline. Contestants from all over the country auditioned in front of a panel of experts in a venue chosen for the zonal division. Following the audition, the organization's social media account revealed the state finalists, from which the 29 state representatives were chosen, in addition to a collective representative for the Union Territories. These 30 finalists went through rigorous training and grooming activities. Furthermore, former Miss India and Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia was a mentor to the state delegates.
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The 30 state representatives arrived at Imphal International Airport on April 7, 2023.
They were received by crowning all of them with a Kajenglei (traditional Meitei female headdress) each and Leirum Lengyan (traditional Meitei shawl) each.
On 9 April, they visited the historic Kangla Fort located in the heart of Imphal city, where they were photographed and had videos shot for the pageant. During the shoot, the contestants were photographed at the temples (including the Pakhangba Temple, Kangla), fort ruins and the twin Kanglasha dragon statues.
They attended a self defense session organised exclusively for them at the Khuman Lampak Main Stadium.
On 10 April, the state representatives visited the Loktak lake for their filming. After that, they visited the Indian National Army Memorial Complex (INA Memorial) in Moirang. They also visited the Little Flower School, Imphal where they interacted with the students.
At the end of the day, the ladies visited the Ima Keithel (Meitei for 'Ima Market'), in the heart of Imphal, which is the world's only market run exclusively by women.
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The following is the list of the schedules of all the events of Femina Miss India 2023:
The following is the list of the official delegates of Miss India 2023 representing 29 states +1 common winner from all Union territories of the country:
Color key
Neha Dhupia – Femina Miss India 2002, Actress, Mentor & Reality show host
Laishram Sarita Devi – Boxer
Terence Lewis – Choreographer
Rocky Star – Fashion designer
Namrata Joshipura – Fashion designer
Harshvardhan Kulkarni - Film director & writer | 2023 |
76707768 | 2024 League1 Canada season | 2024-04-22 19:10:45+00:00 | The 2024 League1 Canada season is the third edition of League1 Canada, the 3rd division soccer in Canada. It includes league competitions from its four member leagues, and an inter-provincial championship for select teams from the women's divisions. The 2024 League1 Canada season is the first to include the men's and women's divisions of League1 Alberta.
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The 2024 Women's Inter-Provincial Championship will be held on August 9 and 11 at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, Ontario.
Details
Bracket | 2023 |
76638838 | 2024 League1 Alberta season | 2024-04-16 22:42:41+00:00 | The 2024 League1 Alberta season is the first official season of League1 Alberta, a Division 3 men's and women's soccer league in the Canadian soccer pyramid and the highest level of soccer based in the Canadian province of Alberta.
In 2024, the league will operate as an official League1 Canada division, after running an exhibition series in 2023. Seven clubs will participate in each of the men's divisions. In the men's divisions, two new clubs will join who did not participate in the 2023 Exhibition Series - Callies United and Calgary Blizzard SC (the Blizzard operated a women's team in 2023). In the women's division, two new clubs will also join - Callies United and NDC Alberta. At the end of the season, the 1st place team in both the men's and women's divisions will be declared League1 Alberta Champions with the men's winner qualifying for the 2025 Canadian Championship and the women's winner qualifying for the League1 Canada Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship.
The following clubs are set to participate in the league. | 2023 |
76641132 | 2024 League1 British Columbia season | 2024-04-17 02:22:11+00:00 | The 2024 League1 British Columbia season is the third season of play for League1 British Columbia, a pro-am league in the Canadian soccer league system. Seven clubs will participate in both the men's and women's divisions.
Burnaby FC joined the league as a new expansion club in both the men's and women's divisions. However, both Nautsa’mawt FC and Victoria Highlanders FC departed the league, bringing the league down to seven clubs.
The teams played each other team twice (home and away) for a 12-game season, with the top four teams advancing to the playoffs. The winner of the regular season will qualify for the 2025 Canadian Championship.
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Semi-finals
Final
The teams played each other team twice (home and away) for a 12-game season, with the top four teams advancing to the playoffs. The winner of the women's regular season will qualify for the Women's Interprovincial Championship.
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Semi-finals
Final
The Juan de Fuca Plate is awarded to the League1 British Columbia club with the highest combined point total between the men's and women's divisions in regular season matches. | 2023 |
76224444 | 2024 League1 Ontario season (women) | 2024-03-01 17:46:45+00:00 | The 2024 Women's League1 Ontario season will be the ninth of League1 Ontario, a Division 3 women's soccer league in the Canadian soccer pyramid and the highest level of soccer based in the Canadian province of Ontario. Starting from this season, the league will split into three divisions with promotion and relegation between them.
The Premier division will be composed by 10 clubs, the Championship division by 10 clubs, all returning from last season. The League2 Ontario will be made up by three conferences containing reserve teams and newly licensed clubs.
League1 Ontario Premier will be composed by 10 teams, all coming back from the 2023 League1 Ontario season. Those clubs have qualified to the Premier division by finishing in the top half of the combined standings of the previous two seasons, with the exception of the Electric City FC, which have folded, being then replaced by the Blue Devils FC.
The 10 teams will face each other twice, once at home and once away and the club at the top of the standings will be crowned as League1 Ontario champions and gain a berth for the League1 Canada Interprovincial championship. The last placed team will be automatically relegated, while the 9th placed club will play a playoff game against the 2nd placed club of the Championship to stay in the league.
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A playoff will be played between the 9th placed team in the Premier and the 2nd placed team in the Championship in a single game for a place in the top tier in 2025.
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As of June 19, 2024
Top goalscorers
Source: League1 Ontario
League1 Ontario Championship is composed of 10 teams, 8 of those returning from the 2023 League1 Ontario season, Pickering FC who returned from hiatus, and new expansion club Rush Canada SA. Those clubs have qualified for the Championship division by finishing in the bottom half of the combined standings of the previous two seasons of League1 Ontario.
The 10 teams will face each other twice, once at home and once away for a total of 18 games. The club at the top of the standings will be crowned as Championship division winners and will be promoted to the 2025 League1 Ontario Premier. The 2nd ranked team in the standings will face the 9th placed team in the Premier division to gain promotion into the top division for the next season. The team last in the standings will face the winner of the League2 Ontario playoffs winner to stay in the league.
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The two losing semi-finalists of League2 Ontario will face against each others, the winner will then play against the 10th placed team in the Championship to get promoted to the Championship for the 2025 season.
League2 Ontario clubs will be divided in regional conferences. Those clubs will be either the "B" team of Premier and Championship clubs or newly licensed clubs.
All teams will face each other team in their conference twice, once at home and once away. The winners of the three conferences plus the best 2nd placed team will qualify for the League2 playoffs, made up by two semi.finals and the final. The winner of the playoffs will be crowned as League2 winner and will be automatically promoted to the 2025 League1 Ontario Championship alongside the losing finalist as the Championship division will expand to 12 teams for the next season. The losing semi-finalists will play each other in the promotion playoffs and the winner will finally face the last placed club of the Championship division to eventually replace it in the 2nd division.
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The L1 Cup is a league cup tournament that will be contested by teams from all three tiers of League1 Ontario. The Cup will be returning after a five-season hiatus, having last been played in 2018.
All 22 "A" teams will participate in the five-round knockout competition, which will be played concurrently with the league season. Twelve clubs will enter the first round (all ten clubs from the Championship division, and the two A teams from League2), while all ten clubs from the Premier Division will get a bye to the round of 16. The first round is scheduled to begin on the week of April 15.
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The league will continue to operate a reserve division (however, unlike previous years where there were both U19 and U21 divisions, there will be a single U20 division). | 2023 |
76600747 | 2024 Ligue1 Québec féminine season | 2024-04-12 22:05:48+00:00 | The 2024 Ligue1 Québec féminine season season will be the seventh season of play for Ligue1 Québec (and the second since rebranding from the Première ligue de soccer du Québec), a Division 3 women's soccer league in the Canadian soccer pyramid and the highest level of soccer based in the Canadian province of Québec.
The teams will be split into two divisions based on geography, rather than hosting a single division as in previous seasons. The league champion will be decided through a playoff system, instead of the team with the highest point total. The Coupe L1Q will not be held in 2024.
Twelve teams will participate in the 2024 season. The teams will be divided into two divisions of six teams, with each team playing the other teams in their division twice, as well as the teams in the other division once, for a total of 16 matches. The top two teams will advance to a Final Four tournament, with the winner advancing to the League1 Canada Interprovincial final.
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The top two teams in each division will avance to the playoffs. The winner will advance to the League1 Canada Interprovincial Championship.
Source: Spordle | 2023 |
74837690 | March 2023 North American winter storm | 2023-09-16 18:00:32+00:00 | A winter storm in March 2023 impacted much of the Western, Northern, and Northeastern United States, producing high snowfall totals and widespread damage across the region. The winter storm, unofficially named Winter Storm Sage by The Weather Channel, first progressed across the Western United States as an atmospheric river, and then moved across the northern United States, bringing blizzard conditions and moderate snowfall across the Northern U.S.. The winter storm then became a nor'easter and impacted the Northeast, bringing snowfall rates of 1–2 inches (2.5–5.1 cm) per hour across numerous locations across the Northeast and 3 feet (36 in) of snow in several locations across the region with locally higher amounts. More than 320,000 power outages occurred across the areas impacted by the winter storm, and caused three fatalities and two injuries. Readsboro, Vermont received 42.1 inches (107 cm) of snow, and nearly 200 car accidents occurred across the New England region in the Northeast.
On March 10, a frontal system moved eastward across the western U.S. from the Pacific Northwest, with the main low pressure area associated with the system located offshore of southwestern Washington and a separate area of low-pressure east of the California/Nevada border. As a result, an atmospheric river developed, bringing heavy rainfall and high snow accumulations to portions of the Western United States and Sierra Nevada. The atmospheric river then transitioned into a winter storm as it then moved across the northern United States on March 11–12, bringing blizzard conditions and moderate snowfall across the Northern United States, producing additional snowfall accumulations across the region. The winter storm then became a nor'easter as another low-pressure area developed off the Carolina coast and moved northward along the coastline of the Northeastern United States, bringing snowfall rates of 1–2 inches (2.5–5.1 cm) per hour across numerous locations across the Northeast for the next several days. The winter storm brought 3 feet (36 in) of snow in some locations across the Northeastern United States, with locally higher amounts. The winter storm then moved offshore on March 15, dissipating two days later.
California governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for 34 counties in the state. Governor Newsom also requested an emergency declaration for the state, which was accepted by United States president Joe Biden. A rare level 4/high risk of excessive rainfall was issued by the Weather Prediction Center for portions of the state. More than 25 million people were placed under a flood watch in California, and several ski resorts closed in California in anticipation of heavy snowfall. In neighboring Nevada, governor Joe Lombardo issued a state of emergency for three counties in the state, which was later expanded to eight more counties.
On March 13, New York governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency and a travel ban for several counties in New York. The Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York City shut down walkways on the Cross Bay Bridge and Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, and monitored to see if other bridges, subways or buses needed to be shut down.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont banned all tractor-trailers on Interstate 84 in the early morning hours on March 14 in preparation for the storm. Maine Governor Janet Mills ordered all government offices to close.
Prior to the winter storm, Jon Palmer of the National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine, stated that the precipitation may cause significant power disruptions that last for over 48 hours. Cornell University shut down on March 14 in preparation for the snow. The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories from Pennsylvania to Maine.
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The strong atmospheric river that developed into the winter storm impacted California on March 10, producing heavy rainfall which caused flooding across lower elevations of the state, and heavy snowfall which brought high snowfall totals across the Sierra Nevada mountains. A road leading to the town of Soquel collapsed due to flooding after a pipe failure, and widespread flooding and strong winds led to separated roads, collapsed bridges, and downed trees in Tulare County while a rare flash flood emergency was in effect there. The San Lorenzo River crested, which prompted evacuation orders for Soquel Village, Paradise Park, and Felton Grove as several other rivers also crested to above flood levels. Nearly 60 people were evacuated from a RV park near Sanger, and several people and animals were also rescued across San Luis Obispo County. Twenty-five "weather-related incidents", including several water rescues, occurred across the city of Fresno. Across the state, widespread amounts of 3–10 inches (76–254 mm) of rain fell, with locally higher amounts of up to nearly 13 inches (330 mm) of rainfall in King City. A levee was breached due to a swollen Pajaro River, which flooded Pajaro entirely, with the California Army National Guard rescuing more than 200 people there. An evacuation order was also given for portions of Cambria due to flooding. Several homes were flooded after the Tule River overflowed its banks, and to prevent flooding, the Folsom Dam released 30,000 cubic feet (850,000 L) of water every second in Sacramento County. Portions of California State Route 1 and California State Route 12 were closed, and several people evacuated in Watsonville after flooding ensued across portions of the city. Heavy rainfall closed several public parks, including Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park. California State Route 84 between Portola Road and Skyline Boulevard was closed indefinitely due to damage from a landslide, resulting in the road buckling and leaving behind large cracks. Nearly 9,400 people were placed under evacuation orders. Across the state, 55,000 power outages occurred, and one person was killed and one person was injured after a portion of the roof of a warehouse collapsed. The heavy snowfall across the Sierra Nevada mountain range led to collapsed roofs across South Lake Tahoe. In California, damages from the atmospheric river amounted to more than $3 million.
In neighboring Nevada, a portion of U.S. Route 95 was shut down between Schurz and Hawthorne. The town of Mount Charleston received 1.38 inches (35 mm) of rain, and the visitor center at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area recorded a 52 miles per hour (84 km/h) wind gust. In Nevada, flood and winter weather impacts resulted in more than $12 million in property damages.
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North Dakota
On March 11, blizzard conditions occurred across portions of the state, which forced closures on Interstate 94 between Jamestown and Dickinson, as well as on U.S. Route 52. Near Park River, 14 inches (36 cm) of snow fell, and nearly 6 inches (15 cm) of snowfall accumulated in Bismarck. Several vehicles were stuck on portions of North Dakota Highway 36, and a no travel advisory around the Grand Forks area. Travel was also significantly impacted on Interstate 94 west of Fargo, Interstate 29 between Fargo and Grand Forks, and U.S. Route 2. In McKenzie County, there were $200,000 in property damages, and one person was killed after his vehicle crashed into a semi-trailer truck; the driver of the semi-trailer was also injured.
Minnesota and Wisconsin
In Minnesota, high snowfall totals were observed across northern portions of the state, with a weather station recording 18.5 inches (47 cm) west of Two Harbors. Blizzard conditions also occurred in Detroit Lakes. A mall in Duluth had its roof collapse due to the weight of the snow.
In Wisconsin, the highest snowfall totals were recorded mainly across northern and eastern portions of the state, with 22 inches (56 cm) of snowfall near Cornucopia and Sheboygan receiving 13.2 inches (34 cm) of snow. Due to the high snow accumulations, several schools were closed or delayed opening hours across the state.
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During the storm, 284,000 customers lost power across the Northeast, and low visibility led to over 200 car crashes in New England.
New England
High snow accumulations occurred across mainly southern portions of Vermont, with Readsboro receiving 42.1 inches (107 cm) of snow and Landgrove recording 40 inches (100 cm) of snowfall. Several car accidents occurred across the state. Nearly 30,000 power outages occurred across Vermont, including nearly 25 percent of Brattleboro, where more than 30 roads were closed.
In New Hampshire, snow and ice resulted in the Piscataqua River Bridge being shut down for around an hour, and Interstate 93 was shut down temporarily due to downed power lines caused by the winter storm. A sportsdome in Goffstown deflated after 16 inches (41 cm) of snow fell there. Whiteout conditions occurred on portions of New Hampshire Route 101, and more than 120 vehicle accidents occurred. Nearly 70 towns postponed elections, and one girl was injured after a tree fell on her in Derry. More than 73,000 power outages occurred across the state, and a 66 miles per hour (106 km/h) wind gust was recorded at Mount Washington Observatory.
Several locations in eastern Massachusetts experienced wind gusts of over 50 miles per hour (80 km/h), with Rockport recording the highest wind gust in the state, at 63 miles per hour (101 km/h). Downed trees and power lines occurred across the state, including in Pittsfield. Several cows were killed after a barn collapsed after high snowfall accumulations in Dracut. In Colrain, 36 inches (91 cm) of snow fell, and in Peterboro, 35 inches (89 cm) of snow fell. More than 50,000 power outages occurred across Massachusetts. As a result of the winter storm, a state of emergency was declared for several jurisdictions across the state. The winter storm was the most impactful in the state of the 2022–23 North American winter.
More than 15,000 power outages occurred in Maine, and an additional 13,000 outages occurred in Connecticut. Bradley International Airport closed and cancelled 40% of their flights for that day.
New York
A Delta plane skidded off the runway at Syracuse Hancock Airport. Near Palenville, 36 inches (91 cm) of snow fell, and Stony Creek and Moriah received the same amount. Over 100,000 people in the Albany, New York metropolitan area lost power. Farther south, the nor'easter forced a ground stop at LaGuardia Airport. Portions of Long Island received up to 2.2 inches (5.6 cm) of snowfall. Very little snow fell in New York City, with Central Park receiving only a trace of snow, and LaGuardia and Kennedy Airport receiving just 0.1 inches (0.25 cm) of snow. Wind gusts reached as high as 50 mph (80 km/h) in Midtown Manhattan. However, very heavy snow fell in the Hudson Valley, with the Mount Carmel District recording 17 inches (43 cm) of snow and with over 6 inches (15 cm) of snow falling in portions of Westchester. More than 73,000 power outages occurred across the state, which led to more than 8,000 utility crews deployed to assist with power restoration.
Elsewhere
Heavy rain fell throughout the New York metropolitan area, accumulating up to 4.12 inches (105 mm) of rainfall in Higganum, Connecticut. While portions of New Jersey received over 8 inches (20 cm) of snow, very little snow fell close to the coast in lower elevations, with Newark, New Jersey recording 0.4 inches (1.0 cm) of snow. Wind gusts in New Jersey reached as high as 54 mph (87 km/h) in Beach Haven, with a 44 mph (71 km/h) gust occurring in Newark. More than 12,000 customers lost power in Pennsylvania as snow fell across western and northeastern portions of the state, including the Pittsburgh and Scranton areas. | 2023 |
75985377 | Roman Catholic Diocese of Katsina | 2024-02-02 19:22:00+00:00 | The Roman Catholic Diocese of Katsina (Latin: Katsinen(sis)) is a diocese located in the city of Katsina in the ecclesiastical province of Kaduna in Nigeria. Its territory is made up of the state of Katsina. It was established by Pope Francis in 2023.
October 16, 2023: Established as the Diocese of Katsina from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto.
The Cathedral is St. Martin De Porres Cathedral in Katsina city.
Diocese of Katsina (Roman rite)
Bishop Gerald Mamman Musa (2023.10.16 - present)
GCatholic.org Information
Catholic Hierarchy
Nigerian Catholic Diocesan Priests Association page about Katsina Diocese | 2023 |
74474528 | 2023 Pokémon World Championships | 2023-07-29 07:04:02+00:00 | The 2023 Pokémon World Championships (Japanese: 2023 ポケモンワールドチャンピオンシップス) was an international multi-game event held from August 11, 2023 (2023-08-11) to August 13, 2023 (2023-08-13) in Yokohama, Japan, following its announcement as the host city during the closing ceremony of the 2022 edition in London.
The Games were the 18th edition of the Pokémon World Championships, following the 2022 Pokémon World Championships in London. Yokohama is the first city in Japan and in Asia to host the Pokémon World Championships. The Games was also the first time that the Pokémon World Championships was held consecutively outside of North America.
The Pokémon Company (TPC) removed Pokkén Tournament from the games lineup after the game has been in the Pokémon World Championships since 2016. This was also the first time TPC removed a game from the main events. The release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has also adjusted all of the main events through new Pokémon, abilities, and moves.
Hosts Japan swept the VGC (Pokémon Scarlet and Violet) podium, winning at the Juniors, Seniors, and Masters level. This is the fourth VGC podium sweep in the history of the Pokémon World Championships, with the other three podium sweeps occurring in 2011, 2012, and 2016, all done by the United States. In Pokémon Unite, Luminosity Gaming defended their title, still standing as the only Esports team with a world championship in Pokémon Unite. In Pokémon Trading Card Game, Brazil had 25 entrants, and was one of the three countries with 20+ entrants (behind hosts Japan and the United States). In addition, Taiwan won their first championship in TCG at the Juniors level. In Pokémon Go, the United States swept the podium. The closing ceremony announced that the United States will host the 2024 Pokémon World Championships for the 16th time in Honolulu.
Also at the closing ceremony, The Pokémon Company announced meta-defining news for each event in the games lineup. In Pokémon Go, Pokémon from the Paldea region from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will be integrated in the game in September 2023. In Pokémon Trading Card Game, Paradox Pokémon from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will be released in November 2023. In Pokémon Unite, Blaziken, Mimikyu, and Meowscarada will be the next batch of new Pokémon. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, more information was revealed for the DLC, most notably that all starters from every Pokémon region will be available when the second DLC releases in Winter 2023.
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The tournament featured eight events in four games. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet made its debut as the ninth Pokémon video game in the Pokémon World Championships. For Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, there were three events for both games where each event was dedicated to a specific age division. For Pokémon Unite and Pokémon Go, there was one event each where participants must be at least 16 and 13 years old to participate, respectively, although countries may require participants to be older.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet introduced a new mainline battle mechanic called Terastallization, where Pokémon have the ability to change their type at any point during the battle. This is the fourth mainline battle mechanic introduced in the Pokémon video game series, after Mega Evolution in Pokémon X and Y, Z-Moves in Pokémon Sun and Moon, and Dynamax in Pokémon Sword and Shield. The Terastallization phenomenon, abilities, and new Pokémon has had substantial impact in the other titles in the Games, such as Terastal Pokémon in TCG. This is also the first time that a new ruleset (called "Regulation D") was first implemented at the Pokémon World Championships, rather than during the regular season.
All times and dates use Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)
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The Top 108 Pokémon Go players in the world were invited and competed in group stage format to determine a Top 16 knockout stage.
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A total of 348 players from 36 nations competed in the Pokémon Trading Card Game across three age divisions.
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The Top 93 Pokémon Trading Card Game players born 2011 or later were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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The Top 85 Pokémon Trading Card Game players born between 2007 and 2010 were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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The Top 170 Pokémon Trading Card Game players born between born 2006 or earlier were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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A total of 256 players from 33 nations competed in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet across three age divisions.
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The Top 69 Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players born 2011 or later were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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The Top 74 Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players born between 2007 and 2010 were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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The Top 113 Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players born before 2007 were invited and competed in a Swiss-system format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage.
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The top 28 Pokémon Unite teams (of five people) were invited and competed in a group stage format to determine the Top 8 knockout stage. The winners of each group advance to the Top 8 knockout stage.
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73760158 | 2023 Moscow Victory Day Parade | 2023-05-09 09:05:53+00:00 | The 2023 Moscow Victory Day Parade was a military parade held in Red Square, Moscow, Russia, on 9 May 2023, to commemorate Victory Day which celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Eastern Front of World War II. The event was scaled down due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine amidst an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin issued by the International Criminal Court in March 2023.
Victory Day is a significant secular holiday in Russia that commemorates Germany's surrender in World War II, which marked the end of one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. The holiday celebrates the military might and moral fortitude of the Red Army, which suffered enormous losses in the war, with at least 20 million Soviet citizens losing their lives. Victory Day has been observed annually on May 9 since 1945, and it is one of the most revered and widely celebrated public holidays in Russia, with parades, fireworks, and concerts held across the country.
The 2023 parade was heavily scaled down compared to earlier parades. Around 51 vehicles were present, which included IMVs and Remdiesel Z-STS Akhmat MRAPs, the latter of which are only used by Chechen forces.
Only one tank was shown, namely an antique T-34-85, a type produced in the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1946. No flyover column was present during the event for the second year in a row. Only 51 vehicles were present compared to 197 for the 2021 Victory Day parade, roughly only 25% of the vehicles that appeared in 2021. Given the lack of a flyover, the parade lasted only 45 minutes, compared to an hour and a half as per usual. Only eight thousand soldiers took place in the parade compared to eleven thousand soldiers who appeared in 2021. The vintage T-34-85 was the only tracked vehicle on parade, the rest of the vehicles were light fighting vehicles that were wheeled. Vehicles such as VPK-3927 Volk, Tigr and VPK-7829 Bumerang appeared on the parade. No short range air defense systems were seen either, a break from previous parades. Finally the relatives of those that fought in Great Patriotic War, the Immortal Regiment, were not allowed to march.
As in earlier years, missile launchers and artillery were also included. ICBMs were shown and among these were three RS-24 Yars.
In his speech to the Russian audience, Putin claimed that Russia is the defender of peace, freedom, and stability, saying that "We believe that any ideology of superiority is inherently disgusting, criminal and deadly." Putin accused "Western globalist elites" for "provoking bloody conflicts and upheaval," professing an "aggressive nationalism," sowing hatred and Russophobia, and destroying traditional family values.
Amongst those in attendance were:
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko
President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov
President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon
President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedow
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan | 2023 |
73996594 | Air Defender 23 | 2023-06-09 18:59:56+00:00 | Air Defender 23 is the name of a major maneuver of armed forces of member states of NATO and other European countries in European airspace in 2023. It lasted 10 days, from 12 June to 23 June 2023. Although Air Defender 23 was not an exercise of NATO, but initiated by the Bundeswehr, it was the largest exercise of air forces announced since NATO was founded. The maneuver took place in the airspace of the Federal Republic of Germany, under the leadership of the German Air Force. It involved up to 10,000 soldiers and 250 aircraft from 25 countries.
Preparation for the exercise began in 2018. The exercise scenario of Air Defender 23, is that after an attack from the East, Germany asked for assistance according to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the allies within NATO reacted according to the alliance. At the beginning of the exercise, around 100 aircraft of the US armed forces were moved to Germany from the United States, most of the Air National Guard from 42 States.
Before the exercise began, there were already relocations of aircraft from the US for Air Defender 23. In German airspace, the training flights took place in three sectors. In the north practice area above the German Bay, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, and Lower Saxony, in the East exercise area, d. H. About the new federal states and over the German part of the Baltic Sea as well as in the south practice area via Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, and Rhineland-Palatinate. The exercises took place exclusively on weekdays and during the day.
Each exercise area in Germany involved flying by 40–80 aircraft once a day. Around 250 starts of military aircraft were planned every day in Germany. During the day, the three airspace sectors were closed to civil aircraft at certain times. For the exercise, the military airfields in Wunstorf (in Lower Saxony), Schleswig, Hohn (both in Schleswig-Holstein), and Lechfeld (in Bavaria) are used. The airfields Laage (in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), Geilenkirchen (North Rhine-Westphalia), Spangdahlem (in Rhineland-Palatinate), Neuburg (Bavaria), Volkel (in the Netherlands), Krzesiny (in Poland) and Čáslav (in the Czech Republic) were included in the large exercise.
During the maneuver, daily return flights between Germany and Estonia and Germany and Romania were carried out as part of exercise missions. In the East practice area, the defense of the port of Rostock and critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, e.g. nautical cables, were simulated.
According to the Bundeswehr, exercise exceptions in the East practice area – took place at flight heights between 2,500 and 15,000 meters. According to the Bundeswehr, the largest mobile fuel camp in German history was built for the large maneuver on the Bundeswehr at Wunstorf Air Base. It has a storage capacity of 2.4 million liters of fuel.
Below are listed the exercise participants and the aircraft they participated with:
According to the Bundeswehr, a drone type (General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper) and the following aircraft took part in the maneuver:
Panavia Tornado
Eurofighter
A400
F-16
A-10
F-35
C-130
F-18
F-15
C-17
B-1
KC-46
C-27
C-2
Gripen
Falcon 20
KC-135
C-295 | 2023 |
75303988 | Al-Shifa Hospital siege | 2023-11-13 15:52:04+00:00 | Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, was placed under siege by Israel in mid-November 2023 during the Israel–Hamas war, after saying it had contained a Hamas command and control center beneath it. The incident was followed by a second major raid by Israeli forces in March 2024.
On 11 November, the hospital was completely encircled, cutting it off from the rest of Gaza City. According to Gazan health officials, the hospital contained 1,500 patients, 1,500 medical workers and around 15,000 displaced people who were seeking shelter in the hospital. Both Israel and the United States have said that Hamas maintained command centers or command "nodes" below the hospital. Both the hospital's administration and Hamas denied that, with the former asking the international community to send security experts to verify the Israeli allegations. There were over 100 dead bodies placed in the courtyard and later buried by medical staff in a mass grave due to the siege. On 15 November, Israeli forces said they entered the hospital after killing militants outside, and that they had discovered a Hamas command centre, weaponry, and tactical gear.
After a media tour, The Guardian and CNN reported that the Israeli army had rearranged or doubled weapons for the tour and that an Israeli video showing the discoveries had been edited. NBC News said that Israel released several pieces of inaccurate or disputed information, which weakened Israel's credibility. Al Jazeera said that "many experts" accused Israel of fabricating evidence. On 22 November, Israel published video showing multiple tunnels beneath the hospital; The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian reported that this fell short of the original command center claims. Israel published surveillance footage taken by the hospital's cameras, appearing to show two hostages being taken into the hospital. The Guardian reported that Hamas had previously publicized taking hostages to receive medical treatment. On 21 December, The Washington Post published analysis concluding that the hospital buildings in question were not actually connected to the tunnels. On 2 January 2024, the United States released newly declassified documents showing that its spy agencies continued to believe that the hospital had been used as a command and control centre, and the following day Israel announced that it had dismantled a tunnel beneath the hospital. News reports the next day said that that both Israeli and US statements are not considered as conclusive proof of Hamas use of al-Shifa.
The raid on the hospital and Israel's limited findings of military infrastructure led to international criticism, including by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk who called for an independent investigation. International law prohibits the targeting of hospitals unless used for a military purpose that is "harmful to the enemy", as well as the use of human shields for combatants; both constitute war crimes. Jeremy Scahil accused Israel of waging a propaganda war to detract from accusations that its actions at al-Shifa constitute violations of international law. Medical staff at al-Shifa have accused Israel of directly causing the deaths of civilians being treated at al-Shifa, including prematurely born babies. The head of the World Health Organization said, "hospitals are not battlegrounds," and that Israel's action was "totally unacceptable." On 18 March 2024, Israeli forces conducted an overnight raid on Al-Shifa hospital following intel that senior Hamas officials had regrouped and were using the hospital "to command attacks". After a two week siege that ended on 1 April 2024, the Al-Shifa hospital was mostly destroyed, and hundreds of dead Palestinians were found in and around the hospital, including in mass graves.
Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been under blockade by Israel and Egypt. On 7 October 2023, Hamas attacked Israeli civilian communities and military bases, killing around 1,200 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians, and taking about 250 hostages into Gaza. Israel conducted a counterattack. Israel also imposed a total blockade on Gaza, invaded the Gaza Strip on 27 October, and surrounded Gaza City on 2 November.
Al-Shifa is the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip; it was originally a British army barracks but was converted into a hospital in 1946.
Hamas's presence in the hospital during the 2014 Gaza War is disputed. Israel has stated that the hospital was a Hamas control and command centre, and The Washington Post reported it had "become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices." By contrast, doctors Erik Fosse and Mads Gilbert, who were working at the hospital, stated that they did not see any evidence of military activity at the hospital during the war. Professor Sara Roy stated that military use of the hospital was "highly improbable". Amnesty International reported in 2015 that Hamas had used abandoned areas of the hospital to "detain, interrogate, torture and otherwise ill-treat suspects" while the hospital was operational.
The Israeli military had ordered all civilians in the region to evacuate on 13 October. The IDF reported that Hamas was preventing the evacuation of civilians from the area and particularly from Al Shifa hospital, with the IDF stating that Hamas was using civilians as human shields.
The IDF again requested all civilians in Northern Gaza and specifically Al-Shifa hospital to evacuate on 9 November. Thousands of displaced civilians were sheltering in the hospital at the time of the attacks on 11 November.
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Under the laws of war, hospitals normally enjoy protected status, making it forbidden to turn them into a conflict zone. That status is lost if there is evidence that the hospital is being used to make an "effective contribution to military action"; examples provided by Israel in its 2006 Rules of Warfare manual where a protected civilian structure loses its status include an anti-aircraft battery on the roof of a school, or a sniper in a mosque. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), this rule "has few exceptions". The exceptions include "carrying or using of individual light weapon in self-defense or defense of wounded and sick; armed guarding of a medical facility; or the presence in a medical facility of sick or wounded combatants no longer taking part in hostilities", which do not negate protected status as a medical facility.
According to Israel and the United States, conclusive evidence exists that Hamas used the building for military purposes; Hamas denies this. According to the ICRC, if there is doubt about whether a hospital is being used for military purposes, it should be presumed not to be being used militarily.
It does not negate protected status if a hospital has "small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded and sick and not yet handed to the proper service", and there is also a narrow exception for the use of small firearms by medical facilities in war zones if "they use the arms in their own defence, or in that of the wounded and sick in their charge".
Even if there is strong evidence of military activity at the hospital that substantially exceeds these exemptions, strict rules that limit how force can be used still apply; civilians must be given the chance to evacuate, and civilians who remain in the building are still protected and cannot be targeted directly. Prior to the raid, Israel called for the evacuation of the hospital, but on 13 November doctors refused to do so, saying that they had to remain in order to tend to over 700 at risk patients. According to Hamas, civilians were unable to evacuate due to sniper fire and drone attacks.
On 3 November, an Israeli airstrike targeted an ambulance convoy leaving the hospital. The attack killed 15 and wounded 60. Israel stated that Hamas was using the ambulances. Neither the Washington Post nor the Human Rights Watch found anything to evidence the Israeli statements. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) stated that Israel had targeted Al-Shifa ambulances 7 times prior and had killed 4 of their personnel. On 6 November, Israeli forces struck and destroyed the solar panels atop the hospital, leaving it fully reliant on back-up generators powered by rapidly dwindling fuel supplies.
On 10 November, at least four strikes hit various areas of the hospital with various projectiles. Israel stated that at least one projectile was a misfired militant rocket, but did not elaborate further. The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) stated that there were at least 5 strikes damaging parts of the hospital complex,- two, at 2 and 8 am., hitting the maternity ward located on the upper floors,- stating that 14 people had been killed. Later a Palestinian doctor stated that 7 people had died following the strikes. On the same day, it was reported that Israeli forces were at the gates of the hospital. According to a follow-up investigation commissioned by the New York Times from experts who examined videos and remnants of the munitions, three of the projectiles fired at the hospital were Israeli.
On 11 November, the GHM stated that an evacuation was underway, that 50,000–60,000 people were sheltering in the hospital before, and that fewer than 3,000 people remained. Later that day, the PRCS stated that Israeli tanks were 20 meters away from the hospital. Doctors Without Borders (DWB) and the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that Israeli troops were shooting at those trying to exit the hospital, which Israel denied. Israel stated that they were letting people leave the hospital, which DWB denied. By this time, Al-Shifa ran out of fuel and had suspended some operations. As a result, 2 babies in incubators and two other patients died. The hospital director said that the hospital had electricity until the morning of 12 November, meaning that 37 babies in incubators are at risk of dying.
In a series of comments with Al Jazeera, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of the hospital, said that the hospital was cut off from the rest of the city, trapping a reported 15,000 people inside. He also added that "patients were dying by the minute, victims and wounded were also dying, even babies in incubators."
The Israeli military denied it had placed the Al-Shifa hospital under siege, stating that there wasn't any shooting or siege, and that the east side remained open. On the same day, the WHO reported that it had lost contact with the hospital. The hospital director said that premature babies were in a 'precarious situation' and that they were transferred to an 'unhealthy location'. At this time, power was completely cut off in the hospital. Minister of Health Mai Al-Kalia stated that over 100 bodies were in the courtyard and that the medical teams were unable to make a mass grave in the courtyard due to the 'seriousness of the field situation.' She also added that 39 babies were at risk of death and that one baby died that morning due to lack of fuel. Stray dogs had also begun to "snap" and eat the corpses. Doctors in Al-Shifa Hospital reported snipers at the outskirts of the complex were firing at "any moving person".
Hamas officials had reported to Agence France-Presse that the cardiac ward was struck by Israeli air strikes, which was confirmed by witnesses but not by AFP.
On 12 November, Israel attempted to provide 300 litres of fuel to the hospital, which they say was blocked by Hamas. In response, a spokesperson for the health ministry stated that Al-Shifa needed 8000-12000 litres of fuel to run for a day, and that 300 litres would keep the hospital running for half an hour. Additionally, hospital staff noted there was no way to receive this fuel, as no ambulances were arriving at Al-Shifa and risk getting caught in crossfire, urging that the only way to safely access the fuel was with a pause in fighting.
On 13 November, about 50 people tried to evacuate from the hospital, but they said that Israeli forces fired at them, wounding one man.
On 14 November, a Gaza health official said that medical staff had buried 179 dead patients in a mass grave in the hospital's courtyard as the bodies had begun to decompose after the hospital's mortuary lost electricity. A witness reported "wild dogs" had been eating the unburied dead bodies.
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Just after midnight on 15 November, Israeli forces informed officials that they would shortly be raiding the hospital. Hospital staff reported sounds of clashes from outside the grounds, and Israel reported killing several Hamas militants outside of the grounds.
Following the raid, Israel stated that they had delivered supplies to the hospital, including medical supplies and baby food, and would provide battery-powered incubators to assist in transferring babies. There was no confirmation from Reuters regarding the incubators, and NBC was "unable to verify when the incubators might be delivered or how the Israeli army would get them to Al-Shifa amid the violence in the area". The IDF released a photo of a soldier standing beside boxes labelled as medical supplies and baby food and Reuters confirmed that the location was inside Al Shifa. Reuters reported the IDF said that three battery powered incubators were on standby outside Gaza. The IDF released a video showing them depositing at the front gate of al-Shifa 300 litres of fuel and a photo of a soldier loading mobile incubators. Israel also reported finding weapons and other "terror infrastructure" within the hospital; "concrete evidence", they said, of Hamas using the hospital as a "terror headquarter". According to the BBC, an Israeli official said that Israel had found weapons and terror infrastructure but did not immediately provide evidence.
According to a journalist inside the hospital, Israel was interrogating people within the hospital on Wednesday morning, including doctors and patients. According to a witness, Israeli forces fired a smoke bomb into the hospital that "caused people to suffocate", while a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry said "The occupation army is now in the basement and searching the basement. They are inside the complex, shooting and carrying out bombings." Munir al-Bursh, the general director of Gaza hospitals, told Al Jazeera, "Patients, women and children are terrified."
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Netanyahu stated in an interview with CBS that the Israeli government had "strong indications" that hostages were in al-Shifa, which was one of the reasons they entered the hospital, adding that "I think the less I say about it, the better." On 16 November, the IDF reported that the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year old woman who was captured from Be'eri kibbutz, had been located in a structure nearby to the hospital. On 17 November, the IDF had discovered the body of 19-year-old Cpl Noa Marciano in a building next to the hospital.
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On 19 November, the World Health Organization evacuated 31 premature babies while more than 250 critically ill or wounded patients remain trapped at the hospital. Doctors Without Borders said Israeli forces had on 18 November fired "deliberately" on a clearly marked convoy carrying 140 of the organization's employees and family members. More than 2,500 people were also evacuated.
There have been allegations that Hamas has been using the Al-Shifa Hospital for military purposes. Izzat al-Risheq, a Hamas official, denied allegations that the group was using Shifa Hospital as a shield for its underground military structures, saying there was no truth to the statements.
On 14 November 2023, the U.S. National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, said that the United States had its own intelligence sources indicating that Al Shifa hospital was being used by Hamas to run military operations and store weapons, which constitutes a war crime. The intelligence included communication intercepts of Hamas fighters inside the hospital complex.
Al-Shifa staff had appealed to the international community to send international delegations to the hospital to see that no military actions were taking place in the hospital.
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The IDF released photos showing "Military uniforms, 11 guns, three military vests, one with a Hamas logo, nine grenades, two Qurans, a string of prayer beads, a box of dates" that they said was found in the hospital. Former US State Department legal advisor Brian Finucane said "These arms by themselves hardly seem to justify the military fixation on al-Shifa, even setting the law aside".
Following the release of the Israeli photos, Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara was skeptical, since Hamas left the guns and nothing else. Bishara added that Israel doesn't have any evidence that justifies "the genocide that they've carried out against Gaza and the bombings of the hospitals and other facilities and for the collective punishments."
Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst, stated to Al Jazeera, "Israeli forces have invaded Shifa Hospital and been inside it for 12 full hours – having refused any independent party to accompany them – and now we're supposed to believe that there were Hamas militants in there being pursued by the Israeli military but they somehow left their weapons behind?"
Israeli forces continued to search the facility for a second day, unearthing what they described as a tunnel entrance on the perimeter of the hospital complex. New York Times journalists visited the site and verified that a concrete shaft descending into the earth existed, and that electrical wiring and a ladder was visible, although they were not able to determine how deep the shaft was or where it led. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill stated that the "Israelis have a multidecade track record of lying, of promoting false information, releasing doctored videos". He then stated regarding the evidence that he had seen more guns in the homes of Americans than in this purported Hamas Pentagon under al-Shifa Hospital.
Jeremy Bowen, BBC News' international editor, noted that there is no independent scrutiny inside the hospital, since journalists are working under the supervision of the Israeli military. He also stated that the evidence that was produced wasn't convincing enough to prove that "this was a nerve centre for the Hamas operation". On 17 November 2023, journalists for The Independent stated that "Israel has not presented evidence that shows a large-scale headquarters under the hospital".
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On 19 November the IDF released footage down the tunnel shaft of what it stated to be a Hamas tunnel network. The footage showed a tunnel shaft, which contains a winding staircase approximately three meters deep and it continues for seven meters down until it reaches part of a tunnel network. The tunnel continues for five meters before turning right and continuing for another 50 meters. At the end, there is a blast door and what the IDF says is a gunhole. Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, stated the Israeli tunnel statement was a "pure lie" and that the IDF had already been on the al-Shifa complex for eight days. Later that day, the IDF also published surveillance footage taken by the hospital's cameras, showing a group of men forcibly bringing two hostages into the hospital. The hostages were identified as two foreign hostages captured during the 7 October attack. Hamas didn't respond, but in the past they stated that they have taken hostages to hospitals for treatment.
On the same day, CNN visited the tunnel shaft and confirmed that a tunnel existed near the hospital, describing a substantial shaft descending 10 metres into earth that included a central column that looked like a hub for a spiral staircase; according to a video shown by the IDF, deeper in the shaft such a spiral staircase did exist. Both Hamas and health officials had denied that a tunnel network existed beneath the hospital. After inspecting the tunnel network, Haaretz reported that "The question of whether Al-Shifa's managers knew about the tunnels, the munitions and the military headquarters is answered the moment you go down into the tunnel with the IDF – one stretch is 170 meters long. There is no way the hospital administrators didn't know what was happening…The tunnels lead to well-lit, air-conditioned rooms that contain tables and beds. It's not clear if these rooms were prepared to receive hostages, but there is no doubt they were used by Hamas company, battalion and brigade commanders, and that fighting was directed from there in recent rounds, if not in the current war as well."
On 20 November, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, referring to Israeli built bunkers from decades ago, told CNN "It's already [been] known for many years that they [Hamas] have the bunkers that originally [were] built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa [which] were used as a command post of Hamas. And, a kind of junction of several tunnels are part of this system." According to Israeli officials, Hamas subsequently dug out the original basement, later adding new floors and connecting it as a hub within their existing tunnel system. A France24 investigation concluded that the images and videos of the tunnels published by the IDF were consistent with Hamas built tunnels. They also note that the tunnels were found under the Qatari building, which was built after Israel withdrew from Gaza.
The Washington Post analyzed the publicly released material by Israel, along with satellite imagery and other publicly available material, and concluded that the rooms that were connected to a tunnel network did not show any immediate evidence of being used by Hamas, and that each of the buildings that the IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari had identified as being "directly involved" in Hamas's military activity did not appear to be connected to any tunnel network, and that there had been no evidence released that showed that a tunnel network could be accessed from within the hospital's wards. The France 24 Observer analysis team was "unable to verify Israeli claims that the passage leads to a larger network of tunnels."
The situation at al-Shifa Hospital is part of a serious healthcare crisis in Gaza. The hospital is rapidly running out of electricity, food and medical supplies. The last generator ran out of fuel, killing three premature babies and four other patients. By 19 November, the hospital had no antibiotics or painkillers to treat its patients.
By 12 November, two critically ill patients in the ICU had died because of a lack of electricity and oxygen.
According to a doctor at the hospital quoted in a 15 November BBC article, six premature infants had died, as had a critically ill adult burn victim. The doctor attributes these deaths to a lack of fuel for incubators, oxygen, and other essential medical equipment. Another doctor at the hospital, Ahmed Mokhallalati, said that 43 of the hospital's 63 intensive care patients had died because the intensive care unit ran out of oxygen.
The blockade has resulted in a humanitarian disaster, with numerous Palestinians seeking refuge in medical facilities. The toll on civilians, particularly children, has been extensive, with almost half of Gaza's hospitals shutting down due to acute fuel scarcity. The hospital has had to provide makeshift housing, and the absence of clean water and sanitation services is exacerbating the transmission of infectious diseases.
Amidst the siege, Hamas suspended hostage negotiations due to Israel's takeover of al-Shifa Hospital and heavy fire as Israeli forces approached the facility.
Gaza officials said an airstrike destroyed the hospital's cardiac ward, while a power cut shut down the neonatal unit's incubators where around 40 children were hosted and ventilators for others receiving urgent care.
On 19 November, the 31 remaining premature babies receiving care at al-Shifa Hospital were transferred to Emirati Hospital in Rafah, escorted by the Palestinian Red Crescent and other health organizations. 28 of the babies were evacuated to Egypt on 20 November.
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Before and after the siege, the Israeli government engaged in a public relations campaign aimed at justifying its siege and takeover of the hospital. On 11 November, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted a video purportedly of a nurse at al-Shifa who backs up Israeli statements regarding Hamas usage of the hospital. The Nation described the campaign as propaganda, and stated that the video was widely mocked, with many Arabs questioning its authenticity, and the ministry deleting the tweet in a day. The Daily Beast, remarking on the video, said "Everything about it smacked of high school theater—from the botched accent that sounded like it was straight out of an Israeli soap opera to the perfectly scripted IDF talking points rolling off her tongue." France 24 found the video to likely be staged. Subsequently, France 24, citing three experts, Michael Milshtein of Tel-Aviv University, Scott Savitz, an Engineer, and Daphne Richmond-Barak of Reichman University in Israel, found the Israeli-released footage of tunnels beneath Shifa hospital "do indicate that these tunnels have all the characteristics of tunnels that belong to the Hamas terrorist group."
Some experts have said that questionable evidence such as stating that an Arabic calendar was a Hamas shift schedule, and displaying curtains as evidence that hostage videos were filmed has weakened Israel's credibility, with H. A. Hellyer stating "The irony is they might find something and nobody is going to believe them, at this point their credibility is shot." Adding "We don’t take seriously what a terror group says, but we do take seriously what an army says, especially one that’s an ally of ours," he said. "So we naturally hold it to a higher standard." Muhammad Shehada, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor Chief of Programmes and Communications, said of the requirements that Israel imposed on media outlets on their supervised tours of al-Shifa that the outlets have essentially agreed to broadcast propaganda, saying of the outlets "You are not allowed to speak to any Palestinian or Gazan to challenge what the IDF is spoon-feeding you. You are not allowed to go beyond the tour that the IDF has staged, so you stick to what the IDF wants to show you and where they take you. And you have to review the material with them before you publish, so that the result of that is not journalism. It’s propaganda."
The New Arab, describing the ongoing propaganda campaign and how it has backfired with people questioning Israel's credibility, wrote that Israel had "resorted to fake audio, baseless claims and doctored imagery to whitewash its attack in Gaza." They discussed how the failure of the incubators in the Neonatal intensive care unit of al-Shifa caused by the denial of fuel deliveries by Israel and the cutting of electricity was responsible for the deaths of three prematurely born babies. Israel, while it had caused the fuel shortage and failure of the existing incubators, made a show of delivering new incubators to the hospital. However, the issue was not with the incubators, it was with the lack of fuel, an issue that was not addressed.
CNN reported on 20 November that video footage "suggests weaponry at Al-Shifa may have been rearranged", citing a 15 November video by the IDF showing only one AK-47 gun behind an MRI machine in the hospital, compared to later videos by Fox News and BBC showing two AK-47 guns at the same place; the IDF responded that the difference was because "more weaponry and terrorist assets were discovered throughout the day ... Suggestions that the IDF is manipulating the media are incorrect". The BBC also concluded that the number of guns behind that MRI machine had doubled in the separate videos, and additionally found that the IDF's video was edited, despite the IDF's claim that it was unedited.
Following Israel's release of video evidence on 22 November, the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Sky News and Amnesty International all concluded that this did not constitute sufficient evidence to demonstrate the use by Hamas of a command center. Haaretz reported that "Hamas tunnels passing through the heart of the compound" prove that Hamas did use the hospital for military purposes.
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On Monday 18 March 2024 at 2:30 a.m., Israeli forces began what they said was a "precise operation in the area of the Shifa hospital to thwart Hamas activity." The Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli raid was a "massacre against the sick, the wounded, the displaced, and the medical staff inside al-Shifa Hospital". A survivor of the subsequent siege reported that hundreds of members of the non-military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) who were employed in the hospital had gathered there inside to receive their salaries. He said they included members of Gaza's civil defense crews, police force, and internal security services. In a Mondoweiss report after the siege, the survivor stated, "There was a room in the specialized surgeries building that served as an office for the [Hamas] government branches that operated aboveground" and "another building that was an office for the [PIJ] movement, and the men employed by the movement would go there to collect their salaries."
The 18 March reports indicated the presence of tanks at the facility, and witnesses said there were substantial exchanges of fire around the area. Financial Times reported "gun battles" around the facility where thousands of people were sheltering as Israeli forces aimed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in Gaza’s north. The Health Ministry stated 30,000 displaced people were sheltering inside the hospital at the start of the raid and that anyone "who tries to move is targeted by sniper bullets and quadcopter". Footage from Sky News showed people around the hospital in distress following the raid.
Initially, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari stated patients were under "no obligation" to evacuate. Later, Israel dropped leaflets ordering the hospital to evacuate. At the start of the raid, Wadea Abu Alsoud, a Palestinian journalist on the scene, stated the situation was "catastrophic" as the hospital came under heavy Israeli gunfire. Al Jazeera Arabic journalists stated Israeli forces opened fire in the hospital. Israeli military stated they were fired upon entering the compound and released drone footage it said showed its troops being fired at. A fire broke out in one of the buildings. Within minutes of their arrival, an IDF representative stated "they have conquered al-Shifa and everyone is under arrest."
Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al-Jazeera journalist at Al-Shifa during the raid, stated journalists were stripped naked, forced to lie on their stomachs, blindfolded, and interrogated after twelve hours. Witnesses reported journalists were beaten before being taken to an undisclosed location. Video from Israel's raid showed Israeli forces operating an armored bulldozer in the vicinity of the hospital, and the hospital's courtyard was bulldozed.
The raid caused the forced displacement of families from Rimal toward the central Gaza Strip. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated the World Health Organization was "terribly worried" about the raid and stated "hospitals should never be battlegrounds". Israeli airstrikes around the hospital left residents searching for survivors with their bare hands, with a young boy stating to journalists, "For God's sake, I have nowhere to go… all my family were killed".
The IDF said that during the operation Faiq al-Mabhouh, "head of the operations directorate of Hamas' internal security service", was among those killed. Hamas’ media office said Faiq al-Mabhouh was leading the coordination deliveries to northern Gaza with the UN and local clans. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed during the operation, and Daniel Hagari stated the Israeli forces had arrested 200 people during the 18 March raid.
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The New York Times reported that the 18 March operation set off a battle, with both Hamas and Israel reporting casualties. The operation drew condemnation from Gaza's health officials and questions about Israeli's state of control over north Gaza. The Associated Press reported heavy fighting around the hospital between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops in nearby districts, with explosions shaking the hospital and the surrounding neighborhoods.
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The raid was still continuing by 20 March, with Israeli forces encircled around the facility, preventing people from evacuating. The official Israeli and Palestinian narratives on 20 March differed drastically. The Israeli military stated that it had killed 90 gunmen. The Gaza Media Office stated all of the people Israel killed were wounded patients and displaced people, and that thirteen patients had died due a lack of medicine, oxygen, and food. Reuters stated they were unable to verify either account.
The bodies of people killed while attempting to flee the hospital remained on the street as gunfire continued. Extensive searches by Israeli troops were conducted in and around the hospital. Al Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Eliwa was arrested by Israeli soldiers at the hospital. According to Mads Gilbert, medical staff were detained, kept in the cold for hours, subjected to "humiliating investigations", and one doctor was shot in the chest while attempting to comply with Israeli forces' orders. A displaced person at the hospital stated, "The soldiers fired at the building where we are. They asked us to take off our clothes and go down to the hospital yard". CNN reported that witnesses saw Palestinian journalists and health workers blindfolded, handcuffed and stripped down to their underwear. The World Health Organization head stated, "Accessing al-Shifa is now impossible and there are reports of medical staff being detained". Ambulances were prevented from reaching the hospital.
The Gaza Civil Defense stated they were unable to reach wounded patients. Survivors of the raid stated they were stripped naked, detained for hours, and shot at despite carrying white flags. Footage of four-year-old Saja Junaid went viral, showing the severely burned girl forced to flee the hospital to Deir el-Balah, with journalists stating she hadn't eaten in three days.
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Al-Shifa's head of surgery stated that after being stripped, doctors had their faces scanned by the Israeli army and then were taken in one at a time for a "humiliating investigation". A man living near the hospital stated, "We are hearing the constant sounds of clashes, gunshots, shelling, bombing, quadcopters and planes all day and all night." The IDF said it evacuated 220 patients and emergency room equipment to another building, that "terrorists" had blocked themselves off near the emergency room, and that there was fighting.
Hani Mahmoud, a journalist on the ground, stated, "The Israeli military is now ordering everyone inside the hospital, including medical staff and patients, to evacuate immediately. Otherwise, the entire facility will be blown up." Local media reported that Israeli forces had blown up a specialist care building in the medical complex. Israel stated they had made 600 arrests, including dozens of top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders.
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, stated the situation at Al-Shifa was "utterly inhumane" with nearly 200 staff and patients kept in a building with limited access to food and water, and critically wounded patients lying on the floor. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated it was "gravely concerned" about journalists arrested by Israel and stated the IDF "need to be fully transparent about journalists who have been detained and refrain from any attempts to block the work of journalists at al-Shifa Hospital and all of Gaza".
The Israeli army ordered the surrender of all people remaining in the besieged hospital. Verified footage showed Israeli bulldozers "wreaking havoc" on the hospital complex. Al Jazeera reported that "intense battles" had been "ongoing for days" in and around the hospital. The Gaza Health Ministry stated that Israel had bombed several hospital buildings and burned down its vascular department. After an elderly patient told the Agence France-Presse that he witnessed Israeli soldiers "beat all the young men and arrested them", the IDF stated it would "identify unusual cases that deviate from what is expected of IDF (army) soldiers".
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On 23 March, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said they were engaged in battles with the IDF outside of Al-Shifa Hospital and in the surrounding area. Hamas denied any presence inside the hospital. Reuters reported Israeli troops still searching the complex, with Israeli military saying that the hospital is linked to a network of tunnels used as a Palestinian militant base. As of 23 March, Israel stated they killed over 170 gunmen inside the hospital grounds. Hamas said that all those killed were either patients or displaced individuals. The Gaza Health Ministry stated that five wounded patients were trapped in the hospital and had gone six days without water, food, or medicine.
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The IDF stated it had killed 170 people and arrested more than 800 in total. The IDF said that intelligence forces had started interrogation of some of the detainees and that those not found to have militant group affiliations were released. Doctors Without Borders staff stated that "heavy air strikes by Israeli forces and fierce fighting" were "endangering patients, medical staff and people trapped inside". Gaza’s government media office stated five medical staff were killed by Israeli soldiers.
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Jameel al-Ayoubi, a displaced person sheltering at the hospital, told the Associated Press he had seen Israeli tanks drive over the bodies of four people killed in the raid. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari stated that Hamas had fired mortars from Shifa's emergency room and maternity ward, as well as thrown explosives from the burn ward.
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The Gaza Health Ministry stated that people in the hospital's Human Resources Department had been arrested.
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A resident living 1 km from the hospital stated, "Explosions never stop, we see lines of smoke coming from inside, no one moves even in streets that are hundreds of metres away because of Israeli snipers on rooftops of buildings." Verified footage showed a family evacuated from near al-Shifa stating, "We raised the white flag as the tank was next to our house and they started shelling at us". Moath al-Kahlout, a journalist in northern Gaza, stated, "Patients and medical staff are stuck in a small room inside the human resources development building, which is not at all equipped to provide medical care."
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The Gaza media office stated that preliminary information suggested Israeli forces had killed 200 displaced people inside the hospital. The Gaza Civil Defence stated 65 of its staff had been killed in the vicinity of al-Shifa. Hani Mahmoud, a journalist in Gaza, stated, "An entire residential neighbourhood near the hospital... has been destroyed, rendered beyond recognition." Local media reported that journalist Muhammad Abu Sakhil was killed by Israeli forces in al-Shifa.
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Gaza's media office stated 400 people had been killed by Israeli forces during the raids, calling the attack a war crime. The World Health Organization stated it needed to postpone a joint mission to al-Shifa, after Israel denied three previous missions to the hospital. Gaza’s health ministry stated Israel was preventing patient evacuations.
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The World Health Organization stated 21 patients had died since the start of Israel's raid. The IDF said that it had found weapons hidden in patients' pillows and beds in Al-Shifa’s maternity ward, as well as in the hospital’s ceilings and walls.
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Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital, leaving it with blown out windows and blackened concrete walls. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it had targeted Israel's forces with artillery during the Israeli military operation and withdrawal. An Israeli official said that militants did not come in through tunnels, which had been mostly destroyed in 2023, but had traveled in with civilians, collecting guns that were concealed around the hospital or from private homes.
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On 2 April 2024, a World Health Organization spokesman stated that they had contact with Al-Shifa’s staff and that, "The directors told us that Al Shifa Hospital is gone. It's no longer able to function in any shape or form as a hospital". On 3 April, an UNOCHA flash update cited WHO, stating, "Al Shifa Hospital is now in ruins and no longer able to function as a hospital". On 5 April 2024, a WHO-led mission visited Al-Shifa to perform an initial evaluation of the extent of destruction and to determine needs to guide efforts to restore the facility in the future. The team found most of the buildings largely damaged or destroyed and most of the equipment unusable or burned to ashes. They found explosives and fire had significantly damaged the emergency department, surgical, and maternity ward buildings. The mission said that the destruction had left the facility non-functional; short-term restoration of minimal functionality seemed implausible and would require efforts to evaluate and clear the grounds for unexploded military devices.
On 6 April 2024, a report by NPR found: "Bodies lay decomposing in the hospital's dirt courtyard, which was laden with unexploded ordnance. Other people were shot and left to die in its hallways, maimed and crushed by tanks outside its gates, decomposing on side streets and in buildings." NPR stated there was "no clarity" on how many of the dead were civilians or fighters. Doctors Without Borders stated, "Gaza's largest hospital is now out of service. Given the extent of the destruction, people in the north are left with even fewer healthcare options." According to Wafa, hundreds of dead civilians were found at al-Shifa. A nurse at the hospital stated, "The smell of corpses filled the place. What happened to us is indescribable." Mondoweiss reported that "the Israeli army shot patients in their beds" as well as doctors and "hundreds of civil government employees".
Moath al-Kahlout, an official of Gaza's Civil Defence, stated that buildings and medical machines had been "totally destroyed". Al Jazeera Arabic reported, "Buildings in all departments have been burned, and the structure of the complex has been damaged from the inside". The hospital director stated, "All the buildings of al-Shifa medical complex were completely destroyed and burned. Al-Shifa medical complex is gone forever." On 9 April, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said that least 381 bodies were recovered within and around the complex since April 1, excluding people buried in the hospital grounds. Mass graves were also found around the hospital. On 15 April, medical crews stated that they had recovered 15 bodies from around the hospital. Israeli forces said that "approximately 500 suspects affiliated with terrorist organizations were apprehended and 200 terrorists were eliminated."
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On 24 March, Al Jazeera released what were later revealed to be false rape allegations. Al Jazeera reported a story on its liveblog entitled, "Israel forces raped, killed women during raid on al-Shifa, witness says." Al Jazeera's update used statements of a witness, Jamila al-Hissi, who stated that "They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women, and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them." Al Jazeera reported that al-Hissi described the situation as a "war zone" and had been trapped in a building near the hospital. Al-Hissi‘s statement was also reported by Middle East Eye, Morocco World News and The New Arab.
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, called for a fact-finding mission on sexual violence at Al-Shifa.
On 25 March, Al Jazeera took down its video of Jamila al-Hissi’s statements but kept its written article posted. Former managing director of Al Jazeera, Yasser Abu Hilalah, wrote on X, "Hamas investigations revealed that the story of the rape of women in Shifa Hospital was fabricated." Abu Hilalah reported that al-Hissi "justified her exaggeration and incorrect talk by saying that the goal was to arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood."
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Al Jazeera and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based human rights organization, stated that Israel's raid had "resulted in the deaths of over 200 Palestinians, including civilians. Many were deliberately killed or executed extrajudicially after arrest". Al Jazeera English reported witnesses describing "executions" at Al Shifa. The Euro-Med Monitor stated that at least thirteen children had been killed in the area near the hospital or while attempting to flee the area with their families. The organization stated that Israeli forces had shot and executed them. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre stated the U.S. had not verified footage of executions around Al-Shifa but said, "It is deeply concerning if it’s true. We are reaching out to Israel’s government to get more information". The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported departments at the hospital being set on fire, and stated, "According to eyewitness accounts and official reports, many of the civilians were executed. They were killed by the Israeli occupation forces including medical staff, doctors and nurses, they were purposefully executed by the Israeli soldiers".
Adnan al-Bursh, the head of orthopaedics department at the hospital, died on 19 April while in the custody of the Israel Prison Service (IPS). The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society accused Israel of torturing him to death, while Ghassan Abu Sittah alleged that al-Bursh was beaten to death by prison guards. An IPS spokesman told Reuters that they would investigate the circumstances of his death.
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Israel stated its operation was to clear Al-Shifa hospital of militants operating there.
The Gaza Media Office said the raid constituted a war crime. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated it had collected witness testimonies that young men were being used as human shields by the Israeli army. Al Jazeera English stated that there were reports that Israel had committed "heinous" war crimes during the siege.
Hamas denied operations from Al-Shifa. Hamas’ military wing said it had fought with IDF forces around the hospital and released footage of fighting. Palestinian Islamic Jihad also published footage of its fighters engaged in battles with Israeli forces near the hospital. Witnesses inside and near the hospital denied seeing militants.
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China has described the struggling hospital as a manifestation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Palestinian Minister of Health, Mai al-Kaila, described Israeli actions as a "crime against humanity." Israel disputes this, stating that it does all it can to protect civilian life, and that it is Hamas that puts civilians in harms way by blocking their evacuation from combat zones. US President Joe Biden stated Gaza's hospitals "must be protected." Biden accused Hamas of committing a war crime by allegedly having its headquarters under al-Shifa Hospital, with The Nation noting that Biden appeared "unfazed by the flimsiness" of Israel's "ludicruous propaganda".
Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau stated, "Even wars have rules... I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint... The world is witnessing this, the killing of women and children, of babies. This has to stop." Ayman Safadi, the Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, condemned the attack, stating, it was a "violation of international humanitarian law, especially the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War." Qatari foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, stated the siege was a "war crime and a blatant violation of international laws." The Saudi Arabian foreign ministry stated it "strongly condemns the Israeli occupation forces' storming of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza."
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H. A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated a huge trust deficit remained regarding Israeli intelligence, and that Israeli statements should not be taken at "face value." Sultan Barakat, a professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, stated US and Israeli information on Gaza was not reliable. Osamah Khalil, a professor at Syracuse University in New York, deemed it improbable that Hamas would have a base at Al-Shifa, as the hospital was one of the busiest places in Gaza.
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Antony Loewenstein noted Israel has a long history of "deliberately targeting medical facilities in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza," and that IDF statements about military facilities needed to be "treated with deep scepticism." Palestinian analyst Thabet Al-Amour stated, "This is madness, absolute madness… It's a hospital." Al Jazeera journalist Hamdah Salhut stated Israel had not shown "solid proof, or evidence" to back up their statements. Major-General Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council, stated that targeting the hospital was tactical,- aiming to control the narrative about Hamas rather than serving a strategic purpose. An analysis by The Washington Post found Israel's evidence "falls short" of proving the hospital was a command-and-control centre.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that Al-Shifa Hospital is without electricity, putting patients, including children, at risk of death. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media that al-Shifa had been without water for three days and was "no longer functioning as a hospital". Doctors Without Borders reported that an ambulance and the patients inside were attacked near the hospital. A spokesman for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement stated, "I cannot even imagine … the panic among the patients, the panic among doctors and nurses. What they're [going] through is really something that is unbelievable."
A group of Israeli doctors, known as Doctors for the Rights of Israeli Soldiers, has signed a statement advocating the bombing of Al-Shifa hospital. The statement was publicly signed by dozens of Israeli doctors and was widely shared on various social media platforms. The doctors stated that it was Israel's "legitimate right" to bomb al-Shifa hospital because it served as a base for "Palestinian armed groups". Alice Rothchild, the director of Jewish Voice for Peace, stated noted Israel's lack of hard evidence of military operations at al-Shifa, stating, "Israeli sources have a long history of not being very accurate." | 2023 |
73000492 | 2023 Alaska high-altitude object | 2023-02-10 23:27:42+00:00 | On February 10, 2023, the United States Air Force shot down a high-altitude object that had entered U.S. airspace over Alaska a day before. The object was shot down onto the Beaufort Sea. The Department of Defense said it was the size of a small car and flying northeast at approximately 40,000 feet (12,000 m), posing a risk to civilian flight. On February 16, 2023, US President Joe Biden stated that the downed object was probably a civilian-owned balloon and "most likely tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions".
An attempt was made to recover the debris, which landed in the sea. However on February 18, 2023, it was reported that the search had been abandoned.
The object in Alaska was detected less than one week after a Chinese balloon was detected by the U.S. and shot down over the Atlantic. United States National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said it was "much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday" and was about the size of a small car. The Chinese balloon shot down in the Atlantic was at 60,000 feet (18,000 m), while the Alaska object was at about 40,000 feet (12,000 m), thus presenting a greater threat to commercial aircraft.
On February 11, another high-altitude object was shot down in Yukon.
The unidentified flying object was described as cylindrical, silver, and appearing to float. It was detected by U.S. radar at 9 p.m. AKST on February 9 and U.S. Northern Command sent an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft to track it, supported by inflight refueling. Two flypasts were conducted, one on the evening of February 9 and the other on the morning of February 10. F-35 fighter jets from Eielson Air Force Base and F-22 fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson (JBER) were deployed to make a visual inspection. They found that the object was uncrewed.
A source briefed on the intelligence told CNN that the pilots gave differing accounts of what they had seen. Some pilots said that the object "interfered with their sensors" on their aircraft but other pilots did not report this. Some pilots said that they could not identify any means of propulsion on the object. One U.S. official told CNN that the object did not appear to have any surveillance equipment.
According to U.S. officials, the object had traveled over Alaska before heading northward to sea at a speed of 20 to 40 miles per hour (32 to 64 km/h).
At around 10:45 a.m. AKST on February 10, the object was shot down by an AIM-9X Sidewinder fired by an F-22 Raptor from JBER, marking the model's second air-to-air kill.
President Joe Biden ordered the shootdown, out of what Kirby called an "abundance of caution". Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder called it "a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight".
The object landed on the frozen sea off Deadhorse, near the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, in the territorial waters of the United States. A Department of Defense official said it broke into pieces.
The U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and FBI participated in efforts to recover the object. Search and rescue aircraft such as the CH-47 Chinook, HC-130 and HH-60 Pave Hawk were used in the effort.
It remains unclear who owned the object. On February 11, U.S. Northern Command said they had no new information to share about the "capabilities, purpose or origin" of the object, and that recovery operations continued but were affected by Arctic weather conditions, such as wind chill, snow and limited daylight hours. A Pentagon spokesman said on the same day that recovery teams were collecting the debris on top of the ice. U.S. divers and unmanned underwater vehicles retrieved additional debris.
On February 18, 2023, it was reported that the search had been abandoned.
President Biden said that the shootdown was a success. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was briefed on the incursion and "supported the decision to take action".
In a statement made shortly after the object was downed, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said it "raises serious national security concerns that should concern every American", that it is a reminder of Alaska's geopolitical strategic importance and that the Alaska National Guard is "working closely with USNORTHCOM and other agencies to provide any support as requested".
The White House stated the leading explanation for the objects was "commercial or research entities and therefore totally benign". | 2023 |
73713580 | Belgrade school shooting | 2023-05-03 08:58:30+00:00 | On 3 May 2023, a school shooting occurred at Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School in the Vračar municipality of Belgrade, Serbia. The shooter, identified as a 13-year-old male student, opened fire on students and staff, resulting in the deaths of ten individuals, including nine students and a security guard. Six others, five students and a teacher, also sustained injuries.
The shooter surrendered willingly and was taken into custody. However, due to his age being below 14, which falls below Serbia's age of criminal responsibility, the shooter could not face legal charges. The shooter's father legally owned the firearms used in the incident. Since the apprehension, the shooter has been placed under the care of a psychiatric hospital located in Belgrade. Meanwhile, legal actions have been initiated against his parents. The father faces charges for acts against public safety, while the mother is charged with criminal possesion of a weapon. Their criminal trial began on January 29, 2024.
The attack occurred one day before a separate mass shooting in Serbia. Both shootings caused protests in the country.
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Despite strict gun laws, Serbia has one of the world's highest gun ownership rates per capita. In 2021, with an estimated 39 privately owned guns per 100 people, Serbia was the third-ranked country globally in this statistic, behind the United States and Yemen. Along with a culture of gun ownership and many households keeping guns as war trophies from both world wars, illegal weapons became particularly widespread in some Balkan countries following the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.
Mass shootings are rare in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans. There had been three earlier mass shootings in Serbia in the 21st century: the 2007 Jabukovac killings, during which nine people were killed, and five were injured; the 2013 Velika Ivanča shooting, in which 14 people were killed; and the 2016 Žitište shooting, in which five people were killed and 22 injured. In 2019, there was an attempted school shooting in Velika Plana, though the perpetrator was stopped after shooting two bullets into the ceiling. None of those shootings or the attempted shooting involved a child as the perpetrator.
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Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School (Serbian Cyrillic: Огледна основна школа "Владислав Рибникар", romanized: Ogledna osnovna škola "Vladislav Ribnikar") is a public elementary school in Vračar, an affluent urban area and municipality of Belgrade. It was formed, as a project of Franco-Yugoslav friendship, in 1975, through a merger of two existing, adjacent elementary schools. The site of the modern school building had successively been the site of various historic schools dating back to the 18th century. One of the two predecessor schools (Slobodan Princip Seljo Elementary School) had been founded in 1966 as a home to the pilot educational project of teaching a foreign language – French – from the first grade on. Starting in the 1966–1967 school year, French was led by Professor Raymond Vaillier, who did not speak any Serbian. It later became the norm to provide foreign-language education to first-graders in the country. However, Vladislav Ribnikar remains noted as an elementary school focusing on French-language education.
About 1,000 students attend classes. The school provides bilingual education in Serbian and French, serving as a French immersion school teaching 50% of the curriculum in French for grades 7 and 8, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs grants it LabelFrancÉducation. Among Belgrade's elementary schools, it has enjoyed a somewhat higher level of recognition. It has, from time to time, been perceived as an "elite school".
There is a mural of the prince and the fox from the French novella The Little Prince on the school's wall. The mural was made by Serbian street art artist Andrej Josifovski in 2016.
The shooting began at around 08:40 CEST on 3 May 2023. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after entering Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School, the shooter immediately pulled out a gun from his backpack and shot and killed the school security guard. He then shot and killed two hall monitors that he saw in the hallway, both girls, after which he reloaded his gun while heading for his classroom. Upon entering the classroom, the shooter shot at the history teacher and then fired at numerous people, killing another seven, six of whom were girls; another five students were wounded. The shooter ran through the hallway and into the courtyard, where he contacted the police at 8:42, according to the ministry at a press conference. The shooter had two pistols: a CZ-75 Shadow 2 and a Ruger .22 LR variant pistol.
Students who fled in panic after the shooting found shelter in a company's premises behind the school. Njegoševa Street was closed down after the shooting. After the shooting, a blood donation for the wounded students was organised at the Transfusion Institute.
The shooting resulted in the deaths of nine students – eight girls and one boy – and a security guard. According to the French foreign ministry, one of the deceased students was a French national. One girl was the child of Dragan Kobiljski, a Serbian professional volleyball coach and former player.
In addition, six students and a teacher were injured. Of the injured, two boys and one girl were taken to the University Children's Clinic in Belgrade. The boys received gunshot wounds to their lower extremities. In contrast, the girl, who was also critically injured, received a severe head injury and had to undergo surgery. The boys and the teacher were later reported to be in stable condition. The critically injured girl, Angelina Aćimović, died of her wounds on 15 May despite urgent surgical intervention and intensive treatment measures, becoming the tenth victim in the shooting. The boy who was wounded in the spine had surgery in Chicago, Illinois, US, on 20 June.
52-year-old history teacher Tatjana Stevanović, who was shot three times, underwent several surgeries at the Clinical Centre of Serbia in Belgrade. According to Večernje novosti, she cannot walk or move her left arm. On 20 July, she was transferred to the Sokobanjska Rehabilitation Institute in Belgrade.
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The shooter surrendered to the police and was arrested; the police soon revealed his name to the public. His name cannot be disclosed on this page due to WP:BLPNAME. The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade described him as a 13-year-old male seventh-grade student. At this age, he could not face criminal or misdemeanour charges due to the Juvenile Criminal Offenders and Criminal Protection of Juveniles Act setting the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 14; the case was referred to the Centre for Social Work. Within the school system, disciplinary action could result, at most, in moving the student to another school.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the shooter had been planning the event for a month, selecting specific classrooms to target first and compiling a list of students to prioritize in shooting. The ministry also reported that the shooter had received training at a shooting range alongside his father, who legally owned the pistols used in the incident. Reportedly, the shooter fired a total of 57 shots during the incident. Described as a quiet and academically successful student, the shooter had recently joined the class which he targeted. The motive is currently under investigation by authorities.
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The shooter was placed under the care of the Child and Adolescent Neurology and Psychiatry Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Belgrade. After the Military Medical Academy had administered a drug test, he was – according to his father's attorney Irina Borović – found not to have been under the influence of psychoactive drugs. The judgment to keep the minor in the mental health institution is subject to periodic revision – conditionally pending parental consent (not as a strict requirement). As of 8 May, his mother granted permission. On 1 June, following an extraordinary school inspection, the government reported no school bullying against the student shooter. The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the shooter is under 24-hour police surveillance and any possibility of his escape from the clinic is impossible.
A few days after the shooting, the shooter's phone has been sent for forensic examination in order to obtain new information. The shooter asked the staff of the psychiatric clinic where he is detained, to give him a phone, in order to communicate with his close online friend Luka Lekić.
On 23 May, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade launched an investigation into the responsibility of the Partizan Practical Shooting Club, where the 13-year-old shooter allegedly practiced shooting with his father. The club's president Ratko Ivanović said the shooter had never practiced in their shooting range. Ivanović also confirmed that the father was there with his son, but the 13-year-old had never entered the shooting range, let alone being allowed to shoot.
On 29 May, the shooter's nanny was questioned by the police, where she told in detail everything she knew about his upbringing and habits. The school's psychologist and pedagogue were also questioned by the police, making in total five who were questioned, including family members and people who had or should have had close contact with the shooter.
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The shooter comes from a prominent Belgrade family; his father is a well-known radiologist, and his mother is an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Belgrade.
Both parents were arrested shortly after the shooting; the father was detained and was questioned at a hearing on 5 May at the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. During the hearing, he denied committing crimes. At the same time, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office proposed to the High Court to keep the father in custody. According to the prosecutors, he trained his son in the handling of firearms by taking him to a shooting range, which is an activity "clearly not appropriate for his age", and he kept the guns in an improperly secured locker. He is being investigated as a suspect concerning the criminal offence of "grave acts against public security". The court approved his detention for 30 days. His 30-day detention was re-extended twice; on 2 June and 30 June. On 28 July, his detention was re-extended for three months. As of October, the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Belgrade did not submit the ballistics medical expertise, which is crucial for making a decision on indictment against the father.
On 22 May, the prosecutor's office began collecting evidence against the mother, suspecting her of criminal child neglect. During her testimony, the mother provided a detailed account of the shooter's upbringing, his physical well-being, his interactions with peers, and their familial dynamics. According to her statement, the mother asserted that she did not observe any abnormal behaviour in her son on the morning of the shooting, except for his sluggishness during breakfast and while getting ready. She further claimed that she dropped off her daughter at school and left her son home to prepare himself. Approximately one hour later, the mother received news of the shooting at the school. Initially, she informed the authorities that she believed her son had been injured in the incident and promptly rushed to the school, where she subsequently learned the truth.
The High Court in Belgrade prohibited the shooter's family from disposing of their property in Belgrade: to the father on 14 June and to the mother on 23 June. On 24 June, the police detained the mother at the Prohor Pčinjski border crossing adjoining North Macedonia when she tried to leave the country with her daughter. Reportedly, the mother had planned to go on a short vacation with her daughter, following a recommendation from their therapist. On 30 June, the High Court in Belgrade prohibited the mother from disposing of or mortgaging her property in Paraćin and Niš. On 12 July, the court ordered the National Bank of Serbia to transfer the money the father had at his disposal to the bailiff's deposit. The deposit, up to the amount of money of legal claims of the families of the murdered, will be in the bailiff's deposition, which he will keep until the conclusion of the proceedings. On 21 August, the Appellate Court in Belgrade confirmed the decisions of the High Court in Belgrade.
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The shooter was questioned on 18 July in the case against his father related to acts against public safety. The lawyers of the families of deceased students attended the questioning, three parents from two families, and the father's defence attorney, as well as the prosecutor who conducted the hearing. The shooter was heard via video link, and it lasted four hours. The shooter was questioned by a psychologist at the psychiatric hospital, to whom the prosecutor asked questions through headphones.
According to Blic, the shooter gave answers to five questions:
Did his father mistreat him?
What was the relationship in the family between mother, father and sister?
Did his father take him to the shooting range?
Did his father teach him to shoot?
Did his father give him the passcode to the gun safe?
The shooter said his father did not provide him with first contact with firearms but by an instructor at the shooting range. His father taught him how to shoot, load the gun, and change cartridges. He also said that his father "admired how he shoots accurately". Furthermore, according to his father's attorney, the shooter said that he had changed his mind and regretted committing the shooting, and if he could turn back time, he would not do it again. He did not give a specific reason for walking into the school with guns and firing shots at his peers. Also, the shooter said his father had additional measures to secure firearms. The gun safe had a three-digit passcode. His father also had a passcode on the gun's trigger. The shooter explained how he got guns in the safe and under the passcode. He said that he struggled for a long time to crack the codes and searched for a long time on how to obtain firearms. On the other side, according to Zora Dobričanin Nikodinović, the attorney of the family of one of the victims, the shooter did say "some sentences that state like regret, but do not sound like that". Also, this attorney said there was no doubt that the guns were inadequately secured.
The shooter also said that he played the tactical shooter video game Valorant and got the idea when he watched a documentary film in which mass murder was mentioned. Speaking about family relations during the hearing, the shooter said the house had no special rules. There was no discipline except for the "mild discipline of confiscating the mobile phone". He and his sister were expected to be friendly and cultured. He described his relationship with his father as good and his mother as caring, compassionate, intelligent, and fair. He said his parents got along well and that now he misses his father, mother, sister, dog, and uncle.
On 21 July, the family of one of the victims filed a civil lawsuit against the shooter's mother, seeking compensation for their child's death.
On 9 August, the parents and family members of the victims filed a lawsuit against the shooter's parents. One lawsuit was filed by a total of 27 claimants against the shooter and his parents. The lawsuit was filed in civil proceedings for non-material damage compensation for mental pain suffered due to the death of a close person, as well as for the fear suffered. With this lawsuit, a monetary annuity was requested, that is, the future payment of a certain amount of money from the day of the judgment until the conditions for it last – in the name of future non-material damages for mental pain suffered due to the death of a close person.
Also in August, the family of one of the victims filed a lawsuit against the school, while another family filed a lawsuit against the Republic of Serbia as the school's founder. In both cases, the families are seeking compensations for their children's deaths.
The preliminary hearing for the trial of the shooter's parents was held on 20 October. Their trial began on 29 January 2024.
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President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić addressed the public about the shooting later in the day, saying that he would propose new gun measures to the government, as well as lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12. The government adopted the policy agenda the next day. The new measures also included a moratorium on gun permits, more medical and psychological checks on gun owners, and hiring 1,200 police officers for schools.
At a press conference, Education Minister Branko Ružić announced three national days of mourning starting from 5 May and a suspension of classes for the rest of the day, while Health Minister Danica Grujičić announced that the Institute of Mental Health would activate two telephone counselling helplines and increase access to in-person counselling, for those who feel the need for psychological support. The National Theatre in Belgrade suspended all activities until 7 May. Vučić also cancelled his attendance at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla in London; in response, Charles III expressed his condolences.
On 11 May, the government formed the Peer Violence Prevention Council, headed by Prime Minister Ana Brnabić. The constitutive session of the council was held on 30 May. The council will focus on reducing peer violence.
A team of psychotherapists from Norway, who dealt with the trauma suffered by their citizens after the terror attacks committed by Anders Behring Breivik in 2011, will come to Serbia to help due to their similar experience.
Hand Over Your Weapons
On 8 May, the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs offered a one-month amnesty for surrendering illegal or unregistered weapons and ammunition. Initially set to end on 8 June, the call, known as Hand Over Your Weapons (Serbian Cyrillic: Предај оружје, romanized: Predaj oružje), had extended the deadline to 30 June. The ministry reported that citizens handed over 78,302 firearms, 4,085,000 rounds of ammunition, and 25,914 pieces of ordnance by the end of the call.
Inquiry Committee
On 18 July, MNA Marinika Tepić was elected as the chairperson of the National Assembly's Inquiry Committee to determine the facts and circumstances that led to the mass murders at the school shooting and Mladenovac and Smederevo shootings. However, three days later, National Assembly suspended further proceedings of the Inquiry Committee until the criminal proceedings were ongoing, following the request of the victims' families.
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2022–23 school year
More than 200 parents of students from the Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School joined the initiative to suspend classes in the existing school building immediately and to conclude the 2022–23 school year on 3 May, when the shooting happened. On 22 May, the Vladislav Ribnikar School continued their classes for the first time after the shooting incident. Six police officers will be present in the school. Since 5 June, all students have been attending classes in the afternoon shift at Sveti Sava Elementary School.
On 1 June, the Government of Serbia announced that the 2022–23 school year ends on 6 June instead of 20 June. The government also said that schools can continue to work until 20 June for students who wish to do so. In that period, supplementary, additional and preparatory classes, classes in nature, as well as other forms of educational work, can be implemented to encourage students' social and emotional skills and activities on the topics of tolerance, empathy, togetherness, support and gratitude. They also said that all students unsatisfied with their success will have the opportunity to improve their grades at their request until 20 June. This decision shocked parents, students and professors as it came almost one month after the shooting without an announcement before. The decision was heavily criticised because of the way that it was announced, which unions called disrespectful to education workers. It was also criticised because it was vague and unclear how professors were supposed to conclude grades. Ana Dimitrijević from Forum of Belgrade's Gymnasiums called this decision hasty and humiliating.
2023–24 school year
On 1 September, the 2023–24 school year began regularly as planned. At the Ribnikar school, works on the renovation of the school's interior and exterior facade, as well as two gymnasiums, are nearing completion. A questionnaire made by the Norwegian psychotherapists for assessing the degree of traumatic experience will be presented at the Ribnikar school.
Four months after the shooting, employees of the Ribnikar school planted ten cedar trees in pots in front of the school door in memory of the victims.
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In August, the shooter's mother, according to Blic, addressed the institutions with a request to resolve the issue of further education of her two children, the shooter and his younger sister, from 1 September. Also, online education is an option for the shooter due to his placement under the care of the Child and Adolescent Neurology and Psychiatry Clinic.
On 21 August, the Vladislav Ribnikar School Teachers' Council decided to expel the shooter from their school. However, the Education Minister Slavica Đukić Dejanović explained that it is not possible for the Teachers' Council to exclude a student from a school. Also, she added that the shooter could continue his elementary education in the Dragan Hercog Elementary School in Belgrade, the only school in Serbia which teaches students who cannot continue normal elementary education due to health problems. The school's director Zoran Aleksić confirmed that the shooter will continue his education in the school and that it is yet to be determined which education model will be used in the shooter's case.
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Hundreds of citizens, including the parents of the elementary school students, had gathered in front and around the elementary school after the shooting. They later protested in front of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education buildings, where they demanded Ružić's resignation. The protests grew larger the next day. Citizens in cities such as Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, and neighbouring countries paid their respects on the day of the shooting.
Following the shootings, opposition parties, namely the Ujedinjeni parliamentary group, People's Party, Do not let Belgrade drown, Together, Democratic Party, and Dveri announced that they would organise a protest against violence on 8 May. The protestors met in front of the country's parliament before marching in silence through the streets near Serbian government offices to demanded the resignation of Vulin, Gašić, Ružić, and the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media, as well as cancelling programmes that promote violence and shutting down media and tabloids that publish false news and violate the Journalistic Code. In response, Prime Minister Brnabić accused them of "politicising" the shootings. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Belgrade and several other cities in Serbia (Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, and Čačak) on 8 May for the "Serbia Against Violence" protest, reacting to two mass murders. According to the organisers, the protest in Belgrade was attended by approximately 50,000 demonstrators. The second protest was held on 12 May; it began in front of the National Assembly of Serbia building while the demonstrators continued walking to the Gazela Bridge, and it ended at Sava Centar. Another "Serbia Against Violence" protest was held a day later in Kragujevac.
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More than ten arrests were made in the first week following the shooting involving juveniles and/or school-related misdemeanours.
On 5 May, a 13-year-old boy from Kruševac posted on his Instagram account that he planned to "repeat this massacre on Friday".
On 6 May, the police brought in for questioning a minor who was filming herself on TikTok and making fun of the murders at the Vračar school.
On 6 May, the police in Novi Sad arrested three minor boys who published photos of weapons they wanted to take to school.
On 6 May, the police in Niš arrested a 17-year-old because he threatened on his Instagram account that "more than 30 people will be killed in Niš."
On 6 May, the police in Sremska Mitrovica arrested a 22-year-old because he posted on social media that the subsequent shooting would be in Sremska Mitrovica.
On 7 May, a man from the Belgrade suburb of Leštane was arrested after calling the police, stating that he would commit a copycat massacre.
On 8 May, the police in Kikinda arrested an 18-year-old who posted a classroom drawing with bloody figures lying next to desks while one was holding an object similar to a handgun.
On 9 May, the police in Subotica apprehended a boy who planned to commit a massacre with a bomb. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found him.
On 9 May, an 18-year-old from Kraljevo was arrested because he posted on social media that the Vračar shooter was released from custody and would come to kill half of the students in his school. The Kraljevo police also arrested two minor boys who posted photos from school on social media in which they were holding a handgun.
On 9 May, the Montenegrin police in Žabljak apprehended a minor who supported the Vračar shooter on social media.
On 10 May, the police in Sombor apprehended an 18-year-old who posted on social media and verbally confirmed that he would take an automatic rifle to his school.
On 10 May, the police in Vrnjačka Banja apprehended a 15-year-old who threatened his classmates on social media.
On 15 May, a 14-year-old female student cut a classmate with a knife in Zrenjanin. The police apprehended her mother.
On 15 May, the police in Novi Sad apprehended a 14-year-old girl who threatened her classmates and glorified the shooter on social media.
On 16 June, the police apprehended a man who left a baseball cap with a plastic bullet in front of the Ribnikar School during the fortieth-day memorial service.
From 3 May to 7 July, criminal charges were filed against 82 students over 14 years old for endangering safety and spreading panic and disorder through social networks. Of them, 29 were arrested and taken to judicial authorities for further action.
In addition to these arrests, on 18 May, the police evacuated students from the Stari Grad Electrical Engineering School in Belgrade following an unknown person threatening to come armed to the school.
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Slovenian NBA All-Star Luka Dončić offered to pay the funeral expenses of the murdered. However, Belgrade's local administration later announced that it would do so instead.
The Serbian writer Vladimir Kecmanović found himself the target of attacks on social media after speculations emerged that his book Kad đavoli polete (transl. When the Devils Fly) was an inspiration to the underage shooter, who committed mass murder. The writer has the same first and last name as the shooter's father, and they are distant relatives.
In July 2023, T-shirts with the redacted shooter's face were advertised and sold on a well-known online shopping platform based in Morocco.
The UNICEF office in Serbia said that school "is not a place for violence of any kind". At the same time, the Serbian Patriarch Porfirije described it as a "catastrophe the likes of which had never happened to our people before". The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared 5 May a national day of mourning in the country following the shooting, while the Government of Montenegro declared 7 May a national day of mourning.
At the press conference, Ružić said, "A cancerous, pernicious influence of Internet video games, so-called Western values, is evident". Opposition parties called for his resignation due to the statement, including the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and the Independent Union of Educators of Serbia, which announced that it would suspend work in all schools from 4 May. The Education Trade Union of Serbia announced that it would organise a general strike starting on 5 May and called on the government to "create conditions for a normal and safe life of children and employees in the education system". Former education minister Srđan Verbić expressed his opposition to the dismissal of Ružić but said that "it would be good for the whole situation if he offered his resignation as a personal act". In contrast, former education minister Mladen Šarčević said the shooting "primarily occurred due to the carelessness of the parents". By the end of the three-day national mourning, on 7 May, Ružić had resigned from the position.
On 4 May, KK Partizan wore the full black uniform in the EuroLeague Playoff Game 4 in Belgrade, honouring the victims of the shooting. After his team won the Croatian Volleyball League for the 2022–23 season, the head coach of Mladost Zagreb, Ratko Peris, dedicated the title to Dragan Kobiljski's daughter killed in the shooting.
The Serbian Party Oathkeepers demanded an urgent session of the Education Committee at the National Assembly of Serbia, while the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia called for "all reality shows that glorify violence" to be banned. The Mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić, expressed his condolences, adding that the city government would "provide any kind of help the families need".
Pejušković, Bojana; Lečić-Toševski, Dušica (2023). "School Shooting in Serbia – A Huge Collective Trauma and Challenge for Public Mental Health". World Social Psychiatry. 5 (2): 179–182. doi:10.4103/wsp.wsp_46_23. | 2023 |
73728045 | Mladenovac and Smederevo shootings | 2023-05-04 23:06:40+00:00 | On the evening of 4 May 2023, a shooting spree occurred in the villages of Dubona near Mladenovac, and Malo Orašje near Smederevo, Serbia. Armed with an automatic assault rifle, the shooter opened fire from a car, resulting in the deaths of nine individuals, including an off-duty police officer, and leaving twelve others injured. The suspect, 20-year-old Uroš Blažić, fled the scene but was apprehended the next day near Kragujevac.
Following the incident, Blažić's father, uncle, and first cousin were also taken into custody, facing charges related to criminal possession of a weapon. Uncle and first cousin were tried separately from the rest. First cousin was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison, while uncle was acquitted.
Blažić was charged with murder, attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon, kidnapping, and carjacking.
This incident occurred one day after the Belgrade school shooting. Both shootings caused mass protests in Serbia.
Despite strict gun laws, Serbia has one of the world's highest gun ownership rates per capita. In 2021, with an estimated 39 privately owned guns per 100 people, Serbia was the third-ranked country globally in this statistic, behind the United States and Yemen. Along with a culture of gun ownership and many households keeping guns as war trophies from both world wars, illegal weapons became particularly widespread in some Balkan countries following the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.
Mass shootings are rare in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans. There have been four earlier mass shootings in the 21st century: the 2007 Jabukovac killings, during which nine people were killed and five were injured; the 2013 Velika Ivanča shooting, which also occurred in Mladenovac and in which 14 people were killed; the 2016 Žitište shooting, in which five people were killed and 22 injured; and the Belgrade school shooting that occurred the day before, leading the Serbian government to propose stricter regulations on gun ownership.
The suspected shooter, 20-year-old Uroš Blažić, quarreled with his friends at a football stadium in Mladenovac. After that, he drove to Šepšin, where he took weapons from his cottage. Then, he went by car to Malo Orašje, where at 10:32 p.m. he began his rampage. He shot 11 friends who were having a barbecue in the centre of the village, near the football field and the war victims' monument. Afterwards, he continued to Dubona. There, he first fired a pistol at several older adults who were repairing the fence, seriously injuring them. Then, he continued to the schoolyard, located next to the road, where he killed four young people with a rifle and then wounded several additional people, again with a pistol. All roads around Mladenovac towards Dubona and Šepšin were closed after the shooting. Blažić was allegedly alone while the shooting occurred.
After the shootings, Blažić left his car and stole another in Dubona, driving to the tollbooth near Mali Požarevac. There, he stopped a taxi driver from Smederevo who was driving a pregnant woman. Threatening them with a hand grenade, he demanded to be taken to a village near Kragujevac. Blažić reportedly let the pregnant woman out of the car more than half an hour later. The police issued a warrant for his arrest and searched for him in Mali Požarevac, where he was last seen after the shootings. The taxi then took him to Vinjište, near Kragujevac, where he hid himself and was eventually arrested.
According to Blic, the taxi driver told the Prosecutor's Office that he received a call from the dispatcher with a ride to the vicinity of Ub. While he was driving a female passenger, he turned off the highway at the Mali Požarevac tollbooth due to the presence of police vehicles. At around 11:30 p.m., Blažić entered the taxi driver's car, claiming he had a bomb. Blažić sat next to the woman, who was silent. At the toll booth, Blažić was disturbed by the presence of police officers and ordered the taxi driver to drive without stopping and with the fuse on. The woman told Blažić that she was pregnant. After that, he calmed down and asked the taxi driver to go to Mladenovac. The taxi driver convinced Blažić to take the woman to Ub to avoid suspicion. While driving, the taxi driver received a call from the dispatcher who asked about the murders, but the taxi driver replied that he did not know much. While driving, the woman's boyfriend called her on a phone, but Blažić warned her to be careful with what she said. The taxi driver heard Blažić say, "You will be fine; you just have to listen to me." The taxi driver tried to persuade Blažić to get out of the vehicle earlier so that the boyfriend would not become suspicious, but Blažić did not comply. When they arrived near Ub, Blažić warned the woman to watch what she was doing and not to report him so she would not have problems. Her boyfriend paid for the ride, and the woman exited the car. Blažić then ordered the taxi driver to turn off the meter and the tablet and to go to Kragujevac using side roads.
Eight people were instantly killed in the shootings. Among the victims in Dubona was an off-duty police officer, aged 22; his 19-year-old sister; and a 25-year-old man. Two 15-year-old boys and three men, aged 18, 20, and 21, lost their lives in Malo Orašje. One of the wounded from Malo Orašje, a 26-year-old man, died more than a month later, on 23 June, bringing the number of deaths to nine.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, fourteen others, including children, were injured. The injured were sent to University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović. The Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, said all of the wounded were in a life-threatening situation. One injured girl had her hand amputated. However, some media outlets reported were thirteen injured, while others reported twelve.
The Gendarmery, Special Anti-Terrorist Unit, and Helicopter unit were reported to have arrived at the villages of Mladenovac and Dubona. According to Serbian media, police officers set up checkpoints and stopped cars as they searched for the gunman. Helicopters, drones, and multiple police patrols were also dispatched to the area surrounding Dubona. Grujičić and the head of the Security Intelligence Agency, Aleksandar Vulin, reportedly travelled to the area. A blood donation for the wounded was organised by the Ministry of Health.
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Blažić was brought to a police station in Smederevo on 5 May and was later ordered to be detained for 48 hours. He is charged with murder, criminal possession of a weapon, kidnapping, and carjacking. On 6 May, Blažić admitted to committing the acts and said he used an assault rifle and three pistols. He acknowledged his shootings of people he did not know to spread fear among villages. In his testimony, Blažić tried to justify his massacre by claiming that he suffered bullying in primary school and that the villagers "taunted him and plotted against him" and allegedly spoke severely about his father, including that he was a "criminal".
On 7 May, the High Court issued a judgment to take him in custody for 30 days. On 10 May, the rifle used in the shootings was found in Šepšin. On 25 May, Blažić was transferred to the Special Prison Hospital in Belgrade, where he will undergo a mental status examination. On 2 June, his detention was extended for another 30 days. On 26 June, the court prohibited Blažić and his father and uncle from disposing of their property. On 30 June, Blažić's detention was re-extended for another 30 days. On 27 July, Blažić's detention was re-extended for three months.
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Blažić's uncle and grandfather were also arrested. The police found four bombs, a flare gun, a submachine gun, two silencers, a hunter's knife, and various ammunition in the house of Blažić's grandfather. Although they did not participate in preparing the incident or its execution, three members of Blažić's family were arrested on charges of criminal possession of weapons, including the father who is also charged for acts against public safety. These are the following persons:
On 10 May, the police arrested Blažić's father, lieutenant colonel Radiša Blažić. They found several hundred bullets and two handguns in his house. The next day, the High Court issued a judgment to keep the father in custody for 30 days. On 8 June, his detention was extended for another 30 days. On 26 June, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Smederevo ordered a mental status examination for the father. On 5 July, his detention was re-extended for another 30 days. On 27 July, the father's detention was re-extended for three months. In September, the higher public prosecutor's office in Smederevo expanded the investigation against the father due to the suspicion that he committed a criminal act against public safety.
On 26 May, the High Court also issued a judgment to keep the uncle in custody for 30 days because he would interfere with the proceedings by influencing the witnesses. His 30-day detention was re-extended twice; on 22 June and 21 July.
On 11 June, the police arrested Blažić's 19-year-old first cousin while the High Court issued a judgment to keep him in custody for 30 days. On 22 July, his detention was extended for another 30 days.
Blažić's uncle and first cousin were tried separately from Blažić and his father. Their trial started on 27 May 2024. On 19 June, first cousin was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison, while uncle was acquitted.
Forensic analysis, primarily the mobile device forensics, were slated to reveal whether Blažić had an accomplice.
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According to Blic, at least 50 witnesses were scheduled to be brought in for questioning starting on 25 May. At the same time, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office gave experts and psychiatrists a deadline to perform an expert examination of Blažić and submit their findings to the prosecutor's office within the next 30 days. On 30 May, the woman in the taxi that Blažić hijacked was heard before the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Smederevo, where she said that she faked her pregnancy after Blažić hijacked the vehicle because she was afraid that he would kill her. As of 29 June, 48 witnesses were brought in for questioning or gave their testimony, including family members of the victims, eyewitnesses, and others. Blažić's brother refused to testify.
Uroš Blažić (Serbian Cyrillic: Урош Блажић; born 11 October 2002) is the suspect in the shootings.
According to neighbors, Blažić was known for his arrogant and aggressive behavior, as well as for the fact that he was never held accountable for his misdemeanors, since he was protected by his father. He has been a fan of a Serbian former criminal, Kristijan Golubović.
Blažić opened his criminal record several years ago. On 28 July 2019, a misdemeanour charge of insolent behaviour was filed against him after he used a chainsaw to cut the ramp used by a Dubona local to protect the entrance to his property. The tractor's front wheel, which the minor was driving, caused minor injuries to the person. Blažić also has an assault on a police officer in his file. As a minor, he drove a motorcycle, did not stop at the police officer's signal and hit him with his motorcycle. The police officer sustained shoulder and hip injuries. He passed two patrols, and the third one stopped him. An invitation was sent to report on 1 June 2020 to the juvenile police officer in Mladenovac. Then his motorcycle was temporarily confiscated.
His father is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Serbian Armed Forces. In 2022, Blažić passed all of the tests while enrolling at the Military Academy in Serbia. However, he did not pass the Military Security Agency (VBA) background check due to previous misdemeanour proceedings for violent behaviour.
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On 17 June 2023, Blažić fought with another detainee after returning to the Smederevo detention from the Special Prison Hospital in Belgrade. After the argument, he physically attacked his cellmate, punching him in the face. On 7 July, the court sentenced him to a disciplinary penalty of visiting restrictions for all family members.
On 1 August, firefighters extinguished a fire at the cottage in Šepšin where Blažić had weapons stored prior to the attack. It is not known how the fire broke out. According to Blic, locals suspect that the fire was set. Also, the locals had been protesting for a long time, demanding that Blažić's family move out of the village.
Interior Minister Bratislav Gašić and President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić denounced the shooting as a terrorist act. At a press conference on 5 May, Vučić announced new measures and added that Blažić "will not see the light of day again", that "he will not get out of the prison", and that all people with weapons will undergo an audit. The new measures include a moratorium on gun permits, more medical and psychological checks on gun owners, and hiring 1,200 police officers in schools. He also announced that the new measures would "almost completely disarm Serbia". The measures were adopted by the government later that day.
On 23 May, President Vučić visited Dubona and Malo Orašje to meet with the victims' families On 13 June, the fortieth-day memorial service was held in Dubona and Malo Orašje.
On 8 May, the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs offered a one-month amnesty for surrendering illegal or unregistered weapons and ammunition. Initially set to end on 8 June, the call, known as Hand Over Your Weapons (Serbian Cyrillic: Предај оружје, romanized: Predaj oružje), had extended the deadline to 30 June. The ministry reported that citizens handed over 78,302 firearms, 4,085,000 rounds of ammunition, and 25,914 pieces of ordnance by the end of the call.
On 18 July, MP Marinika Tepić was elected as the chairperson of the National Assembly's Inquiry Committee to determine the facts and circumstances that led to the mass murders at the Belgrade school shooting and Dubona and Malo Orašj shootings.
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Following the shootings, opposition parties, namely the Ujedinjeni parliamentary group, People's Party, Do not Let Belgrade Drown, Together, Democratic Party, and Dveri, announced they would organise a protest against violence on 8 May. The protestors met in front of the country's parliament before marching in silence through the streets near Serbian government offices to demand the resignation of Vulin, Gašić, the Minister of Education Branko Ružić, and the council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media, as well as cancelling programmes that promote violence and shutting down media and tabloids that publish false news and violate the Journalistic Code. In response, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić accused them of "politicising" the shootings. According to the organisers, the protest in Belgrade was attended by approximately 50,000 demonstrators. The second protest was held on 12 May; it began in front of the National Assembly of Serbia building while the demonstrators continued walking to the Gazela Bridge and ended at Sava Centar. Another "Serbia Against Violence" protest was held a day later in Kragujevac. | 2023 |
74857564 | 2023 Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh | 2023-09-19 09:50:34+00:00 | Between 19 and 20 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military offensive against the self-declared breakaway state of Artsakh, a move seen as a violation of the ceasefire agreement signed in the aftermath of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. The offensive took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is de jure a part of Azerbaijan, and was a de facto independent republic. The stated goal of the offensive was the complete disarmament and unconditional surrender of Artsakh, as well as the withdrawal of all ethnic Armenian soldiers present in the region. The offensive occurred in the midst of an escalating crisis caused by Azerbaijan blockading Artsakh, which has resulted in significant scarcities of essential supplies such as food, medicine, and other goods in the affected region.
One day after the offensive started on 20 September, a ceasefire agreement described as a written agreement for the surrender of Artsakh was reached at the mediation of the Russian peacekeeping contingent where it was agreed that the Artsakh Defence Army, the armed forces of Artsakh would be disarmed. Ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan were nonetheless reported by both Artsakhi residents and officials until early October. On 28 September, the president of Artsakh, Samvel Shahramanyan signed a decree to dissolve all state institutions by 1 January 2024, bringing the existence of the breakaway state to an end.
The offensive and subsequent surrender resulted in a flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, in which nearly the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled the region for neighboring countries, primarily Armenia. Human rights organizations and experts in genocide prevention issued multiple alerts that the region's Armenian population was at risk or actively being subjected to ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the inaugural prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has classified the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians as a second Armenian genocide, and opined that the inaction of the international community encouraged Azerbaijan to act with impunity.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until the offensive. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was once entirely claimed by, and partially de facto controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan.
The conflict escalated in 1988, when the Karabakh Armenians demanded the transfer of the region from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia, triggering the First Nagorno-Karabakh War that ended in 1994 with Azerbaijan losing control of about 13.6% of its territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh, to Karabakh Armenians and the army of the Republic of Armenia. In 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted four resolutions that supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the occupying Armenian forces from Azerbaijan, which was reaffirmed by the 2008 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 62/243.
In late 2020, the large-scale Second Nagorno-Karabakh War resulted in thousands of casualties and a significant Azerbaijani victory. An armistice was established by a tripartite ceasefire agreement on 10 November, resulting in Armenia and Artsakh ceding the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself to Azerbaijan Ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Armenian–Azerbaijani border occurred following the 2020 war, leading to several casualties.
Subsequent to the 2020 war, Azerbaijan rescinded its offer of granting special status and autonomy to its ethnic Armenian residents and insisted on their "integration" into Azerbaijan. Some international mediators and human rights organizations have advocated for self-determination for the local Armenian population and do not believe that Artsakh Armenians can live safely under Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, whose leadership has been described as dynastic and authoritarian.
In December 2022, Azerbaijan began blockading the Republic of Artsakh from the outside world, in violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement and international legal rulings. The Azerbaijiani government seized territory around the Lachin corridor both within Artsakh and Armenia, blocked alternative bypass routes, and installed a military checkpoint. Azerbaijan also sabotaged critical civilian infrastructure of Artsakh, including gas, electricity, and internet access.
The blockade created a humanitarian crisis for the population of Artsakh. Imports of essential goods, including humanitarian convoys of the Red Cross and the Russian peacekeepers were blocked. 120,000 residents of the region were trapped. There were widespread shortages of essential goods, including electricity, fuel, and water reserves, and emergency reserves were rationed, alongside massive unemployment, and closures of schools and public transportation.
Azerbaijan claimed its actions were aimed at preventing the transportation of weapons and natural resources. It also said its goal was for Artsakh to "integrate" into Azerbaijan, despite opposition from the population, and threatened military action if the Artsakh government did not disband. The spokesperson for Charles Michel, President of the European Council called for the "irreversible normalization" of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and "courageous compromise solutions".
Numerous countries, international organizations, and human rights observers condemned Azerbaijan's blockade and considered it to be a form of hybrid warfare, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Multiple international observers also considered the blockade and the inaction of the Russian peacekeepers to be violations of the tripartite 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, which ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and guaranteed safe passage for Armenia through the Lachin corridor. Azerbaijan and Russia ignored calls from various countries and international organizations to restore freedom of movement to Armenia through the corridor.
Two weeks before the clashes, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued a report stating that there was "alarming evidence that President [Ilham] Aliyev may be planning a military assault on Artsakh in the very near future." The report noted that Aliyev had recently signed a new decree ordering all eligible citizens 18 years of age or older to report for military service between 1 October and 31 October 2023. The Lemkin Institute also warned that a "military assault on Artsakh could lead to the mass murder stage of genocide. It would almost assuredly result in the forced displacement of Armenians from Artsakh and the widespread commission of genocidal atrocities...[and]...Artsakh's Armenians would lose their distinct identity as Artsakhsis, an identity that has been forged through centuries—millennia—of independent cultural flourishing in their mountains and valleys."
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On 19 September 2023, in violation of the 2020 ceasefire, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive against Republic of Artsakh. The Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense claimed to be undertaking "local anti-terrorist activities" and cited land mines allegedly planted by Armenians killing two Azerbaijani civilians and four police officers as a pretext for the offensive. The ministry demanded the disarmament and withdrawal of all ethnic Armenian soldiers, as well as the unconditional surrender and dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh. The statement from the ministry claimed that the Russian peacekeeping contingent and the joint Russian-Turkish Monitoring Centre were informed about the operation. Russia denied this claim, stating that its peacekeepers were only informed of the offensive a "few minutes" before it started.
Azerbaijan claimed that no civilian targets were attacked with weaponry, but witnesses reported strikes conducted in close proximity to large cities and densely populated areas. The attacks occurred in the midst of Azerbaijan's ongoing blockade of the region. Azerbaijan said that it had set up "humanitarian corridors and reception points on the Lachin road and in other directions" which would "ensure the evacuation of the population from the dangerous area". These announcements were disseminated through text messages, leaflets, and social media, triggering fears of ethnic cleansing amongst the residents. Artsakhi authorities warned its residents that "the Azerbaijani propaganda machine uses large-scale information and psychological influence measures." The Cyber Security Service of Azerbaijan temporarily restricted access to TikTok in Azerbaijan.
Late in the afternoon, Nagorno-Karabakh's leadership offered to negotiate with Azerbaijan after it launched its military offensive and called on Azerbaijan to “immediately cease the hostilities and sit down at the negotiation table with the aim of settling the situation". The Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan responded that it was ready to meet with representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh. It stressed at the same time that the Azerbaijani offensive would continue unless Artsakh disband its government bodies and armed forces. The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry later stated that its forces had captured more than 60 military posts and destroyed up to 20 military vehicles. The Armenian daily Azg reported claims that Azerbaijan had captured the villages of Charektar and Getavan. The Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan claimed that Armenian forces attacked Shusha with large-caliber weapons, killing one civilian.
Artsakh authorities stated that the state's de facto capital, Stepanakert, and other cities were being heavily shelled, accusing Azerbaijan of attempted ethnic cleansing. Artsakh's human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan said two civilians, including a child, were killed, while 11 others were injured, eight of whom were children. By the end of the day, Artsakh reported that 27 people had been killed and more than 200 were injured.
Artsakh authorities reported that they had evacuated over 7,000 people from 16 rural settlements, while Russian peacekeepers evacuated 5,000 others. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that Russian food and medicine arrived in Artsakh via the Lachin and Agdam routes.
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Armenian sources reported that Aznavur Saghyan, the mayor of Martuni, was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper. It was also reported that the Amaras Monastery near Sos had fallen under Azerbaijani control. Azg reported that Azerbaijani forces had captured the settlements of Drmbon and Harav; later that day, Chankatagh, Chapar, Karmir Shuka, Khachmach, Machkalashen, Sarushen, Shosh and Vaghuhas were also reported to have been captured. Furthermore, the Armenian daily Aravot reported that the Kashen mine, one of the biggest sources of tax revenue for the Artsakhi government, had fallen under Azerbaijani control. Artsakhi president Samvel Shahramanyan said "Nagorno-Karabakh will have to take relevant steps to ensure physical security of population".
Artsakhi authorities agreed to a proposal by Russian peacekeeping forces to establish a ceasefire from 13:00 on 20 September. Under the terms of the agreement, the government of the Republic of Artsakh agreed to disarm and to enter into talks with the government of Azerbaijan regarding the reintegration of the territory. Among the Azerbaijani demands was a requirement for Artsakh and Armenia to surrender a list of individuals to Azerbaijan for prosecution and trial, including former and current Artsakhi civilian and military leaders. Large masses of Armenian civilians began fleeing Artsakh after the ceasefire announcement, with many of them gathering at Stepanakert Airport. Later, Nikol Pashinyan commented on this that "it is obvious to me that this is being done to cause internal political upheavals and chaos". The Armenian government said it was not involved in the drafting of the ceasefire agreement, while Azerbaijani presidential envoy Elchin Amirbeyov said that Russian peacekeepers helped facilitate the ceasefire.
Colonel Anar Eyvazov, Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, announced that during the operation, Azerbaijan had captured 90 combat positions. He also said that Azerbaijani forces had captured seven combat vehicles, one tank, four mortars and two infantry fighting vehicles from Armenian military units as trophies.
Shelling of Stepanakert continued until the city's electrical grid was knocked out several hours after the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect. According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, several peacekeepers were killed near the village of Chankatagh in Tartar District after their vehicle was attacked while they were returning from an observation post. Azerbaijani official Elin Suleymanov admitted that Azeri forces had killed the peacekeepers, calling it an accident, expressed condolences to Russia, and vowed to launch a probe into what happened. Among those killed was Captain First Rank Ivan Kovgan, the deputy commander of Russia's Northern Fleet submarine forces, and a concurrent deputy commander of the peacekeeping force. With Azerbaijani cooperation, Russian peacekeepers detained suspects, and an Azerbaijani commander was suspended. President Ilham Aliyev subsequently apologized over phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the incident. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan, a group of military personnel of the Azerbaijan army opened fire on a car with Russian peacekeepers, mistaken believing they were Armenian forces due to the difficult terrain and foggy-rainy weather conditions. As a result five peacekeepers were killed.
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of firing at its soldiers in the border town of Sotk, which Azerbaijan denied.
In a televised address that evening, President Aliyev reiterated that "Karabakh is Azerbaijan", adding that his "iron fist" had consigned the idea of Karabakh being a separate Armenian state to history.
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After the fighting ended on 21 September, Azerbaijan opened the border for the first time in months to allow people to leave, and tens of thousands of Armenians began to flee out of the Lachin corridor as part of a large flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. On 24 September, Azerbaijan opened the Lachin corridor for residents of Nagorno-Karabakh to travel one-way to Armenia despite its ongoing blockade. A mass evacuation of ethnic Armenian civilians from the region then started, fearing persecution and ethnic cleansing if they remain. The first group of refugees arrived in Armenia through the border post at Kornidzor. By the end of the day, the Armenian government said 1,050 refugees had arrived in the country.
The last scheduled evacuation bus out of Nagorno-Karabakh left on 2 October carrying 15 refugees. On the same day, the Artsakhi government said that some officials would stay on until search operations for people killed and missing were completed. Journalists who visited Stepanakert said the city was virtually abandoned except for a few residents, Azerbaijani police officers and Russian peacekeepers. They also added that Azerbaijani telecommunications firms and signals were already present in the city. A United Nations report released the same day found that there were between 50 and 1,000 ethnic Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian government said the number of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh had reached 100,617 on 3 October, nearly the entire current population of Nagorno-Karabakh. A total of 21,043 vehicles were recorded to have crossed the Hakari Bridge going to Armenia in the week since the exodus began.
The government of Artsakh said that families left homeless due to Azerbaijan's military offensive and who expressed a desire to leave Artsakh will be transferred to Armenia, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers. It was reported that 23 ambulances, accompanied by specialists and the Red Cross, were transporting 23 severely injured people from Artsakh to Armenia. In Armenia, the theatre in the city of Goris was converted into a base for the Red Cross to accommodate refugees. A secondary hub was later opened in Vayk. Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said some refugees died in transit due to exhaustion brought about by malnutrition, the lack of medicines and the travel time which took up to 40 hours. The Armenian government promised a one-off payment to each refugee of 100,000 drams and provide a monthly subsidy of 50,000 drams for at least six months, adding that it had so far managed to provided temporary accommodation for 53,000 refugees.
During the movement of refugees, at least 170 people were killed and more than 290 people were injured after an explosion at a fuel storage facility in Berkadzor, 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) from Stepanakert on 25 September. Most of the victims were queueing to obtain fuel for their vehicles while on their way to Armenia. Victims with various degrees of burns were treated in the Republican Medical Center of Artsakh, facilities of the Arevik community organization, medical facilities in Ivanyan, and the medical station of Russian peacekeepers. The Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan said it sent an ambulance carrying medical supplies. 142 of the injured were later brought to Armenia.
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Azerbaijani forces were reported to be screening refugees fleeing to Armenia as part of its search for "war criminals" in border checkpoints. The Azerbaijani State Border Service detained several Artsakhi officials in the Lachin corridor while attempting to cross into Armenia, including former army commander and defence minister Levon Mnatsakanyan, former deputy army commander Davit Manukyan, and Russian-Armenian billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, who was the former state minister. Former foreign minister David Babayan surrendered to Azerbaijani authorities in Shusha. Azerbaijani presidential adviser Hikmat Hajiyev later confirmed that up to six people had been arrested on charges of committing "war crimes".
On 1 October, Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General Kamran Aliyev issued arrest warrants against former Artsakhi President Arayik Harutyunyan and military commander Jalal Harutyunyan over their role in the 2020 Ganja missile attacks during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, adding that 300 other separatist officials were under investigation for alleged war crimes.
On 3 October, the State Security Service of Azerbaijan detained former presidents Arkadi Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan and Arayik Harutyunyan, as well as President of the National Assembly Davit Ishkhanyan.
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On 21 September, negotiations between representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan took place in Yevlakh to discuss security, rights and "issues of re-integration". The Artsakhi delegation consisted of Sergey Martirosyan and Davit Melkumyan, and was escorted by Russian peacekeepers. The Azerbaijani delegation consisted of Ramin Mammadov, Bashir Hajiyev and Ilkin Sultanov. The head of the Joint Russian-Turkish Monitoring Center, Oleg Semyonov, was also present. The talks, which lasted two hours, ended without a formal agreement, however a statement from the Azerbaijani government said the they were "constructive and positive" and that further negotiations would continue in October. According to the Artsakhi delegation, the negotiations stalled due to a "whole host of questions", but specifically when they requested security guarantees that the Azerbaijani government would not force ethnic Armenians to leave the Nagorno-Karabakh region, however, both sides agreed on the cessation of military action. Azerbaijan agreed to send food and fuel supplies to the region.
On 22 September, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, stated that his government would ensure that civilians can travel safely in their own vehicles on roads that connect Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. He also suggested that an amnesty would be offered to former combatants who agree to disarm. Some ethnic Armenian armed groups vowed to continue fighting. Rumors spread on some Internet news publications that these included former colonel Karen Jalavyan and his subordinates. A journalist from Hraparak contacted Jalavyan and asked him if the rumors were true, but he did not answer the question directly. Noticeably upset, he stated that "the entire nation has washed its hands from the people of Karabakh" and told Pashinyan to "go defend Artsakh".
The second day of negotiations also ended in deadlock despite the amnesty offer to Artsakhi commanders and fighters as the Artsakhi delegation stated the questions of humanitarian aid, security guarantees, and a promise from the Azerbaijani delegation to not drive Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh were unresolved. According to Armenian journalist Tatul Hakobyan, a meeting between the head of State Security Service of Azerbaijan, Ali Naghiyev, and Artsakh's president Samvel Shahramanyan took place in Shusha.
Elements of the Artsakh defense force began transferring their weapons to Russian peacekeepers, with the Russian defence ministry confirming the turnover of six armored vehicles, more than 800 small arms units and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. The memorial tank monument, a restored T-72 tank of Gagik Avsharyan commemorating the capture of Shusha and located on Shusha road, was reportedly dismantled by Azerbaijan. Additionally, a convoy of 15 trucks from the Russian peacekeepers left Armenia for Nagorno-Karabakh, crossing the Lachin corridor. More than 50 tonnes of humanitarian aid was delivered to Nagorno-Karabakh by Russian peacekeepers, according to the Russian defence ministry.
On 24 September, the town of Martakert was reported to have come under Azerbaijani military control.
A second round of negotiations between representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijan took place in Khojaly, where according to Azerbaijan, humanitarian issues were discussed. The two sides agreed to a third meeting taking place in a few days time.
On 26 September, Azerbaijani forces reportedly took control of Martuni (Khojavend).
On 28 September, Artsakh president Samvel Shahramanyan signed a decree stating that all state institutions would be dissolved by 1 January 2024, bringing the existence of the breakaway republic to an end. However, on 22 December, Shahramanyan, who was by then in exile in the Armenian capital Yerevan, said that there was "no document... of the Republic of Artsakh (Karabakh) stipulating the dissolution of government institutions," while his office said that the decree issued in September was "empty paper," adding that "no document can lead to the dissolution of the republic, which was established by people's will."
Azerbaijani media reported on 29 September that a third meeting between representatives of the Karabakh Armenian community and officials from the government of Azerbaijan took place in Yevlakh. Azerbaijani police vehicles were seen in Stepanakert and officials placed the Azerbaijani flag on the city's We Are Our Mountains monument.
A fourth round of talks was held in Stepanakert on 2 October, during which Azerbaijani authorities outlined their plans for the "reintegration" of the region.
On 3 October, Azerbaijani officials were reported to have reissued a 2021 map of Stepanakert renaming one of its streets after Enver Pasha, one of the main perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. When approached for comment, the State Service on Property Issues of the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan and the State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture of Azerbaijan stated they were unaware of any street renaming initiated by Azerbaijani authorities in Stepanakert.
On 15 October, President Ilham Aliyev visited Stepanakert and raised the Azerbaijani flag. A video was also released showing him stepping on an Artsakhi flag placed on the floor in the building that housed the former government.
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The Artsakh Ministry of Internal Affairs stated on 21 September that the Azerbaijani military violated the ceasefire and continued to shell Stepanakert "with different types of small arms". Rheinische Post reported ceasefire violations by Azerbaijani forces and gunfire in Stepanakert, according to residents. It was reported that electricity in Artsakh cannot be supplied because a number of substations that feed the electrical grid were under Azerbaijani control, with "Artsakhenergo" CJSC carrying out restoration works in Stepanakert. Russia recorded two instances of ceasefire violations in Shusha District and three other instances in Mardakert District.
Artak Beglaryan, former Artsakhi Minister of State, reported that Karkijahan, a suburb of Stepanakert, was "empty" following a ceasefire violation. Many residents took refuge in Stepanakert itself. He stated that Azerbaijani troops entered several houses in the neighborhood. To avoid further tensions, Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the outskirts of Stepanakert, including in Karkijahan. Artsakhi armed forces were also deployed to the area.
On 22 September, Artsakhi government spokesperson Armine Hayrapetyan told Agence-France Presse that Azerbaijani forces had positioned themselves around Stepanakert, prompting residents to hide in basements for fear of killings. She also added that since the Azerbaijani offensive, Stepanakert and other parts of Nagorno-Karabakh have lost most basic services such as electricity, gas, food, fuel, internet and telephone connections.
On 23 September, the Russian Ministry of Defense said one ceasefire violation was recorded in the Mardakert region, which resulted in one Azerbaijani soldier being injured following a shootout.
On 24 September, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry claimed that two of its soldiers were killed after their truck hit a landmine.
On 30 September, Azerbaijan claimed that one of its soldiers was killed by an Armenian army sniper in Aşağı Ayrım, Kalbajar District, which Armenia immediately denied.
On 2 October, Armenia accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire on a vehicle delivering food to military outposts around the village of Kut, killing a soldier and injuring two others. On the same day, the Russian Defence Ministry said that a joint Russian-Azerbaijani patrol in Stepanakert was shot at by an unidentified sniper without causing any injury.
On 5 October, Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of firing at military targets on each other's territory.
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On 22 September, Azerbaijan said it had sent two 20-tonne trucks with food and hygiene products and well as two trucks with bread to Nagorno-Karabakh from Aghdam.
For the first time since the Azerbaijani offensive, a Red Cross aid convoy was spotted at the Armenia–Azerbaijan border heading for Nagorno-Karabakh on 23 September. The Red Cross later evacuated 17 people who were injured during the clashes. In a separate delivery, Russia sent 50 tons of aid to Stepanakert.
On 28 September, USAID sent a Disaster Assistance Response Team to the region to help coordinate the U.S. humanitarian response.
Other countries and international organizations that have provided humanitarian assistance to civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh and to ethnic Armenians that have fled the region include Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the European Union, France, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Iran, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Cyprus offered to shelter some of the displaced Armenians who have fled the region.
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At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Armenia proposed that a United Nations peacekeeping mission should be deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh and called for the establishment of an international mechanism for dialogue between the Azerbaijan and representatives of the ethnic Armenian community in the region.
On 26 September, a meeting between Armen Grigoryan, head of Armenia's Security Council and Hikmat Hajiyev, Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan, was hosted by the European Union in Brussels. At the meeting the EU emphasized the need for access for humanitarian and human rights organizations into Nagorno-Karabakh. It also wanted more details about the Azerbaijani government's plans for the future of Karabakh Armenians in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan outlined its plans to provide humanitarian assistance and security to the local population in the region. On the same day, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with President Aliyev by telephone and urged him to refrain from further hostilities and to allow an international observer mission into Nagorno-Karabakh. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock also urged that independent observers be allowed into the region. Russia insisted that any international observer mission in the region can only happen with permission from the government of Azerbaijan.
On 27 September, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller announced the government of Azerbaijan had given assurances that it would welcome an international monitoring mission to the region and that the United States and its allies would discuss the composition and mandate of such a mission in the coming days.
Azerbaijan announced on 29 September that it would facilitate a visit by United Nations observers to the region "in the coming days". The UN later confirmed that it would send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time in 30 years to address humanitarian needs. On the same day, Armenia formally requested the International Court of Justice to order Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops from civilian areas of Nagorno-Karabakh to ensure safe access by UN personnel. It later petitioned the court to impose 10 “provisional measures” aimed at protecting the rights of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh and prevent Azerbaijan's “ethnic cleansing” of the region from becoming irreversible. On 17 November, the court ruled that Azerbaijan had an obligation to allow the return of residents who fled following the offensive and protect those who had stayed behind.
The United Nations in Azerbaijan, led by the UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva, sent a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh to address humanitarian needs on 1 October. While visiting Stepanakert, the team claimed to have found no evidence of damage to public infrastructure in the areas it visited. The mission saw that the Azerbaijani government was preparing for the resumption of health services and some utilities. The mission reportedly "was struck by the sudden manner in which the local population left their homes". It was reported to the team that between 50 and 1,000 ethnic Armenians remain in the region. It encountered no civilian vehicles on the Lachin road to the border crossing used by the refugees. The mission also had limited access to rural areas. The mission was criticized for failing to mention the numerous casualties and injuries among Armenian civilians, the targeting of civilian infrastructure by Azerbaijan, and blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan over the previous nine months along with the humanitarian crisis it caused. The delegation returned to the region on 9 October.
On 4 January 2024, the US State Department placed Azerbaijan on its watchlist on religious freedom, following a recommendation by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom over concerns for the preservation of Christian religious sites in Nagorno-Karabakh following the Azerbaijani takeover and government oversight in religious activities.
Normalisation efforts
On 7 December, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to hold a prisoner exchange and move towards normalising relations, stating in a joint statement their agreement to seize "a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace in the region". The exchange was conducted on 13 December, with two Azerbaijani soldiers being released in return for 32 Armenian soldiers.
Several countries have offered themselves to become a mediator between both sides in their peace talks and normalisation efforts, such as Georgia, Iran, the European Union and the United States. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev have met several times for talks mediated by the EU, but progress towards normalisation stalled when Aliyev refused to attend French-mediated talks in Spain on October and U.S.-mediated talks in Washington D.C. on November, claiming both mediators had a "biased" position.
Iran hosted talks between the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Tehran on October, with Turkey and Russia also participating. Georgia was invited to the talks but refused to attend. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi emphasized Iran's rejection of "interference by Western powers in the Caucasus," signifying the country's discontent with U.S. and EU mediated talks.
Human rights organizations and experts in genocide prevention issued alerts stating that the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh was at risk of genocide, while others stated that Azerbaijan was already carrying out such actions. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention states "There is no doubt in the minds of experts in genocide prevention – at the Lemkin Institute, but also at Genocide Watch, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and among legal experts such as former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo – that what Armenians are facing from Azerbaijan is genocide." Experts in genocide prevention have stated that Azerbaijan's ongoing blockade of Artsakh and sabotage of public infrastructure constitutes genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention, "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction". There are various indicators that Azerbaijan possesses genocidal intent: President Aliyev's public statements, his regime's openly Armenophobic practices and noncompliance with the International Court of Justice orders to end the blockade.
Christian Solidarity International emphasized that the "United States has had ample notice of the forced deportation that is now unfolding in Nagorno Karabakh, starting with Genocide Watch Emergency Alerts in 2020, 2021, 2022, and a Genocide Warning issued by the Save Karabakh Coalition in December 2022. These warnings were followed by two Genocide Emergency Alerts issued Genocide Watch in 2023, and a declaration of genocide by the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo." Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, commented on Azerbaijan's ongoing nine-month long blockade of the region: "Armenians fear that this is a prelude to an Azerbaijani attempt to fully drive them all out of their homeland."
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Kavita Belani, United Nations Refugee Agency Representative in Armenia, who spoke with Karabakh Armenians in Armenia, stated on 29 September 2023 that "there were no recorded incidents or cases of mistreatment against people on the move". A UN mission that visited Nagorno-Karabakh on 1 October 2023 reported that "they did not come across any reports — either from the local population or from others — of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire."
Lawyer Anoush Baghdassarian was onsite in Goris to interview Armenian refugees and document possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. On 19 October 2023, Anahit Manasyan, the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, announced that the bodies of numerous Armenian civilians massacred in Nagorno-Karabakh had been transported to Armenia. Manasyan stated that the bodies showed signs of torture and included women and children.
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In August 2023, Armenian diplomat Ara Papian reported that Azerbaijan was building a concentration camp intended for 30,000 Armenian males. The newspaper Hraparak reported the same information a month later, citing an anonymous military source. In January 2024, New Lines investigated these reports using Planet Labs satellite imagery and discovered a large and unfinished complex in a remote area of the Aghdam District that had been recently built. Satellite records showed construction of the site had begun in July 2022 and ended in late August or early September 2023. Applying spatial analysis methods, several similarities between the site and known prison structures were identified, and New Lines concluded the facility was likely intended to be prison. New Lines also suggested the location of the site was chosen for its close proximity to Tigranakert of Artsakh, ruins of a 2,000-year-old Armenian city, as a form of psychological trauma.
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Armenia
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reiterated that the situation in the Armenia-Azerbaijan border was stable and said that Azerbaijan was trying to ethnically cleanse the region. Pashinyan also said that Azerbaijan's motivation for the attack was to draw Armenia into a military confrontation. Following the ceasefire on 20 September, Pashinyan said the country was preparing for an influx of 40,000 families from Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian foreign ministry accused Azerbaijan of unleashing "large-scale aggression" against Karabakh and attempting "ethnic cleansing" in the region. Armenia called on the United Nations Security Council and Russia to take action to end the military operation, while Pashinyan called an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council. The council's secretary, Armen Grigoryan, accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect Nagorno-Karabakh, which was also echoed by Pashinyan.
Following the announcement of the ceasefire, protests erupted in the capital Yerevan over the impending loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. The pro-Western National Democratic Alliance blamed the situation on Russia's failure to intervene, while members of the pro-Russian political opposition blamed Pashinyan for the defeat and accused him of betraying Nagorno-Karabakh's residents “in favor of the interests of the West.”
On 3 October, the National Assembly of Armenia voted 60–22 in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute, which would enable Armenia to join the International Criminal Court. Although the government claimed that the move to create additional guarantees for Armenia in response to Azerbaijani aggression, it was also seen as a sign of worsening relations with Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes in the invasion of Ukraine. The measure was signed into law by President Vahagn Khachaturyan on 14 October.
On 28 November 2023, the president of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is over and Armenia should not prioritize the quick return of the recently displaced Karabakh Armenians to their homes in peace talks with Azerbaijan. Simonyan confirmed that "Armenia fully recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including Nagorno-Karabakh.”
On 1 February 2024, Armenia became the 124th member of the International Criminal Court.
= Armenian diaspora =
In Los Angeles, members of the Armenian community used a trailer truck to block a major freeway for several hours to draw attention to the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh on 19 September, causing major traffic jams. Actress Kim Kardashian, who is of Armenian descent, called on United States President Joe Biden "to stop another Armenian genocide" on social media. Armenian students of the University of Southern California protested the presence of Turkish ambassador to the United States Hasan Murat Mercan at a foreign policy conference held in the university campus. The university refused to cancel the event, maintaining their stance on freedom of speech.
In Lebanon, firecrackers were thrown at the Azerbaijani embassy in the Ein Aar suburb of Beirut during a protest by Lebanese Armenians on 28 September, prompting riot police to disperse them with tear gas. Armenian Argentines also held a protest in front of the Azerbaijani embassy in Buenos Aires.
Russia
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia was "deeply alarmed by the sharp escalation." Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia will not defend Armenia from the Azerbaijani offensive, while strongly criticizing Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for "[flirting] with NATO" and "defiantly going to [Russia's] enemies with cookies". This comes despite Russia and Armenia both being members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization mutual defense pact and Russia stationing several thousand soldiers in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh as peacekeepers.
Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied accusations from Armenia that the country's peacekeepers had failed to protect Nagorno-Karabakh from the Azerbaijani attack, calling them "unfounded". Peskov later said that the future of the peacekeeping mission was to be decided between Russia and Armenia now that their area of operation was effectively in Azerbaijani territory. A week before the fighting, President Vladimir Putin said that the country could do nothing if Armenia had already recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, referring to statements made by Pashinyan in May that appeared to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for security guarantees towards the Armenian population.
The independent Russian media outlet Meduza said it had obtained a guidance document from the Kremlin circulated on 19 September to state media outlets that recommended blaming Armenia and the West, rather than Azerbaijan, for the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Speaking at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City on 23 September, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the Armenian leadership of adding "fuel to the fire", referring to the conflict, and reiterated that agreements made following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 stated that the existing borders of its former constituent republics were inviolable, hereby recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
Turkey
Hakan Fidan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, offered diplomatic support to Azerbaijan, stating that their military operation was "justified" and that "Azerbaijan has taken the measures it deems necessary on its own sovereign territory." Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated "As everyone now acknowledges, Karabakh is Azerbaijani territory. Imposition of another status [to the region] will never be accepted," and that "[Turkey] support[s] the steps taken by Azerbaijan — with whom we act together with the motto of one nation, two states — to defend its territorial integrity." Erdoğan also met with Aliyev in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
European Union
The President of the European Council of the European Union Charles Michel condemned Azerbaijan's hostility and urged the country to immediately stop its military activities and return to dialogue, through a social media post.
On 21 September, Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy released a statement which condemned the military operation by Azerbaijan against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and deplored the casualties and loss of life caused by the offensive. According to RFE/RL's journalist Rikard Jozwiak, this was not issued as a joint statement of the entire bloc because it was vetoed by Hungary. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó denied this and said that the country, "along with several other member states, provided feedback and proposed amendments for a joint statement." However, he said that a consensus was not reached, which led Borrell to issue the statement on his own behalf.
David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, warned of "serious consequences" if Armenians were pressured to leave.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen condemned "the military operation by Azerbaijan against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and reaffirmed the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia". She also announced preparations for a joint EU-US event to support Armenia.
United Nations
United Nations spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told Al Jazeera that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was "very concerning". He urged both sides to halt hostilities and go back to "sustained dialogue". The UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed alarm at the military escalation by Azerbaijan, saying that: "Military action can only contribute to escalate what is already a tense situation and to put the civilian population in the area at risk of violence, including risk of genocide and related atrocity crimes."
The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a joint statement on 12 October, signed by delegates from countries including Armenia, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, United States, France and Japan expressing concern over the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. Urging both Armenia and Azerbaijan to offer the OHCHR assistance and ensure the rights and safety of those remaining in the region. They also urged compliance with interim measures adopted by the European Court of Human Rights and provisional measures of the International Court. Lastly, the statement called for continued humanitarian assistance to those displaced by the crisis and for international access to Nagorno-Karabakh, supporting dialogue among all parties to ensure comprehensive and lasting peace.
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe stated that it was "extremely concerned about the serious humanitarian and human rights situation in Nagorno-Karabakh".
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović visited Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh region, from 16 to 23 October 2023, and published on 12 January 2024 her observations. Testimonies provided to the Commissioner by Karabakh Armenians reveal a deep-rooted fear for their lives and future amid armed conflicts, exacerbated by Azerbaijan's control resulting from unresolved past atrocities and ongoing intimidation. Feeling abandoned by all parties and with no security guarantees, the heightened vulnerability experienced during the blockade, and the unexpected reopening of the Lachin corridor in late September 2023, prompted Karabakh Armenians to believe that leaving the region immediately was the only option available to ensure their survival and future well-being. The Commissioner also stated that all displaced persons have the right to return to their homes, regardless of whether they have been displaced internally or across borders, and that both Armenia and Azerbaijan have the obligation to ensure that any return is voluntary, safe and dignified.
Other countries
Albanian Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Igli Hasani called on both sides to "prioritize the protection of civilians and preservation of residential areas and the civilian infrastructure". He urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to find a peaceful solution to the issue.
Argentine President Alberto Fernández condemned Azerbaijan for the blockade of the Lachin corridor and urged the international community to "act preemptively" to avoid "new persecutions."
The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the country was following the conflict with "great concern" and called for peaceful dialogue between both sides with the mediation of the European Union, the United States and Russia. Ambassador to the United Nations Sérgio França Danese condemned the military operation, stressing that it would "risk the fragile stability achieved after the 2020 ceasefire".
President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik expressed his support for the full integration of Karabakh into Azerbaijan.
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly expressed grave concern with Azerbaijan's military intervention, calling for immediate cessation of hostilities, asking the Azerbaijani government to refrain from any actions and activities that pose a risk to the safety and welfare of the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, labelling the military action as "unjustifiable" and the Lachin corridor blockade as "illegal". Member of Parliament Garnett Genuis said that Azerbaijan "is launching an aggressive war of choice, calling it a 'military operation' and taking a page out of Russia's playbook in the process"
China's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Geng Shuang said during a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh that China was "carefully monitoring the situation", he added that he hoped that the Russian-mediated ceasefire would be upheld by both sides and result in the end of the conflict. He also expressed regret over the five Russian peacekeepers that were killed during the conflict.
Cyprus's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the country "categorically condemns the ongoing large-scale military aggression by Azerbaijan against the Armenian-populated Nagorno Karabakh" and called on Azerbaijan to de-escalate immediately.
President of the Senate of the Czech Republic Miloš Vystrčil expressed support for Armenia's territorial integrity and sovereignty, welcoming the latest European Parliament resolution condemning the offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh during a meeting with Vice Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Hakob Arshakyan.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the military operation and called for Azerbaijan "to immediately cease its assault and return to respect for international law" and requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. It stated that France had been "working closely with its European and American partners" to effectively respond to the attack, which it described as "unacceptable". Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said it would hold Azerbaijan "responsible for the fate of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh." President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of complicity with Azerbaijan in its offensive and also accused Turkey of threatening Armenia's borders.
Gabon's Representative to the United Nations Edwige Koumby Missambo stressed that "everything must be done to avoid a return" to the 2020 war. She called on both sides to adhere to the ceasefire agreement and facilitate access of humanitarian personnel to population in need without restriction.
Georgia offered to act as a mediator between Azerbaijan and Armenia in peace talks and normalisation of relations. This was accepted by Azerbaijan but Armenia did not comment.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock accused Azerbaijan of breaking its promise not to resort to military action in Nagorno-Karabakh and called on it to stop and return to negotiations.
Ghana's Representative to the United Nations Carolyn Abena Anima Oppong-Ntiri said the conflict was a reminder of the "fragile peace in the region", extending condolences to the families of civilians and Russian peacekeepers killed. She said an escalation of tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh was one that Europe and the rest of the world "can ill afford at this time of immense global security and political upheavals" and appealed for unrestricted humanitarian access as well as free movement along the Lachin Corridor.
Greece's Foreign Ministry condemned Azerbaijan’s offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and urged the country to respect the human rights of ethnic Armenians and guarantee their safety.
The Holy See urged both sides to cease hostilities and seek a peaceful solution to the crisis.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and congratulated Aliyev on the successful offensive.
India said that it encouraged both parties to ensure long-term peace and security in the region through dialogue and diplomacy, which includes the safety and well-being of all civilians.
Iran offered to mediate the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia a day before the military operation began. Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani urged both sides to adhere to the 2020 ceasefire agreement.
The Irish Foreign Ministry condemned Azerbaijan's military operation and called for the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh to be respected and for immediate genuine and comprehensive dialogue.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yōko Kamikawa expressed serious concern over the worsening of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, calling for the immediate discontinuation of hostilities and asking Azerbaijan to cease the current military activities.
Kazakhstan's ambassador to Azerbaijan Alim Bayel said that the country welcomed Azerbaijan's initiative to hold talks with "representatives of the Armenian population of Karabakh." He also said that the country hoped "for a speedy resolution of the current situation through peaceful dialogue within the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan."
Luxembourg's Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn condemned Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. He also stressed that military operations in populated areas must immediately stop to protect the lives of civilians, and Azerbaijan must abide by its international commitments.
Maltese Minister for Foreign and European Affairs and Trade Ian Borg expressed support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Armenia and Azerbaijan as he called for all hostilities to stop and both sides to commit to dialogue and negotiation.
Mozambique's Representative to the United Nations Domingos Estêvão Fernandes voiced concern about the conflict and offered condolences for the lives lost. He urged both sides to adhere to the 2020 and the current ceasefire agreements.
Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed concern that the population of Nagorno-Karabakh may be forced to leave the region due to Azerbaijan's offensive, which it said would lead to a humanitarian disaster. It stressed that such events must be prevented at all costs and that Azerbaijan was responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of the Armenian people in the region.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch reaffirmed "unwavering" support for Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity, she added that Karabakh is a sovereign territory of Azerbaijan aligning with international resolutions and laws. He also expressed condolences for lives lost in mine explosions and hope for lasting peace in Karabakh. Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, and reiterated the country's support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed serious concern about the escalation of the conflict in Karabakh and called on Azerbaijan to cease hostilities and for both sides to resume dialogue involving the European Union and the United States.
Qatar's Minister of Foreign Affairs described the offensive as "deeply concerning" and urged all parties to stop the military escalation.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said that Serbia supports the "territorial integrity of member countries of the United Nations" but called for avoiding armed conflicts and further escalation.
Switzerland's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Pascale Baeriswyl said that the military operation placed "additional burden on the already suffering civilian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region". Following the ceasefire, she called for a lasting halt to hostilities on the ground. She urged both sides to adhere to the 2020 ceasefire agreement and rulings of the International Court of Justice.
United Arab Emirates Minister of State Ahmed Bin Ali Al Sayegh welcomed the Russian-mediated ceasefire and stressed that all parties involved "must commit to protecting civilians and ensuring their security and safety". He also expressed appreciation for the role played by Russian peacekeepers in providing safe haven for civilians during the conflict and expressed regret on civilians and peacekeepers killed.
In a statement to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the United Kingdom said that the military offensive by Azerbaijan was "unacceptable" and urged Azerbaijan to return to dialogue, welcoming the announcement of a ceasefire.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish diplomats about the crisis. Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations called on the U.S. and the international community to act to stop Azerbaijan while Representative Brad Sherman stated that the renewed fighting made it clear that "Azerbaijan cannot receive U.S. military aid until it ends the crisis it has created." The US military said its ongoing joint military exercise with Armenia, codenamed Eagle Partner 2023, was unaffected by the conflict, and the ten-day exercise concluded as scheduled on 20 September. On 26 September, the United States Agency for International Development chief Samantha Power called on Azerbaijan "to maintain the ceasefire and take concrete steps to protect the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh". United States ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged Azerbaijan to comply with international law and humanitarian law, and ensure humanitarian organizations can provide necessary assistance without roadblocks.
First vice-speaker of the Senate of Uzbekistan Sodiq Safoyev expressed support for Azerbaijan and its military operation and praised Azerbaijan for "restoring territorial integrity and justice in Nagorno-Karabakh".
Other international organizations
The human rights organization Genocide Watch issued a new genocide alert on Azerbaijan, saying that the objective of President Aliyev's regime was "to drive all Armenians out of Artsakh through war and genocide," adding that "the silent genocide has become overt" and elevated their assessment of the situation to Stage 9: Extermination.
Organization of Turkic States Secretary General Kubanychbek Omuraliev expressed "serious concern regarding the Armenian provocations against Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and condemned "the recent terror acts committed against Azerbaijan". He also expressed the "anti-terror measures conducted by Azerbaijan, will ensure reintegration of the Armenian residents into the constitutional system of the Republic of Azerbaijan".
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Israel
Israel is one of the major arms exporters to Azerbaijan, accounting for 27% of Azerbaijan's major arms imports from 2011 to 2020, and 69% of Azerbaijan's major imports from 2016 to 2020, according to research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. According to Efraim Inbar, an expert on Israel-Azerbaijan relations and president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, ties between the two countries have grown stronger since the 2020 war.
The offensive involving heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones were suspected to be largely supplied by Israel alongside Turkey. Weeks before the offensive, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats. Armenia’s ambassador to Israel Arman Akopian said that he voiced his concerns about Israeli weaponry shipments to the Israeli government.
Turkey
An official of the Turkish Ministry of National Defense stated that while Turkey was using "all means" to support Azerbaijan, including the modernisation of the Azerbaijani military and military training, denied that the country played a direct role in the offensive, instead limiting its support for Azerbaijan to diplomatic means.
Armenia
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the Armenian Armed Forces were not involved in the fighting and that its forces were not stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia's Ministry of Defense accused Azerbaijani officials of spreading misinformation, saying that there is no Armenian military equipment or personnel present in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Various political analysts and Artsakh residents consider Azerbaijan's underlying goal for the offensive to be ethnic cleansing.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, warned that another Armenian genocide was about to take place. Citing the 1948 Genocide Convention, he stated that Azerbaijan was purposely inflicting living conditions to physically destroy a specific group by blocking the Lachin corridor, and was proceeding to kill and cause "serious bodily and mental harm". Moreno Ocampo stated the inaction of the international community would encourage Azerbaijan in the belief that it would face no serious consequences for committing genocide. He also discredited Aliyev's claims that his regime was not seeking ethnic cleansing, pointing out that Aliyev regularly referred to Armenia as "Western Azerbaijan" and claimed "present-day Armenia is our land".
Thomas de Waal said that Azerbaijan was emboldened to start its offensive during a downturn in relations between Russia and Armenia, and the loss of the Russian peacekeeping force's "best commanders" to the invasion of Ukraine. He also said that Russia could use such a crisis to instigate regime change in Armenia.
A group of 123 Turkish academics released a statement warning the international community about Azerbaijan's intentions to commit genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh. In response, the Federation of Eurasian Turkic Associations called for the academics to have their citizenship revoked and for them to be expelled to Armenia.
Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski coined the term “Azerbaijanization” to describe NATO member countries' tendency to ignore violations of human rights when it suits their interests.
Sergey Radchenko, a historian on Cold War politics and professor at Cardiff University, questioned the lack of international intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh, comparing the situation to that of NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999.
Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at the University of Bremen, attributed the speed of Azerbaijan's victory to its demographic superiority over both Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and the failure of the latter to strengthen their defenses and strategies against the modernized Azerbaijani military. He also attributed the collapse of the Nagorno-Karabakh military to the weakness and corruption of both the Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian economies which turned away potential investors in their militaries and noted that these factors had already contributed to the previous Azerbaijani victory in 2020. | 2023 |
74881843 | 2023 Armenian protests | 2023-09-22 11:51:00+00:00 | On 19 September 2023, a series of protests began in Armenia following a military offensive launched by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in a swift Azerbaijani victory over the ethnic Armenian breakaway republic of Artsakh. The republic had been heavily backed by Armenia until a change in Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's policy towards the region in recent years. The government of Azerbaijan compelled the separatist authorities in Artsakh to surrender, disband the Artsakh Defence Army and begin negotiations regarding their reintegration within Azerbaijan. In response, protests erupted in Armenia accusing Pashinyan of mismanaging the crisis and abandoning Artsakh, demanding that he step down. Pashinyan has characterized the protests as an attempt to unlawfully remove him from power.
The pro-Western National Democratic Alliance blamed the situation on Russia's failure to intervene, while members of the pro-Russian political opposition blamed Pashinyan for the defeat and accused him of betraying Nagorno-Karabakh's residents "in favor of the interests of the West." On 3 October, the National Assembly of Armenia voted 60-22 in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute, which would enable Armenia to join the International Criminal Court. The measure was signed into law by President Vahagn Khachaturyan on 14 October.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was an ethnically Armenian-majority autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, itself a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Karabakh Armenians remained outside of the Armenian SSR and resented incorporation into Soviet Azerbaijan on account of historical enmity between the two peoples and discriminatory policies. In the late 1980s, the Karabakh movement developed as a manifestation of the Karabakh Armenians' desire to have their oblast transferred to Soviet Armenian jurisdiction. This culminated in 1991, amidst the ongoing disintegration of the Soviet Union, when the authorities of the Nagorno-Karabakh AO separated from Azerbaijan and declared independence as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (later the Republic of Artsakh). This bid for independence was initially successful; as both Azerbaijan and Armenia declared independence from the USSR, Karabakh Armenian fighters drove out Azerbaijani forces alongside the army of Armenia during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The end of the war in 1994 left the Karabakh republic internationally unrecognized but victorious, with several areas around the Nagorno-Karabakh region proper occupied as well by troops from Karabakh and Armenia.
Over the following decades, independent Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh remained outside Azerbaijani control, heavily reliant on and closely integrated with Armenia, and in many ways functioning as a de facto part of Armenia. The situation drastically changed in 2020 during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War which resulted in an Azerbaijani victory. Azerbaijan retook the occupied districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as one third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Russian peacekeepers were deployed to Artsakh as part of a ceasefire agreement.
In September 2023, despite the ongoing presence of Russian peacekeepers in the region, Azerbaijan launched a renewed offensive against Artsakh, emerging victorious after one day and forcing the government of Artsakh to surrender, disband their army, and agree to reintegration talks. Armenia under the government of Nikol Pashinyan refused to intervene in the situation, having previously recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in a bid to make peace with Armenia's neighbors and orient the country towards the West. The Armenian government's inaction drew anger from many Armenians and resulted in the subsequent protests.
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Hundreds of protesters gathered for a rally outside government buildings in the capital Yerevan denouncing Pashinyan as being soft on Azerbaijan and weak in Nagorno-Karabakh, including what Pashinyan characterized as calls for a coup d'état and his removal from office. Pashinyan denounced such calls stating that "We must not allow certain people, certain forces to deal a blow to the Armenian state." The protesters were met by a police cordon, and clashed with the police in an attempt to storm the Government House. The protesters and police exchanged glass bottles and stun grenades and several of the building's windows were smashed.
Protesters also surrounded the Russian embassy criticizing Russia's refusal to intervene in the conflict. Among the participants were members-elect of the Yerevan City Council, elected two days prior during the 2023 Yerevan City Council election. After Russia complained that the security of their embassy was lacking and impacting its operations, Armenian police were sent to form a cordon around the embassy, resulting in a clash between the protesters and police. More than 30 people were reportedly injured.
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The crowd in Republic Square began to number in the thousands with increasing calls for the removal of Pashinyan and for Armenia to intervene militarily, as it did during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The police started detaining protesters, stating that the rally was illegal. Some protesters called for the rejection of the Alma-Ata Protocol, and Armenia's withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which Pashinyan rejected, stating that such demands were "calls to abandon Armenia's independence."
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84 people were detained during protests.
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Two unidentified assailants threw some bags of red paint at the gates of the Russian embassy in Yerevan. They were promptly removed by the Armenian Police.
Levon Kocharyan, son of former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, was arrested after reportedly getting into a fistfight with four police officers while participating in protests.
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The Interior Ministry said more than 140 people had been arrested in Yerevan. Armenian special forces began detaining demonstrators who blocked roads in Yerevan.
On 3 October, the National Assembly of Armenia voted 60-22 in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute, which would enable Armenia to join the International Criminal Court. Although the government claimed that the move to create additional guarantees for Armenia in response to Azerbaijani aggression, it was also seen as a sign of worsening relations with Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes in the invasion of Ukraine. The measure was signed into law by President Vahagn Khachaturyan on 14 October. | 2023 |
74918000 | Berkadzor fuel depot explosion | 2023-09-26 20:44:34+00:00 | On 25 September 2023, at about 19:00 (UTC+4), an explosion at a fuel depot in Berkadzor near Stepanakert, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, resulted in the deaths of at least 218 people and 120 injuries. The explosion occurred amidst the chaotic exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, following a major military offensive launched by Azerbaijan against the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh.
The explosion occurred during the mass exodus of thousands of ethnic Armenians from the region, following Azerbaijan's large-scale military offensive launched a week earlier against the self-declared Republic of Artsakh. Prior to the offensive, the region had been subjected to a months-long blockade by Azerbaijan, causing shortages of essential supplies, including fuel. After the offensive, petrol stations became overwhelmed by the volume of people seeking to leave the region. At the moment of the explosion, hundreds of people were gathered at the station.
Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the de-facto Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, said that the blast was caused by a violation of safety rules in the underground depot that was used for storage of gasoline for the local military.
Following the explosion, nearly 300 people were admitted to hospitals. Local authorities requested urgent medical aid from Armenia, citing Stepanakert's local strained hospitals being unable to provide adequate care. Armenia initiated an airlift using helicopters, sending doctors to the region and evacuating injured patients to Armenia. Azerbaijan also sent medical supplies.
According to Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Azerbaijani city of Horadiz, local hospitals in Azerbaijan were prepared, and negotiations began for evacuating the injured, but representatives of the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh declined the proposal.
Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the United States National Security Council, offered condolences for the victims and urged the need for humanitarian access to the region.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey expressed condolences regarding the explosion and Turkey's readiness to provide assistance. | 2023 |
74922032 | Flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians | 2023-09-27 11:18:56+00:00 | On 19–20 September 2023 Azerbaijan initiated a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region which ended with the surrender of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh and the disbandment of its armed forces. Up until the military assault, the region was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but governed and populated by ethnic Armenians.
Before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, the region had an estimated population of 150,000 which decreased in the aftermath of the war. Faced with threats of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan and struggling amid a nine-month long blockade, 100,400 ethnic Armenians, representing 99% of the remaining population of Nagorno-Karabakh, fled by the end of September 2023, leaving a couple dozen people within the region.
This mass displacement of people has been described by international experts as a war crime or crime against humanity. 218 civilians died during an explosion at a fuel distribution center, and 70 civilians died en route while fleeing to Armenia. While the Azerbaijani government issued assurances that the Armenian population would be safely reintegrated, these claims were not deemed credible due to Azerbaijan's established track record of authoritarianism and repression of its Armenian population.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is located within Azerbaijan but is predominantly inhabited by Armenians.
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Between 1921 and 1990, under the Azeri SSR Armenians in the region faced economic marginalization and cultural discrimination, leading to a significant exodus. Authorities encouraged the settlement of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh. This policy – sometimes called a "White Genocide" – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan. The suppression of Armenian language and culture was widespread: Armenian churches, cemeteries, and schools were closed or destroyed, and clerics arrested. The Armenian educational institutions that remained were under control by the Azeri Ministry of Education, which enforced prohibitions against teaching Armenian history and using Armenian materials. Restrictions limited cultural exchanges and communication between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The Azerbaijani government decreed in 1957 that Azerbaijani was to be the main language and the 1981 "law of the NKAR" denied additional rights, removing provisions that had listed Armenian as a working language of local authorities. Resentment against what was perceived as a forced "Azerification" campaign led to a mass movement for reunification with Armenia and an independence referendum in 1991.
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The Karabakh movement for independence was met with a series of pogroms and forced deportations of Armenians across Azerbaijan, leading to the outbreak of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan severed transport and economic links between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Artsakh and Armenia. The complete isolation of Artsakh from the outside world lasted for 3 years until Armenian forces opened a humanitarian corridor known as the Lachin corridor to Armenia in May 1992. The war resulted in the displacement of approximately 500,000 Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent occupied territories as well as 186,000 from Armenia, and between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan. A subsequent conflict, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, caused thousands of casualties and ended with a significant Azerbaijani victory. This war allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim all the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and a third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Since the 2020 war, violations of the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh and at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have persisted, resulting in sporadic casualties.
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For nine months (December 2022 to September 2023), Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. During this period Azerbaijan also sabotaged critical civilian infrastructure of Artsakh, disrupting access to gas, electricity, and internet access. The blockade led to a humanitarian crisis for the population. In February 2023 the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to ensure free movement to Nagorno-Karabakh, ruling that the blockade posed a "real and imminent risk" to the "health and life" of Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian population. By early September 2023 the blockade had caused supplies to all but run out; there was little medicine or fuel, while bread, a staple in the region, was rationed to one loaf per family per day.
International observers, including Luis Moreno Ocampo, the inaugural prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, expressed concerns that Azerbaijan's blockade could be the onset of a genocide. Ocampo specifically stated that Azerbaijan's actions, which included withholding essential supplies like food and medicine, appeared to be a calculated effort to inflict on the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. In August 2023, as a direct result of the blockade, a resident of Nagorno-Karabakh died from starvation. The spokesperson for Charles Michel, President of the European Council, stated their primary goal was the irreversible normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and called for "courageous compromise solutions". The Armenian President denounced Azerbaijan, asserting it was committing genocide by causing Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh to starve. Similarly, Ronald Grigor Suny stated, "Baku is determined to make the Armenians' lives impossible, starve them out, and pressure them to leave."
On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan initiated an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, aiming to disarm the self-declared republic's military. The assault, lasting 24 hours, resulted in hundreds of casualties from both sides and the deaths of five Russian peacekeepers. After the Republic of Artsakh's government agreed to surrender terms, negotiations ensued, leading Azerbaijan to eventually reopen the road to Armenia. This move provided Armenians an avenue to evacuate the region, and a significant number began departing from 24 September onward.
Prior to the Azerbaijani military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, there were growing concerns that Azerbaijan, with a long history of Anti-Armenian sentiment, might perpetuate a genocide against the region's Armenians. Elchin Amirbeyov, the representative of the Azerbaijani president, predicted that "a genocide may happen" if the Republic of Artsakh did not capitulate. Echoing this concern Senator Bob Menendez, chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, urged for sanctions to be imposed against Azerbaijan to prevent genocide.
In the wake of the collapse of the Nagorno-Karabakh defenses, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued an alert, drawing attention to the acute risk of genocide faced by Armenians in the region and highlighting the extreme levels of anti-Armenian sentiments within the Azerbaijani military. Moreover, threats and abusive messages targeting civilians, even instances of reported massacres of Armenians who chose to stay, were rampant on Azerbaijani social media channels. In a concurrent announcement, Genocide Watch also sounded an alert, categorization the situation as Stage 9 within their ten stages of genocide framework – Extermination.
While the Azerbaijani government issued assurances that the Armenian population would be safely reintegrated, these claims were not deemed credible due to Azerbaijan's established track record of authoritarianism and repression of its Armenian population. Noting this history, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention urged that Artsakhi women and children refuse being separated from men and older boys.
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On 24 September, as fears of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and persecution surged, the evacuation of Armenian refugees began through the Lachin corridor, arriving in Syunik, Armenia via the Kornidzor border post. By day's end, as reported by the Armenian government, 1,050 refugees had made their way to safety. Word of the passage spread, leading to a mass exodus.
By 25 September, according to the Armenian government, 6,500 refugees had arrived from Nagorno-Karabakh. After enduring months of scarce fuel supply while under blockade, the arrival of a fuel shipment gave residents the opportunity to refuel their vehicles for the journey to Armenia, and on 25 September, petrol stations in Stepanakert began distributing fuel at no cost to those evacuating to Armenia. However, amidst extensive lines at a fuel station in Berkadzor an underground 50-ton fuel tank exploded, leading to the death of at least 170 individuals and injuring hundreds of others. Most of the victims were queueing to obtain fuel for their vehicles while on their way to Armenia. Victims with various degrees of burns were treated in the Republican Medical Center of Artsakh, facilities of the Arevik community organization, medical facilities in Ivanyan, and the medical station of Russian peacekeepers. The Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan said it sent an ambulance carrying medical supplies. 142 of the injured were later brought to Armenia.
By 26 September, the Armenian government said at least 28,000 people had fled Nagorno-Karabakh, equivalent to a quarter of the region's population.
By 27 September, Armenian authorities reported that over 50,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh had left for Armenia, including 17,000 children. In separate events on 27 September, Ruben Vardanyan, a former high-level Artsakh government official and a prominent businessman, was apprehended by Azerbaijani forces just as he was poised to enter Armenia, and civilian accounts from the village of Vaghuhas reported that Azerbaijani soldiers had entered the village and, discharging their firearms into the air, demanded the residents flee.
By 28 September, the tally of arrivals in Armenia surpassed 65,000, accounting for over half of the Nagorno-Karabakh's total population. The evacuation route from Stepanakert to Armenia had been clogged for days, with many forced to sleep in their cars overnight. What typically is a 2-hour drive transformed into a staggering 30-hour journey for many evacuees.
By 29 September, the number of refugees had reached 97,700. Refugees reported spending days in the evacuation queue and moving forward only a few hundred meters a day. Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said some refugees died in transit due to exhaustion brought about by malnutrition, the lack of medicines and the travel time which took up to 40 hours.
By 30 September, the number of refugees had reached 100,400. On 2 October, the last bus carrying refugees composed of those with serious illnesses or mobility issues entered Armenia. The Armenian government stated that 100,514 of the estimated 120,000 population of Nagorno-Karabakh had been displaced as of 2 October, reaching 100,617 by noon of 3 October. The UN mission which was tasked with visiting the region, heard from interlocutors that on 1 October only 50 to 1000 Armenians were left in the entire Karabakh region.
On 19 October, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that "a small number of people remain in their homes, either by choice or because they were unable to leave by themselves." The ICRC has provided food, medical care, communication services, and transportation to remaining residents.
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To aid in the evacuation, 46 buses, usually designated for public transport in Yerevan, transported 1,560 individuals from Stepanakert to Goris on 28 September. Armenia also sent 23 ambulances to Artsakh accompanied by specialists and the Red Cross, which returned transporting 23 severely injured people from Artsakh to Armenia.
In Armenia, the theatre in the city of Goris was converted into a base for the Red Cross to accommodate refugees. A secondary hub was later opened in Vayk.
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Of the couple dozen residents who stayed behind, the majority are believed to be elderly or disabled. Azerbaijan has confiscated their passports and monitors their communications.
Various political analysts, along with residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing.
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Luis Moreno Ocampo, the inaugural Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, cautioned that conditions akin to another Armenian genocide were developing, stating that Azerbaijan's blockade violated Article II c of the 1948 Genocide Convention, by "deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part", and that the invasion further violated Article II a and Article II b. He warned that the international community's inertia could embolden Azerbaijan, making them believe there would be no significant repercussions for committing genocide. Ocampo also countered Aliyev's denial of seeking ethnic cleansing, noting that Aliyev often labeled Armenia as "Western Azerbaijan" and proclaimed that "present-day Armenia is our land". After all Armenians had been forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ocampo declared this to constitute genocide under the articles of the Genocide Convention and accused Azerbaijan of committing crimes against humanity. Ocampo also accused the United States and other international meditators of "deliberately ignoring the risk of genocide to avoid the obligation to prevent genocide".
International legal experts, Priya Pillai and Melanie O'Brien, a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, described this mass displacement as either a war crime or crime against humanity perpetrated by Azerbaijan and accused Azerbaijan of committing genocide. This characterization is based on the created coercive environment, first through the blockade and subsequently the invasion, leading to the potential genocidal destruction of the Artsakh Armenians' distinct identity. Edward Hunt of the Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) think tank accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing, while also criticizing United States officials for endorsing ethnic cleansing to further their geopolitical ambitions. David Scheffer, the first United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, wrote that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were ethnically cleansed and that after finalizing its status at the International Criminal Court Armenia could apply for the ICC investigation, and Azerbaijani political and military leaders could be drawn into the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Azerbaijan has been accused of committing ethnic cleansing against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh by the European Parliament and the Council on Foreign Relations. The United Nations Refugee Agency representative in Armenia said on 29 September there were no recorded incidents or cases of mistreatment against people on the move, and in response to questions from the media, they said they could not comment on whether this constituted ethnic cleansing and that they were viewed it as a refugee situation. The USAID representative said that they were aware of "troubling reports of violence against civilians", and that testimony was being gathered from those who had fled "violence, deprivation, and with the fear of living under the government of Azerbaijan." NGOs receiving Karabakh Armenians at the Syunik border reported that the refugees "were either forced by the Azerbaijani authorities to delete their phone data before crossing the border to Armenia or had opted themselves to delete it out of fear of undermining their chances of departure."
The Council of Europe stated that it was "extremely concerned about the serious humanitarian and human rights situation in Nagorno-Karabakh." The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović visited Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh region, from 16 to 23 October 2023, and published on 12 January 2024 her observations. Testimonies provided to the Commissioner by Karabakh Armenians reveal a deep-rooted fear for their lives and future amid armed conflicts, exacerbated by Azerbaijan's control resulting from unresolved past atrocities and ongoing intimidation. Feeling abandoned by all parties and with no security guarantees, the heightened vulnerability experienced during the blockade, and the unexpected reopening of the Lachin corridor in late September 2023, prompted Karabakh Armenians to believe that leaving the region immediately was the only option available to ensure their survival and future well-being. The Commissioner also stated that all displaced persons have the right to return to their homes, regardless of whether they have been displaced internally or across borders, and that both Armenia and Azerbaijan have the obligation to ensure that any return is voluntary, safe and dignified.
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Accusations of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan have been made by Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the French Senate.
Azerbaijani officials have denied war crimes accusations including ethnic cleansing and responded by urging Armenians to stay in the region. Sources reported that Azerbaijani authorities had reissued a map renaming a street in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, after one of the main instigators of the Armenian genocide Enver Pasha. Azerbaijani official disputed this during a case at the International Court of Justice, saying that "No streets in Khankandi have been renamed".
A spokesperson for the US State Department declined to comment on qualifying the events as ethnic cleansing and said that the USA believes there should be an international monitoring mission there to observe and guarantee the rights and securities of ethnic Armenians. Samantha Power, the top U.S. humanitarian aid official and a former genocide scholar, declined to use the term "genocide", nevertheless, she went on to say that testimony was already being gathered "from people who have fled violence, deprivation, and with the fear of living under the government of Azerbaijan."
President of the European Council Charles Michel refrained from characterizing the forced exodus of the Nagorno-Karabakh population as an attempt at ethnic cleansing on 3 October 2023. However, on 5 October 2023, the European Parliament filed a joint motion for a resolution stating that the flight of Armenians from Karabakh "amounts to ethnic cleansing" and that Azerbaijan's military offensive "represents a gross violation of human rights and international law."
Leo Docherty, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, stated that he does not agree that Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh constituted ethnic cleansing, and that the UK urged both sides to resume dialogue.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that she would like "some facts to be provided regarding the alleged ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh", and asked for references to "at least some document from any international organisation that is considered authoritative in Yerevan (for example, the UN or some other), or a statement indicating that such ethnic cleansing did take place". Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Galuzin stated that unfortunately most Karabakh Armenians left the region by their own difficult, but voluntary choice, and that Russia was ready to facilitate safe return of those Karabakh Armenians who wish to.
In August 2023, Armenian diplomat Ara Papian reported that Azerbaijan was building a concentration camp intended for 30,000 Armenian males. The newspaper Hraparak reported the same information a month later, citing an anonymous military source. In January 2024, New Lines investigated these reports using Planet Labs satellite imagery and discovered a large and unfinished complex in a remote area of the Aghdam District that had been recently built. Satellite records showed construction of the site had begun in July 2022 and ended in late August or early September 2023. Applying spatial analysis methods, several similarities between the site and known prison structures were identified, and New Lines concluded the facility was likely intended to be a prison. New Lines also speculated the location of the site was chosen for its close proximity to Tigranakert of Artsakh, ruins of a 2,000-year-old Armenian city, as a form of psychological trauma.
In response to the humanitarian crisis a number of countries pledged aid to help Armenian refugees, including Iran which donated 50 tons of aid to forcibly displaced Artsakh residents, the UK with £1m and the EU with a pledge of €5m. The chief of USAID Samantha Power arrived in Armenia together with US State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim to visit the affected people and pledged $11.5m in humanitarian assistance. Power said that "many of those who had arrived were suffering from 'severe malnutrition,' according to doctors at the scene". On 28 September, USAID sent a Disaster Assistance Response Team to the region to help coordinate the U.S. humanitarian response. Cyprus said it was ready to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced Armenians and that it was considering ways to host a number of Armenian refugees if necessary.
The United Nations in Azerbaijan sent on 1 October 2023 a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, led by the UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva, to address humanitarian needs. The team also included the Director of the Coordination Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as well as representatives from the FAO, the UNHCR, the UNICEF, the WHO, and other UN bodies. The UN mission reported that "they did not come across any reports — either from the local population or from others — of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire." While visiting Stepanakert, the team reported to have found no evidence of damage to public infrastructure in the areas it visited. The mission saw that the Azerbaijani government was preparing for the resumption of health services and some utilities. The mission reportedly "was struck by the sudden manner in which the local population left their homes". It was reported to the team that between 50 and 1,000 ethnic Armenians remain in the region. It encountered no civilian vehicles on the Lachin road to the border crossing used by the refugees. The mission also had limited access to rural areas. The mission was criticized in Armenia for failing to mention the numerous casualties and injuries among Armenian civilians, the targeting of civilian infrastructure by Azerbaijan, and blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan over the previous nine months along with the humanitarian crisis it caused.
Armenia requested the International Court of Justice to reaffirm its February 2023 ruling ordering Azerbaijan to ensure free passage through the Lachin corridor, and to "refrain from all actions directly or indirectly aimed at displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians from the region".
In December 2023, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated: "Look for example at what has happened in Azerbaijan and Armenia. A long-frozen conflict that suddenly has been – I would not say solved – but decisively determined by a military intervention that, in one week, made 150,000 people move. In one week. Like this. 150,000 people had to abandon their houses and run. And the international community regretted [it], expressed concern, sent humanitarian support, but it happened [with] the use of force." | 2023 |
74918394 | 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement | 2023-09-26 21:48:12+00:00 | On 20 September 2023 a ceasefire agreement ending the Azerbaijani military offensive against the self-proclaimed ethnic Armenian Republic of Artsakh in Nagorno-Karabakh was reached. The agreement was brokered by the Russian peacekeeping contingent stationed in the region since the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. Under the terms of the agreement, the Artsakh Defence Army was disbanded. The Russian peacekeepers sheltered at their base camp 2,261 people, of whom 1,049 were children.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been a disputed region between Azerbaijan and local ethnic Armenians. In 1991 the breakaway Armenian Republic of Artsakh, formerly the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, was formed there, but the region remained internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The Republic of Artsakh soon formed its own military, the Artsakh Defence Army (ADA).
On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive in the region against the Artsakhi armed forces. Azerbaijan cited several prior landmine incidents in the region: two separate explosions killed six people, another one killed two employees of the Azerbaijani highway department, four more were killed while responding to the incident, with another mine explosion killing four soldiers and two civilians. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Russian peacekeepers were notified only "a few minutes" before the Azerbaijani offensive began. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense reported that positions on the front line and in-depth, long-term firing points of the formations of the Artsakh Defence Army, as well as combat assets and military facilities had been incapacitated using high-precision weapons.
On 20 September, the ADA reported that Azerbaijani troops had broken through their lines and captured several heights and strategic road junctions. On the same day, at an early morning press conference, Azerbaijani Colonel Anar Eyvazov called upon local ethnic Armenian forces to lay down their arms and surrender. Shortly thereafter, the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh said they had accepted the proposal of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent regarding a ceasefire.
The ceasefire agreement was reached on 20 September 2023, at 13:00 AZT under the following terms: the Artsakh Defence Army and all Armenian armed formations in the region would lay down their arms, leave combat positions and military posts and completely disarm, all units of the Armenian armed forces would leave the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenian armed formations would be disbanded with the simultaneous surrender of all weapons and heavy equipment, while the implementation of those conditions would be ensured in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent. The agreement disbanded the Artsakh Defence Army after 31 years, a major development in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Although the agreement's terms envisaged complete surrender, it was framed as a ceasefire rather than instrument of surrender, pending the conclusion of a future peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Russia-mediated negotiations began on 21 September 2023 in Yevlakh over the agreement's terms, particularly the disarmament of the ADA and the reintegration of the Nagorno-Karabakhi population into Azerbaijan.
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By 26 September 2023, Azerbaijan had seized 251,308 pieces of ammunition, 1,674 accoutrements, 909 small arms and grenades, 226 air defense weapons, 164 optical and other devices, 75 non-armored vehicles, 47 pieces of artillery, 22 armored vehicles and 21 trailers from the ADA. On 28 September 2023, the updated list comprised 652,842 cartridges, 6,653 mortar shells, 2,722 cannon and howitzer shells, 2,627 anti-aircraft cannon shells, 2,266 grenades, 2,132 other pieces of ammunition, 2,076 assorted supply equipment, 1,368 hand grenades, 1,151 small arms, 984 rockets, 132 air defense weapons, 84 grenade launchers, 39 mortars, 18 armored vehicles and some other equipment.
In a televised address later on 20 September, Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev announced that the country had "restored its sovereignty" over Nagorno-Karabakh after the offensive, achieving the "complete surrender" of local Armenian forces.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan distanced himself from the agreement, saying that Armenia had not been involved in drafting the ceasefire and that "Armenia doesn’t have an army in Nagorno-Karabakh". Nonetheless, Pashinyan said he supported the ceasefire and it was "very important" that it held. Protests in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, began over the government's alleged failure to protect ethnic Armenians, with protestors demanding the resignation of Pashinyan.
The Republic of Artsakh ultimately agreed to dissolve itself by 1 January 2024. On 22 December 2023, Shahramanyan said that there was no official document stipulating the dissolution of government institutions, implying that the republic may continue as a government in exile. | 2023 |
72858731 | 2023 New Zealand census | 2023-01-27 00:36:11+00:00 | The 2023 New Zealand census, which took place on 7 March 2023, was the thirty-fifth national census in New Zealand. It implemented measures that aimed to increase the Census' effectiveness in response to the issues faced with the 2018 census, including supporting Māori to complete the census. It also included new questions on topics such as gender, sexual identity, and disabilities/health conditions. The first Census data was published on 29 May 2024, in a range of data products and services.
The 2023 census can be completed online or on paper forms. Forms with an access code were mailed out to householders from 20 February, but paper forms could be requested online or by telephone. The telephone number had operators speaking English, te reo Māori, Samoan, Tongan, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and Punjabi. New Zealand Sign Language was available through NZ Relay. One dwelling form was required for each household, and one individual form was required for each person present in the dwelling on Tuesday 7 March 2023. The census closed on 30 June 2023.
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The date for the 2023 New Zealand census was announced by Stats NZ on 28 September 2022.
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Cyclone Gabrielle
In February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle had devastated parts of the North Island, prompting the Government to declare a national state of emergency in six regions. To address the disruption caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, the Government had agreed to an eight week extension of the census for the worst affected areas. People living in cyclone-affected areas including the Far North District, Gisborne District, and Hawkes Bay have until 1 June to complete their Census.
In addition, Statistics New Zealand asked the Government for an extra NZ$37 million to cover extra costs. Face-to-face visits were also delayed in some affected areas. Field operations in Gisborne and Hawkes Bay commenced on 3 April.
Participation rates
On 6 March 2023, Radio New Zealand reported that just one million New Zealanders had filled out their census forms. Statistics New Zealand's deputy chief executive census and collections operation, Simon Mason, described the response as underwhelming and attributed the lower response rate to the disruption caused by Cyclone Gabrielle and opposition by some on social media to participating in the census. In response to criticism of the 2018 New Zealand census, Mason confirmed that Statistics NZ had sent two forms in the post to bolster public engagement.
By 31 March, Statistics NZ had confirmed that four million people had returned their census forms; beating the 30 April milestone for the 2018 census. On 5 April, Newsroom reported that one in five people had not returned their census forms, with the figure rising to two in five people within the Māori and Pacific communities. Newsroom also reported low rates of participation in Gisborne and Hawkes Bay; with 26,200 out of Gisborne's estimated total population of 52,100 and 89,300 out of Hawkes Bay's population of 182,700 returning their survey forms.
According to Newsroom, Statistics NZ had fallen behind its target of visiting all non-responding and partially responding households by nine days after 7 March. By 31 March, 29,000 dwellings outside Te Mana Whakatipu, Gisborne, and Hawkes Bay had not received their first visit. Mason also confirmed that census workers had made 1.3 million non-response follow-up visits to 790,000 dwellings by 31 March. In an effort to boost participation, Statistics NZ deployed over 3,000 census collectors in the community until 3 May and until 1 June in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne. Mason also confirmed that Statistics NZ would focus on supporting under-represented groups including Māori.
By 20 April, Statistics NZ confirmed that 4.3 million people had returned their census forms while one in five respondents had not returned their forms. The Bay of Plenty Times reported that 274,300 had returned their forms by 19 April. However, 73,400 forms had not been returned; with 37,300 of these non-respondents being Māori and 17,700 being youths. Non-respondents face a NZ$2,000 fine under the Data and Statistics Act 2022.
By 1 May, Statistics NZ confirmed that 4,408,894 people out of an estimated population of 5.15 million had returned their census forms. Statistics NZ spokesperson Tracy Dillimore confirmed that the national Census response rate was 86%. Deputy government statistician Simon Mason warned that people who had not completed their census forms would receive a final notice from 9 May.
National Party statistics spokesperson Simon Watts described the 2023 Census as a failure and doubted that Statistics NZ would reach its 90% target. Watts also disputed Statistic NZ's position that Cyclone Gabrielle had disrupted the census collection process, pointing out that most of the uncompleted forms were from major cities with lower completion rates among Māori and Pasifika. Watts estimated that the 2023 Census would cost NZ$337 million, including the extra NZ$37 million requested by Statistics NZ. By contrast, the Minister of Statistics Deborah Russell claimed that the 2023 Census was an improvement over the 2018 Census, citing the former's 86% response rate in comparison with the latter's overall response rate of 81.6%.
By 20 May, 4.5 million census forms (covering 88% of the population) had been returned. According to Deputy Government Statistician Simon Mason, 55,000 final notice packs had been sent to non-responding households. At the time, 25% of Māori and Pasifika had not returned their census forms. During the 2023 census, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui trialled a "by Māori, for Māori" census collection drive in East Cape, Gisborne District and parts of the Northland Region. Data Iwi Leaders Forum spokesperson Rahui Papa credited the "by Māori, for Māori" drive with ensuring a 90% Māori uptake in the East Cape.
Misuse of census data allegations
On 2 June 2024, the Sunday Star Times reported that Statistics New Zealand was investigating allegations by former staff at Manurewa Marae
that Te Pāti Māori (Māori Party) had illegally used 2023 census data to target Māori electorate voters in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate during the 2023 New Zealand general election, and that participants were given supermarket vouchers, wellness packs and food parcels to encourage them to fill out census forms and switch to the Māori electoral roll. The party's candidate Takutai Moana Kemp had won the Tāmakai Makaurau seat during the 2023 election. A whistleblower from the Ministry of Social Development had alerted Statistics NZ and the Police, which had delayed investigating the matter. In response, Te Pāti Māori leader John Tamihere denied the allegations and claimed they were made by disgruntled former staff. Tamihere said that the marae had been working with the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency to promote Māori participation in the 2023 census. Tamihere also acknowledged that marae workers had given gifts to encourage people to participate in the 2023 Census and switch to the Māori roll.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon said the allegations are "pretty serious" and they need to be investigated promptly but were an issue for the party and the authorities. David Seymour said a ministerial inquiry could be warranted and Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins said the allegations were "very serious" and warranted a "rigorous and very credible" review. Doug Craig was appointed to investigate the census data misuse allegations. The findings will be shared with the New Zealand Police who are also investigating.
The first results from the census were released on 29 May 2024.
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Population counts by territorial authority and Auckland local board areas
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The median age was 38.1 years, up from 37.4 years at the 2018 census.
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McRobie, Alan (1989). Electoral Atlas of New Zealand. Wellington: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01384-8. | 2023 |
74393343 | 2023 Auckland shooting | 2023-07-19 21:52:33+00:00 | On the morning of 20 July 2023, a mass shooting occurred at a building construction site in the central business district of Auckland. The shooter, 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid, killed two colleagues with a shotgun, wounded seven other people, including a police officer, and then killed himself.
A separate, unrelated, fatal shooting also took place in the Auckland CBD, on the same street, two weeks later on 3 August 2023.
Matu Tangi Matua Reid entered the One Queen Street building in the Auckland CBD with a pump-action shotgun on 20 July 2023. The 21-storey building near the Commercial Bay Shopping Centre originally opened in 1973 and was undergoing renovations as part of the Commercial Bay redevelopment project, with the building planned to house offices and a hotel. Reid had been employed at the construction site, and the shooting is believed to have been related to his employment there.
Reid moved through the building and opened fire at about 7:20 am NZST, shooting and killing two construction workers who were his colleagues. Multiple other people were injured. Police arrived at 7:34 am, with the Armed Offenders Squad arriving four minutes later. Officers entered the building while Reid was shooting and eventually found him in the upper levels of the building, where he had barricaded himself in an elevator shaft. Reid fired at the police, hitting an officer, before the police fired back. Reid was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. It was the first mass shooting in the country since the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.
Reid had received a community-based sentence for an assault committed in 2020. He committed further offences in a domestic violence incident in 2021, while serving the earlier sentence. For that he was sentenced to five months' home detention in March 2023, for the offences of impeding breathing (strangulation), injuring with intent to injure, wilful damage and "male assaults female". He had already spent five months in custody awaiting sentencing and the length of his home detention had accordingly been reduced from what it would otherwise have been. He had approval to leave home to attend work during his detention. He did not hold a firearms licence.
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The immediate area around the Queen Street / Quay Street intersection was put under lockdown. The shooting was noted due to being unusual in New Zealand.
New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins issued a press statement, saying that there was no national security risk, and there would be no change in the nation's terror threat level.
Auckland Transport, which operates a ferry terminal near to the location of the incident, as well as trains and buses, did not initially close the ferry service but did divert buses away from the nearby Britomart station. Later in the day, they announced that they would conduct a review of their response in terms of ensuring the safety of passengers, particularly in the case of the ferry.
On 21 July, Hato Hone St John Emergency Ambulance operations manager Stuart Cockburn confirmed that emergency responders had treated ten people, seven of whom had sustained gunshot wounds. One of the wounded was a police officer who had sustained "significant" injuries.
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On 20 July, Hipkins confirmed that the New Zealand Police would launch a full investigation into the shooting, including how shooter Reid obtained the gun and whether there were any "red flags". That same day, the Department of Corrections launched an inquiry into its management of Reid's home detention.
By 23 July, the bodies of the two victims had been recovered by police. They were identified as Solomona Toʻotoʻo and Tupuga Sipiliano.
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The shooting occurred on the day of the opening ceremony and first match of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, which were taking place in Auckland. The competition was jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand. The ceremony, and the match between New Zealand and Norway, took place as planned on the evening of 20 July at Eden Park; the venue heightened its security as a "reassurance" measure. In his initial address about the incident, Hipkins acknowledged that "clearly with the FIFA World Cup kicking off this evening there are a lot of eyes on Auckland", saying that the New Zealand government had been in conversation with FIFA and that the World Cup would go ahead as planned. A Football Australia representative said that the shooting was not related to the World Cup.
The incident took place outside the M Hotel, where the Norway team was staying ahead of the match, and close to the fan zone. Norway captain Maren Mjelde said that while members of the team were woken by police helicopters, they "felt safe the whole time"; other players had been having breakfast on the ground floor and were kept inside by security when the lockdown was being put in place. A team spokesperson said that Norway's match preparations were not affected. The Italy team, who were also staying in a nearby hotel, could not leave to attend training due to police cordons. Other national teams in Auckland were unaffected.
The FIFA Fan Festival, which had been planned to open on 20 July in Auckland CBD at The Cloud, was cancelled for the day with plans to open it at noon on 21 July. Minutes of silence were observed during the opening ceremonies (one in Auckland and one in Sydney, Australia) and before each of the opening matches in respect for the victims of the shooting. | 2023 |
74444211 | Kidnapping of Yanfei Bao | 2023-07-25 05:32:00+00:00 | On 19 July 2023, real estate agent Yanfei Bao went missing in Christchurch's Hornby suburb. The New Zealand Police mounted a missing person's search in the Christchurch area. On 24 July, a man was charged with her kidnapping after attempting to flee to China. On 26 July 2023, the Police launched a homicide investigation into Bao's disappearance.
Yanfei Bao had recently joined the real estate company Harcourts as a real estate agent, having a prior background in sales.
Real estate agent Yanfei Bao was last seen in the suburb of Hornby, Christchurch, New Zealand on the morning of 19 July 2023. It has been reported that she was due to show a potential buyer through a property on Trevor Street. Later in the morning she rang her friend Jin Tian and had a four-minute conversation with her. During the conversation, Bao asked Tian how someone she was working with could transfer NZ$600,000 from China to pay cash for a house.
Bao was reported missing after she failed to collect her daughter from after school care later that day. Her car was found that evening in the suburb of Wigram. Her cellphone was found two days after her disappearance on the Christchurch Southern Motorway, several kilometres away from where she had last been seen.
A 52-year-old man charged of kidnapping Yanfei Bao was arrested at Christchurch Airport after booking a one-way international plane ticket to China on 22 July. On 26 July 2023 the New Zealand Police said that they had launched a homicide investigation into Bao's disappearance.
On 31 July, the Police temporarily suspended their search due to high water levels in the Halswell River and Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora. By that time, Police had received over 200 pieces of information related to Bao's disappearance and searched three properties as part of "Operation Helo." Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves also told the public they were looking for a silver Mitsubishi sedan, and continued to ask the public for any sightings of one.
On 7 August, Police shifted their search to roads and farmland near Christchurch's Greenpark suburb. On 8 August, Reeves confirmed that Police had recovered more items of interest.
On 6 September, the Police confirmed that they were searching several new areas in Christchurch and Rolleston including Waterholes and Robinsons roads in Rolleston, Spalling Road and Te Kuru Wetland in Halswell, and Haul Road at McLeans Island. Authorities continued to focus on the Halswell River and Greenpark area in October. Police stated “There's brilliant information from the public” and asked for help locating clothing related to the disappearance, and a roughly 1 metre long flat-bottomed spade.
On 19 January 2024, Reeves reiterated that Police were still searching for Bao. She stated that Police were interested in a silver Mitsubishi 380 with the registration DPH101 and sightings in the wider Christchurch area beyond Lake Ellesmere.
On 15 August, Police charged the 52 year old man accused of Bao's kidnapping with a single murder charge. Police also confirmed they were seeking information from the public about a tracksuit, top, and spade. That same day, the suspect pleaded not guilty to the murder charge through his lawyer. The accused was remanded into custody until 1 September 2023.
On 1 September 2023, the murder suspect was identified as Tingjun Cao. His lawyer no longer sought interim name suppression. Cao appeared before the Christchurch High Court via audio-visual link. He was remanded in custody, reappearing at the high court by audio-visual 10 November while his lawyer was granted additional time for preparation. Police custody was continued until his next court appearance in December 2023. A tentative trial date was set for 24 October 2024.
By 31 July 2023, a Givealittle fundraising page was established by Bao's friend Vani Liu and by the time it had ended in August 2023, over NZ$50,000 was raised to help her immediate family, and relatives from China. | 2023 |
73808947 | Loafers Lodge fire | 2023-05-15 23:24:34+00:00 | On 16 May 2023, a fire broke out at the 92-bed Loafers Lodge in Newtown, Wellington, New Zealand. Five people were killed, and twenty others injured. On 18 May 2023, a man was arrested. He was charged with arson and murder.
The four-storey building was constructed in 1971 as an office and warehouse building called Mertex House. Since 2006, the building has been occupied by Loafers Lodge.
The building previously served as a place of emergency residential housing contracted by the New Zealand Government. A deportee advocate said the hostel was used by Prison Aid and Rehabilitation, and by the government to house deportees returned from Australia.
The building's Warrant of Fitness (BWoF) was renewed in March 2023. BWoF records show the building had a "type 3" fire alarm system (automatic system with heat detectors and manual call points) supplemented by smoke detectors. Fire sprinklers were not installed in the building, nor were they required to be installed by the building code. A fire engineer was quoted as saying the rules were "too slack and need tightening".
A fire broke out on the top floor of the 92-room lodge around 12:25 am (NZST). Earlier in the night, a couch fire occurred about two hours before the later fire; it was not reported to authorities. It was initially unclear how many people were in the hostel when the fire occurred, however, 52 people were evacuated from the building and at least five were rescued from the roof by Fire and Emergency. Later reports stated that there were 92 people who had been evacuated from the hostel and fewer than 20 people were counted as missing.
A long-term resident of the hostel said that he had noticed the fire while heading back to his room from the bathroom, and that the smoke, crowds and darkness were disorienting before he was able to escape via a stairwell. Other residents said that, due to multiple false fire alarms throughout the past months, there were delays in responding and evacuating.
The five deceased victims were identified as: Kenneth Barnard, 67; Liam James Hockings, 50; Peter Glenn O'Sullivan, 64; Melvin Joseph Parun, 68; and Mike Eric Wahrlich (known as Mike the Juggler), 67. It was reported that Parun was the brother of tennis player Onny Parun.
On 17 May 2023, police announced they were treating the fire as arson and had launched a homicide inquiry. At the time, police would not say whether accelerants were used on the fire or why they believe it was deliberately lit.
On 18 May 2023, a 48-year-old man was arrested and charged with two counts of arson. He was arraigned in the Wellington District Court on 19 May 2023, where he entered no plea and was remanded in custody until 19 June 2023. The man's name was suppressed until his next appearance. On 1 June, he was charged with five counts of murder.
On 23 June, Judge Christine Grice of the Wellington High Court granted the murder suspect name suppression until mid-August 2023. The suspect's trial is scheduled to take place in August 2024.
On 21 March 2024, the suspect's lawyer Louise Sziranyi confirmed that the defendant would plead not guilty to the murder charges on the grounds of insanity.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called the fire an absolute tragedy. He said that the government will investigate whether regulations for high density accommodation are fit for purpose.
Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson said the fire was absolutely devastating. Wellington mayor Tory Whanau called the fire "one of the darkest days in the city".
By 7 June, the Wellington City Mission had raised NZ$360,000 for residents who had lost possessions during the fire. However, only NZ$92,000 of this amount had been given out to displaced residents who received an initial payment of NZ$500, followed by a further payment of NZ$1,000.
On 15 June, hundreds of people attended a remembrance ceremony at Wellington's Cathedral of St Paul for the victims.
On 23 June, lawyers representing displaced residents filed an interim injunction to stop the owners from demolishing the structure in order to retrieve their belongings. Residents had previously been told that the building would be demolished and their possessions would be dumped due to the risk of toxic contamination. Under the injunction, residents will be allowed to conduct their own inspection to determine if their belongings could be retrieved. The owner would also have to take action to prevent further damage to the residents' belongings and would have to provide daily updates.
By late March 2024, Community Law senior lawyer Oscar Upperton confirmed that recovery professionals had managed to return several salvageable possessions including family photos and memorabilia to displaced tenants. Due to water, fire damage and asbestos contamination, some items were irrecoverable. Upperton also confirmed that the tenants and landlord were working on minor issues related to the recovery process that was expected to be settled soon. | 2023 |
74515787 | Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023 | 2023-08-03 17:55:48+00:00 | This article documents the chronology and epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic, involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, in 2023.
The WHO ended the public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 5 May 2023. COVID-19 is expected to circulate indefinitely, but as of 2024, experts were uncertain as to whether it was still a pandemic or had become endemic. Pandemics and their ends are not well-defined, and whether or not one has ended differs according to the definition used.
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1 January
Malaysia has reported 420 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,027,097. There are 547 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,978,369. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 7,854.
Singapore has reported 542 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,202,756.
2 January
Malaysia has reported 360 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,027,457. There are 423 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,978,792. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,858.
Singapore has reported 390 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,203,146. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,712.
3 January
Malaysia has reported 333 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,027,790. There are 376 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,979,168. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,859.
Singapore has reported 556 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,203,702.
South Korean singer Dahyun of Twice has tested positive for COVID-19.
4 January
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 433 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,028,223. There are 500 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,979,668. The death toll remains 36,859.
New Zealand has reported 22,770 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,117,094. There are 31,968 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,092,041. The death toll remains 2,331.
Singapore has reported 1,535 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,205,237.
Australian cricketer Matt Renshaw has tested positive for COVID-19.
5 January
Malaysia has reported 571 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,028,794. There are 696 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,980,364. There are seven deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,866.
Singapore has reported 916 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,206,153.
6 January
Japan has reported 245,542 new daily cases, surpassing 30 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 30,044,377.
Malaysia has reported 543 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,029,337. There are 688 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,981,052. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,870.
Singapore has reported 833 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,206,986.
Taiwan has reported 27,676 new cases, surpassing 9 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 9,007,371. 62 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 15,445.
The United States of America surpasses 103 million cases.
7 January
Malaysia has reported 571 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,029,908. There are 551 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,981,603. Four deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 36,874.
Singapore has reported 684 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,207,670.
8 January
Malaysia has reported 405 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,030,313. There are 441 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,982,044. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,875.
Singapore has reported 546 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,208,216. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,713.
9 January
Malaysia has reported 383 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,030,696. There are 355 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,982,399. There are eight deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,883.
New Zealand has reported 21,685 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,138,754. There are 22,677 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,114,718. There are 62 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,393.
Singapore has reported 385 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,208,601. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,714.
Taiwan has reported 17,318 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,072,505. 40 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 15,582.
Today marks three years since the first death of the whole pandemic occurred in Wuhan, China.
10 January
Argentina surpasses 10 million COVID-19 cases.
Malaysia has reported 380 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,031,076. There are 373 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,982,772. There are nine deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,892.
Singapore has reported 910 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,209,511.
Kansas governor Laura Kelly has tested positive for COVID-19.
11 January
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 367 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,031,443. There are 398 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,983,170. There are nine deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,901.
Singapore has reported 598 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,210,109. Three new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 1,717.
12 January
Japan has reported 185,472 new daily cases, surpassing 31 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 31,032,204.
Malaysia has reported 383 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,031,826. There are 625 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,983,795. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,905.
Singapore has reported 524 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,210,633.
13 January
Malaysia has reported 320 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,032,146. There are 506 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,984,301. There are three deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,908.
Singapore has reported 498 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,211,131.
Taiwan has reported 21,737 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,167,811. 53 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 15,755.
14 January
China has reported that 59,938 COVID-related deaths occurred between 8 December 2022 and 12 January 2022.
Malaysia has reported 287 new cases, bringing the total number of 5,032,433. There are 590 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,984,891. The death toll remains 36,908.
Singapore has reported 415 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,211,546.
15 January
Malaysia has reported 244 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,032,677. There are 401 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,985,292. The death toll remains 36,908.
Singapore has reported 309 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,211,855.
16 January
The Cook Islands reported its second death. The territory has reported a total of 6,952 cases so far.
Malaysia has reported 227 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,032,904. There are 367 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,985,659. There are six deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,914.
New Zealand has reported 19,215 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,157,933. There are 21,615 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,136,333. There are 44 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,437.
Singapore has reported 276 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,212,131.
17 January
Malaysia has reported 350 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,033,254. There are 349 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,986,008. There are five deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,919.
Singapore has reported 553 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,212,684.
Taiwan has reported 19,970 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,245,066. 40 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 15,903.
18 January
Malaysia has reported 371 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,033,625. There are 304 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,986,312. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,923.
Singapore has reported 407 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,213,091. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,718.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has tested positive for COVID-19.
19 January
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 318 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,033,943. There are 331 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,986,643. The death toll remains 36,923.
Singapore has reported 344 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,213,435. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,719.
20 January
Malaysia has 285 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,034,228. There are 300 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,986,943. There are seven deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,930.
Singapore has reported 360 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,213,795. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,720.
Taiwan has reported 18,218 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,302,697. 61 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,038.
21 January
Malaysia has reported 293 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,034,521. There are 326 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,987,269. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,932.
Singapore has reported 269 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,214,064.
22 January
Japan has reported 64,450 new daily cases, surpassing 32 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 32,045,328.
Malaysia has reported 309 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,034,830. There are 292 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,987,561. The death toll remains 36,932.
Singapore has reported 170 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,214,234.
23 January
Malaysia has reported 142 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,034,972. 267 recoveries were reported, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,987,828. The death toll remains 36,932.
New Zealand has reported 13,880 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,171,788. There are 19,138 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,155,471. There are 31 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,468.
Singapore has reported 78 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,214,312.
South Korea has reported 9,227 new cases, surpassing 30 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 30,008,756.
Taiwan has reported 10,669 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,353,625. 24 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,122.
24 January
Malaysia has reported 101 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,035,073. There are 315 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,988,143. The death toll remains 36,932.
Singapore has reported 125 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,214,437.
25 January
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 132 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,035,205. There are 346 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,988,489. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,933.
Singapore has reported 164 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,214,601.
Taiwan has reported 16,518 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,384,996. 22 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,168.
The United States of America surpasses 104 million cases.
26 January
Malaysia has reported 172 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,035,377. There are 325 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,988,814. There are three deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,936.
Singapore has reported 508 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,215,109.
Taiwan has reported 19,144 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,404,138. 21 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,189.
27 January
Malaysia has reported 236 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,035,613. There are 312 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,989,126. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,938.
Singapore has reported 418 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,215,527.
Taiwan has reported 24,350 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,428,486. 15 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,204.
28 January
Malaysia has reported 258 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,035,871. There are 309 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,989,435. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,490.
Singapore has reported 362 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,215,889.
Delaware governor John Carney has tested positive for COVID-19.
29 January
Malaysia has reported 269 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,036,140. There are 285 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,989,720. The death toll remains 36,940.
Singapore has reported 296 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,216,185. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,721.
Taiwan has reported 27,350 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,483,267. 22 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,246.
30 January
Malaysia has reported 202 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,036,342. There are 141 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,989,861. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,942.
New Zealand has reported 10,589 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,182,355. There are 13,849 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,169,320. There are nine deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,477.
Singapore has reported 273 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,216,458. One new death was reported, bringing the death toll to 1,722.
Taiwan has reported 22,291 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,505,551. 30 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,276.
Today marks three years since the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern.
31 January
Malaysia has reported 251 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,036,593. The number of recoveries remain 4,989,861 while the death toll remains 36,942.
Singapore has reported 652 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,217,110.
Taiwan has reported 32,287 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,537,823. 32 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,308.
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1 February
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 325 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,036,918. There are 113 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,990,079. The death toll remains 36,942.
Singapore has reported 465 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,217,575.
Taiwan has reported 31,801 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,569,611. 48 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,356.
Washington governor Jay Inslee has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time.
2 February
Malaysia has reported 324 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,037,242. There are 148 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,990,227. The death toll remains 36,942.
Singapore has reported 475 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,218,050.
Taiwan has reported 27,085 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,596,660. 74 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,430.
3 February
Malaysia has reported 340 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,037,582. There are 203 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,990,430. The death toll remains 36,942.
Singapore has reported 458 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,218,508.
Taiwan has reported 25,477 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,622,129. The country reported the most deaths at 105, since the first of the pandemic, bringing the death toll to 16,535.
4 February
Malaysia has reported 202 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,037,784. There are 275 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,990,705. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,943.
Singapore has reported 373 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,218,881.
Taiwan has reported 23,746 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,645,862. 79 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,614.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson has tested positive for COVID-19.
5 February
Malaysia has reported 211 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,037,995. There are 272 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,990,977. The death toll remains 36,943.
Singapore has reported 299 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,219,180.
Taiwan has reported 22,991 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,668,845. 73 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,687.
6 February
Malaysia has reported 175 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,038,170. There are 196 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,991,173. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,944.
Russia surpasses 22 million COVID-19 cases.
Singapore has reported 251 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,219,431.
Taiwan has reported 16,640 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,685,484. 63 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,750.
7 February
Malaysia has reported 184 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,038,354. There are 253 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,991,426. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,946.
New Zealand has reported 8,882 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,191,215. There are 10,556 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,179,876. There are 25 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,502.
Singapore has reported 631 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,220,062.
Taiwan has reported 23,394 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,708,863. 45 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,795.
8 February
WHO Weekly Report:
Japan has reported 41,584 new daily cases, bringing the total number to 32,846,656. There are 200 deaths, bringing the death toll to 69,962.
Malaysia has reported 189 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,038,543. There are 279 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,991,705. The death toll remains 36,946.
Singapore has reported 472 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,220,534.
Taiwan has reported 24,240 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,733,094. 54 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,849.
9 February
Malaysia has reported 269 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,038,812. There are 375 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,992,080. The death toll remains 36,946.
Singapore has reported 465 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,220,999.
Taiwan has reported 20,920 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,754,006. 54 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,894.
10 February
Malaysia has reported 255 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,039,067. There are 306 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,992,386. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,950.
Singapore has reported 439 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,221,438.
Taiwan has reported 19,629 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,773,627. 70 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,964.
11 February
Malaysia has reported 259 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,039,326. There are 390 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,992,776. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,951.
Singapore has reported 324 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,221,762.
Taiwan has reported 18,300 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,791,908. 82 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,046.
12 February
Malaysia has reported 160 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,039,486. There are 358 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,993,134. The death toll remains 36,951.
Singapore has reported 244 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,222,006.
Taiwan has reported 17,199 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,809,098. 57 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,103.
Global recoveries around the world have exceeded 650 million.
13 February
Malaysia has reported 164 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,039,650. There are 254 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,993,388. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,952.
New Zealand has reported 8,396 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,199,579. There are 9,155 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,189,301. There are 11 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,513.
Taiwan has reported 12,657 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,821,755. 54 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,157.
Queen Camilla, wife of King Charles III, has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time and has to postpone several public events.
14 February
Malaysia has reported 200 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,039,850. There are 155 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,993,543. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,953.
Taiwan has reported 20,511 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,842,257. 36 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,193.
15 February
WHO Weekly Report:
Japan has reported 28,772 new daily cases, surpassing 33 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 33,019,616. There are 213 deaths, bringing the death toll to 71,136.
Malaysia has reported 237 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,040,087. There are 215 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,993,758. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,954.
South Korea has reported 14,957 new cases, bringing the total number to 30,384,701. There are 24 deaths, bringing the death toll to 33,782.
Taiwan has reported 19,861 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,862,108. 65 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,258.
16 February
Malaysia has reported 281 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,040,368. There are 257 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoverites to 4,994,015. The death toll remains 36,954.
Taiwan has reported 16,747 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,878,848. 61 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,319.
17 February
Germany surpasses 38 million COVID-19 cases.
Canada has reported 826 new cases and six new deaths.
Malaysia has reported 241 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,040,609. There are 235 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,994,250. The death toll remains 36,954.
Taiwan has reported 15,440 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,894,283. 78 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,397.
18 February
Malaysia has reported 212 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,040,821. There are 310 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,994,560. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,955.
Taiwan has reported 15,094 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,909,368. 55 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,452.
19 February
Malaysia has reported 186 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,041,007. There are 158 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,994,718. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,956.
Taiwan has reported 15,877 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,925,158. 68 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,520.
20 February
Malaysia has reported 167 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,041,174. There are 169 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,994,888. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,957.
New Zealand has reported 8,220 new cases in the past week, bringing the total number to 2,207,775. There are 8,092 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,197,123. 21 deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 2,534.
Taiwan has reported 12,060 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,937,216. 44 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,564.
21 February
Malaysia has reported 184 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,041,358. There are 192 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,995,079. The death toll remains 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 17,253 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,954,456. 44 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,608.
The United States of America surpasses 105 million cases.
22 February
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 229 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,041,587. There are 227 recoveries, bringing the death toll to 4,995,306. The death toll remains 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 16,484 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,970,937. 64 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,672.
23 February
Brazil surpasses 37 million COVID-19 cases.
Malaysia has reported 224 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,041,811. There are 278 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,995,584. The death toll remains 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 14,387 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,985,320. 37 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,709.
24 February
Malaysia has reported 204 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,042,015. There are 254 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,995,838. The death toll remains 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 13,440 new cases, bringing the total number to 9,998,752. 56 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,765.
25 February
Malaysia has reported 173 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,042,188. There are 219 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,996,057. The death toll remains 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 13,526 new cases, surpassing 10 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 10,012,276. 53 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,818.
26 February
Malaysia has reported 207 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,042,395. There are 175 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,996,232. The death toll remains to 36,957.
Taiwan has reported 13,090 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,025,366. 46 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,864.
27 February
Malaysia has reported 190 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,042,585. There are 177 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,996,409. The death toll remains 36,957.
New Zealand has reported 9,100 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,216,852. There are 8,231 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,205,354. There are eight deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,542.
Taiwan has reported 8,822 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,033,108. 44 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,908.
28 February
Malaysia has reported 206 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,042,791. There are 176 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,996,585. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,958.
Taiwan has reported 10,120 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,043,227. 40 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,948.
American broadcaster Savannah Guthrie has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time during a live broadcast.
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1 March
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 217 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,008. There are 233 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,996,818. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,960.
Taiwan has reported 12,212 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,055,439. 27 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 17,975.
2 March
Malaysia has reported 244 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,252. There are 213 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,997,031. There are five deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,965.
Taiwan has reported 12,032 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,069,539. 43 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,010.
3 March
Malaysia has reported 204 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,456. There are 213 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,997,244. The death toll remains 36,965.
Taiwan has reported 13,813 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,083,351. 62 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,072.
4 March
Malaysia has reported 170 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,626. There are 178 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,997,422. The death toll remains 36,965.
Taiwan has reported 11,397 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,094,733. 71 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,143.
5 March
Malaysia has reported 164 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,790. There are 198 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,997,620. One death was reported, bringing the death toll to 36,966.
Taiwan has reported 10,307 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,105,039. 60 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,203.
6 March
Malaysia has reported 188 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,043,978. There are 181 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,997,801. The death toll remains 36,966.
New Zealand has reported 11,453 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,228,291. There are 8,962 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,214,316. There are six deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,548.
Taiwan has reported 7,080 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,112,117. 45 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,248.
7 March
Malaysia has reported 226 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,044,204. There are 202 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,998,003. The death toll remains 36,966.
Taiwan has reported 11,038 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,123,157. 34 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,282.
8 March
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysia has reported 235 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,044,439. There are 216 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,998,219. There was one death, bringing the death toll to 36,967.
Taiwan has reported 11,060 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,134,211. 40 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,322.
California governor Gavin Newsom has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time.
9 March
Malaysia has reported 279 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,044,718. There are 236 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,998,455. The death toll remains 36,967.
Taiwan has reported 9,584 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,143,788. 49 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,371.
10 March
Malaysia has reported 251 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,044,969. There are 197 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,998,652. The death toll remains 36,967.
Taiwan has reported 9,098 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,152,881. 54 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,425.
11 March
Malaysia has reported 223 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,045,192. There are 193 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,998,845. The death toll remains 36,967.
Taiwan has reported 8,618 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,161,496. 48 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,473.
12 March
Taiwan has reported 9,093 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,170,589. 39 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,512.
13 March
New Zealand has reported 11,544 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,239,800. There are 11,417 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,225,733. There are 12 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,560.
Taiwan has reported 6,435 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,177,165. 37 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,549.
14 March
Taiwan has reported 9,860 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,187,238. 28 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,577.
15 March
Taiwan has reported 10,188 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,197,421. 42 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,619.
16 March
WHO Weekly Report:
Taiwan has reported 9,062 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,206,482. 37 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,656.
17 March
Taiwan has reported 8,416 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,214,788. 41 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,697.
18 March
Malaysia has reported 270 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,047,040. There are 235 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,000,411. There are three deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,972.
Taiwan has reported 8,026 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,222,922. 35 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,732.
19 March
Austria surpasses 6 million COVID-19 cases.
Taiwan has reported 8,419 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,231,343. 43 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,775.
20 March
New Zealand has reported 11,171 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number of cases to 2,250,952. There are 11,483 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,237,216. There are 26 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,586.
Taiwan has reported 5,544 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,236,887. 28 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,803.
21 March
Taiwan has reported 2,668 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,629. 20 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,823.
Lok Sabha member Kirron Kher has tested positive for COVID-19.
22 March
WHO Weekly Report:
Taiwan has reported 271 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,808. 29 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,852.
The United States of America surpasses 106 million cases.
23 March
Taiwan has reported 55 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,851. 40 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,892.
24 March
Taiwan has reported 25 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,980. 39 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,931.
Indian American business executive Ajay Banga has tested positive for COVID-19.
Indian film director and actress Pooja Bhatt has tested positive for COVID-19.
25 March
Malaysia has reported 355 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,049,268. 257 recoveries were reported, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,002,242. Seven deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 36,979.
Taiwan has reported 14 new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,994. 25 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,956.
26 March
Taiwan has reported four new cases, bringing the total number to 10,239,998. 29 new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 18,985.
27 March
New Zealand has reported 11,258 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,262,186. There are 11,071 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,248,287. There are 76 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,662.
Taiwan has reported 20 new deaths, bringing the death toll to 19,005. The total number of cases remain at 10,239,998.
28 March
Taiwan has reported no new cases and deaths, which stand at 10,239,998 and 19,005 respectively.
29 March
Taiwan has reported no new cases and deaths, which stand at 10,239,998 and 19,005 respectively.
30 March
WHO Weekly Report:
Taiwan has reported 675 new cases and 175 deaths over the past week.
Indian model Mahhi Vij has tested positive for COVID-19.
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1 April
Malaysia reported 599 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,052,337. There were 375 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,004,043. There was one death, bringing the death toll to 36,982.
WHO detected a new Omicron subvariant named XBB.1.16. The subvariant was found in the United States.
3 April
New Zealand has reported 12,202 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,274,370. There are 11,222 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,259,509. There are 25 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,687.
6 April
WHO Weekly Report:
8 April
Malaysia has reported 726 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,056,911. There are 584 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,006,634. There are 16 deaths, bringing the death toll to 36,994.
10 April
New Zealand has reported 12,129 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,286,481. There are 12,173 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,271,682. There are eight deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,695.
13 April
WHO Weekly Report:
15 April
Malaysia has reported 881 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,062,060. There are 760 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,010,543. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,000.
The Arcturus subvariant has mutated and developed a new symptom, as the virus is leading to a surge of new cases in India.
17 April
New Zealand has reported 14,242 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,300,696. There are 12,096 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,283,778. There are 21 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,716.
18 April
South Korea has reported 15,173 new daily cases, surpassing 31 million relative cases, bringing the total number to 31,009,261.
19 April
American professional ring announcer Justin Roberts has tested positive for COVID-19.
20 April
WHO Weekly Report:
Thailand confirms its first death from the new Arcturus subvariant.
22 April
Malaysia has reported 562 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,066,877. There are 881 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,015,705. The death toll has reach 37,011.
24 April
New Zealand has reported 12,383 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,313,064. There are 14,189 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,297,967. There are 20 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,736.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tested positive for COVID-19 for the third time.
26 April
Greece surpasses 6 million COVID-19 cases.
27 April
WHO Weekly Report:
29 April
Malaysia has reported 1,050 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,071,840. There are 600 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,020,529. There are nine deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,020.
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1 May
New Zealand has reported 11,063 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,324,094. There are 12,353 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,310,320. There are 26 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,762.
3 May
France surpasses 40 million COVID-19 cases.
4 May
WHO Weekly Report:
5 May
The Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the World Health Organization's highest alert level, is lifted for COVID-19.
6 May
Malaysia has reported 1,110 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,079,436. There are 1,112 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,025,566. The death toll reaches 37,028.
8 May
New Zealand has reported 12,277 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,336,352. There are 11,019 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,321,339. There are 30 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,792.
11 May
WHO Weekly Report:
The United States' public health emergency designation expires
13 May
Malaysia has reported 1,205 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,088,009. There are 1,248 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,029,873. There are 18 deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,046.
15 May
New Zealand has reported 11,739 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,348,074. There are 12,182 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,333,521. 58 deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 2,850.
18 May
WHO Weekly Report:
20 May
Malaysia has reported 786 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,094,448. There are 1,272 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,038,256. There are three deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,070.
21 May
The United States of America surpasses 107 million cases.
22 May
New Zealand has reported 14,657 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,362,225. There are 12,580 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,346,101. There are 43 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,893.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has tested positive for COVID-19.
Tokelau reported its first community case on Nukunonu, the dependency's largest atoll.
25 May
WHO Weekly Report:
26 May
Tokelau has reported a total of four community cases.
27 May
Malaysia has reported 782 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,100,249. There are 779 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,044,652. There was one death, bringing the death toll to 37,087.
29 May
New Zealand has reported 14,371 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,375,191. 12,275 have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,358,376. There are 49 deaths, bringing the death tolls to 2,942.
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1 June
WHO Weekly Report:
K-Pop singer Jisoo of Blackpink has tested positive for COVID-19 and will not perform on her upcoming world tour concert in Osaka.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time in a rebound case.
2 June
Malaysia has reported 569 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,104,772. There are 845 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,050,356. The death toll has risen to 37,100.
5 June
New Zealand has reported 12,028 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,387,201. There are 13,836 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,372,212. There are 59 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,001.
8 June
WHO Weekly Report:
10 June
Malaysia has reported 618 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,108,586. There are 626 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,053,329. 10 deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 37,110.
12 June
New Zealand has reported 9,883 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,397,065. There are 11,960 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,384,172. There are 37 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,038.
15 June
WHO Weekly Report:
17 June
Malaysia has reported 400 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,112,019. There are 630 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,057,145. There are eight deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,118.
19 June
New Zealand has reported 8,544 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,405,595. There are 9,833 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,394,005. There are 39 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,077.
22 June
WHO Weekly Report:
24 June
Malaysia has reported 341 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,114,717. There are 541 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,061,264. There are nine deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,127.
26 June
New Zealand has reported 7,702 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,413,279. There are 8,485 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,402,490. There are 40 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,117.
29 June
WHO Weekly Report:
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1 July
Malaysia has reported 171 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,116,265. There are 333 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,064,159. There are 25 deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,152.
3 July
New Zealand has reported 6,578 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,419,839. There are 7,681 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,410,171. There are 21 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,138.
6 July
WHO Weekly Report:
8 July
Malaysia has reported 139 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,117,487. There are 167 cases, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,066,437. There are six deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,158.
10 July
New Zealand has reported 5,417 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,425,237. There are 6,511 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,416,682. There are 21 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,159.
13 July
WHO Weekly Report:
15 July
Malaysia has reported 173 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,118,689. There are 141 cases, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,067,662. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,160.
17 July
New Zealand has reported 4,332 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,429,544. There are 5,387 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,422,069. There are 13 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,172.
20 July
WHO Weekly Report:
22 July
Malaysia has reported 129 new cases, bringing the total number of 5,119,647. There are 189 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,068,858. There are three deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,163.
The Philippines has lifted their declaration of the State of Public Health Emergency for COVID-19, initially declared by former president Rodrigo Duterte on March 9, 2020, through a proclamation signed by incumbent president Bongbong Marcos
24 July
New Zealand has reported 3,764 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,433,293. There are 4,294 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,426,363. There are 16 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,188.
27 July
WHO Weekly Report:
29 July
Malaysia has reported 130 new cases, bringing the total number of 5,120,581. There are 115 cases, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,069,820. There is one death, bringing the death toll to 37,164.
31 July
New Zealand has reported 3,615 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,436,894. There are 3,718 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,426,363. There are 31 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,219.
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3 August
WHO Weekly Report:
5 August
Malaysia has reported 105 new cases, bringing the total number of 5,121,276. There are 128 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,070,750. There is one death, bringing the death toll to 37,165.
7 August
New Zealand has reported 4,645 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,441,517. There are 3,597 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,433,678. There are 10 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,229.
10 August
WHO Weekly Report:
Malaysian Health Ministry and Election Commission confirm that COVID-19 positive votes will receive guidelines via the MySejahtera app on how to fulfill their voting responsibilities.
12 August
Malaysia has reported 73 cases, bringing the total number to 5,121,858. There are 96 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,072,092. The death toll remains 37,165.
14 August
New Zealand has reported 5,372 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,446,874. There are 4,604 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,438,282. There are 20 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,249.
17 August
WHO Weekly Report:
19 August
Malaysia has reported 114 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,122,568. There are 65 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,072,678. The death toll remains 37,165.
21 August
New Zealand has reported 3,953 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,450,818. There are 5,341 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,443,623. There are 12 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,261.
25 August
WHO Weekly Report:
26 August
Malaysia has reported 90 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,123,264. There are 111 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,073,384. The death toll remains 37,165.
28 August
New Zealand has reported 3,484 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,454,300. There are 3,917 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,447,540. There are 22 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,283.
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1 September
WHO Weekly Report:
2 September
Malaysia has reported 57 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,123,801. There are 97 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,074,097. The death toll remains 37,165.
4 September
New Zealand has reported 3,625 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,457,924. There are 3,477 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,451,017. There are 11 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,294.
6 September
The WHO said it had observed “concerning” trends in COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalisations, although analysis was hampered because many countries were no longer recording COVID-19 case statistics.
9 September
Malaysia has reported 108 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,124,481. There are 53 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,076,104. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,167.
11 September
New Zealand has reported 3,458 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,461,379. There are 3,609 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,454,626. There are 15 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,309.
16 September
Malaysia has reported 91 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,125,209. There are 116 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,076,796. There are four deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,171.
18 September
New Zealand has reported 3,458 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,461,379. There are 3,609 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,454,626. There are 15 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,309.
23 September
Malaysia has reported 87 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,125,900. There are 89 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,077,516. There was one death, bringing the death toll to 37,172.
25 September
New Zealand has reported 2,998 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,467,468. There are 3,055 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,461,144. There are 18 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,347.
29 September
WHO Situation Report:
30 September
Malaysia has reported 97 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,126,683. There are 91 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,078,210. There are three deaths, binging the death toll to 37,175.
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2 October
New Zealand has reported 2,968 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,470,435. There are 2,976 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,464,120. There are 14 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,361.
7 October
Malaysia has reported 142 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,127,616. There are 91 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,078,992. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,177.
9 October
New Zealand has reported 3,571 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,474,005. There are 2,943 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,467,063. There are 15 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,376.
14 October
Malaysia has reported 181 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,128,668. There are 131 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,079,933. There was two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,179.
16 October
New Zealand has reported 3,816 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,477,820. There are 3,560 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,470,623. There are 17 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,393.
21 October
Malaysia has reported 157 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,129,800. There are 176 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,080,973. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,181.
22 October
In the United Kingdom in October, following a steep rise in COVID-19 cases, healthcare facilities began reinstating face-masking policies for visitors and patients.
24 October
New Zealand has reported 4,018 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,481,834. There are 3,782 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,474,405. There are 23 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,416.
27 October
WHO Situation Report:
28 October
Malaysia has reported 207 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,131,139. There are 151 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,082,106. The death toll remains 37,181.
30 October
New Zealand has reported 3,934 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,485,937. There are 3,997 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,478,402. There are 29 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,445.
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4 November
Malaysia has reported 262 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,132,831. There are 810 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,084,061. There are five deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,186.
6 November
New Zealand has reported 5,872 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,491,809. There are 4,079 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,482,481. There are 19 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,464.
9 November
In response to viral mutations and changing characteristics of infection, the WHO adjusted its treatment guidelines. Among other changes, remdesivir and molnupiravir were now recommended only for the most severe cases, and deuremidevir and ivermectin were recommended against.
13 November
New Zealand has reported 5,947 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,497,753. There are 5,828 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,488,309. There are 38 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,502.
20 November
New Zealand has reported 7,881 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,505,632. There are 5,937 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,494,246. There are 20 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,522.
23 November
Malaysia reported 2,305 cases between 12 and 18 November, including 28 new Omicron variant cases.
24 November
WHO Situation Report:
25 November
Singapore has reported 22,094 new cases over the past week, more than double the last week. It added that the number of hospitalisations has remained stable.
27 November
New Zealand has reported 6,814 cases, bringing the total number to 2,512,440. There are 7,852 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,502,098. There are 27 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,549.
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2 December
Malaysia has reported 1,126 cases, bringing the total number to 5,147,359. There are 610 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,094,830. The death toll has risen to 37,202.
4 December
New Zealand has reported 6,656 cases, bringing the total number to 2,519,095. There are 6,777 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,508,875. 20 deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 3,569.
5 December
Poland’s former President Lech Walesa hospitalized with COVID-19
8 December
Singapore has reported a record high of 32,035 new cases over the past week, putting a number of hospitalisations on the rise as well.
9 December
Malaysia has reported 2,554 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,160,116. There are 1,164 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,102,881. There are 16 deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,218.
11 December
New Zealand has reported 7,880 new cases, bringing the total number to 2,526,109. There are 6,647 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,515,522. There are 27 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,596.
13 December
CDC has detected a new and highly infectious Omicron subvariant named JN.1, which is soon spreading rapidly across the globe.
15 December
Singapore has reported a record high of 56,043 new cases over the past week, as MOH is taking additional measures to protect the healthcare capacity.
16 December
Malaysia has reported 3,389 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,180,812. There are 2,276 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,115,191. There are two deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,246.
18 December
New Zealand has reported 7,417 new cases over the past week, bringing the total number to 2,533,522. There are 6,974 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,522,496. There are 27 deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,623.
21 December
Several Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia and Singapore have reported a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The spread of the JN.1 Omicron variant has led to a surge of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand, resulting in 400 hospitalisations per week and 25 deaths. The JN.1 variant accounted for 14% of sequenced cases reported in New Zealand during the week leading up to 15 December.
22 December
WHO Situation Report:
Singapore has reported a record high of 58,300 new cases over the past week. The number of hospital and ICU admissions are also the highest at 965 and 32 respectively.
23 December
Malaysia has reported 3,499 new cases, bringing the total number to 5,206,724. There are 3,376 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,136,171. There are 22 deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,268.
30 December
Malaysia has reported 2,803 cases, bringing the total number to 5,227,322. There are 3,488 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,162,135. There are five deaths, bringing the death toll to 37,293.
As of 2023, only the following countries and territories had not reported any cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections:
Asia
The remaining territories are all remote subantarctic or Antarctic lands with no permanent population.
Antarctica
Overseas | 2023 |
72641445 | Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia (2023) | 2023-01-02 00:39:15+00:00 | The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia during 2023.
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On 3 January, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa announced several measures to curb rising cases as travel increased including testing all overseas travellers for fever and offering walk-in vaccinations at hospitals and clinics from 9 January.
On 4 January, Sabah's State Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun announced that all travellers from China would have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and had to present a negative COVID-19 test.
On 10 January, the Ministry of Health confirmed that the Immigration Department would be screening travellers from China for COVID-19 in response to an outbreak in China.
On 12 January, Menteri Besar of Selangor Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari stated that the Selangor state government was considering stepping up COVID-19 prevention measures including contact tracing measures if the number of cases in the state rose. He also encouraged residents to take booster doses. That same day, Dr Mustafa confirmed that Malaysia would not be closing its borders since the COVID-19 situation in the country was under control. However, border screenings would continue.
On 13 January, the states of Sarawak and Kedah began screening the temperatures of travellers entering their borders.
On 27 January, The Star reported that Penang state had only reported a total of 235 new cases between 12 and 25 January 2023. Only one of the state's 92 mukim (or sub-districts) remained a red-zone.
On 29 January, the Ministry of Health confirmed that 9,088 of the 9,480 active cases were undergoing home quarantine. In addition 371 individuals (3.9%) were hospitalised with 21 of these cases undergoing intensive care.
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On 10 February, Health Minister Mustafa confirmed that the Health Ministry would establish a task force to write a White Paper on the COVID-19 vaccine procurement practices of previous Malaysian governments.
On 13 February, Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah confirmed that COVID-19 data would potentially be released on a weekly rather than daily basis from March 2023.
On 16 February, the Sabah state government confirmed that it would change the frequency of its COVID-19 statements from daily updates to weekly updates issued on Monday.
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On 4 March, Health Minister Zainal Mustafa confirmed that three COVID-19 cases had been detected among flood victims in the state of Johor and quarantined in hospitals.
On 20 March, the Terrengganu Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (Maidam) eliminated facemask requirements for all mosque and surau attendees in the state.
On 29 March, Penang General Hospital infectious diseases unit head Datuk Dr Chow Ting Soo advised high-risk individuals including those with comorbidities to wear face masks to protect against various infectious diseases including the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
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By 6 April, 458 patients had been hospitalised, with 13 in intensive care and 9 on ventilator support.
On 7 April, the Health Ministry approved the use of AstraZeneca's Evusheld 100mg/ml solution for treating COVID-19 patients.
On 11 April, Kedah state's Health and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Dr Mohd Hayati Othman advised the public to wear masks in public spaces after COVID-19 cases increased by 141.4 percent (or 169 cases) during the first week of the month.
On 14 April, Melaka's State Health director Datuk Dr Rusdi Abd Rahman reported 226 cases at three boarding schools in the state.
On 17 April, in response to rising cases and social gatherings during the Hari Raya Puasa period, several public health experts including Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Prof Dr Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh, Universiti Malaya Professor Dr Moy Foong Ming, and Malaysian Public Health Physicians Association president Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar, and Universiti Putra Malaysia medical epidemiologist Assoc Prof Dr Malina Osman advocated various health measures including booster vaccines, mask wearing, and for positive cases to isolate at home.
On 25 April, Health Minister Zainal Mustafa confirmed that the SARS-CoV-2 XBB.1.16 (Arcturus) viral subvariant had arrived in Malaysia. 12 cases were reported; with six in Sarawak, four in Selangor and two in Kuala Lumpur.
On 28 April, Health Minister Zainal encouraged school students to wear face masks when returning to school the following week.
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In early May 2023, the Straits Times reported a fresh wave of cases in Malaysia during the second half of April. By 29 April, the number of hospitalisations had risen by 9.2% to 3,381; the death toll had risen by 25%; and the hospital occupancy rate had risen by 70.3%.
On 8 May, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa announced that COVID-19 would no longer be considered a public health emergency, citing a recent decision by the World Health Organization's Emergency Committee of the International Health Regulations (2005) on 4 May.
On 16 May, Sabah's Tuaran district was placed back in the "red zone" after recording a spike of 26 cases in the previous week (7 to 13 May).
On 23 May, Sarawak's Deputy Premier Dr Sim Kui Hian announced that the COVID-19 pandemic in his state was declining, citing lower mortality figures in 2023 compared with last year. At the time, Sarawak had reported nine COVID-19 deaths in 2023, with a mortality rate of 0.31 per 100,000 people. In 2022, Sarawak had reported 167 COVID-19 deaths, with a mortality rate of 5.41 per 100,000 people.
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On 2 June, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa confirmed that the Government would revise the COVID-19 Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) in mid-June following the World Health Organization's decision to no longer categorise the disease as a public health emergency of international concern.
By 8 June, the Malaysian Government had spent RM4.482 billion on vaccine procurement and logistics.
On 16 June, the Health Minister Dr Zaliha reported that the number of COVID-19 cases had decreased by 15.7% between 4 and 10 June; 3,814 cases compared with 4,523 cases reported in the previous week.
On 29 June, Dr Zaliha announced that the Malaysian Government was eliminating facemask requirements on public transportation and healthcare facilities, and reducing the quarantine period from seven to five days, effective 5 July. This announcement came in response to declining local cases and the World Health Organization declaring that COVID-19 was no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The Health Minister also extended the status of local "Infectious endemic area" from 30 June to 31 December 2023.
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On 1 July, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia family medicine specialist Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Radzniwan Abd Rashid and Universiti Putra Malaysia public health practitioner Assoc Prof Dr Malina Osman welcomed the Government's decision to revise its standard operation procedures, citing the World Health Organization's decision to declare that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency.
On 7 July, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia public health specialist Prof Dr Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh advocated mask-wearing as a means of preventing COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.
The number of COVID-19 cases dropped by 20 per cent during the week between 16 and 22 July to 958 cases compared to 1,202 cases between 9 and 15 July.
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During the 2023 Malaysian state elections, COVID-19 positive votes received guidelines via the MySejahtera app on how to fulfill their voting responsibilities.
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Malaysia reported 2,305 cases between 12 and 18 November, a 28% increase from the previous week. These included 28 new Omicron variant cases.
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In response to a rise of COVID-19 cases, retirement homes and the Kedah Immigration Department reinstated face mask requirements. In addition, mask wearing was encouraged in mosques, suraus, retailers, eateries, and kindergartens. On 20 December, the Health Ministry also encouraged people to take the COVID-19 vaccines, publishing a list of 234 vaccination centres on the MySejahtera app.
On 21 December, Malaysia reactivated its Heightened Alert System in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases domestically and in the wider Southeast Asia region. That same day, Johor state reported a 20-fold increase in COVID-19 cases. The Sarawak government also approved RM 4.85 million to help the Health Department cope with rising COVID-19 cases.
On 27 December, the Government deployed health department officials and medical staff at flood evacuation centres in Terengganu to screen people for COVID-19.
On 28 December, Kedah health authorities confirmed that the situation was under control at two COVID-19 clusters in Kuala Muda and Kota Setar.
On 29 December, the Health Ministry stated that COVID-19 cases in Malaysia were under control, with only 0.5% of patients admitted to hospital and a death rate of 0.08%.
On 30 December, 14 new COVID-19 cases were reported at flood evacuation centres in Kelantan and Terengganu. | 2023 |
72699173 | Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand (2023) | 2023-01-08 23:42:17+00:00 | The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand during 2023.
Data about the previous day is extracted from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research's database at 9:00 am weekly and is publicly released by the Ministry of Health around 1:00 pm on Monday weekly.
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On 9 January, the Health Ministry confirmed that the XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 had been detected in New Zealand with two cases. There were 2,424 new community cases on 9 January, compared to over 4,000 reported on 4 January.
On 16 January, 1 News reported that a child aged 10 years and an individual aged between 10 and 19 years were among the 57 deaths reported between 9 and 15 January. 333 COVID-19 cases were hospitalised with eight in intensive care.
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On 9 February, Medsafe approved a version of Pfizer's pediatric vaccine for children aged under the age of five years.
On 20 February, Statistics New Zealand confirmed that COVID-19 had caused a 10 percent surge in the death toll in 2022. The 2022 death toll in New Zealand stood at 38,574; compared with 34,932 in 2021. Of these deaths, 2,400 deaths in 2022 were attributed to COVID-19. Statistics NZ population estimates and projections manager Michael MacAskill also stated that the increased death toll in 2022 reflected New Zealand's ageing population, following similar trends in Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States.
On 27 February, the Ministry of Health confirmed there had been 40 COVID-related deaths over the past week including one person under the age of 10 and one person in their 20s. 200 COVID-19 cases remained in hospital including three in intensive care.
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On 6 March, the Canterbury Region reported the highest number of cases in New Zealand, with 2,346 in the past week. The Southern District came second, reporting 1,251 in the past week. The Waitemata District came third place, reporting 1,197 cases in the past week. 177 cases remained hospitalised, with one patient in intensive care. Of the 18 deaths reported in the past week, one was aged under 10 years while another was in their 20s.
On 13 March, 190 cases were hospitalised with five in intensive care units. The rolling seven-day average for new cases between 6 and 12 March was 1,644, compared with 1,632 reported in the week leading up to 6 March That same day, National Party leader and Leader of the Opposition Christopher Luxon tested positive for COVID-19; having tested positive previously in 2022.
On 20 March, 200 cases were hospitalised with eight in intensive care units. The seven-day rolling average leading up to 20 March was 1,593.
On 27 March, 211 people were hospitalised with seven in intensive care units. The seven-day rolling average leading up to 27 March was 1,605.
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On 10 April, University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker urged the New Zealand Government to retain the few remaining COVID-19 restrictions including the mandatory seven-day isolation period for positive cases and mask wearing at hospitals.
On 11 April, Radio New Zealand reported that 219 COVID-19 patients remained in hospital as of midnight 9 April, with seven in intensive care. That same day, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed that the Government was considering scrapping the mandatory seven-day isolation period for COVID-19 positive cases. That same day, Hipkins and Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall confirmed that the Government would retain the few remaining COVID-19 restrictions such as the seven-day mandatory isolation period for positive cases and mask wearing requirements at hospitals for at least two months.
On 17 April, Radio New Zealand reported a surge in infections, reinfections, hospitalisations and deaths reported over the past week. In response, epidemiologist Baker stated that New Zealand was experiencing its fourth wave of COVID-19 infections and urged the public to take the new COVID-19 booster vaccine, isolate if they are infected, and wear facemasks in poorly ventilated environments.
On 24 April, Radio New Zealand reported that there were 292 patients in hospital and nine in intensive care. The highest number of active cases were in the Canterbury Region, Auckland, and the Southern District. University of Otago epidemiologist Peter McIntyre has urged the Government to focus on getting higher-risk individuals including the elderly, Māori, and Pasifika aged over 60 years double-boosted rather than focusing on infection control through mask wearing and improved ventilation.
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On 1 May, there were 265 people in hospital with eight in intensive care. Canterbury, Waitemata, Counties Manukau, and the Southern regions recorded the highest number of cases in New Zealand over the previous seven days.
On 8 May, there were 249 people in hospital with 12 in intensive care.
On 15 May, there were 247 people in hospital with six in intensive care.
On 22 May, there were 247 people in hospital with eight in intensive care. The seven day rolling average over the past week was 1,891. As part of the 2023 New Zealand budget, the Government allocated NZ$20 million to raise COVID-19 immunisation and screening coverage for both Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders.
On 29 May, there were 248 people in hospital with eight in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,982.
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On 4 June, there were 278 people in hospital, with nine in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,713 cases.
On 12 June, there were 228 people in hospital, with seven in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,408 cases.
On 19 June, there were 246 cases in hospital, with six intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,217 cases.
On 26 June, two children under the age of 10 years were reported among the 36 deaths in the last week attributed to COVID-19. Of the other fatalities, one was in their 40s, three were in their 50s, four were in their 60s, seven were in their 70s, 13 were in their 80s, and six were in their 90s. 17 of the deceased were women and 19 were men. There were 181 cases in hospital, with five in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,096 cases.
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On 3 July, there were 182 cases in hospital with five in intensive care. The seven day rolling average for cases was 933.
In early July 2023, Christchurch millionaires and philanthropists Grant and Marilyn Nelson organised a petition urging the Ministry of Social Development to recover COVID-19 wage subsidies it had paid to businesses during the pandemic. By 2 July 2023, the Ministry had received about NZ$780 million in voluntary repayments and had brought 36 cases of non-repayment to court.
On 10 July, there were 184 cases in hospital with three in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 771.
On 17 July, there were 185 cases in hospital with four in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 615.
On 24 July, there were 119 cases in hospital with three in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 535.
On 31 July, there were 116 cases in hospital with five in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 514.
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On 7 August, there were 160 cases in hospital and five people in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 659.
On 14 August, there were 171 cases in hospital with four people in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 763. That same day, the Government scrapped the facemask requirement for healthcare facilities and the seven day isolation requirement for positive cases. These changes came into effect at midnight on 15 August.
On 21 August, there were 158 cases in hospital with five people in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 562. Following the Government's decision to scrap the remaining COVID-19 mandates, the doctors' advocacy group General Practice NZ and University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker urged COVID positive individuals to continue isolating and wearing masks. Meanwhile, University of Auckland mathematics professor and Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank said that the lack of mask and isolation requirements would have a minimal impact on case numbers, opining that the main drivers of COVID-19 infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or who had not tested yet. Canterbury had the highest number of cases with 580, followed by Waitematā with 471, and Capital and Coast with 360.
On 28 August, there were 157 cases in hospital with two people in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 497. Canterbury had the highest number of cases at 541, followed by Waitematā at 434.
On 31 August, the country's sole publicly-founded Long COVID clinic in Christchurch closed after five months of operations.
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As of 3 September, there were 150 cases in hospital and 12 in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 516.
On 10 September, there were 221 cases in hospital and six in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 492.
On 17 September, there were 186 cases in hospital and two in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 426.
On 21 September, the Covid-19 subvariant BA.2.86 was first detected in New Zealand.
On 24 September, there were 175 cases in hospital and three in intensive care. The rolling day average was 426.
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On 2 October, there were 177 cases in hospital and seven in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 422.
On 9 October, there were 230 cases in hospital and four in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 510.
On 16 October, there were 243 cases in hospital and two in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 544.
On 30 October, there were 225 cases in hospital and three in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 585.
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On 6 November, 212 cases remained in hospital and five in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 838 per day.
On 14 November, 284 cases remained in hospital and four in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 849 per day.
On 20 November, 349 cases remained in hospital and two in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,124 per day.
On 27 November, 327 cases remained in hospital and eight in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 971 per day. Of the 27 deaths, one was a child under ten years old.
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On 4 December, 332 cases were in hospital with one in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 951 per day.
On 11 December, 336 cases were in hospital with five in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 999 per day.
On 18 December, 354 cases were in hospital with six in intensive care. The seven day rolling average was 1,058 per day.
On 21 December, the spread of the JN.1 Omicron variant led to a surge of COVID-19 cases, resulting in 400 hospitalisations per week and 25 deaths. The JN.1 variant accounted for 14% of sequenced cases reported in the week leading up to 15 December. Based on these figures,Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) pathogen genomics technical lead David Winter projected that the JN.1 variant would be the dominant variant by January 2024. | 2023 |
72635919 | Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom (2023) | 2023-01-01 12:37:34+00:00 | The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom in 2023.
There are significant differences in the legislation and the reporting between the countries of the UK: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. The numbers of cases and deaths are reported on a government website updated daily during the pandemic. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) continued until mid-March to publish estimates of the number of infections (excluding hospitals, care homes and other communal settings) in each country, using regular nose/throat swabs and blood samples. A smaller-scale ONS survey began in December, using lateral flow tests. The UK-wide Zoe Health Study (previously the COVID Symptom Study) which is based on surveys of numerous participants, run by health science company ZOE, and analysed by King's College London researchers, publishes daily estimates of the number of new and total current COVID-19 infections (excluding care homes) in UK regions, without restriction to only laboratory-confirmed cases.
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2 January –
The UK Health Security Agency issues advice to parents in England, urging them to keep their children off school if they are ill or have a fever. The advice comes amid high cases of COVID-19, influenza, and scarlet fever.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that 2.0 million people in private households in the UK have long COVID (with symptoms, primarily fatigue and difficulty concentrating, continuing for more than four weeks after a confirmed or suspected COVID infection). 1.5 million of them say their daily activities are adversely affected.
3 January – Speaking amid mounting concern about hospital delays, Health Secretary Steve Barclay warns that flu and COVID-19 are putting "massive pressure" on the National Health Service. He also says that reducing the waiting list backlog caused by the pandemic will "take time".
5 January – Legislation comes into effect which requires air passengers travelling from mainland China to England to provide proof of a negative COVID test before departure.
6 January – The latest Office for National Statistics data suggests almost three million people were infected with COVID-19 over the Christmas period (the highest since July 2022), with one in 20 having the virus in England, one in 18 in Wales, one in 25 in Scotland and one in 16 in Northern Ireland. XBB.1.5, the new Omicron variant of the virus, is believed to be responsible for one in 200 infections in the UK.
10 January –
A team of researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute is to analyse millions of UK COVID-19 test samples for other serious respiratory viruses, including flu.
It is confirmed that the regional Enhanced Therapies and Rehabilitation unit at Whiteabbey Hospital, originally commissioned as one of Northern Ireland's Nightingale Hospitals in November 2020, is to be closed at the end of March 2023.
11 January – Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire, is suspended from the Conservative Party for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines after posting a tweet comparing them to The Holocaust.
13 January –
Medical experts criticise the BBC for an interview with Aseem Malhotra who claims that mRNA vaccines may have been responsible for thousands of excess deaths.
An inquest into the deaths of Gareth Morgan Roberts and Dominga David, two nurses who died of COVID-19 in April 2020, concludes that it is more likely than not that they died after becoming infected while at work.
The latest Office for National Statistics data indicates COVID-19 cases were falling in England and Wales in the week up to 30 December 2022, with cases continuing to increase in Scotland; the picture was unclear for Northern Ireland. In England, an estimated 2,189,300 people were thought to have tested positive for COVID-19.
17 January – HM Revenue and Customs has estimated that £4.5bn in COVID-19 support funding has been lost through error or fraud since 2020.
18 January – BBC News reports that a woman from Pembrokeshire who shielded from COVID-19 for two and a half years has spent more than £2,000 on Evusheld (a drug not available on the NHS) to improve her immunity. The Welsh Government has responded that it is waiting for guidance on the drug from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
20 January –
A study by the British Heart Foundation has found that as many as half a million people in the UK missed out on starting medication to prevent heart attacks and strokes during the first 18 months after the beginning of the pandemic.
Office for National Statistics data for the week up to 10 January indicate COVID-19 infections have continued to fall in England and Wales, with one in 40 people (an estimated 2.6% of the population) testing positive for the virus.
22 January – The Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency launches an "unscheduled" safeguarding audit and review into the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle amid claims of lockdown gatherings at St Mary's Cathedral in Newcastle during England's third national lockdown in 2021. The review will be carried out by Malcolm McMahon, the Archbishop of Liverpool.
25 January – A national study carried out using Bristol's Children of the 90s cohort has indicated that vulnerable people who receive a COVID booster vaccine are equally as protected from the virus as healthy people who received two vaccines. The study analysed 9,000 blood samples from people monitored by the project.
26 January – MP Andrew Bridgen has threatened to sue former Health Secretary Matt Hancock after Hancock accused him on Twitter of spreading "antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories".
27 January – Data released by the Office for National Statistics for the week ending 17 January indicate overall cases have continued to fall. In England, the estimated number of people testing positive for COVID-19 was 906,300 (roughly 1.62% of the population or 1 in 60 people).
30 January –
Analysis by BBC One's Panorama programme suggests that between 5,000 and 10,000 NHS workers who may be off sick with Long COVID will face pay cuts because of changes to COVID sickness policy.
Dr Sarah Myhill, a private practitioner from Powys, who posted false claims about COVID-19 vaccines online, is banned from practising for nine months after a hearing conducted by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
31 January – After the Welsh Cancer Network publishes a three year plan for improving patient experience and outcomes in Wales, Judi Rhys, of Tenovus Cancer Care, warns that the COVID-19 pandemic cannot continue to be blamed for poor cancer care in the country.
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3 February – Office for National Statistics data for the week up to 24 January indicates that COVID-19 cases have continued to fall, with an estimated 1 in 70 people (1.42% of the population) testing positive for the virus in England over that time. The data also shows an increase in infections among primary and secondary school children.
6 February – Mark Steyn, who used his GB News show to cast doubt on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, quits the news channel after claiming its bosses tried to make him pay fines issued by the media regulator Ofcom following two investigations into his programme.
10 February – Data from the Office for National Statistics for the week ending 31 January indicates COVID-19 cases have risen in England for the first time in 2023, with 1.02 million cases, an increase of 8% from 941,800 the previous week. Data for Scotland and Wales is less clear.
12 February – The last available date on which adults in England aged between 16 and 49 can book a COVID-19 booster injection following their two initial vaccines.
13 February –
Buckingham Palace announces that Queen Camilla has tested positive for COVID-19 and cancelled her engagements for the week.
Heathrow Airport has recorded its busiest January since the start of the pandemic, with 5.4 million passengers passing through during January 2023.
17 February – Office for National Statistics data for the week up to 7 February indicates that COVID-19 cases continued to increase in England, Wales and Scotland, but decreased in Northern Ireland. In England, In England it is estimated that 1,054,200 people had COVID-19, equating to 1.88% of the population, or around 1 in 55 people.
22 February –
Office for National Statistics data collected between February and November 2022 has shown a decrease in the mortality rate among people from ethnic minorities with COVID-19 when compared to the beginning of the pandemic, when mortality was highest among people from the Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Pakistani groups.
A pub landlord from Billingham, County Durham who had his licence revoked by the local council after repeatedly opening the establishment during the COVID-19 lockdowns, loses a two-year legal battle following a hearing at the High Court in Leeds.
23 February –
The National Health Service in Wales misses its first post-COVID target for reducing the backlog of outpatients waiting for an appointment, with 75,000 people waiting for a year or more when there should be none.
Figures produced by the Office for National Statistics show school absences in England remain above their pre-COVID levels, with 25.1% of pupils regularly absent during the autumn term of 2022 compared to 13.1% in autumn 2019.
24 February – Office for National Statistics data for the week up to 14 February indicates COVID-19 cases continued to rise in England, Scotland and Wales, but remained uncertain in Northern Ireland. In England, the estimated number of people testing positive for COVID-19 was 1,223,000 (or 2.18% of the population and around 1 in 45 people).
28 February –
A letter to Baroness Hallett, the chair of the COVID-19 Inquiry, and co-authored by Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice and the Runnymede Foundation, has called for race to be made a central part of the inquiry because of the significantly greater impact the pandemic had on those from ethnic minorities. A spokesperson for the inquiry says that the unequal impact of the pandemic will be at the inquiry's forefront.
Pembrokeshire County Council is to discuss whether the establishment of a COVID-19 field hospital at Bluestone National Park Resort near Narberth in 2020 was the right location for the hospital. The hospital was given £6m, but only 30 of its 125 beds were ever available.
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1 March – WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph are reported as suggesting former Health Secretary Matt Hancock chose to ignore advise from experts in April 2020 that there should be "testing of all going into care homes". A spokesman for Hancock said "These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing".
2 March –
The Daily Telegraph publishes more of Matt Hancock's WhatsApp exchanges, this time with former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in December 2020, when a debate into whether schools should reopen following the Christmas holiday was taking place. The leaked messages suggest Hancock favoured school closures, while Williamson was more hesitant. Hancock, who worked alongside journalist Isabel Oakeshott to co-author a book, describes the release of the messages as a "massive betrayal and breach of trust". In response, Oakeshott says she released the messages because she believed doing so was in the "public interest".
Sir Keir Starmer unveils Sue Gray, who led the investigation into the Partygate scandal, as Labour's new Chief of Staff, sparking concern among some Conservative MPs about her impartiality.
Lord Bethell, a former health minister with the second Johnson ministry, tells Channel 4 News that the UK government briefly considered asking the public to help exterminate the UK's estimated 10.9 million cats in 2020 amid concerns the animals were responsible for spreading COVID-19.
3 March –
The latest leaked WhatsApp messages published by the Daily Telegraph appear to show former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case joking about locking people in quarantine hotels.
The Commons Select Committee of Privileges finds that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have misled Parliament over the Partygate scandal after evidence suggested breaches of COVID-19 rules would have been "obvious" to him. In response Johnson says that none of the evidence shows he "knowingly" misled parliament, and that "it is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of parliament".
Office for National Statistics data for the week up to 21 February indicates that COVID-19 infections were increasing in England and Wales, but decreasing in Northern Ireland, while the situation in Scotland was uncertain. In England, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 was estimated to be 1,298,600 (roughly 2.31% of the population around 1 in 45).
4 March – Leaked WhatsApp messages published by the Daily Telegraph indicate Matt Hancock and his staff deliberated over whether or not he had broken COVID-19 regulations after pictures of him kissing his aide, Gina Coladangelo, were published by The Sun newspaper. In another conversation, the messages show Hancock criticising the Eat Out to Help Out scheme for "causing problems" in areas where there were a nigh number of COVID-19 cases.
5 March –
News outlets including BBC News, Sky News and The Independent (who have not verified the messages) report that further WhatsApp messages published by The Telegraph appear to show discussions about how and when the government should reveal details of the Kent COVID-19 variant in order to ensure people would comply with the regulations. The news outlets also says Hancock appears to suggest they should "frighten the pants off everyone", while in another conversation, head of the civil service Simon Case suggests the "fear/guilt factor" was an important element of the government's messaging. The Telegraph also reports messages showing ministers and civil servants discussing "[getting] heavy with the police" to enforce lockdown measures with senior police officers being brought into Number 10 to be told to be stricter with the public.
Moderna announces Harwell, Oxfordshire as the location of its new Innovation and Technology Centre, a research and development facility which will be built by 2025.
6 March – The Telegraph publishes messages that are reported to have been exchanged between Allan Nixon, a parliamentary Advisor and Hancock from November 2020 in which they discuss threatening to cancel projects in MPs constituencies if MPs do not support the local lockdown tiers legislation. It is also reported that as part of a strategy aimed at trying to stop MPs from rebelling against the legislation, party whips compiled a spreadsheet of 95 MPs who disagreed with this policy and the reasons for them disagreeing; these related to lack of parliamentary scrutiny, economic harm, harms to hospital, absence of cost benefit analysis and the policy being "unconservative".
7 March – The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommends that everyone over 75, care-home residents and anyone considered to be extremely vulnerable aged five and over will be offered a spring COVID-19 booster vaccine. Vaccinations will begin in March in Scotland, early April in England and Wales, and mid-April in Northern Ireland.
8 March – In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK, the widow of a nurse who died as a result of COVID-19 is to sue the National Health Service in Wales. Linda Roberts, the widow of Gareth Roberts, who had Type 2 diabetes, plans the legal action after a coroner found that he died as a result of "industrial disease".
9 March –
The UK Health Security Agency announces that the COVID-19 Infection Survey run by the Office for National Statistics, which collects results from swabs and blood tests from a sample of households, will be paused from the middle of the month.
A study published in the British Medical Journal suggests people's mental health was not adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that most people made the best of a bad situation.
10 March – Office for National Statistics data for the week ending 28 February indicates COVID-19 cases are rising in Scotland, but the picture is unclear in the rest of the UK. In England, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 was estimated to be 1,333,400, equating to 2.38% of the population, or around 1 in 40 people. In Scotland, the figure was 128,400, equating to 2.44% of the population or around 1 in 40 people.
16 March – Office for National Statistics data for the week ending 7 March (6 March in Scotland) indicates COVID-19 cases are falling in Scotland, but the picture is uncertain in the rest of the UK. In England, the survey suggests that 1,322,000 tested positive for the virus, equating to 2.36% of the population, or around 1 in 40.
17 March – The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions has warned that UK visitor attractions continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as they experience fewer visitors from overseas. Tourists have returned following the pandemic, but not to pre-COVID levels.
21 March –
A living memorial to the victims of COVID-19 and key workers who worked through the pandemic is unveiled at Staffordshire's National Memorial Arboretum.
Partygate scandal: Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson publishes a 52-page defence of his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic in which he acknowledges Parliament was mislead, but says he did not do so intentionally.
22 March – Boris Johnson gives evidence to the cross-party Privileges Committee, relating to his conduct during Partygate. He insists that he "did not lie" to the House of Commons and always made statements in good faith.
23 March –
On the third anniversary of the announcement of the UK's first COVID-19 lockdown, a minute's silence is held at midday to mark the third National Day of Reflection.
A permanent memorial to those who died during the pandemic, as well as the era's unsung heroes, is unveiled at Balm Green Gardens, near Sheffield's Barker's Pool.
24 March –
The final Coronavirus Infections Survey is published by the Office for National Statistics, with data for the week up to 13 March. It shows an increase in COVID-19 cases for England, but an uncertain picture for the rest of the UK. The percentage of cases for the Home Nations are shown as follows: 2.66% in England (1 in 40 people), 2.41% in Wales (1 in 40 people), 1.42% in Northern Ireland (1 in 70 people), and 2.59% in Scotland (1 in 40 people).
Research led by the University of Edinburgh suggests one in 50 people in Scotland have had lasting ill-effects after contracting COVID-19.
30 March – It is announced that COVID-19 testing in England is to be further scaled back from April. Staff and patients in hospitals will no longer be routinely swab tested for the virus, with staff only tested if they are in contact with immunocompromised patients.
31 March – The UK Health Security Agency confirms the NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app will close on 27 April following a decline in its use.
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2 April – The Observer reports that British researchers are in the process of developing a system to monitor genetic changes in respiratory viruses that could be used to identify new variants and act as an early warning system for new diseases and future pandemics.
3 April – NHS England launches its spring booster campaign, which will see around five million people, including those aged over 75 or classed as clinically vulnerable, receive a COVID-19 booster vaccine.
5 April – Travellers arriving in England from China are no longer required to provide a pre-departure negative COVID-19 test.
11 April – Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that COVID-19 is no longer the leading cause of death in England and Wales. The figures show it the sixth major cause of death for 2022, having been the main cause of death for 2020 and 2021.
14 April – Data from the Zoe Health Study indicates cases of COVID-19 are at their highest in the north of England, with concern about a new Arcturus variant of the virus.
19 April – An inquest into the death of Stephen Wright, a 32-year-old NHS psychologist who died from a blood clot on the brain ten days after receiving the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in January 2021, rules his death occurred as a result of "unintended complications of the vaccine". Wright's wife, Charlotte, is one of several people taking legal action against AstraZeneca, and had wanted the cause of death listed on his death certificate changed.
22 April – A study published by Swansea University indicates there was no benefit to clinically vulnerable people from shielding during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, which compared 117,000 people advised to shield during the pandemic with the rest of Wales's population of three million, shows a higher number of deaths and healthcare usage among those who shielded.
24 April –
Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd reports that its passenger numbers have almost returned to pre-COVID levels, with 1.5 million people using its 11 airports in 2022–23, compared to 1.6 million in 2019–20.
A BBC investigation finds that roughly one third of the £594m that was earmarked for National Tutoring Programme, launched to help children catch up after the pandemic, has gone unspent by the Treasury, with schools forced to make up the shortfall from their own budgets.
27 April –
The NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app closes following a decline in its use.
In a written statement to Parliament, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirms that Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, will sit without a panel, as this will be the "most efficient and swift" way to conduct the investigation.
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5 May – The World Health Organization declares that COVID-19 no longer represents a "global health emergency", something regarded as a major step towards ending the pandemic.
9 May – The broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, finds the TV channel, GB News, in breach of broadcasting regulations over its October 2021 edition of Mark Steyn's programme in which it was claimed the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom amounted to "mass murder". The regulator finds that GB News did not do enough to protect its viewers from harmful content, and rules that GB News must now attend a meeting with Ofcom.
16 May – COVID-19 in Scotland: The rules requiring people to wear face masks in Scottish care homes and healthcare settings come to an end after three years.
19 May – COVID-19 in Wales: With the second year of post-pandemic examinations under way, BBC News reports that some measures are still in place in Wales to provide students with additional help as they sit exams. Students also report feeling anxiety over sitting exams, particularly those who achieved qualifications without sitting exams.
22 May – Margaret Ferrier loses her appeal against a proposed 30 day ban from the House of Commons over her breach of COVID-19 rules in September 2020.
23 May – The Cabinet Office has referred former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the police following fresh allegations of rule breaches during the COVID-19 pandemic.
24 May – The COVID-19 inquiry threatens the UK government with legal action if it does not release the full unredacted versions of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages and diary entries. The Cabinet Office argues in response that some of the information is "unambiguously irrelevant" to the inquiry.
30 May – Downing Street rejects accusations of a cover-up over the release of WhatsApp messages and diary entries belonging to Boris Johnson.
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1 June – The UK government confirms it will launch a legal challenge over the COVID-19 Inquiry's demand for the unredacted version of Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages and emails, as the deadline by which the inquiry had demanded access to them expires.
2 June – Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces he is bypassing the Cabinet Office by directly supplying the COVID-19 inquiry with unredacted copies of some of his WhatsApp messages and emails.
6 June –
MPs vote to suspend Margaret Ferrier, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching COVID-19 regulations, almost certainly triggering a by-election in her constituency.
Hugo Keith KC, the COVID-19 inquiry's lead lawyer, warns that shortcomings in evidence provided by some government departments could disrupt the inquiry's progress.
Lawyers representing bereaved families at the COVID-19 inquiry have requested access to WhatsApp messages belonging to former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
13 June – Hearings for the public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic begin in central London. The inquiry's lead lawyer says "very little thought" was given to the impact of a national lockdown and that Brexit planning may have occupied too much of the government's time and resources, while a counsel for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice accuses the authorities of being "complacent".
14 June – A University of Glasgow study indicates that Scottish universities profited more than expected during the pandemic by "substantially expanding international student numbers".
15 June – Partygate: A 13-month investigation by the House of Commons' Privileges Committee concludes that ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled the house over gatherings during pandemic restrictions at 10 Downing Street and Chequers, and would be suspended for 90 days if still an MP. It states that he deliberately misled the House and the committee, impugned the committee and was "complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee".
16 June – The COVID-19 Inquiry hears how a decade of austerity prior to 2020 left the UK with rising health inequality, and public services that had been "depleted".
18 June –
Partygate:
The Mirror publishes video footage of a party held in December 2020 at Conservative Party Headquarters. Housing Secretary Michael Gove describes the incident as "indefensible".
Gove tells Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Johnson's 90-day suspension is "not merited" and that he will not vote for it.
19 June –
Partygate:
BBC News reports that it has seen an invitation sent out to 30 people by Ben Mallett, a former aide to Boris Johnson, in which they were invited to "jingle and mingle" at a party held at Conservative Party Headquarters on 14 December 2020, while London was in Tier 2 restrictions.
MPs back, by 354 votes to seven, a report finding Boris Johnson deliberately misled the Commons over lockdown parties at Downing Street.
UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Former Prime Minister David Cameron tells the COVID-19 inquiry that his government had not focussed on other types of pandemics apart from flu in their planning for future pandemics, and that this was a "mistake".
20 June –
UK COVID-19 Inquiry:
Dame Sally Davies, the former Chief Medical Officer for England between 2010 and 2019, apologises to the families of people who died from COVID after the inquiry hears how the UK did not have enough hospitals and medical personnel to cope with the pandemic when compared to similar countries.
Former Chancellor George Osborne rejects the suggestion his austerity programme left the NHS in a "perilous" state before the pandemic.
A recall petition opens in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency to determine whether Margaret Ferrier will face a by-election; 10% of eligible voters must sign it to trigger the by-election.
21 June –
UK COVID-19 Inquiry: Chancellor (and former Health Secretary) Jeremy Hunt appears before the COVID-19 Inquiry, where he says that quarantining people with COVID-19 sooner "might have avoided" the UK's first national lockdown in March 2020.
Figures show that a cancelled deal between the UK government and French pharmaceutical company Valneva for a batch of 100 million of their vaccines cost the public purse £358.6m.
COVID-19 in Jersey: Jersey announces it is winding down its COVID-19 vaccination programme following advice from the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, with appointments bookable until 30 June and final appointments scheduled for July.
Ofcom have received 61 complaints about the 18 June edition of GB News's Headliners in which Lewis Schaffer made a string of claims about COVID-19, including that it was not a real virus.
22 June – Sir Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, gives evidence to the COVID-19 Inquiry, and describes the lockdown strategy employed during the pandemic as "a very radical thing to do". Whitty also speaks about an incident during which he was accosted in a London park in 2021, and warns that threats to experts could undermine future pandemic planning.
26 June – Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, tells the COVID-19 inquiry that austerity measures left public health services "denuded" and placed local health officials under "significant pressure".
27 June –
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock appears before the COVID-19 inquiry, where he criticises the UK's pandemic planning, saying it was too focussed on the aftermath of a pandemic rather than preventing one, and that resources were prioritised on planning for the event of a no deal Brexit. Hancock tells the families of those who died of the virus that he is "profoundly sorry" for each death.
Virginia Crosbie, the MP for Ynys Môn, apologises for attending a drinks event at Westminster on 8 December 2020 after the Guido Fawkes website reported she was a co-host of the event.
28 June – Jeane Freeman, Scotland's former Cabinet Secretary for Health, tells the COVID-19 inquiry that no planning could have prepared Scotland for the pandemic, and that the country came close to running out of PPE.
29 June –
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's former First Minister, tells the COVID-19 inquiry that the UK government's planning for a no deal Brexit hampered her government's planning for the pandemic, and that the 2011 UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, prepared after the 2009 United Kingdom swine flu pandemic, was inadequate. She also tells the inquiry that Scotland and the UK differed in their strategies for dealing with the pandemic, with the Scottish Government focused on preventing the pandemic as opposed to the UK government's strategy of attempting to live with it. But a lack of resources impinged upon things such as contact-tracing and testing capability, something Sturgeon tells the inquiry continues to trouble her.
A Local Government Association survey indicates that one in ten councils in England have had councillors stand down from office due to a legal requirement that council meetings should be held in person. The rule was suspended during the pandemic, but reinstated in May 2021.
30 June – The High Court hears the UK government's legal challenge to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry's demand for full access to Johnson's diaries and WhatsApp messages.
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3 July –
Sir Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, appears before the COVID-19 Inquiry, and tells the hearing that preparations for a no deal Brexit delayed preparations for a pandemic because resources were moved as the UK prepared to leave the European Union.
Data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests there were more flu related deaths than those relating to COVID-19 during the 2022–23 winter season, with just over 14,000 flu related deaths compared to just over 10,000 COVID-19 related deaths.
4 July –
UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Wales's First Minister Mark Drakeford and former Health Minister Vaughan Gething appear before the inquiry. They tell the hearing that Wales was not prepared to deal with an excess number of deaths, and the Welsh Government was not prepared for the pandemic. Gething also tells the inquiry he did not read the report into Exercise Cygnus, the UK's 2016 pandemic planning exercise.
Partygate affair: The Metropolitan Police announces it is reopening its investigation into a lockdown party held at Conservative Party Headquarters in December 2020, as well as an event held at Westminster on 8 December 2020.
5 July – Professor Jim McManus, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH), tells the COVID-19 inquiry that communication from central government was "lacking" and "unclear" during the pandemic, with local health officials often hearing about policy changes from television news conferences rather than directly from government.
6 July –
The UK government loses a High Court bid to prevent the COVID-19 Inquiry from seeing Boris Johnson's diaries and WhatsApp messages in full.
Senior Welsh civil servant Reg Kilpatrick tells the COVID-19 Inquiry he raised concerns in 2018 that the Welsh Government was not doing enough to assist the UK government with pandemic planning.
Robin Swann, Northern Ireland's Health Minister, tells the COVID-19 inquiry that short-term governments in Northern Ireland caused difficulty.
8 July – Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees, leader of Covid-19 Bereaved Families Cymru, renews calls for a Wales-specific COVID-19 Inquiry, describing a decision to establish a Senedd Committee as no substitute for an inquiry, and that it "cannot possibly cover the range of issues and get to the level of granularity that we need".
10 July –
Dr Michael McBride, Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer, appears before the COVID-19 Inquiry, and tells the hearing that the absence of ministers at Stormont prior to the pandemic had a "significant impact" on Northern Ireland's preparedness for COVID.
At 4.00pm, the deadline passes by which time Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages must be handed to the COVID-19 Inquiry, although technical problems are later reported to be delaying the process. The problem is later reported to be that Johnson could not remember the passcode, although a record of the PIN is later found.
11 July –
Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland's former First Minister, gives evidence to the COVID-19 Inquiry, telling the hearing that the UK government should have stepped in to make decisions on preparations for a health emergency in Northern Ireland during the three years it had no functioning government between January 2017 and January 2020.
In the Senedd, Wales's First Minister, Mark Drakeford, defends the country's former Health Minister Vaughan Gething for not reading pandemic paperwork until he prepared for the COVID-19 inquiry, but Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives questions how there can be confidence in Gething's current job as Economy Minister.
12 July – Michelle O'Neill, Northern Ireland's present First Minister, who was deputy during the pandemic, gives evidence to the COVID-19 Inquiry, describing the communication between the Westminster and Stormont governments as not an "easy flow of information", with meetings being "ad-hoc and tick-box".
13 July – Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, appears before the COVID-19 Inquiry, and tells the hearing that preparing for Brexit left the UK "match fit" to deal with the pandemic.
14 July – BBC News reports on a June 2021 email sent by actor Martin Compston to Scotland's then Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, requesting advice on how a co-star of the TV series Line of Duty could get a COVID-19 vaccine.
17 July –
Gerry Murphy, assistant General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, tells the COVID-19 Inquiry that people from less affluent backgrounds were more likely to be hospitalised during the pandemic. He also tells the inquiry that among this demographic there were more "premature deaths, suicide rates and generally all negative indicators".
The Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition (SHWC) writes to the Scottish Government urging them not to change its guidelines on masks for healthcare workers, claiming there are "very serious flaws" in doing so.
18 July – Matthew Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, tells the COVID-19 Inquiry about the online abuse he received after speaking about the virus following the death of his father from COVID-19 in April 2020. Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees, leader of Covid-19 Bereaved Families Cymru who lost her father during the pandemic, tells the inquiry how he died in hospital "gasping for breath" and how the bodies of those who died from the illness were treated like "toxic waste".
20 July – The first phase of the COVID-19 Inquiry comes to an end, with an interim report expected to be published in 2024.
21 July – Boris Johnson says that his pre-May 2021 WhatsApp messages have now been downloaded ready for examination by the COVID-19 inquiry.
26 July – The Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry begins, with its opening hearing taking place in Dundee.
27 July – The UK government confirms that COVID-19-era licensing rules in England allowing pubs to sell takeaway drinks will end on 30 September.
29 July – Data produced by the Zoe Health Study indicates that 789,695 people are estimated to have symptomatic COVID in the UK, with cases highest in south west England and lowest in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Boots have also reported an increase in sales of COVID tests by a third over July. The UK Health Protection Agency says it is monitoring the figures.
31 July – The 2023 Rutherglen and Hamilton West recall petition closes. A by-election is triggered after the petition to remove Margaret Ferrier from office is signed by 11,896 of the 81,124 eligible constituents, passing the required 10% threshold.
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1 August – An investigation into NHS Lanarkshire by the Information Commissioner's Office finds that staff shared the personal details of patients through an unauthorised WhatsApp group on 500 occasions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff were allowed to communicate through WhatsApp during the pandemic, but it was never authorised for communicating patient details, and the health board has apologised.
4 August – The husband of a woman who died in March 2021 after receiving her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine files a product liability lawsuit against AstraZeneca with the High Court in London.
6 August – The UK Health Security Agency reports a new strain of COVID-19, officially named EG.5.1 but also known as the Eris variant, is responsible for one in seven new cases in the UK.
8 August – The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommends the Autumn 2023 programme of COVID-19 booster vaccines should be routinely offered to all over-65s, as well as those under 65 in clinical risk groups, care home residents and frontline health workers. This marks a change from 2022 when all adults over 50 were offered the booster. The flu vaccine will also be offered to over 65s after the age was dropped to 50 during the pandemic.
10 August – NHS hospital waiting lists in England reached 7.5 million at the end of June 2023, up around 100,000 from the previous month, and up about 3 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
13 August – The UK government decides to retain COVID-19 licensing rules for pubs in England and Wales that allows the sale of takeaway drinks; they had previously been scheduled to expire on 30 September.
17 August – A Level results are published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with grades returning to pre-pandemic levels; 27.2% of all grades marked are rated as A* or A.
18 August –
The UK Health Security Agency supports a proposal for the commercial sale of COVID-19 vaccines to the public, for those wishing to top up their immunity, after the age limit on the NHS booster programme is raised from 50 to 65.
A new Omicron variant, BA.2.86, or Pirola, is first detected in the UK.
21 August – A lawsuit is filed against AstraZeneca at the High Court by a man who was diagnosed with vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia following administration of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
24 August –
A Royal Society report into non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic finds that measures such as face masks and social distancing "unequivocally" helped to prevent the spread of infections.
GCSE results are published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with 68.2% of all entries marked at grades 4/C and above. It is the second fall in overall results, taking them almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
25 August – Thirty families of relatives who died as a result of COVID-19 during the early stages of the pandemic launch legal action against the UK government, care homes and several hospitals over the policy of rapidly discharging patients from hospital into care homes without the requirement for them to isolate.
28 August – The Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by Lord Brailsford, formally gets under way with preliminary hearings at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium.
30 August – England's Autumn 2023 flu vaccination and COVID-19 booster programme is brought forward by a month from October to September, as scientists from the UK Health Security Agency monitor the BA.2.86 variant. Although it is not a variant of concern, it is being monitored due to its high number of mutations.
31 August –
The first case of the BA.2.86 COVID-19 variant is detected in Scotland.
A joint study published by the Universities of Oxford and Leicester involving 1,837 hospital patients suggests that long COVID symptoms such as brain fog and fatigue could be linked to blood clots in the brain or lungs.
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1 September – Revised data from the Office for National Statistics for the final three months of 2021 indicate the UK economy grew more strongly following the pandemic than had previously been suggested, with figures showing an 0.6% increase rather than a 1.2% decrease.
8 September –
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says there have been 34 confirmed cases of the new BA.2.86 COVID-19 variant, with 28 of those occurring at a care home in Norfolk. There have been no deaths, but the UKHSA says it is too early to draw conclusions over whether it is any more serious than previous variants.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) warns that dogs bought as puppies during lockdown may start to develop behaviour problems as they mature after behaviour issues were found in some dogs bought as companions developed after their owners returned to work and left them alone.
9 September – Chris Smith, a virologist from the University of Cambridge, describes the new variant as "not necessarily that alarming" as a result of the vaccination programme.
10 September – As the newly discovered BA.2.86 variant (known unofficially as Pirola) continues to spread, Professor Rowland Kao, an infections expert from the University of Edinburgh, calls for lateral flow COVID tests to be made freely available again.
11 September – England's Autumn 2023 flu vaccination and COVID-19 booster programme begins, having been brought forward from October due to the BA.2.86 variant. The programme begins with care home residents receiving the booster.
18 September –
People aged 65 and over in England are invited to book appointments for a COVID-19 booster vaccine.
The BBC documentary series State of Chaos is told that senior Whitehall officials raised concerns with Buckingham Palace about Boris Johnson's conduct during the pandemic, and suggested the Queen raise the matter with him during their weekly private audience.
25 September – Gatwick Airport announces that around 82 flights will be cancelled over the coming week after members of staff at its air traffic control tower tested positive for COVID-19.
27 September – A report by the Education Select Committee draws attention to the increased number of absences from schools in England, which has doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic; data for 2022–23 shows an average of 22.3% of school pupils were absent, compared to between 10% and 12% in the years prior to the pandemic. A combination of mental health issues and the cost of living crisis are attributed to the increase.
29 September – Following the publication of a report the previous day into COVID-19 outbreaks at two Northern Ireland hospitals which resulted in a number of deaths, the campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice warns that failures identified in the report still exist.
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2 October – As the winter season approaches, Thomas Waite, England's deputy chief medical officer, warns that COVID-19 will "continue to surprise us", saying that it has not yet become a seasonal illness and is therefore less predictable.
3 October – The second part of the UK's COVID-19 Inquiry begins, with the decisions made by the Johnson Government during the early days of the pandemic coming under scrutiny. Extracts from the diary of Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK government's former chief scientific adviser, are read to the hearing, and describe how he criticised Boris Johnson for "impossible flip-flopping" and "bipolar decision-making".
5 October
The COVID-19 Inquiry hears that doctors from ethnic minorities were "less likely to speak up" when given unsuitable personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
Moderna hopes to make its COVID-19 vaccine available privately in the UK in 2024, but this would require a change in its licence to allow the vaccine to be given by pharmacies and private clinics.
6 October – Anne Longfield, the former Children's Commissioner for England, tells the COVID-19 Inquiry that it was a "terrible mistake" for ministers to reopen pub gardens while schools remained closed, and that in any future emergency schools should be "the last to close and the first to reopen".
9 October – A study compiled from 10,171 respondents to a questionnaire indicates that people can experience "long colds" in the same way that people have "long COVID", with some people experiencing prolonged symptoms after an initial infection, but more research is needed.
10 October – Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell gives evidence to the COVID-19 Inquiry, and tells the hearing that the Partygate scandal has damaged the ability of governments to deal with future health crises.
11 October – The COVID-19 Inquiry hears written evidence that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not want to hold meetings with the leaders of the UK's devolved governments during the pandemic because he feared it would make the UK appear like a "mini-EU of four nations". Responsibility for doing so was instead delegated to Michael Gove, who at the time held the post of Minister for the Cabinet Office.
13 October
WhatsApp messages exchanged between senior Downing Street officials during the pandemic are read to the COVID-19 Inquiry, and show Simon Case, Downing Street permanent secretary and later Cabinet Secretary, expressing concern at the influence of Carrie Symonds, who was at the time Boris Johnson's partner.
Police confirm that 24 fines will be issued for breaches of COVID-19 rules in regard to a party held at Conservative Party HQ in December 2020 for those involved in Shaun Bailey's campaign to become London Mayor.
16 October – Lawyers for Sir Patrick Vallance, the former Chief Scientific Adviser for the United Kingdom, argue that his full diary entries should not be disclosed to the COVID-19 Inquiry as some of them served as a "brain dump" to help protect his mental health.
17 October – Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson appears before the COVID-19 Inquiry and tells the hearing there was a "lack of urgency" in government as COVID-19 began to spread.
19 October – The COVID-19 Inquiry hears that Dame Angela McLean, the Chief Scientific Officer for the United Kingdom, described Rishi Sunak as "Dr Death, the Chancellor" during a WhatsApp conversation about the Eat Out to Help Out scheme launched in August 2020. The comments, made in September 2020, came at a time of intense debate over the need for social distancing to control the COVID-19 virus.
24 October
Amber Galbraith, who represents the relatives of care home residents, tells the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry the residents were like "exhibits in a reptile house" because of COVID restrictions that limited the number of visitors, which had an "unnecessarily disproportionate" impact on care homes.
A doctor from Derry, Northern Ireland, who used her position to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, has her suspension extended by six months by the General Medical Council.
26 October – The Times reports that WhatsApp messages sent by National Clinical Director Jason Leitch cannot be handed to the UK or Scottish COVID-19 inquiries because he deleted them on a daily basis.
27 October – Scotland's former Health Secretary Alex Neil calls for an urgent review of the use of WhatsApp by government following revelations that National Clinical Director Jason Leitch deleted messages on a daily basis during the pandemic; he also says that many government ministers did not understand the rules for using the app.
29 October – The Sunday Mail reports that WhatsApp messages relating to the COVID-19 pandemic sent by First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, were manually deleted from her phone.
30 October –
First Minister Humza Yousaf says that allegations he deleted WhatsApp messages relating to the COVID-19 pandemic are "certainly not true".
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case gives evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, and the inquiry hears WhatsApp messages sent by Case during the pandemic in which he described how Prime Minister Boris Johnson "cannot lead" and "changes strategic direction every day". The inquiry also hears from a Downing Street aide that Johnson questioned why the economy was being destroyed "for people who will die anyway soon". The hearing is also told there were no COBRA briefings or notes sent to Johnson about COVID-19 for a ten day period that coincided with the February 2020 half term school holiday. Martin Reynolds, Johnson's Principal Private Secretary, who sent an email inviting Downing Street staff to a "bring your own booze" party, apologises for doing so. The inquiry is also told that a WhatsApp group established to discuss aspects of the pandemic, and which included Johnson, was set to disappearing messages.
31 October –
Lee Cain, the former Downing Street Director of Communications, gives evidence at the second phase of the COVID-19 public inquiry. He states: "I don't think there was any clarity of purpose, any really serious outlined plan to deal with Covid at that particular point and I think that was the core failure," and says the pandemic was the "wrong crisis" for Boris Johnson's "skill set".
Dominic Cummings, the former Downing Street Director of Communications, also gives evidence to the inquiry, with messages exchanged between himself and Johnson read to the hearing. Asked if he believes that an "orgy of narcissism" existed in Downing Street during that particular time, Cummings replies "Certainly".
Scotland's Deputy First Minister, Shona Robison, confirms that Scottish Government will hand 14,000 electronic messages relating to the pandemic to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.
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1 November – Former Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara tells the UK COVID-19 Inquiry that the UK response to the pandemic was harmed by what she describes as a "macho" culture in Downing Street.
2 November –
Simon Stevens, the former chief executive of NHS England, gives evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. The inquiry hears from his diary extracts that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock wanted to decide "who should live and die" if the NHS was overwhelmed.
A study published in The Lancet and using 3,000 subjects suggests the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted brain health in people aged over 50, although loneliness, alcohol consumption and stress may also be contributing factors.
3 November –
Extracts from notes written by former prime minister Boris Johnson are read to the COVID-19 Inquiry. Johnson says it is "very unlikely" the first national lockdown in 2020 could have been avoided with earlier intervention to stop the spread of COVID, but conceded the restrictions could have been avoided, but that the only intervention he could conceive would have done so was either vaccination or drugs.
The Liberal Democrats urge the UK government to be transparent about COVID-19 advertising, after Dominic Cummings tells the UK COVID Inquiry that Boris Johnson "bunged" money to friendly newspapers.
6 November – The UK COVID-19 Inquiry hears diary extracts from Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance in which he recounts a January 2021 meeting to discuss the lifting of lockdown restrictions during which former prime minister Boris Johnson referred to the Treasury as the "pro-death squad".
7 November –
The UK COVID-19 Inquiry hears that Boris Johnson proposed injecting himself with COVID-19 on live television during the early days of the pandemic to prove it did not pose a threat to the public. Lord Lister, a former adviser at 10 Downing Street, describes the suggestion as "unfortunate" and "made in the heat of the moment".
Following revelations about the deleting of WhatsApp messages by the Scottish Government, First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford (who does not use the app himself), tells the Senedd he cannot guarantee that messages sent by ministers and officials within the Welsh Government, and sought by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, were not deleted.
8 November –
Mark Sedwill, who was Cabinet Secretary at the start of the pandemic, apologises to the COVID-19 Inquiry for suggesting people should hold chickenpox parties in order to gain immunity from the virus, but says the comments were made in private and he did not make them public.
Justin Tomlinson, a former minister for disabled people, tells the UK COVID-19 Inquiry the government recognised this group was at greater risk from the virus and that work had bee done "at pace" to address this. His comments come after the inquiry had previously heard how disabled people felt their views were not properly heard over decisions made during the pandemic.
9 November –
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel tells the UK COVID-19 Inquiry that £10,000 fines introduced in August 2020 for breaching regulations on large gatherings were too high and not proportionate.
Jamie Scott, a father-of-two, who suffered a blood clot that left him with permanent brain damage after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in April 2021, is to sue the makers of the vaccine under the Consumer Protection Act.
Louise Slorance, whose husband Andrew, a senior civil servant, died after catching COVID-19 while undergoing treatment for cancer in 2020, calls for his laptop to be handed to the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry as she believes it could contain vital information relating to the pandemic.
The Rosalind Franklin Covid Laboratory in Leamington Spa, the UK's first COVID-19 testing "mega lab" which opened in June 2021, is put up for sale by the UK government.
16 November –
The Department for Education asks the exams regulator, Ofqual, to extend extra support for GCSE students in England for another year as a way to help against the impact of COVID-19 on students taking examinations.
Conservative MPs Eleanor Laing and Virginia Crosbie, who were among attendees at a lockdown gathering held at Westminster in December 2020, say they have been told by police they will not be fined over their attendance at the event.
20 November – Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic, gives evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, telling the haring that there was a complete lack of leadership in Autumn 2020 as cases rose again following the summer. Vallance He recalls that Boris Johnson struggled with scientific concepts, and that after a five-hour meeting with him, after the Prime Minister had returned from a distressing Battle of Britain memorial service, he "looked broken – his head in hands a lot." He also recalls that Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty had concerns about the "indirect harms" of lockdown.
21 November – Sir Chris Whitty, England's Chief Medical Officer at the time of the pandemic, gives evidence to the UK COVID-19 inquiry, telling the hearing the March 2020 lockdown was imposed "a bit too late" but that the government had "no good option" as it weighed up the risks to public health.
22 November – Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England's deputy chief medical officer at the time of the pandemic, gives evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, telling the hearing how he and his family received death threats and were advised by the police to leave their home. Van-Tam tells the inquiry the experience made him think about stepping down from his role, and that it could put off future experts from advising because of the potential implications.
23 November – Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch gives evidence to the COVID-19 Inquiry, and tells the hearing that misinformation and a lack of trust made it harder to reach minority groups during the pandemic.
27 November – Both Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham, the respective mayors of London and Greater Manchester, give evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, and tell the hearing that excluding regional mayors from key meetings during the pandemic harmed the response to the situation.
28 November – Former Cabinet Secretary Michael Gove tells the COVID-19 Inquiry it is not correct to say that Johnson was "incapable of making decisions" during the pandemic , saying that introducing lockdown measures was "difficult" and against his "political outlook". Gove goes on to say that the March 2020 and November 2020 restrictions were put in place too late.
29 November –
After former Health Secretary Sajid Javid tells the COVID-19 Inquiry that Boris Johnson was happy for his special adviser, Dominic Cummings, to make many of the decisions during the early part of the pandemic, former Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab rejects the claim.
BBC News highlights the stories of children starting school who are unable to speak properly because of the difficulty their parents had accessing speech therapy during the pandemic.
30 November – Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the COVID-19 Inquiry that locking down three weeks earlier than the UK did in March 2020 would have saved 90% of the lives lost to COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. He also comments on the "toxic culture" in Downing Street at the time, driven by Dominic Cummings.
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1 December – Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the COVID-19 Inquiry that more severe restrictions in January 2021, such as school closures, could have been avoided if the UK government had acted to impose a lockdown earlier in the autumn of 2020. He also suggests that local politicians put "politics over public health".
5 December – Rosalind Ranson, who was medical director for the Isle of Man during the pandemic, wins £3.2m following a tribunal hearing in which she described how her boss tried to "break" her for highlighting concerns about how the pandemic was being handled on the island.
6 December –
Boris Johnson, Prime Minister from 2019–2022, appears before the COVID-19 inquiry and is questioned by Hugo Keith, counsel for the inquiry. He apologises for the "pain and the loss and the suffering" people experienced during the pandemic. His comments are interrupted by protesters, who are ordered to leave the inquiry room.
A study by the Medical Research Council suggests that mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines could be tweaked to stop the body harmlessly misreading the code and utilised in other vaccines.
7 December –
On the second day of his appearance at the COVID-19 Inquiry, Johnson tells the hearing he did not pursue a "let it rip" strategy during the pandemic, but put forward counter arguments to challenge the consensus at meetings.
The Office for National Statistics begins the Winter Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Study, which asks people who took part in the earlier ONS Infection Survey to periodically complete surveys and take lateral flow tests.
8 December – Police have closed their investigation into potential breaches of COVID rules at a gathering held in Parliament on 8 December 2020, determining that it did not meet the threshold for issuing fines.
10 December –
Speaking in a YouTube documentary, Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone says she "regrets" not being more transparent about her involvement with PPE Medpro, a company contracted to supply personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
A report produced by the Centre for Social Justice says that the gap between the UK's "haves and have-nots" is in danger of becoming a "chasm" as it continues to grow, and cites the COVID-19 pandemic as a period when the gap widened.
11 December – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defends his Eat Out to Help Out scheme at the COVID-19 Inquiry, saying the August 2020 initiative prevented "devastating" job losses and was not responsible for a second wave of COVID infections. He also says he is "deeply sorry" to all of those who lost friends and relatives during the pandemic.
12 December – The COVID-19 Inquiry hears that WhatsApp messages on devices sent by ministers at Stormont are unavailable because their government-issued electronic devices were reset to factory settings.
14 December – A study suggests the pre-pandemic year-on-year decline in smoking in England has almost slowed to a halt. Figures show a 5.2% decrease in 2019, which slowed to 0.3 between April 2020 and August 2022.
17 December – Michelle Mone says that, under certain circumstances, she could stand to benefit from some of the profits made by personal protective equipment sold to the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic by a company run by her husband, Doug Barrowman. The next day, Sunak says the government is taking the issue "incredibly seriously" and is pursuing legal action against PPE Medpro.
20 December –
JN.1 is reported as a new variant of interest, following a recent, rapid rise in COVID-19 cases.
Government documents from July 2020 published by the COVID-19 Inquiry reveal that officials considered targeting specific groups with stronger messaging, identifying "white van man", those from ethnic minorities and young people, who it was perceived had a "reduced fear of the virus".
21 December – The Office for National Statistics and the Health Security Agency estimate that around 1 in 24 of the population of England and Scotland were infected with COVID, using data collected in the two weeks up to 13 December. Prevalence was increasing in all age groups and was highest in those aged between 18 and 44.
30 December – Figures released by NHS Wales indicate a third of staff absences are due to stress, depression or anxiety, with figures peaking after the COVID-19 pandemic at around 14,500. | 2023 |
74397376 | Carlee Russell disappearance hoax | 2023-07-20 14:18:06+00:00 | On July 13, 2023, American nursing student Carlethia Nichole Russell (born 1997/1998) allegedly disappeared for 49 hours from her home in Hoover, Alabama, falsely reporting to police afterwards that she had been abducted. The story of her disappearance went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. On July 24, Russell admitted that she had fabricated the story, and had not been abducted.
Russell made a 911 call at 9:34 pm on July 13, which has been publicly released. In the call, she says that she has stopped at the side of Interstate 459 having seen an unattended young child on the side of the highway. She then called a family member to report the same situation, before losing contact with them, with the line remaining open. Russell's car was found by police abandoned at the location she had described.
Russell appeared at her parents' house 49 hours later, on July 15, and was taken to hospital where she was briefly questioned by police. In that interview, Russell reported having been abducted by a male and placed inside a tractor trailer truck. She said she was able to escape, but was re-captured and placed in a car. She claimed to have been undressed and photographed while blindfolded, though not bound at the wrists to avoid causing ligature marks, and said that she escaped again, eventually returning home.
Crime Stoppers raised more than $63,000 in reward money for the search of Russell.
The local police department and investigators stated that they had been "unable to verify" most of Russell's statement, and that "continuing investigation had cast doubt on much of Ms. Russell's account." Among her web-searches in the days before her disappearance were "Do you have to pay for an Amber alert", "How to take money from a register without being caught", "Birmingham bus station", "One way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville", and the abduction film Taken. The Hoover Police Department stated in a press release that they had "not found any evidence of a child walking on the side of the road" nor did they "receive any additional calls about a toddler walking down the interstate."
On July 24, 2023, Russell later admitted through her attorney, Emory Anthony, that her kidnapping claim was a hoax. Her attorney stated: "There was no kidnapping on Thursday, July 13, 2023. My client did not see a baby on the side of the road. My client did not leave the Hoover area when she was identified as a missing person. My client did not have any help in this incident — this was a single act done by herself. My client was not with anyone or any hotel with anyone from the time she was missing. My client apologizes for her actions to the community, the volunteers who were searching for her, to the Hoover Police Department and other agencies, as well as to her friends and family."
Russell has been charged with two class A misdemeanors for faking the abduction: false reporting to law enforcement authorities and falsely reporting an incident.
Russell pleaded not guilty to charges of false reporting to law enforcement authorities and falsely reporting an incident, but was found guilty by Municipal Judge Brad Bishop on October 11, 2023 based on the recommendation of state prosecutors. In municipal court, there is no jury trial, however the constitution allows anyone facing jail time to have their case heard by a jury, which Russell's defense attorneys indicated she would be appealing to do.
Bishop recommended one year in jail and $17,874 in restitution for Russell. He also recommended two fines of $831 each. Russell's attorneys argued against jail time, stating it would be unusual for a first time Class A misdemeanor.
In March 2024, Russell pled guilty to two counts of filing false police reports and was sentenced to a year of probation and 100 hours of community service. She was also ordered to pay a $18,000 fine. | 2023 |
73839865 | Hold on Tight! (Inside No. 9) | 2023-05-19 08:10:32+00:00 | "Hold on Tight!" is a fake episode of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9. Advertised to be broadcast on 18 May 2023, the episode was a hoax, tricking audiences before then broadcasting the real episode, "3 by 3", which was filmed to look like a pilot quiz show hosted by Lee Mack. The hoax involved creating fake photos, an advertising poster and clips for a trailer. The episode's themes were later reprised as part of the show's finale episode "Plodding On", aired on 12 June 2024.
The episode was announced as part of the reveal of details of Series 8 of Inside No. 9. A publicity photo for "Hold on Tight!" featuring the show's stars and writers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and guest star Robin Askwith, was used to promote the series. The episode appeared to be a parody of the 1970s ITV sitcom On the Buses, with Shearsmith playing the driver Clarke, Pemberton as conductor Wolfie, and Askwith as customer Mr. Cole.
Inside No. 9 is set in various different locations, all of which share the number nine. Reportedly, fans of the series kept suggesting that an episode should be set on a No. 9 bus. "Hold on Tight!" appeared to be a reaction to this. The episode came with a fake synopsis which read: "Wolfie and Clarke love their bus – but perhaps not as much as the mysterious Mr Cole and his dolly-bird nieces. As Clarke would say, 'plenty of room up top!'" As part of the hoax, the BBC refused to put out a preview of the "episode" for critics to review. Sound designer Chris Mac revealed that the crew had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent them legally from revealing the true nature of the episode.
When "3 by 3" was broadcast instead of "Hold on Tight!", there were complaints on social media, with some viewers switching channels not realising that they were victims of a hoax. Others found clues to "3 by 3" as the real episode, such as the title of the episode being a product: 3 × 3 = 9. There were also references to other Inside No. 9 episodes such as "The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge".
Filmed at dock10 studios in a virtual studio, the episode was shortlisted for two Broadcast Tech Awards: Best Innovation Project and Best Use Of Virtual Production/Studios.
The hoax was compared to another similar episode of Inside No. 9, "Dead Line", which had been billed as a live episode broadcast especially for Halloween, about a man who receives phone calls from the dead, which in fact was a trick, the real story of the episode veering wildly off-course into a story about the broadcast being overrun by spirits haunting the TV studio and starring Shearsmith and Pemberton as themselves. Juliette Harrisson writing for Den of Geek argued that both of these hoaxes were an example of tricks that could only be performed on broadcast television rather than streaming services, saying that they best work when people are made to watch them at certain times as part of a schedule.
Writing on Twitter, Askwith said that being part of the hoax was, "a hard secret to keep", adding it was "interesting to watch the anger and despair turn to delight" as the real episode aired.
Some fans of Inside No. 9 remained convinced however, that "Hold on Tight!" was a real episode and would appear on television at some point. After Series 8 ended, BBC Two scheduled a repeat of Series 7 episode "Mr. King" to air on 1 June 2023, but some fans believed this may have been another trick and instead "Hold on Tight!" would be broadcast. Ultimately, it was "Mr. King" that was shown.
"Hold on Tight!" was referenced in the Inside No. 9 finale, "Plodding On", which is set in a wrap party for the series and sees the actors playing versions of themselves. One scene sees Askwith in a toilet with Shearsmith, suggesting ideas to make the episode real, including writing his own script. At the end of the episode, Shearsmith and Pemberton contemplate their futures, with Shearsmith planning to continue their relationship with a police comedy drama called "Plodding On" and Pemberton getting a chance to star in an American drama for Amazon. Shearsmith suggests a third way, which leads to the episode's credits being filmed in the style of "Hold on Tight!" The credits star the main actors in "Plodding On"; Shearsmith, Pemberton, Sian Gibson, Amanda Abbington, Katherine Parkinson (with both Abbington's and Parkinson's names switched due to their likeness in appearance), Askwith, Tim Key, Rosie Cavaliero and Nick Mohammed. | 2023 |
74009037 | Sweden sex competition hoax | 2023-06-11 13:05:01+00:00 | In June 2023, a hoax was posted online stating that Sweden had officially declared sex a sport and was hosting Europe's first-ever sex competition. This was false.
On various news outlets and social media platforms, news claiming "Sweden Hosting First-Ever Sex Competition" and "Sweden Officially Declares Sex as a Sport" emerged, asserting that Sweden was organizing a sex championship. According to the articles, the competition allegedly included various categories such as "oral sex" and claimed that participants from around the world were gathering in Sweden to compete.
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The initial reports about the sex competition were published by news outlets such as Marca, Greek City Times, Canadian daily The Beacon Herald, South African media house IOL, Pulse Nigeria, German media house RTL, and Pakistani news websites such as MMnews. Spanish sports daily Marca listed participants names who would allegedly represent their countries. It reports, "Twenty people from different countries are expected to compete and the winners of the events will be decided by a panel of judges scoring from five to 10 and by popular audiences." It further published another report detailing the rules of the competition without providing any legitimate sources, without proof of such a competition. CNBC TV18 published "details" on how individuals could participate in the event, including an email address linked to the "Swedish Sex Federation." Times of India reported "Sweden will soon host the European sex championship." It detailed the rules of the tournament, and says the Kamasutra will aid the participants.
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The misleading article generated significant attention and sparked discussions on social media platforms, where users expressed a range of reactions, from skepticism to curiosity. In response to this now debunked sex competition news, a hacker group from Bangladesh named Mysterious Team Bangladesh, known for their cyber exploits, announced a cyber-attack campaign titled Operation OpSweden, that focuses on inviting other hacker collectives and threat actors to participate in the sex competition.
Following the dissemination of the misleading article, several reputable fact-checking sources investigated the claims and debunked them. Outlets such as Reuters, Snopes, Mashable, The Quint, The Local, Deutsche Welle, Hindustan Times, WION, DNA India, Yahoo News, Factly.in, and Newschecker.in published articles discrediting the news.
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In January 2023, a report published in Göteborgs-Posten, a prominent Swedish-language daily newspaper, highlighted the involvement of a Swedish individual named Dragan Bratic. Bratic, who owns several strip clubs, reportedly pursued the classification of sexual activities as a sport. He submitted an application for membership to the Swedish Sports Confederation, with the intention of establishing a sex federation. The application was rejected by the Confederation in May, saying "we have things to do."
The Swedish Sports Confederation confirmed that an individual who claimed to represent a sex federation had submitted an application for membership. They clarified that the application was not accepted, emphasizing the absence of any affiliation or collaboration with any sex organization. They also made it clear that Sweden has not declared sex as a sport.
Despite the rejection, Bratic's unregistered organization, the "Swedish Sex Federation" (SSF), made an announcement regarding their intention to proceed with a sex championship. Through a written statement provided to DW (Deutsche Welle), the SSF asserted their self-financing of the entire European Championship through independent resources and voluntary efforts. The Swedish Sports Confederation, represented by spokesperson Anna Setzman, denied any involvement or support for the sex organization.
An Indian media outlet associated with CNBC published "details" on how individuals could participate in the event, including an email address linked to the "Swedish Sex Federation." A website bearing the same name does exist, although it redirects to a pornography website. As of June 2023, this website features a countdown for the "tournament" and claims that it will provide live streaming of the event.
Setzman, the spokesperson for the Swedish Sports Confederation, expressed concern regarding the dissemination of false information in the international media. She emphasized that there was no recognized sex federation affiliated with the Swedish Sports Confederation and stated that the apparent intention behind the spread of such misinformation seemed to be aimed at tarnishing the reputation of Swedish sports and Sweden as a whole.
The fact-checking reports highlighted the alleged disappointment by the self-proclaimed Swedish Sex Federation, who claimed to have received no financial support from the Swedish government's allocated funds of 2 billion Swedish kronor, which were designated for registered sports organizations.
Some of the publications have removed the initial reports after it turned out to be a hoax, while some reports from several other outlets such as India Today, The Times of India, Independent Online, Indian news website Latestly, and Marca remain published to this day. Some outlets that published misleading reports, such as Indian news website Firstpost, India TV, and Deccan Herald, also have not corrected their reporting. | 2023 |