Today in History - June 18
For Asian History: http://www.asiaobserver.org/2019/06/18
741 Jun 18, Leo III de Isaurier, Byzantine Emperor (717-41), died.
860 Jun 18, Swedish Vikings attacked Constantinople.
1053 Jun 18, In Italy Richard of Aversa helped win the Battle of Civitate, inflicting a decisive defeat over the papal army, which had joined Byzantium in an alliance against the Normans.
(www.fanaticus.org/DBA/battles/civitate.html)
1155 Jun 18, German-born Frederick I, Barbarossa, was crowned emperor of Rome by Pope Adrian IV.
1178 Jun 18, 5 Canterbury monks reported an explosion on moon (only known observation). This is the proposed time of origin of lunar crater Giordano Bruno.
1464 Jun 18, Roger Van Der Weyden (b.1400), Flemish painter, died. He had mastered the new technique of oil painting and served as the official painter to the city of Brussels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.107)
1538 Jun 18, Treaty of Nice ended the war between Emperor Charles V and King Francois I. It only lasted 10 months.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(PCh, 1992, p.180)(MC, 6/18/02)
1541 Jun 18, Irish parliament "selected" Henry VIII as King of Ireland.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.6)(MC, 6/18/02)
1580 Jun 18, States of Utrecht outlawed Catholic worship.
1581 Jun 18, Sir Thomas Overbury, English poet and courtier who became involved in numerous scandals in London, was born.
1586 Jun 18, English colonists sailed from Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America. The Roanoke colonists returned to England with 2 friendly Indians. They left behind 15 well-provisioned men to maintain the English claim.
(AP, 6/18/07)(ON, 10/01, p.1)
1629 Jun 18, Piet Heyn (51), lt.-admiral (Spanish silver fleet), died in battle.
1643 Jun 18, In England the bloody battle of Chalgrove Field occurred. Royalist strategy meetings were held at the Horsenden Manor at Buckinghamshsire.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chalgrove_Field)
1667 Jun 18, The Dutch fleet sails up the Thames and threatened London.
1757 Jun 18, Battle at Kolin, Bohemia: Austrian army beat Prussia.
1778 Jun 18, American forces entered Philadelphia as the British withdrew during the Revolutionary War.
1779 Jun 18, French fleet occupied St Vincent.
1794 Jun 18, George Grote, British historian, was born.
1812 Jun 18, The War of 1812 began as the United States declared war against Great Britain and Ireland. The term "war hawk" was first used by John Randolph in reference to those Republicans who were pro-war in the years leading up to the War of 1812. These new types of Republicans, who espoused nationalism and expansionism, included Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Most of them came from the agrarian areas of the South and West. In 2004 Walter R. Borneman authored "1812: The War That Forged a Nation."
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 5/13/99)(WSJ, 12/16/04, p.D8)
1812 Jun 18, Ivan Goncharov, Russian novelist of the Russian realism school of thought, was born. He is best known for his book "Oblomov."
1815 Jun 18, British and Prussian troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. The French elite troops of the Imperial Guard wore bearskins to appear more intimidating. Afterwards Britain established towering bear skin hats for soldiers in ceremonial duties and to guard royal residencies and the Tower of London. Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher made a short speech to his troops saying that he was pregnant and about to give birth to an elephant. He was taken from the front in protective custody and missed the battle. Napoleon lost over 40,000 men at Waterloo; the British and Belgians lost 15,000; the Prussians lost 7,000. The total losses in 3 days of fighting was later estimated at 91,800. In 2002 Andrew Roberts authored "Napoleon and Wellington." In 2005 Andrew Roberts authored "Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble."
(SFEC, 2/28/99, Z1p.10)(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W10)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.81)(ON, 4/06, p.5)
1816 Jun 18, French-born Argentine Capt. Hipolito Bouchard (1780-1837), having blocked the fortress of Callao, Peru, captured several ships including a 464-ton frigate called Consecuencia. Argentine patriot and investor Vicente Echevarria later purchased the ship, now renamed La Argentina, armed it with 34-artillery pieces and made Bouchard captain.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bouchard)(SFC, 11/11/17, p.C3)
1822 Jun 18, Slave revolt leaders Denmark Vesey & Peter Poyas were arrested in SC.
1835 Jun 18, William Cobbett (b.1763), English journalist, pamphleteer, and farmer, died in Surrey, England. "A full belly to the laborer is, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett)(http://tinyurl.com/k3qx4o9)
1852 Jun 18, In San Francisco Domingo Ghirardelli, an Italian candy-maker from Peru, announced the opening of his chocolate business at Washington and Kearny streets. [see 1855]
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 4/26/02, p.G8)(SSFC, 10/14/18, p.M6)
1857 Jun 18, Henry Clay Folger, American lawyer and businessman, co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was born.
1858 Jun 18, The US and China signed a treaty promoting "peace, amity and commerce."
1863 Jun 18, After repeated acts of insubordination, General John McClernand was relieved by General Ulysses S. Grant during the siege of Vicksburg.
1864 Jun 18, At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realized the town could no longer be taken by assault and settled into a siege.
1873 Jun 18, Suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1815-1906) was fined $100 in Canandaigua, NY, for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election. The fine was never paid [see Nov 5, 1872].
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(ON, 12/09, p.4)
1877 Jun 18, James Montgomery Flagg, American artist and author, was born. He created the world War I recruiting poster of Uncle Sam saying "I want you."
1880 Jun 18, John Sutter (b.1803), Swiss-born California settler (gold discovered on his land), died in Lititz, Pa.
(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.D6)(MC, 6/18/02)
1892 Jun 18, Macadamia nuts were 1st planted in Hawaii.
1896 Jun 18, Blanche Sweet, film actress, was born.
1898 Jun 18, The 1st amusement pier opened in Atlantic City, NJ.
1900 Jun 18, Empress Douairisre ordered I-Ho-Chuan (the Boxers) to kill all foreigners. [see Jun 21]
1901 Jun 18, Hazen Stuart Pingree (b.1840), a four-term Republican mayor of Detroit (1889–1897) and the 24th Governor of the US state of Michigan (1897–1901), died in London while returning from an African safari.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazen_S._Pingree)
1903 Jun 18, 1st transcontinental auto trip began in SF and arrived in NY 3-months later. [see Jul 26]
1908 Jun 18, William Howard Taft was nominated for president by the Republican national convention in Chicago.
1912 Jun 18, Glen Morris, Olympic champion, actor (Tarzan), was born in MO.
1913 Jun 18, Robert Mondavi was born in the mining town of Virginia, Minn. The family moved to California in 1921 and went into the grape business in Lodi.
1916 Jun 18, In San Francisco the newly completed baths at the Dolores playground were dedicated and opened to the 43,000 children of the Mission district. The new open-air tank was built at a cost of about $20,000.
1918 Jun 18, Allied forces on the Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the spent German army.
1919 Jun 18, In California some 8,000 telephone girls went on strike demanding $4 a day for operators with two years experience.
1928 Jun 17, Amelia Earhart embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales as a passenger. [see Jun 18]
1928 Jun 18, Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours as a passenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 3/8/02)
1928 Jun 18, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (b.1872) flew to the North Pole with a crew of rescuers to search for the survivors of the dirigible Italia. They were never seen again.
(ON, 10/00, p.8)(Ind, 4/27/02, 5A)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen)
1929 Jun 18, Eva Bartok, actress, was born.
1931 Jun 18, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was born. He served 2 terms as president of Brazil (1994-2002)
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1936 Jun 18, In San Francisco Wally the elephant (25) was shot to death following the June 16 trampling death of Fleishhacker Zoo keeper Edward Brown (42).
(SSFC, 6/12/11, DB p.46)(SSFC, 6/19/11, DB p.46)
1936 Jun 18, In NYC mobster Charles 'Lucky' Luciano (1897-1962) was found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution. On July 18 Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison. He was released and deported to Italy in 1946.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano)
1936 Jun 18, Maxim Gorkei (Aleksvey Maksimovich Pyeshkov [aka Gorky], b.1868], Russian dramatist, died. "A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains."
(WUD, 1994 p.611)(HN, 3/16/98)(AP, 2/23/01)(NG, 7/04, p.132)
1937 Jun 18, Gail Godwin, writer (The Perfectionists, The Southern Family), was born.
1937 Jun 18, John D. Rockefeller IV, U.S. Senator, was born.
1938 Jun 18, Babe Ruth was signed as a Dodger's coach for the rest of the season.
1940 Jun 18, During World War Two, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged his countrymen to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, "This was their finest hour."
1940 Jun 18, Charles de Gaulle, future president of France, broadcast to his nation from London, urging it to rally to him and fight Hitler's invading army.
1940 Jun 18, Soviet occupation was completed in the Baltics. For the Soviet intrusion into the German sphere of influence, Stalin compensated Germany with a payment of 7.5 million gold dollars.
(DrEE, 10/26/96, p.4)
1940 Jun 18, At a meeting of the Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, a USGS geologist named Joseph Thomas Pardee presented evidence that the large Glacial Lake Missoula had long ago burst its ice dam and was the source for the floodwaters that J. Harlen Bretz said formed the Scablands.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.54)
1941 Jun 18, Joe Louis KO'd Billy Conn in 13 for the heavyweight boxing title.
1941 Jun 18, Turkey signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany.
1942 Jun 18, Roger Ebert, film critic, was born in Urbana, Ill.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, Par p.26)
1942 Jun 18, Paul McCartney, songwriter and singer and member of the Beatles, was born. He went on to form Wings before heading on to a solo career.
1942 Jun 18, The U.S. Navy commissioned its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.
1942 Jun 18, Eric Nessler of France stayed aloft in a glider for 38h 21m.
1942 Jun 18, John Kubris (28), Czech resistance fighter, killed Nazi SS leader Reinhard Heydrich, died.
1942 Jun 18, Adolf Opalka, Czech resistance fighter, was shot down.
1944 Jun 18, The U.S. First Army broker through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cut off the German held port of Cherbourg.
1945 Jun 18, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower received a tumultuous welcome in Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress. Eisenhower went on to meet Pres. Harry Truman and the 2 men established a warm relationship that later soured. In 2001 Steve Neal authored "Harry and Ike: The Relationship That Remade the Postwar World."
(AP, 6/18/97)(WSJ, 11/5/01, p.A19)
1945 Jun 18, William Joyce, known as "Lord Haw-Haw," was charged in London with high treason for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio. He was hanged the following January.
1945 Jun 18, Organized Japanese resistance ended on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
1948 Jun 18, The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It stated in part that: "Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own and to return to that country." In 2001 Mary Ann Glendon authored "A World Made New," a history of the drafting of the declaration.
(AP, 6/18/97)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)(WSJ, 3/1/00, p.A20)
1948 Jun 18, Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record in New York.
1949 Jun 18, Chris Van Allsburg, children's author and illustrator (Jumanji, The Polar Express), was born.
1951 Jun 18, General Vo Nguyen Giap ended his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina.
1953 Jun 18, Egypt was declared a republic, and the monarchy was abolished, ending the rule of Muhammad Ali's dynasty. Naguib became the first president and also prime minister. Nasser became deputy prime minister and minister of interior.
(http://countrystudies.us/egypt/32.htm)
1953 Jun 18, South Korean President Syngman Rhee released Korean non-repatriate POWs against the will of the U.N.
1954 Jun 18, Albert Patterson was assassinated in Phenix, Ala. He had recently been elected as attorney general on a platform to crack down on vice. His murder led the governor to call in the National Guard to replace local law enforcement and cleanup the vice. Patterson's son John filled the attorney general position and soon became the subject of the movie "The Phenix City Story." He was elected governor in 1958.
(USAT, 6/29/04, p.7A)
1954 Jun 18, Pierre Mendes-France (1907-1982) became Premier of France. His political signature was a glass of milk. After the war, some French leaders were concerned that French people were drinking too much wine and starting to drink at too early an age. When Mendes-France would appear in public, there invariably was a glass of milk on the lectern, which he made a point of sipping some time during the presentation
(http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/this-day-june-18-in-jewish-history.html)
1958 Jun 18, President Eisenhower expressed support for his chief of staff, Sherman Adams, who was accused of improperly accepting gifts from a businessman. Adams resigned in September 1958.
1959 Jun 18, A Federal Court annulled the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration.
1966 Jun 18, Samuel Nabrit became the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission.
1967 Jun 18, The 3-day Monterey Pop Festival featured Pete Townshend and The Who on the Sunday finale. They nearly stopped the show with the destruction of guitars, drums and microphones on stage. They were immediately followed by Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead. The festival also featured Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding.
(WSJ, 8/11/95, p.A-7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Pop_Festival)
1971 Jun 18, Fred Smith (b.1944) founded Federal Express Corporation, an overnight air freight delivery service, in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was based on a hub and spoke business plan he cooked up at Yale. In 1973 he moved the operation to Memphis, Tennessee.
(http://tinyurl.com/6mvfvy)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.70)
1971 Jun 18, Southwest Airlines, co-founded by Herbert Kelleher, made its 1st flight.
(WSJ, 1/13/03, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines)
1972 Jun 18, A BEA Trident, Flight BE548, crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118 people.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19720618-0&lang=de)
1973 Jun 18, The NCAA made urine testing mandatory for participants.
(http://tinyurl.com/588wkr)
1975 Jun 18, Faisal Ibn Mussed Abdul Aziz, Saudi prince, was beheaded in a Riyadh shopping center parking lot for killing his uncle the king.
(http://tinyurl.com/47da5p)
1976 Jun 18, In California an assailant broke into the home of a Rancho Cordova woman, tied her hands and raped her in her bed. This was the first recorded case by the serial offender who came to be called the East Area Rapist. He was later believed responsible for 12 killings and over 45 rapes over the next 10 years. His last known crime was a murder in Irvine on May 5, 1986.
1976 Jun 18, Scientist confirmed Einstein's equivalence principle in the experiment called Gravity Probe A. They confirmed that clocks in gravitational fields of differing strengths do not keep the same time.
(NH, 3/05, p.55)
1978 Jun 18, The Whitewater business venture was incorporated. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary set up their 50-50 Whitewater venture with Mr. & Mrs. McDougal. The Clintons lost money in the real estate deal that later turned into the Whitewater scandal.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_(controversy))(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A12)(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A19)
1979 Jun 18, President Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna. The agreement set a ceiling on long-range bombers and missiles and limited development to only one new land-base missile system for the duration of the treaty.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HNQ, 11/15/99)
1981 Jun 18, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart announced his retirement; his departure paved the way for Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female associate justice.
1982 Jun 18, John Cheever (b.1912), American Pulitzer Prize winning writer, died. His work included "the Wapshot Chronicle" and "the World of Apples." In 2009 Blake Bailey authored "Cheever: A Life."
(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cheever)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1982 Jun 18, The body of Roberto Calvi (1920–1982), an Italian banker, was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge in the financial district of London. Calvi, director of Banco Ambrosiano, allegedly hanged himself following the fraudulent bankruptcy of the bank. Calvi's clothing was stuffed with building bricks, and he was carrying around $15,000 of cash in three different currencies. Calvi, dubbed by the press as "God's Banker" due to his close association with the Vatican, had gone missing on June 10. The Holy See was the main shareholder in the bank, which had been accused of laundering money for the Sicilian mafia. In 1992 Carlo De Benedetti, the chairman of Olivetti SpA, was convicted for contributing to the bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano. In 1996 courts upheld his conviction and that of 30 others. In 2003 RAI state television said prosecutors believed the Mafia killed Roberto Calvi because he lost their money and knew too much about their operations. In 2005 a trial began for 5 people in the murder of Calvi. In 2007 a jury acquitted all 5 defendants charged with the murder of Calvi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A10)(AP, 7/24/03)(AP, 10/6/05)(AP, 6/6/07)(AP, 11/2/18)
1983 Jun 18, Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America's first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
1983 Jun 18, IRA's Joseph Doherty was arrested in NYC for illegally entering the US. The British sought his extradition on charges relating to the death of a member of a British commando unit.
(http://ftp.fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900803-terror.htm)
1984 Jun 18, Alan Berg, a Denver radio talk show host, was shot to death outside his home. (Two white supremacists were later convicted of civil rights violations in the slaying.)
1986 Jun 18, 25 people were killed when a twin-engine plane and helicopter carrying sightseers collided over the Grand Canyon.
1988 Jun 18, Vice President George Bush launched a sharp attack against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, accusing the Massachusetts governor of coddling criminals by allowing some convicts out of prison on weekend furloughs.
1988 Jun 18, Turkey's PM Turgut Ozal survived an attempted assassination. He had worked to eliminate the black market in cigarettes and suspected the cigarette smuggling mafia.
(WSJ, 2/11/99, p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgut_%C3%96zal)
1989 Jun 18, John Wayne Bobbitt (b.1967) married Lorena L Gallo (b.1970). [see Jan 10, 1994]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bobbitt)
1989 Jun 18, Greek Premier Andreas Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement suffered a defeat as the center-right New Democracy Party finished first in general elections.
1990 Jun 18, James Edward Pough went on a shooting rampage at an auto-financing company office in Jacksonville, Florida, after his car was repossessed. He fatally wounded 8 people before killing himself.
(AP, 6/18/00)(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A7)
1991 Jun 18, The Louisiana Legislature enacted a strict anti-abortion law, overriding a veto by Governor Buddy Roemer.
1991 Jun 18, Russia's newly elected president, Boris Yeltsin, arrived in the United States for visits with American officials, including President Bush.
1992 Jun 18, Russian President Boris Yeltsin met with Democrat Bill Clinton in Washington before flying on to Kansas and then Canada.
1992 Jun 18, The US Supreme Court ruled criminal defendants may not use race as a basis for excluding potential jurors from their trials.
1992 Jun 18, Entertainer Peter Allen (48) died in San Diego County, Calif., of complication from AIDS.
1992 Jun 18, Ireland's voters overwhelmingly approving a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty for a European union.
(www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/ireland.htm)
1993 Jun 18, The US Supreme Court ruled that deaf parochial school students may be provided publicly funded sign-language interpreters.
1993 Jun 18, In Japan, the government of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa fell.
1993 Jun 18, In the Seychelles Albert Rene restored multiparty democracy and went on to win three straight elections. This was later marked as National Day.
(AP, 8/1/06)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.P3)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.P3)
1994 Jun 18, In Northern Ireland protestant paramilitary gunmen entered the Heights Bar in the village of Loughinisland and opened fire indiscriminately on customers watching Ireland play Italy in a televised World Cup match, killing six, including 87-year-old Barney Greene, one of the oldest victims in the 'Troubles'.
1994 Jun 18, The presidents of North Korea and South Korea agreed to hold a historic summit. Plans were disrupted by the death of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on July 8.
1995 Jun 18, About 300 inmates trashed an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
1995 Jun 18, A private plane carrying the Angolan soccer team crashed in Luanda, Angola, killing 48 people.
1995 Jun 18, The Bosnian Serbs announced the resumption of cooperation with the UN. Serbs released the last 26 UN hostages held since NATO airstrikes.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)(AP, 6/18/00)
1996 Jun 18, In California Richard Allen Davis was convicted in San Jose, Calif., on all charges in the 1993 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klass of Petaluma.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/18/97)
1996 Jun 18, Federal prosecutors in California charged Theodor J. Kaczynski, the UNABOM suspect, in four of the Unabomber attacks He was indicted by a federal grand jury for two killings in Sacramento.
1996 Jun 18, In central Florida the first family moved into Celebration, a new city developed by the Disney Corp. as an antidote to the isolation of the suburbs.
1996 Jun 18, Two Army transport helicopters collided and crashed during training exercises near Fort Campbell, Ky., killing six and injuring 33.
1996 Jun 18, Heriberto Seda, a 28-year-old recluse obsessed with guns and the Bible, shot his teenage sister in New York City. He later admitted to being the Zodiac killer, guilty of murders from 1990.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.C12)
1996 Jun 18, Bosnian Serb women held 2 diplomats hostage and demanded action on 1400 Bosnian Serbs who are either missing or held by Muslims and Croats.
1996 Jun 18, Netanyahu was inaugurated as Israeli Prime Minister.
(www.jafi.org.il/education/jafi75/timeline8g.html)
1996 Jun 18, Boris Yeltsin named Gen'l. Alexander Lebed to head the Security Council. Lebed had won 14.7% of the vote in Sunday's election. Yeltsin also fired his defense chief, Grachev.
1997 Jun 18, The Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Co., protesting what the convention called "gay-friendly" policies.
1997 Jun 18, Sirhan Sirhan failed in his 10th bid for parole in the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
1997 Jun 18, Irineo Montoya, a Mexican laborer, was executed by the state of Texas for a 1985 killing despite protests by the Mexican government.
1998 Jun 18, President Clinton appointed UN ambassador Bill Richardson to replace Energy Secretary Federico Pena and named Bosnian peace architect and diplomatic troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke as the new representative to the United Nations. The Holbrooke nomination was held up for a year because of ethics questions.
1998 Jun 18, Smoking was banned in SF public parks and recreation centers, but the larger city parks were exempt.
1998 Jun 18, In Portage, Ind., a Chicago-bound commuter train struck a truck and dislodged a steel coil that crashed into the first train car and crushed 3 people to death.
1998 Jun 18, In North Carolina an Amtrak train crashed into a tractor-trailer and killed the driver. Ten others were injured.
1998 Jun 18, China formally declared it new housing policy that eliminated the right of workers to cost-free apartments by the end of the year.
1998 Jun 18, In Nigeria six more political detainees were released.
1998 Jun 18, In Puerto Rico fearing loss of their jobs 6,400 workers of Telefonica went on strike and began cutting telephone cables.
1999 Jun 18, The US House of Rep. defeated a measure for gun control, 280-to-147, and approved a proposal to allow the Ten Commandments to be posted on schoolhouse walls.
1999 Jun 18, The Native American Church of North America made an agreement with US Defense Dept. officials at its 50th annual convention to allow Native Americans to use peyote in religious services.
1999 Jun 18, Arsonists struck three synagogues in the Sacramento, California, area. Two white supremacist brothers have pleaded innocent to federal charges of setting the fires.
1999 Jun 18, The US and Russia agreed on terms for Russian participation in Kosovo peacekeeping.
1999 Jun 18, The Group of Seven nations opened a three-day summit in Cologne, Germany. The G-7 nations agreed to cut the debt burden of the world's poorest countries to a total of $65-90 billion.
1999 Jun 18, NATO peacekeepers took 25 KLA members into custody after finding 15 Gypsy prisoners they had mistreated. Serb media reported that KLA fighters had killed 3 Serbs in Novo Selo and kidnapped 18 Serbs near Pristina.
1999 Jun 18, In London some 4,000 protestors rampaged through the financial district as part of the "Carnival Against Capitalism."
1999 Jun 18, In Chechnya the worst fighting in months broke out as Chechen fighters attacked Russian border posts in Dagestan. 7 men were killed and 15 wounded in separate confrontations.
1999 Jun 18, Kiribati reported that the islands of Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea were swallowed by the ocean.
2000 Jun 18, Tiger Woods won the US Open Golf Championship at Pebble Beach by 12 under par and 15 strokes ahead of his nearest rival.
2000 Jun 18, A US F-14 Tomcat fighter jet crashed during an air show at Willow Grove, Pa. Two naval aviators were killed.
2000 Jun 18, Nancy Marchand, Emmy-winning actress (The Sopranos), died in Stratford, Connecticut, a day before her 72nd birthday.
2000 Jun 18, In Algeria the Foreign Ministers of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed an accord to cease hostilities immediately. The agreement called for an int'l. peacekeeping force in a buffer zone reaching 15 miles into Eritrea.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A8)(SFC, 6/20/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 18, In England officials found 58 bodies in the back of a truck carrying tomatoes at Dover. The truck had arrived from Zeebrugge under 86-degree heat and 54 male and 4 female Chinese immigrants from Fujian province appeared to have suffocated. There were 2 survivors. The chief suspect was arrested in Rotterdam in 2001. In 2001 Dutch driver Perry Wacker (32) was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ying Guo (30) was convicted of conspiracy and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.A1)(SFC, 6/21/00, p.A12)(SFC, 1/23/01, p.C14)(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D6)
2000 Jun 18, In Algeria the Foreign Ministers of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed an accord to cease hostilities immediately in a two-year-old border war. The agreement called for an int'l. peacekeeping force in a buffer zone reaching 15 miles into Eritrea.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A8)(SFC, 6/20/00, p.A12)(AP, 6/18/05)
2000 Jun 18, In Jordan King Abdullah II accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Abdur-Ra-'uf Rawabdeh and appointed economist Ali Abu Ragheb (54) to form a cabinet.
2000 Jun 18, In Haiti Leon Manus (78), the top election official, refused to approve the results of the election and fled to the US.
2000 Jun 18, In Syria Bashar Assad was elected as sec. gen. of the ruling Baath Party.
2001 Jun 18, A judge in Golden, Colo., sentenced two therapists to 16 years in prison each in the death of a 10-year-old girl who had suffocated while wrapped in blankets during a "rebirthing" session. Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder were convicted of reckless child abuse in the death of Candace Newmaker.
2001 Jun 18, US federal regulators imposed a price ceiling on Western wholesale electricity prices effective June 19 to the end of summer.
2001 Jun 18, The US Navy dropped dummy bombs on Vieques island. A number of protesters were arrested for trespassing.
2001 Jun 18, In India protesters burned down the legislature in northeastern Manipur state. Police shot and killed 11 protesters, who opposed a truce between the federal government and a separatist group. It was the 3rd day of a general strike.
(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A9)(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.T9)
2001 Jun 18, In Indonesia police fired warning shots at students in Jakarta protesting a 30% increase in fuel prices.
2001 Jun 18, Russian authorities reported that 19 servicemen were detained on suspicion of killing civilians in Chechnya. 7-8 civilians were recently killed near Pobedenskoye.
2001 Jun 18, In Yemen 15 suspected terrorists were arrested. US FBI investigators had pulled out on June 17 under a security threat.
(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A9)(WSJ, 6/20/01, p.A1)
2002 Jun 18, Pres. Bush sent to Congress his detailed proposal for creation of a new Homeland Security Department.
2002 Jun 18, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura announced he would not seek a second term.
(AP, 6/18/03)(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A2)
2002 Jun 18, The Rodeo-Chediski Fire began some 110 miles northeast of Phoenix. It soon covered over 60,000 acres including the community of Pinedale. Leonard Gregg (29) started the fire to get work and was arrested June 30. The fire came under control on July 7 and ended up raging over 470,000 acres of eastern Arizona.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodeo-Chediski_fire)(SFC, 7/1/02, p.A1)(Arch, 9/02, p.16)
2002 Jun 18, Raymond Lubow (82), creator of the special effects Morley pedals, died. The "Morley Man" logo was a wailing, long-haired rocker.
2002 Jun 18, In London it was reported that sparrows numbers had declined steeply for no known reason.
2002 Jun 18, In Colombia workers at the state oil company declared a two-day strike to protest the assassination of one of their union officials, who have allegedly been threatened by a right-wing paramilitary group.
2002 Jun 18, PM Peter Medgyessey was accused of having secretly served in Hungary's Communist-era counter-espionage service.
2002 Jun 18, A Palestinian man, Muhammad al-Ghoul (22), detonated nail-studded explosives on a Jerusalem bus crowded with high school students and office workers, killing himself and 19 passengers in the city's deadliest suicide attack in six years. Fifty-five people were wounded in the Hamas attack.
(AP, 6/18/02)(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A10)(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 18, Saudi Arabia announced its first al-Qaida-related arrests since Sept. 11 and said it was holding 11 Saudis, an Iraqi and a Sudanese man behind a plot to shoot down a U.S. military plane taking off from a Saudi air base.
2003 Jun 18, Andrew Luster (39), a convicted rapist and heir to the Max Factor fortune, was arrested after 5 months on the run. He was picked up by Mexican police in Puerto Vallarta as he scuffled with bounty hunters who had trailed him from California.
2003 Jun 18, The Mercury Policy Project reported that 1/3 of albacore tuna contained levels of toxic mercury exceeding a federally recommended dose fro women of child-bearing age.
2003 Jun 18, Larry Doby (70), baseball Hall-of-Famer who broke the American League's color barrier in 1947, died in Montclair, N.J.
2003 Jun 18, In Finland PM Anneli Jaatteenki resigned amid accusations that she lied about sensitive political information during her election campaign.
2003 Jun 18, A demonstration by former Iraqi army officers demanding back pay turned violent after an American soldier fired into the crowd. 2 Iraqis were killed. One American was killed in a drive-by shooting in south Baghdad.
2003 Jun 18, Japan, which had begun counting the homeless for the first time, estimated the homeless population at 25,000 compared to 600,000 in the US.
(WSJ, 6/18/03, p.A1)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.86)
2003 Jun 18, Israel agreed to curb its "track-and-kill" operations against Palestinian militants in a deal struck with US officials to help them salvage a new peace plan torn by violence.
2004 Jun 18, The Commerce Dept. reported that the US current-account deficit grew to a record $144.9 billion in the 1st quarter. The current-account deficit for 2003 was $530.7 billion.
2004 Jun 18, The Hanky Panky thong model 4811 was described as the top seller in its category. In 2003 thongs accounted for a quarter of the $2.6 billion panty market. Gale Epstein and Lida Orzeck began Hanky Panky in the late 1970s.
2004 Jun 18, It was reported that farming and related businesses accounted for 12% of the US GDP and about 17% of American jobs.
2004 Jun 18, It was reported that Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo, and his wife Jane Bovington Semel planned to donate $25 million to UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute.
2004 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan Taliban insurgents attacked a government office in Mizan, sparking a gunfight with Afghan troops that killed seven people.
2004 Jun 18, European Union leaders sealed a hard-fought deal on a new constitution. It needs approval by all 25 member states before it can take effect, expected in 2007.
2004 Jun 18, Germany's parliament passed a measure that will allow the military to shoot down hijacked airliners in German airspace if they are deemed a threat.
2004 Jun 18, Insurgents clashed with U.S. forces northeast of Baghdad for the second time in as many days, and two of the militants were killed.
2004 Jun 18, South Korea said it will send 3,000 soldiers to northern Iraq beginning in early August to assist the U.S.-led coalition.
2004 Jun 18, A Saudi al-Qaida group said it killed American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., posting 3 photos on the Internet showing his body and severed head. Hours later Saudi security forces killed Abdulaziz al-Moqrin (31), a top al-Qaida leader, and 3 other militants in Riyadh.
2004 Jun 18, The U.N. atomic watchdog agency censured Iran for past cover-ups in its nuclear program in a resolution, warning Tehran to be more forthcoming.
2004 Jun 18, The UN warned the Aral Sea, once one of the world's largest inland bodies of water, could dry up unless neighboring countries work to increase its water supply.
2004 Jun 18, West African defense chiefs agreed to create a 6,500-strong multinational force to respond to "crisis and threats to peace" in the war-ravaged region. The announcement followed a 2-day meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, involving defense chiefs of staff from the 15 member nations of ECOWAS.
{Nigeria}
(AP, 6/18/04)(www.ecowas.info/)
2005 Jun 18, Former Texas Congressman J.J. "Jake" Pickle died in Austin at age 91.
2005 Jun 18, In Australia more than a dozen Chinese nationals detained for immigration violations slashed their wrists and body parts in attempted suicide fearing they will be deported.
2005 Jun 18, In Austria an explosion ripped through a pizzeria in a town in the southeastern province of Styria, killing 2 children and injuring 7, in a blast that may have been the result of an attack.
2005 Jun 18, In Azerbaijan thousands of demonstrators chanting "Freedom" and carrying portraits of President Bush marched across Baku, demanding the resignation of the government and free parliamentary elections.
2005 Jun 18, Calgary, Canada, declared an unprecedented state of emergency as flood fears prompted by heavy rain forced 2,000 residents to be ordered out of their homes.
(CP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, It was reported that rising waters in China's central Dongting Lake, one of the nation's largest freshwater bodies, are forcing millions of rats into surrounding farmlands where the rodents are ravaging crops.
2005 Jun 18, EU leaders blamed each other after a summit collapsed without any real agreement on what lies ahead for the half-century project of uniting the continent. But they agreed Europe is in a crisis.
2005 Jun 18, In Guatemala huge explosions rocked a weapons storehouse on a military base north of Guatemala City. There were no casualties.
2005 Jun 18, Reliance, India's largest private sector conglomerate, said the $24 billion group would be split between Anil and Mukesh Ambani in a deal brokered by their mother.
(AP, 6/19/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.58)
2005 Jun 18, Iraqi forces and US Marines battled insurgents on two fronts in a restive western province, killing about 50 militants. It was the 2nd day of Operation Spear, Romhe in Arabic, the military's latest campaign to stop foreign fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria. In Baghdad a 10-year-old Iraqi girl was killed and 2 people were injured when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy and detonated near the child.
2005 Jun 18, In Kyrgyzstan Mukar Cholponbayev, who served as speaker of the Central Asian nation's lower parliament house in the late 1990s, was arrested in the capital Bishkek for allegedly helping to organize the previous day's takeover of the government headquarters.
2005 Jun 18, Militants in southern Nigeria released six oil workers taken hostage by a group demanding $20 million from Shell for local communities.
2005 Jun 18, The Palestinian parliament passed a compromise election law afternoon removing a major hurdle to new legislative elections that were originally scheduled for next month but were postponed indefinitely.
2005 Jun 18, Palestinian militants attacked a Gaza Strip settlement, sparking a gunbattle that killed one of the attackers and wounded another.
2005 Jun 18, The beheaded bodies of a Laotian couple were found in southern Thailand over the weekend and were believed to be the latest victims of Muslim separatist violence.
2005 Jun 18, A senior Saudi police officer was killed in a drive-by shooting in Mecca.
2005 Jun 18, In Scotland a couple was wed in Britain's first legally recognized humanist ceremony. 12 members of the Humanist Society of Scotland were granted the right to legally conduct marriages by the country's registrar general starting June 1.
2005 Jun 18, In Spain ETA announced it will no longer kill elected members of political parties.
2005 Jun 18, Sudan signed a reconciliation deal with one of the country's largest opposition groupings. The accord with the National Democratic Alliance is part of the government's drive to clean up Sudan's multiple political and military conflicts.
2005 Jun 18, Venezuela said another land holding of Britain's Vestey Group Ltd. has been found to be idle and rightfully belongs to the state. The 67,000-acre ranch, owned by Vestey subsidiary Agroflora, was reported to be underutilized.
2006 Jun 18, American Delegates at the Episcopal General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (52) as their next leader. She would become the first woman to lead any member of the global Anglican Communion.
2006 Jun 18, Donald Reilly, prominent cartoonist, died in Norwalk, Con. His work included 1,107 cartoons and 16 covers for the New Yorker magazine.
2006 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan Taliban fighters ambushed two convoys carrying members of the same family, killing 32 people. US-led troops, backed by Afghan forces, raided a mountain Taliban stronghold near Tirin Kot, Uruzgan's provincial capital, and killed 7 militants.
2006 Jun 18, Burundi's government and the country's last rebel group agreed, while meeting in Tanzania, to end hostilities and sign a comprehensive cease-fire deal in two weeks.
2006 Jun 18, China's PM Wen Jiabao wrapped up a two-day visit to Cairo after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and signing 10 oil, natural gas and telecommunications deals. He was also scheduled to visit Ghana, Republic of Congo, Angola, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
2006 Jun 18, China's PM Wen Jiabao went to Ghana, where he signed an agreement to lend the small West African nation about $66 million to fund a number of projects. China has leapfrogged Ghana's traditional trading partners India and Britain to become the West African nation's biggest foreign investor.
(AFP, 6/17/06)(AP, 6/19/06)
2006 Jun 18, In Egypt 2 brothers who led a gang that held more than 100 people hostage two years ago were hanged in Alexandria.
2006 Jun 18, Gunmen seized 10 workers from a bakery in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, while a car bomb exploded near a university in the northern city of Mosul, killing a woman and wounding 19 other people.
2006 Jun 18, Lt. Col. Omar el-Heib (43), a high-ranking Israeli Arab army officer, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for passing military secrets to one of Israel's most bitter enemies in exchange for money and drugs. He denied spying for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and accused the military court in Tel Aviv of racism after the sentence was handed down. El-Heib was gravely wounded by a Hezbollah roadside bombing while serving in Lebanon in 1996. Surgeons had to remove one of his eyes. The injuries left him partially paralyzed and with shards of metal still lodged in his head.
2006 Jun 18, In the Himalayan region of Indian Kashmir at least 23 people were killed and an equal number hurt when a truck filled with workers plunged into a gorge.
2006 Jun 18, Kazakhstan launched its first satellite into orbit.
2006 Jun 18, Pakistani troops battling an insurgent attack on a military post killed two suspected militants in a northwestern tribal region.
2006 Jun 18, Thousands of Palestinian government workers who have been living without salaries for nearly four months received food packets from the UN.
2006 Jun 18, Slovakia's leftist Smer party promised a radical break with economic reforms on after winning an election that showed voters' fatigue with the tough changes made during eight years of center-right rule.
2006 Jun 18, Catalans went to the polls in a referendum on giving their region increased autonomy, in a crucial test for Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as he seeks to rally support for peace talks with Basque separatists. Catalan voters overwhelmingly approved a blueprint that some fear could leave Spain's government cash-strapped and powerless.
2006 Jun 18, In northern Sri Lanka a mine blast blamed on Tamil Tigers rebels killed 3 police.
2006 Jun 18, In eastern Turkey a bomb explosion on a railway track destroyed eight carriages of a cargo train.
2006 Jun 18, In Turkmenistan authorities arrested Ogulsapar Muradova, a reporter affiliated with Bulgaria-based Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, funded by the US. They detained her three adult children the next day. Muradova and two other rights defenders, Amankurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khajiyev, were sentenced from six to seven years. In September Muradova died while in prison.
2007 Jun 18, US Supreme Court justices ruled 9-0 that car passengers have the same right as drivers to challenge the legality of police stops of vehicles in which they are riding.
2007 Jun 18, NYC officials detailed an experimental anti-poverty program whereby poor residents will be rewarded for good behavior, like $300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor.
2007 Jun 18, In California a citizen's commission, appointed by the governor, voted to raise the compensation of legislators and most constitutional officers by 2.75%.
2007 Jun 18, Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer, handing over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang.
2007 Jun 18, In Florida Avion Lawson (14) and Nathan Walker (16) were among a group of about 10 masked suspects who forced their way into a woman's apartment in a crime-ridden housing project. The 2 teenagers were later accused of gang raping the woman and forcing her son (12) to join in the attack, then beating him and pouring cleaning solution into his eyes.
2007 Jun 18, Torrential overnight rainfall flooded a handful of North Texas towns killing at least 4. People and their pets were stranded on the roofs of their homes awaiting rescue.
2007 Jun 18, In Charleston, SC, a fire swept through a furniture warehouse, collapsing the building's roof and claiming the lives of nine firefighters.
2007 Jun 18, In Utah an 11-year-old boy was dragged from a tent and killed by a black bear in American Fork Canyon.
2007 Jun 18, In Berkeley, Ca., Kevin Morrissey (51), overwhelmed by financial worries, shot and killed his wife and 2 children in Tilden Park.
2007 Jun 18, Hank Medress (68), singer, died in Manhattan of lung cancer. His vocals with the doo wop group the Tokens helped propel their irrepressible single "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to the top of the charts in 1961. He also produced hits with other groups.
2007 Jun 18, Afghan insurgents said they had captured mountainous Myanishen district in the southern province of Kandahar.
2007 Jun 18, Afghan officials said more than 100 people, including militants, civilians and police, have died in three days of fierce clashes between NATO forces and Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan. Insurgents said they had captured mountainous Myanishen district in the southern province of Kandahar.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 18, In Australia a good Samaritan who tried to rescue a woman being dragged by her hair on a busy Melbourne street was shot dead and two other people were wounded when her attacker opened fire. On June 20 a Hells Angel biker was charged with the murder after surrendering to authorities.
2007 Jun 18, Canada introduced a no-fly list to ground potential air passengers "who may pose an immediate threat to aviation security" and tried to play down concerns that the list could be abused.
2007 Jun 18, Researchers reported that the first skull of the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda has been discovered in China and estimated to be at least 2 million years old. The animal, formally known as Ailuropoda microta, or "pygmy giant panda," would have been about 3 feet long, compared to the modern giant panda, which averages in excess of five feet.
2007 Jun 18, In Colombia 11 kidnapped former state lawmakers held hostage for five years were killed after a military attack on the jungle camp where they were being kept. The Web site of the left-wing news agency ANNCOL carried the statement on June 28.
2007 Jun 18, Vilma Espin Guillois (77), a guerrilla warrior and women's rights pioneer, died. She was the first lady of the Cuban revolution and wife of acting Pres. Raul Castro.
2007 Jun 18, The Gulf emirate of Dubai announced it had bought the Queen Elizabeth 2, one of the world's most majestic cruise liners, and planned to turn it into a luxury floating hotel.
2007 Jun 18, In eastern Germany a bus veered off a highway and fell into a roadside ditch, killing 13 people and injuring about 30.
2007 Jun 18, Authorities said British police, with aid from US investigators, have shattered a global Internet pedophile ring, rescuing 31 children and rounding up more than 700 suspects worldwide.
2007 Jun 18, In France Airbus racked up a series of big orders at the opening of the Paris Air Show. Airbus announced that it had booked firm orders or letters of intent to order for 339 aircraft, a record figure, for a value of 45.7 billion dollars (34.1 billion euros) at catalogue prices.
2007 Jun 18, Officials said 2 high schools in Mumbai have banned pupils from holding hands, kissing or touching on campus, warning that they will face disciplinary action if caught.
2007 Jun 18, Iraqi and US forces began major military operations to the north and south of Baghdad. PM Nouri al-Maliki fired the Basra police chief over his force's failure to stop weekend attacks on Sunni mosques in Iraq's second-largest city. In southern Baghdad, two parked car bombs exploded near a gas station, killing at least seven people lined up to buy fuel. Gunmen nearby ambushed an Interior Ministry convoy, killing an Iraqi colonel and his two guards. 4 civilians were killed and 13 injured when a parked car bomb ripped through a busy vegetable market in Fallujah. At least 20 people were killed by coalition airstrikes in Amarah. Iraqi officials said 36 people died in fighting that erupted as British and Iraqi forces conducted house-to-house searches in Nasiriyah. Sectarian fighting killed 111 people. One American soldier was killed by small arms fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AP, 6/19/07)(WSJ, 6/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 18, Gunmen and Israeli soldiers exchanged fire at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding 15.
2007 Jun 18, Japan changed the name of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, site of the famous World War II battle, to its original name of Iwo To after residents there were prodded into action by two recent Clint Eastwood movies.
2007 Jun 18, Fierce fighting erupted at a besieged Palestinian refugee camp as Lebanese troops resumed bombardment of al-Qaida-inspired militants barricaded inside. Three Lebanese soldiers were killed.
2007 Jun 18, Nigeria's main labor organizations said they had called a general strike for June 20, two days later than originally planned, threatening key oil exports.
2007 Jun 18, Pakistan demanded that Britain withdraw a knighthood awarded to author Salman Rushdie, as a government minister said the honor gave a justification for suicide attacks by Muslims.
2007 Jun 18, In Mogadishu, Somalia, a roadside bomb hidden in a pile of garbage exploded, killing two children and wounding 3 other people just minutes after security officials drove by.
2008 Jun 18, The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing's protest of a refueling tanker contract and recommended a new competition.
2008 Jun 18, US food safety officials said 383 people in 30 states have fallen ill in a Salmonella outbreak linked to certain types of tomatoes.
2008 Jun 18, In Illinois Jeff Pelo (43), a former Bloomington police sergeant, was found guilty on 35 counts, including 25 of aggravated sexual assault from 2002-2005.
2008 Jun 18, Floodwaters breached two levees in western Illinois and threatened more Mississippi River towns in Missouri after inundating much of Iowa for the past week. One official estimated up to 47 square miles could be flooded.
2008 Jun 18, Tasha Tudor (b.1915), American children's book illustrator, died in Vermont.
(WSJ, 6/25/08, p.D7)(www.tashatudor.legacy.com/LMW/HomePage.aspx)
2008 Jun 18, Afghan and Canadian forces moved into villages outside Kandahar to root out Taliban militants, killing at least 36 insurgents.
2008 Jun 18, An Australian government minister warned a drought crisis needed urgent attention or a crucial river system could suffer permanent ecological damage by October.
2008 Jun 18, In Belgium hundreds of farmers, truckers and taxi drivers blocked roads in and around Brussels on the eve of an EU summit to push leaders for help coping with skyrocketing fuel prices.
2008 Jun 18, A military official said Chad's army has killed 161 rebels in a battle in the eastern part of the country.
2008 Jun 18, China and Japan agreed to end a dispute over control of offshore natural gas fields and to jointly develop the fields in the East China Sea.
2008 Jun 18, The European Parliament approved controversial new rules for expelling illegal immigrants from the bloc, overcoming opposition from left-leaning lawmakers and ignoring protests from human rights activists.
2008 Jun 18, A European Union delegation met Fiji's coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama, seeking assurances that he will stick to a pledge to hold elections to restore democracy by March 2009.
2008 Jun 18, Classic French filmmaker Jean Delannoy (100), who adapted novels by Victor Hugo and Andre Gide and won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize in 1946, died.
2008 Jun 18, Leaders of one of India's lower castes reached an agreement with the government of a western Indian state, ending weeks of often violent protests. In eastern India officials said monsoon floods that have killed at least 29 people in the past week.
2008 Jun 18, Israel and Hamas pledged to start a cease-fire June 19 in a bid to end a year of fighting that has killed more than 400 Palestinians and seven Israelis. The deal came as Israel also urged Lebanon to open peace talks.
2008 Jun 18, Italian police arrested 33 Sri Lankan Tamils charged with belonging to the outlawed Tamil Tigers group fighting a separatist insurgency against the government in Colombo. In addition to being charged with membership of a proscribed organization, the 33 were also accused of having helped finance the Tamil Tigers through remittances.
2008 Jun 18, Latvian PM Ivars Godmanis suffered serious head injuries in a road accident in the center of the capital while traveling in a car with a siren on.
2008 Jun 18, The Lithuanian parliament approved a law prohibiting the public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, including portraits of Nazi and Soviet leaders, flags, hammer and sickle, swastikas, military symbols, uniforms, and playing the Nazi or Soviet anthems.
(www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/updates.htm#280)
2008 Jun 18, A party in Malaysia's 14-party ruling coalition called for a vote of no confidence against the prime minister, in a serious blow to the embattled government.
2008 Jun 18, Food manufacturers promised Mexico's government that they would freeze prices on more than 150 food products to help families cope with rising costs.
2008 Jun 18, Witold Waszczykowski, the chief Polish negotiator on missile defense with the United States, said Washington has been talking with Lithuania about basing part of a missile defense system in that country in case negotiations with Poland break down.
2008 Jun 18, Sweden's Parliament narrowly approved a contentious law that gives authorities sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all e-mail and telephone traffic that crosses the Nordic nation's borders. Outrage over the statute soon led to 2 million protests, filed by e-mail. In September the government approved 15 changes following the widespread protests.
(AP, 6/18/08)(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.A4)
2008 Jun 18, Thousands of demonstrators accused the Thai government of yielding a disputed border region with an ancient temple to Cambodia, the latest trouble for the embattled prime minister who has been facing daily protests calling for his resignation.
2008 Jun 18, Venezuela's national electoral council dealt a setback to President Hugo Chavez's foes by tentatively accepting a blacklist barring nearly 400 potential candidates, most from the opposition. Venezuela's government started posting National Guard troops on buses to try to prevent violent crime.
2008 Jun 18, The UN said up to 5 million people could go hungry in Zimbabwe next year due to a steady drop in food production coupled with the world's highest rate of inflation.
2009 Jun 18, The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that William Osborne, a prisoner convicted in Alaska in 1994, has no constitutional right to DNA testing to prove his innocence. In April 2008, a three-judge panel of US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that Osborne should be allowed to obtain new DNA tests. The court said that it is up to the states and Congress to decide such rights.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A7)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/mkmte2)
2009 Jun 18, An Alabama state judge ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay nearly $2.9 billion to shareholders who sued over a massive accounting fraud that nearly sent the rehabilitation chain into bankruptcy.
2009 Jun 18, In a replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial a federal jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset (32) of Minnesota willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.
2009 Jun 18, NASA launched its Lunar Crater Observation and sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The Mission Objectives LCROSS included confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon's South Pole.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/)
2009 Jun 18, Ali Akbar Khan (87), Indian-born master of the 25-string Sarod, died at his home in San Anselmo, Ca.
2009 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan a bomb strapped to a parked bicycle exploded near a construction office in Kandahar city, killing one employee and a child about 11 years old. Afghan and International forces killed 16 Taliban militants in a gunbattle in Uruzgan province. One police officer also died in the fighting.
2009 Jun 18, The Bank of Scotland said Fred Goodwin, its disgraced former boss, has agreed to take a 40% pension cut, after widespread pressure to do so. He will see his annual pension reduced to 342,500 pounds from 555,000 pounds. The agreement was condemned by trade unions who said it did not go far enough.
2009 Jun 18, In northern Albania an explosive device killed Aleksander Keka (34), a conservative regional leader of Albania's opposition Christian Democratic Party, as he drove near Shkodra, 10 days ahead of the country's parliamentary election.
2009 Jun 18, A study by an environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia and Laos.
2009 Jun 18, Canadian officials said about 70,000 harbor seals were killed in this year's hunt out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals. The 7-month hunt had ended earlier this week.
2009 Jun 18, China's Internet watchdog condemned the Chinese-language version of Google for "disseminating pornographic and vulgar information."
2009 Jun 18, China angrily denounced the recent approval by the Asian Development Bank of a 2.9-billion-dollar funding plan for India, saying the scheme encroached on a territorial dispute between the Asian giants. China was particularly concerned about a 60-million-dollar watershed protection project in the Arunachal Pradesh region, where much of China and India's territorial dispute is centered.
2009 Jun 18, In Haiti a confrontation between UN peacekeepers and mourners for Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest allied with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left one person dead. A video showed marchers throwing rocks at UN soldiers, who periodically turned and fired their assault rifles into the air.
2009 Jun 18, In Iran supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi for a 4th straight day rallied in the streets of Tehran over the disputed presidential election, answering the opposition leader's call to turn out dressed in black to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes.
2009 Jun 18, In Iraq a special committee set up by PM al-Maliki began an investigation into allegations of widespread abuse and torture in Iraq's prisons, which is threatening to become a major issue ahead of Jan. 30 national elections. Four bodies bearing signs of gunshot wounds were found in Baghdad's Sadr city. Lawmakers loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr later claimed that men appearing to be Iraqi soldiers had stormed two houses in Sadr City and arrested four men, whose bodies were found the next day.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=114910)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 18, Mexico levied organized crime and drug charges against seven mayors, the former state attorney general and 19 other officials in the western state of Michoacan for allegedly aiding a drug cartel.
2009 Jun 18, Nigeria's main militant group said it had destroyed a major crude oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell as it fights a campaign against foreign oil companies.
2009 Jun 18, In northwestern Pakistan suspected US missile strikes pounded the hide-outs of Taliban commander Malang Wazir, killing at least eight people.
2009 Jun 18, In Peru a top Indian leader called for an end to protests that left dozens dead in the Amazon region after Congress revoked two decrees that indigenous groups said would spur oil and gas exploitation and other development on their ancestral lands.
2009 Jun 18, In western Somalia a suicide bombing killed at least 25 people including National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden at the Medina Hotel in Belet Weyne. Al-Shabab, an extremist group with alleged links to the al-Qaida terror network, claimed responsibility.
2009 Jun 18, Thailand security forces killed four suspected Muslim militants in a gunbattle in southern Yala province.
2010 Jun 18, In Connecticut Eddie Perez, the fist Latino mayor of Hartford, announced that he would step down after being convicted of 5 corruption charges.
2010 Jun 18, It was reported that Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com, has given UC San Francisco $100 million to build a children's hospital in the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The $1.5 billion complex was scheduled for completion in 2014.
2010 Jun 18, Gold for August delivery rose at a record level of $1258.30 and ounce. It had hit $1263.70 an ounce earlier in the day.
2010 Jun 18, In Utah death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner (49), who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men, suffered the same fate as he was executed by a team of marksmen, the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years.
2010 Jun 18, NATO said 2 Americans have died in southern Afghanistan where militants have stepped up their attacks as NATO and Afghan forces ramp up security in Taliban strongholds.
2010 Jun 18-2010 Jun 19, A firefight between Armenia and Azerbaijan left 5 people dead in northern Karabakh.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.54)(www.eurasianet.org/node/61373)
2010 Jun 18, Finnish PM Matti Vanhanen resigned to allow the ruling Center Party's new leader, Mari Kiviniemi (41) to succeed him as the head of the country's coalition government.
2010 Jun 18, In Haiti UN and Haitian police raided a crowded earthquake survivor camp to capture 30 criminal suspects in the biggest law-enforcement operation since the Jan. 12 earthquake.
2010 Jun 18, India handed over to Pakistan a new dossier of evidence related to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, ahead of talks next week between top foreign ministry officials.
2010 Jun 18, In Iraq at least 5 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in a car bombing in Tuz Khormato, a mainly Shiite Turkomen town, 210 km north of Baghdad.
2010 Jun 18, In Italy Pierino Gelmini (85), a politically connected former priest, was indicted on charges he sexually molested 12 young men who were being treated at the drug rehabilitation center he founded in Italy.
2010 Jun 18, Kyrgyzstan's interim Pres. Roza Otunbayeva said that 2,000 people may have died in the ethnic clashes that have rocked the country's south, many times her government's official estimate, as she made her first visit to a riot-hit city since the unrest erupted.
2010 Jun 18, In Mexico police in Cancun found 12 decomposing bodies in four caverns and were searching for more cadavers in violence blamed on drug gangs in the resort city. 11 Mexican soldiers died in the crash of a military helicopter carrying troops for anti-drug missions.
2010 Jun 18, Myanmar state media reported that days of flooding and landslides caused by monsoon downpours have killed 57 people in its northwest.
2010 Jun 18, North Korea cancelled a scheduled World Cup press conference, just hours after being confronted by rumors that four of their players had defected while in South Africa.
2010 Jun 18, Jose Saramago (b.1922), 1998 Nobel-winning Portuguese writer, died at his home in the Canary Islands. His 1992 novel "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" was condemned by Portugal's ministry of culture as heretical. He accused the government of censorship and moved to the Canary Islands.
(SFC, 6/19/10, p.C6)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.83)
2010 Jun 18, Romania's finance ministry said the cash-strapped government is asking for donations to a solidarity fund set up to boost budget revenues and cushion the impact of the economic crisis.
2010 Jun 18, In Somalia witnesses said five government soldiers, four fighters from an al-Qaida-linked group and three civilians died during the one-hour battle in Mogadishu.
2010 Jun 18, A South Korean Air Force fighter jet crashed into the sea after a training mission and its two pilots were killed.
2010 Jun 18, In western Sudan 50 people were killed as rival Arab tribes clashed for the third time this month in the Darfur region.
2010 Jun 18, Turkey's military said it killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week. Maj. Gen. Fahri Kir said another 30 Kurdish rebels were killed inside Turkey since March in anti-rebel operations. He said the Turkish losses were 43 in the same period.
2010 Jun 18, The UN said a recent measles outbreak in eastern and southern Africa has killed more than 700 people, threatening to reverse gains made over several years to stem the disease.
2010 Jun 18, Venezuela called on Interpol for the capture of Guillermo Zuloaga (67), a government opponent who owns a critical television channel, who recently fled the country after authorities sought to arrest him. Authorities believed Zuloaga was in Miami, along with Nelson Mezerhane, who owns a minority stake in Globovision.
2010 Jun 18, Parts of Zimbabwe and most of neighboring Zambia suffered a massive blackout for about 10 hours, as a fault crippled the hydro-electric dam that supplies most of the countries' power.
2011 Jul 18, Borders bookstore chain, the 2nd largest in the US, announced that it was going into liquidation. It once had over 600 stores and 399 were left following Chapter 11 in February.
2011 Jun 18, In Alabama Heather Carroll gave birth to 5 girls and one boy at Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham.
2011 Jun 18, In Portland, Oregon, thousands of naked bicyclists gathered near the city's waterfront for a clothing-free night ride. Since the World Naked Bike Ride started in 2004, only four other cities -- San Francisco, Seattle, and Boulder and Black Rock City in Colorado -- have celebrated it every year.
2011 Jun 18, A Cessna 210 crashed down near the Westchester County Airport, NY. The victims were identified as Keith Weiner, the 63-year-old pilot; his wife, Lisa Weiner (51), their daughter Isabel (14) and her friend, Lucy Walsh (14).
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.
2011 Jun 18, The death toll from the May 22 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, rose to 154 with the passing of an injured man.
2011 Jun 18, In Warrington, Pa., Christopher Moyer killed his wife, Irina (39), and their son (7) and then committed suicide on a set of train tracks. Financial problems were suspected.
2011 Jun 18, Clarence Clemons (69), the larger-than-life saxophone player for the E Street Band, died following a stroke at his home in Singer Island, Fla. He was one of the key influences in Bruce Springsteen's life and music through four decades.
2011 Jun 18, Yelena Bonner (b.1923), Russian rights activist and widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, died in Boston.
2011 Jun 18, In Afghanistan insurgents targeted a police station in a suicide attack in Kabul, killing nine people, including five civilians, before they were eventually gunned down. 8 NATO service members were killed. Four died in fighting in the south and east, while another four died in a vehicle accident in the south.
2011 Jun 18, Brazilian demonstrators held marches on the weekend calling for marijuana to be legalized after the country's top court ruled the gatherings could go ahead in the name of freedom of speech.
2011 Jun 18, In Bulgaria nearly 1,000 marchers joined the fourth gay pride rally in Sofia. Gay pride rallies were also held in Croatia and Hungary. Hundreds of police were on duty to protect the marchers following calls by extremist groups to stop the demonstrations.
2011 Jun 18, China's official media said floods and lightning killed at least eight people as heavy rains pounded southern China, destroying homes and blocking roads.
2011 Jul 18, Former Croatian PM Ivo Sanader was extradited home from Austria to face charges of corruption.
2011 Jun 18, In Greece several thousand pro-Communist union members marched through Athens to protests the government's austerity measures.
2011 Jun 18, Iran's hardline press watchdog allowed the reformist Etemad newspaper to return to the newsstands after a 15-month ban on the leading daily. A convicted rapist was hanged in the southern city of Shahrekord.
2011 Jun 18, Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. halted an operation to clean highly contaminated waste water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi facility due to higher-than-expected radiation levels.
2011 Jun 18, Libya's rebel oil chief accused the West of failing to keep up its promises to deliver urgent financial aid, saying his authority had now run out of cash completely after months of fighting. Fighting between forces loyal to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to close in on his territory killed at least eight rebels near the northwestern city of Nalut.
2011 Jun 18, Mexican authorities said the bodies of nine victims of suspected drug violence have turned up in the western state of Michoacan. A group calling itself the Knights Templar left messages claiming responsibility for the killings.
2011 Jun 18, Mexican authorities said the bodies of nine victims of suspected drug violence have turned up in the western state of Michoacan. A group calling itself the Knights Templar left messages claiming responsibility for the killings. Gunmen stormed a bar in Monterrey and "executed three people," wounded another, and kidnapped a security guard at the bar who was later found dead.
2011 Jun 18, Morocco's youth-based February 20 Movement rejected constitutional reforms proposed by King Mohammed VI, calling for nationwide protests.
2011 Jun 18, Nigerian police uncovered 20 corpses hidden in a tunnel in the southeastern town of Onitsha, and suspect they were victims of armed robbers.
2011 Jun 18, In Pakistan a roadside bomb targeting security forces killed a passer-by in the country's southwest. 4 security officers and 4 civilians were also wounded in the attack in the town of Panjgore. Pakistan's army launched an air and ground assault against a militant stronghold in Mohmand tribal agency and killed 25, while the rest fled across the border into eastern Afghanistan.
2011 Jun 18, In Pakistan men wearing police uniforms beat Waqar Kiani (32), a Pakistani journalist working for the British Guardian newspaper, five days after he published an account of abduction and torture by suspected Pakistani intelligence agents. On June 16 the Guardian revealed that Kiani was abducted from Islamabad in July 2008, blindfolded and taken to a safe house where interrogators beat him and burned him with cigarettes. They released him 15 hours later and warned him they would rape his wife if he told anyone.
2011 Jun 18, In Pakistan Sohana Jawed (9) was kidnapped near her home in Peshawar and forced to wear a suicide vest. She escaped at a checkpoint outside TimerGarah.
2011 Jun 18, Saudi Arabia beheaded Ruyati binti Satubi (54), an Indonesian grandmother, for killing an allegedly abusive Saudi employer. In response Indonesia later enacted a moratorium on labor exports to Saudi Arabia effective August 1.
(SFC, 8/10/11, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/3wvhbpm)
2011 Jun 18, A Somali court sentenced 3 British nationals, an American and 2 Kenyans to at least 10 years in prison each for bringing millions of dollars intended for pirate ransom into the country. Discussions were underway to overturn the sentences.
2011 Jun 18, Syrian troops backed by tanks and firing heavy machine guns swept into a village near the Turkish border, the latest in a series of intensified army operations in the northwest where there have been heavy clashes between loyalist troops and defectors. The number of Syrians who have taken refuge in Turkey to escape bloody unrest in their country increased to about 10,100. At least 19 unarmed people were killed in the day's violence.
(AP, 6/18/11)(AFP, 6/18/11)(SFC, 6/18/11, p.A3)
2011 Jun 18, In Venezuela gunfire rang out at the El Rodeo I prison for a 2nd day as troops sought to regain control in battles that have left at least 3 dead and 18 wounded.
2011 Jun 18, In Zambia Frederick Chiluba (68), a former president (1991-2001), died.
2012 Jun 18, Rodney Hailey of Maryland faced trial in a $9.1 million fraud case for selling renewable fuel credits even though his company did not produce any renewable fuel.
2012 Jun 18, Microsoft unveiled Surface, its new tablet computer that will showcase the Windows 8 operating system due to be rolled out this autumn.
2012 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan individuals dressed in Afghan police uniforms turned their guns on their US partners, leaving one American service member dead and nine other US troops injured.
2012 Jun 18, Australia archaeologist Bryce Barker said he has found the oldest piece of rock art in Australia and one of the oldest in the world: an Aboriginal work created 28,000 years ago in the Northern Territory rock shelter known as Nawarla Gabarnmang.
2012 Jun 18, Rolls-Royce said it has won a contract worth more than £1.0 billion to power Britain's next-generation nuclear submarines.
2012 Jun 18, Three Chinese astronauts entered an orbiting module for the first time, in a key step towards the nation's first space station.
2012 Jun 18, In Egypt Ahmed Shafiq angrily dismissed claims of victory by his rival Mohammed Mursi, accusing the Muslim Brotherhood candidate of using false figures. Official results were not expected until June 21.
2012 Jun 18, An Ethiopian security officer with the United Nations faced up to 10 years in jail after a court in Addis Ababa found him guilty of "participating in a terrorist organization." Abdurahman Sheikh Hassan was charged last July with having links to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a secessionist rebel group. On June 22 Hassan was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
2012 Jun 18, Human Rights Watch said Ethiopia is forcing thousands of people from their land in the southern Omo valley to make way for sugar plantations. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people were estimated to have been displaced. The government denied the charge and said any relocation in the area is happening voluntarily.
2012 Jun 18, European leaders at the G20 summit in Mexico struggled to reassure the world that they were on the path to solving their continent's relentless economic crisis. Bosses of more than 300 large companies gathered at the same resort for the 4th summit of the B20. Their goal was to persuade governments to be more business friendly.
(AP, 6/18/12)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.72)
2012 Jun 18, French President Francois Hollande's Socialist government formally resigned after the legislative elections. He immediately re-appointed Jean-Marc Ayrault as prime minister and asked him to form a new government, which was expected to be nearly identical to the outgoing cabinet.
2012 Jun 18, Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras launched coalition talks after coming first in a vote that follow weeks of uncertainty over whether the debt-crippled country could remain in the joint euro currency.
2012 Jun 18, In western India marble miner Ogad Singh upset over his 20-year-old daughter's lifestyle chopped her head off with a sword and then paraded it through his Rajasthani village of Dungarji before surrendering to authorities.
2012 Jun 18, In Indonesia 2 tribesmen were killed when rival groups armed with bows and arrows clashed in Indonesia's restive Papua province.
2012 Jun 18, Iran and six world powers sought elusive common ground in talks in Moscow meant to reduce tensions over Tehran's nuclear activities that both sides see as crucial to their interests but which are stalled by reluctance to commit to each other's demands.
2012 Jun 18, In Iraq a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt in funeral tent packed with mourners for a Shiite tribal leader in Baqouba, killing 22 people in what officials described as an al-Qaida attempt to reignite sectarian violence.
2012 Jun 18, Israel carried out air strikes on northern Gaza, killing four Palestinians in two sorties over Beit Hanun. Three other people were also wounded. Hours earlier a group of militants, who sneaked across the Egyptian border, killed an Israeli civilian sparking a firefight which left at least two gunmen dead.
2012 Jun 18, In Lebanon 2 Palestinians were killed in clashes with the army at refugee camps that also left several people wounded, including soldiers.
2012 Jun 18, In Malawi a boat carrying about 60 illegal immigrants from Ethiopia capsized on Lake Malawi. All aboard were feared drowned.
2012 Jun 18, Mali's Ansar Dine Islamist group, which took over the country's north with Tuareg rebels, agreed to enter a negotiation process brokered by Burkina Faso.
2012 Jun 18, In northeastern Nigeria gunfire broke out in Damaturu and caused casualties, but that the streets were too dangerous for rescue workers to move around.
2012 Jun 18, In Pakistan a car bomb tore into a university bus on the outskirts of Quetta, killing 4 people and wounding more than 40 others. It carried a majority of Shiite students.
2012 Jun 18, Rwanda officially closed the "gacaca" community courts, the controversial tribunals both credited with easing tensions and criticized for possible miscarriages of justice. Since being set up in 2001 the tribunals have tried nearly two million people, convicting 65 percent of them.
2012 Jun 18, Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz (76), a half brother to the king, was named the country's new crown prince.
2012 Jun 18, In Sudan anti-regime protesters clashed with police in Khartoum, as President Omar al-Bashir announced a raft of austerity measures aimed at propping up the country's ailing finances.
2012 Jun 18, Syrian forces renewed shelling of the central city of Homs. The Observatory later said 94 people were killed today across the country.
2012 Jun 18, In Yemen a suicide bomber assassinated Maj. Gen. Salem Ali al-Quton (Qoton), the army commander who led the fight against al-Qaida in the country's south.
2013 Jun 18, US oil giant Chevron said it has signed a deal with Iraq's Kurdish regional government to expand its oil exploration territory in the northern self-rule region.
2013 Jun 18, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced at a ceremony that his country's armed forces are taking over the lead for security nationwide from the US-led NATO coalition. A botched bomb attack against an Afghan politician in another part of Kabul killed 3 civilians. 5 Afghan police officers were killed at a security outpost in Helmand province by apparent Taliban infiltrators. Insurgents fired two rockets into the Bagram Air Base. 4 US troops were killed. The Taliban claimed responsibility the next day.
2013 Jun 18, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the group will open a political office in Qatar to try to find a political solution to the war in Afghanistan.
2013 Jun 18, In Brazil some 50,000 protesters energetically returned this evening to the streets Sao Paulo, a demonstration of anger toward what they call a corrupt and inefficient government that has long ignored the demands of a growing middle class.
2013 Jun 18, Ballet dancer David Wall (67), known for becoming the youngest male principal at the Royal Ballet at the age of 21, died of cancer at his home in London.
2013 Jun 18, It was reported that Chile's Supreme Court authorized the extradition of ex-Argentine judge Otilio Ireneo Roque Romano. He had escaped Argentina to avoid trial in 103 cases of crimes against humanity during Argentina's years of military dictatorship (1976-1983).
2013 Jun 18, Vincent Clerc of the Copenhagen-based company's shipping unit said MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. and CMA CGM of France, the world's three biggest shipping container operators, will form the P3 alliance with Maersk Line.
2013 Jun 18, In Egypt clashes erupted in the Nile Delta city of Tanta between supporters and opponents of Pres. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood over his appointment of new Islamist governors, some in areas where opponents are strong.
2013 Jun 18, State TV channels in Greece remained off-air as the political storm over the future of public broadcaster ERT raged on.
2013 Jun 18, Hungarian prosecutors indicted Laszlo Csatary (98), a former police officer, for abusing Jews and assisting in their deportation to Nazi death camps during World War II. They said Csatary was the chief of an internment camp for 12,000 Jews at a brick factory in Kosice — a Slovak city then part of Hungary — in May 1944, and that he beat them with his bare hands and a dog whip.
2013 Jun 18, In Iraq two suicide bombers targeted a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, one blowing himself up at a nearby checkpoint while the other slipped inside during prayers. 3 guards were killed and the blasts left 34 dead and 57 people wounded. A suicide attack killed Younis al-Rammah, a local political leader, and four of his relatives in Ninevah.
(AP, 6/18/13)(AP, 6/19/13)(SFC, 6/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Jun 18, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said residents of Abu Ghosh, an Arab town near Jerusalem, found tires of 28 cars slashed and "Arabs out" scrawled on a wall. Police launched an investigation to find perpetrators.
2013 Jun 18, Jordan's King Abdullah II published a roayl decree endorsing a treaty with Britain that sets the stage for the possible deportation of radical Muslim preacher Abu Qatada.
2013 Jun 18, In Lebanon clashes erupted between unknown gunmen and followers of Sheik Ahmad al-Assir, a radical Sunni cleric, in an eastern suburb of the port city of Sidon. Two people were killed. Al-Assir has threatened to clear apartments occupied by Hezbollah supporters in the mostly Sunni city.
2013 Jun 18, Mali, which lost half its territory last year to rebels, signed an accord with Tuareg separatists who still control the country's northernmost province. The agreement was signed in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, where the two sides have been holding talks.
2013 Jun 18, Mexican authorities arrested Walter Lee Williams (64), a former university professor who was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, in the resort city of Playa del Carmen. He was wanted on charges of sexual exploitation of children and traveling abroad for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with children.
2013 Jun 18, Nigerian officials warned that Islamic militants have driven 19,000 rice farmers from their land in the northeast, while a military crackdown prevented thousands more from working their fields, raising fears of imminent food shortages.
2013 Jun 18, In Northern Ireland a G-8 initiative reflected widespread anger over the ability of foreign companies to funnel profits to tax-friendly countries. As part of the G-8's plans, to be developed at a G-20 summit later this year, multinationals would be obliged to declare how much tax they pay in each country where they operate.
2013 Jun 18, In northwestern Pakistan a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of hundreds of mourners attending a funeral, killing 29 people. Among those killed was Imran Khan Mohmand, a newly-elected lawmaker, who may have been the target in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
2013 Jun 18, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said that authorities will shut down a paper mill on the shores of Lake Baikal, which environmentalists say is a major pollutant threatening one of the world's largest fresh water lakes.
2013 Jun 18, Syrian warplanes bombed rebel positions the contested Kweiras military air base in the north. Pres. Assad's forces nearby pressed ahead with an offensive against opposition fighters in Aleppo.
2013 Jun 18, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the nation's police and vowed to increase their powers to deal with unrest. News reports said police were carrying out raids and detaining people suspected of involvement in violence against police. 4 protesters and one police officer have been killed and Turkey's doctors association said an investigation was underway into the death of a fifth protester who was exposed to tear gas.
2014 Jun 18, A US military judged arraigned Guantanamo prisoner Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi on five war crime charges. He was captured in Turkey in October 2007.
2014 Jun 18, Florida executed John Ruthell Henry (63) for the 1985 fatal stabbing of his wife and young son.
2014 Jun 18, Amazon introduced its new Fire smart phone with the ability to render images in 3-D. It will be available July 25 in the US exclusively through AT&T. Cost with no contract will be $650-$750.
2014 Jun 18, Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah suspended relations with the country's election commission and called on it to halt vote counting Wednesday in an escalation of fraud allegations threatening to disrupt what was supposed to be the country's first peaceful transfer of authority.
2014 Jun 18, Cuban health authorities confirmed the country's first six cases of chikungunya fever, a debilitating, mosquito-borne virus that is suspected of afflicting tens of thousands across the Caribbean since its arrival in the region last year.
2014 Jun 18, Cyprus raised 750 million euros ($1.017 million) from international markets with its first public issue of bonds since last year's international bailout saved it from bankruptcy.
2014 Jun 18, An Egyptian court sentenced 12 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to death on charges connected to the fatal shooting of a police general last year.
2014 Jun 18, The Indian government said 40 Indian construction workers have been seized near Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, which ISIL and allied Sunni fighters captured last week. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said its diplomats were investigating a Turkish media report that militants grabbed 60 foreign construction workers, including some 15 Turks, near the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk.
2014 Jun 18, Indonesian officials officially shut a massive prostitution complex in Surabaya amid protests by sex workers, who said their livelihoods were being destroyed. Tri Rismaharini, the first female mayor of Surabaya, had pledged to close down all brothels in the city.
2014 Jun 18, An apparently overloaded boat carrying Indonesian illegal migrants heading home for Ramadan sank overnight in rough seas off western Malaysia. 27 people were missing and 9 were confirmed dead. Nine people were missing after a boat carrying 27 Indonesian workers overturned off Malaysia's west coast in a 2nd similar accident. By the weekend the confirmed death toll from two boat accidents rose to 16 with dozens of others still missing.
(AFP, 6/18/14)(AP, 6/19/14)(AFP, 6/22/14)
2014 Jun 18, Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country's main oil refinery and said it had regained partial control of Tal Afar, a city near the Syrian border. Fighting shut the Baiji refinery.
2014 Jun 18, Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region formed a new government after months of wrangling, with premier Nechirvan Barzani using the occasion to call for defending disputed northern territory.
2014 Jun 18, Israel tightened its grip on the West Bank, arresting another 65 people, as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas lashed out at those behind the disappearance of three Israeli teenagers.
2014 Jun 18, Japan's parliament passed a law which bans possession of child pornography, but excludes sexually explicit depictions of children in comics, animation and computer graphics.
2014 Jun 18, Mexico's government said Michoacan Gov. Fausto Vallejo (65) has left his post for health reasons. Local media recently posted a purported picture of his son in a meeting with Knights Templar cartel leader Servando Gomez.
2014 Jun 18, The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) said the repression of peaceful protests in in the country is growing.
2014 Jun 18, In Morocco some 400 sub-Saharan migrants stormed Spain's multiple-barbed-wire border fences separating its North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco, but failed in their bid to enter Europe.
2014 Jun 18, In Pakistan a suspected US drone strike targeting a militant hideout near the Afghan border killed four men. Residents of a Taliban-infested region in the northwest, where the military launched a major offensive, began to flee after authorities lifted a curfew there.
2014 Jun 18, Rwandan journalist Agnes Uwimana Nkusi was released after four years in jail for writing articles critical of President Paul Kagame.
2014 Jun 18, In Somalia a doctor and a nurse were killed and seven others wounded when a car bomb exploded at a hospital in Mogadishu.
2014 Jun 18, Syrian helicopter gunships targeted refugees near the Jordanian border killing at least 7 people.
2014 Jun 18, A Turkish court convicted the only two surviving leaders of the country's 1980 military coup of crimes against the state and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Kenan Evren (96), the military chief of staff who led the takeover and went on to serve as president until 1989, and Tahsin Sahinkaya (89), a former air force chief, had been on trial since 2012.
2014 Jun 18, A criminal court in Istanbul ordered the release of 230 military officers convicted of plotting to topple PM Tayyip Erdogan, a day after the country's top court ruled their trial was flawed. A retrial was ordered.
2014 Jun 18, Uganda's government banned one of the country's main TV stations from covering presidential events after it aired images which it said showed Pres. Yoweri Museveni having a snooze in parliament.
2014 Jun 18, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko set out proposals for a peace plan for eastern Ukraine involving a unilateral ceasefire by government forces. This followed a late-night telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2014 Jun 18, The World Health Organization said an Ebola outbreak continues to spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the death toll in the outbreak has risen to more than 330.
2015 Jun 18, It was reported that Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker (35), the founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, has given a $4.5 million gift to UCSF to tackle malaria.
2015 Jun 18, Jack Rollins (100), NYC talent manager, died. He and Charles H. Joffe were instrumental in establishing the careers of such people as Woody Allen, Harry Belafonte, and Robin Williams.
2015 Jun 18, In Oklahoma Tropical Depression Bill pelted the state with heavy rains that swept a two-year-old toddler away overnight in flood waters and triggered a rockslide that piled boulders on a major highway.
2015 Jun 18, Texas death row inmate Gregory Rousseau (45) was executed by lethal injection for the 2001 slaying of repair shop owner James Syvertson (75).
2015 Jun 18, The shares of Fitbit (FIT), a maker of fitness tracking gear, rose to $29.68 in an IPO on the NYSE price as $20.
2015 Jun 18, NASDAQ rose to a record high closing at 5,132.95, surpassing the most recent high of 5106.59 set on May 27.
2015 Jun 18, Australia's government under PM Tony Abbott published a white paper outlining plans for developing northern Australia over the next twenty years.
2015 Jun 18, Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi appointed the head of one of Europe's biggest capital investment funds as his new prime minister. Lionel Zinsou, a dual French-Beninese national who has headed PAI Partners since 2009, will be in charge of economic development, evaluating public policy and promoting good governance.
2015 Jun 18, Cuba said it's expanding Internet access by adding Wi-Fi capacity to dozens of state-run Internet centers and more than halving the cost that users pay for an hour online.
2015 Jun 18, Danes voted in a cliff-hanger election in which an opposition center-right alliance sought to oust PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt after she gambled an economic revival would secure her a new term. A bloc led by Loekke Rasmussen, a former prime minister, secured the 90 seats necessary for a majority in Parliament. The Danish People's Party that wants to limit the European Union's influence over the country, made large gains and overtook Lars Loekke Rasmussen's Liberal Party as Denmark's second largest party. Helle Thorning-Schmidt presented her resignation to Queen Margrethe at the royal palace the next day.
(Reuters, 6/18/15)(AP, 6/19/15)(SFC, 6/19/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 18, It was reported that Egyptian security agencies are increasingly detaining activists and students in secret and holding them without official record of their arrest. More than 160 such disappearances have been tracked in the last two months.
2015 Jun 18, Greek police said they have arrested a former archaeologist suspected of forming a private collection of more than 500 artefacts allegedly pilfered from state-run excavations that he supervised.
2015 Jun 18, Hong Kong's legislature vetoed a China-backed electoral reform package criticized by opposition pro-democracy lawmakers and activists as undemocratic, easing for now the prospect of fresh mass protests in the financial hub.
2015 Jun 18, In India police in Mumbai arrested three suspects (aged 30, 47, and 50) following the deaths of some 41 people who drank a toxic home-made liquor. Police the next day said eight police officers have been suspended for failing to stop production and sale of the liquor on their beat. By June 21 death toll climbed to 94.
2015 Jun 18, In Iraq and Syria the United States and coalition allies staged 22 air strikes on Islamic State targets.
2015 Jun 18, In Israel an arson attack gutted part of a church at the traditional site of what Christianity reveres as Jesus's miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
2015 Jun 18, In Japan Julie Hamp (55), Toyota's highest ranking female executive, was arrested on suspicion of importing oxycodone, a narcotic pain killer. On July 8 Hamp was released from custody without charges. She had resigned from Toyota a week earlier.
2015 Jun 18, Kenya's president ordered the central bank to issue regulations and then lift restrictions on key money transfer services vital for Somalia suspended over suspected links to the Al-Qaeda-allied Shebab.
2015 Jun 18, In Mexico journalist Ismael Diaz Lopez was stabbed to death in the chest in Teapa, south of the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa. He had been reportedly involved in a domestic dispute and was slain inside his home by unknown intruders.
2015 Jun 18, In southern Niger Boko Haram militants attacked two villages in the Diffa region bordering Nigeria overnight, killing at least 30 civilians.
2015 Jun 18, It was reported that two men were arrested this week in Baluchistan, Pakistan, for reportedly marrying each other. They were charged under Section 277 of the Pakistani penal code. A man who allegedly officiated the ceremony was also arrested.
2015 Jun 18, Romania's High Court of Justice and Cassation sentenced Mihail Vlasov, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry from 2007 to 2014, to five years in prison for influence peddling and taking bribes.
2015 Jun 18, The Russian government condemned the freezing of Russian accounts in France and Belgium as part of an effort to enforce a $50 billion judgment for the destruction of the Yukos oil company.
2015 Jun 18, South Korea's ruling party-controlled legislature approved President Park Geun-hye's choice for prime minister. The National Assembly approved the appointment of Hwang Kyo-ahn by a vote of 156-120.
2015 Jun 18, In South Korea the death toll from Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) increased to 23.
2015 Jun 18, The 46th Art Basel fair opened in Switzerland and continued to June 21. This year's fair presented 284 galleries from 33 countries, showing works by more than 4,000 artists.
(Econ, 6/13/15, p.64)(http://tinyurl.com/ogwjkoq)
2015 Jun 18, Syrian rebels advanced into a second government-held neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo.
2015 Jun 18, A Tanzanian government minister described elephant poaching on as a national disaster, and urged China to curb its appetite for ivory.
2015 Jun 18, Thailand's army-dominated national assembly approved amendments to the country's draft constitution at a third reading, paving the way for a referendum on the newly drafted charter next year.
2015 Jun 18, Thailand confirmed its first case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus in a businessman from Oman.
2015 Jun 18, Southern Yemen health officials said thousands of people have been diagnosed with dengue fever. Around 30 fighters were killed in clashes between Houthi militiamen and tribesmen in the central province of Mareb.
2015 Jun 18, Pope Francis issued a major encyclical on the environment, called "Laudato Si (Praise Be), On the Care of Our Common Home".
2016 Jun 18, In San Francisco a fire destroyed six buildings at Mission and 29th streets in Bernal Heights that included a Cole Hardware store and the El Gran Taco Loco restaurant. 58 people were left homeless. In 2017 El Gran Taco Loco reopened in the Excelsior district.
(SFC, 6/20/16, p.A1)(SSFC, 6/18/17, p.L2)
2016 Jun 18, in Mississippi Tupelo police Officer Tyler Cook shot and killed Antwun Shumpert (37) following routine traffic stop and a foot chase. Cook later said he believed his life was in danger.
(http://tinyurl.com/jwar77p)(SFC, 5/17/17, p.A6)
2016 Jun 18, In Virginia 6 people were killed early today when a van carrying 16 people overturned multiple times on I-95 in Caroline County.
2016 Jun 18, Adel Mohamed Sallam (30) left the Albanian port of Durres with an Albanian captain and another fisherman. The Egyptian man claimed he is owed 70,000 euros ($79,000) in back pay and threatened to sink the boat together with the two fishermen. The boat owner said he owes no money to Sallam. On June 29 Albanian authorities said fisherman Luan Mema was found "in stable health" but that captain Dhimiter Malja was still missing. Local media said Adel Mohamed Salam was arrested in Alexandria while three other Egyptians were found at the boat which he had allegedly sold for 100,000 euros ($110,000).
2016 Jun 18, In Bangladesh Ghulam Faijullaha Fahim (19), who was in police custody, was shot when officers took him with them to help capture his associates. On June 15 Fahim had critically wounded a Hindu college teacher.
2016 Jun 18, Belgian police detained 40 people for questioning and 12 among them were arrested in connection with a criminal investigation concerning terrorism.
2016 Jun 18, Protesters rallied outside the French embassy in London after an aid convoy intended for migrants was turned back by French border police. A 38-ton truck full of aid was allowed through.
2016 Jun 18, Colombian authorities said that farmer Jaime Ivan Martinez (44), being investigated for the disappearance of a woman, has confessed to killing 20 people, including the missing person.
2016 Jun 18, An Egyptian court sentenced ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to life in prison in an espionage trial. The court also sentenced six people, including two Al-Jazeera employees, to death for allegedly passing documents related to national security to Qatar and the Doha-based TV network during the rule of Pres. Morsi.
2016 Jun 18, A French prosecutor announced terrorism charges against Charaf-Din Aberouz (29) and Saad Rajraji (27). They were charged with having links to a terrorist group, but were not found to have any connection to the June 13 IS-inspired murder of the police couple carried out by Larossi Abballa.
2016 Jun 18, France expelled a Russian far-right leader of a football supporters group, Alexander Shprygin, and 19 other fans after the troubles with England soccer fans at Euro 2016.
2016 Jun 18, In Hong Kong over 4,000 people marched to protest against China's detention of five booksellers whose shop published gossipy books about Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping.
2016 Jun 18, The Indonesian navy opened fire at a Chinese fishing boat in the South China Sea, injuring a fisherman and detaining its seven-man crew, for illegally fishing in Indonesian waters.
2016 Jun 18, Iraqi forces hunted down holdout jihadists in Fallujah after retaking the city center and trained their sights on Mosul, the Islamic State's last remaining major hub in the country. Iraqi authorities arrested Iran-backed Shiite militia fighters accused of executing 49 Sunni men fleeing Fallujah.
(AFP, 6/18/16)(SSFC, 6/19/16, p.A4)
2016 Jun 18, In Kazakhstan Tim Peake, the first British astronaut on the ISS, Russia's Yury Malenchenko and NASA's Tim Kopra parachuted down onto the Kazakh steppe in their Soyuz capsule at 0915 GMT after spending 186 days in orbit.
2016 Jun 18, In Libya fighting erupted south of the coastal town of Ajdabiya between military units loyal to Libya's eastern government and a group calling itself the Benghazi Defence Forces. At least three people were killed and 10 wounded.
2016 Jun 18, In Malaysia PM Najib Razak's United Malays National Organization retained the Sungai Besar seat in central Selangor state and Kuala Kangsar in northern Perak state in parliamentary by-elections.
2016 Jun 18, In southeastern Niger witnesses said Boko Haram extremists killed 7 military police in an attack on a barracks in the Diffa region.
2016 Jun 18, In Russia at least 11 children and their adult instructor died in a storm while boating on a lake in the northwestern region of Karelia.
2016 Jun 18, In Serbia China's President Xi Jinping signed a declaration on strategic partnership with Serbia's President Tomislav Nikolic and oversaw the signing of 21 agreements and memorandums ranging from economy, infrastructure, energy and finance to defense industry, technology, culture and media.
2016 Jun 18, In Syria at least 7 people died in rebel shelling of a neighborhood of Aleppo held by the Kurdish YPG militia. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a four-day offensive by different militant groups, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, killed 86 troops and pro-government gunmen, including 25 members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group. Militants now controlled the villages of Zeitan and Khalsa, south of Aleppo city.
2016 Jun 18, In Syria US-led coalition jets and Turkish artillery killed 13 Islamic State militants.
2016 Jun 18, At least 8 Syrian refugees, including four children were allegedly shot dead by border guards while trying to cross the frontier into Turkey's Hatay province.
2016 Jun 18, Turkish fighter jets hit 16 PKK targets early today in the district of Lice, including shelters and ammunition depots.
2017 Jun 18, In San Francisco Carlo Tateo (31), football coach, was shot and killed near 11th and Folsom after he asked a couple of men to stop bothering females in a group he was with. The suspects fled the scene.
(SFC, 9/21/17 p.D4)
2017 Jun 18, In Virginia Nabra Hassanen (17) of Reston, a Muslim teenager, was raped and murdered as she walked back to a mosque with friends for pre-dawn religious services. In 2019 Darwin Martinez-Torres of Sterling was sentenced to life in prison.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Nabra_Hassanen)(AP, 3/28/19)
2017 Jun 18, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban attackers stormed a police headquarters after striking it with two suicide car bombs, killing at least five police officers in Gardez, Paktia province.
(AP, 6/18/17) (SFC, 6/19/17, p.A2)
2017 Jun 18, In Egypt a roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded four others on a highway on the southern outskirts of Cairo.
2017 Jun 18, French voters returned to the polls for the second round of a parliamentary election. Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move (LRM) and its centrist ally MoDem won 350 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly in the runoff vote. The result means LRM can if necessary govern without the support of MoDem, which won 42 seats.
(AFP, 6/18/17)(AP, 6/19/17)(Econ 6/24/17, p.46)
2017 Jun 18, An Iranian ballistic missile strike targeted the Islamic State group in Syria's eastern city of Deir el-Zour. No casualties were reported.
2017 Jun 18, Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake Mosul's Old City, the last district still held by the Islamic State group. Around 100,000 people remained trapped in Mosul's Old City.
2017 Jun 18, Israel revoked the permits of 200,000 Palestinians to enter Israel that were approved for the holy month of Ramadan following two near simultaneous Palestinian attacks on police that killed a young female officer near Jerusalem's Old City two days earlier.
2017 Jun 18, In Mali Islamic extremists stormed the Campement Kangaba resort area popular with foreigners and killed four people, including a Portuguese soldier who had been serving in the European Union mission to stabilize this West African country.
2017 Jun 18, NATO completed its first war games focused on defending the Suwalki Gap, a land corridor from Kaliningrad to Belarus between Lithuania and Poland critical to the security of its Baltic allies.
2017 Jun 18, In Puerto Rico boat capsized off the southern coastal town of Salinas. Three people drowned and eight others were rescued.
2017 Jun 18, In Syria the US military shot down a Syrian Su-22 air force jet after it dropped bombs near the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that are fighting the Islamic State group.
2017 Jun 18, Turkish troops began taking part in joint training exercises in Qatar, as a diplomatic crisis in the Gulf enters its third week.
2017 Jun 18, In Ukraine more than two thousand people took part in Kiev's gay pride event amid a heavy police presence as nationalist protesters tried to halt the event and burned a rainbow flag.
2017 Jun 18, In northern Yemen 24-25 civilians were killed in an air raid on a house in Baqaa village, Saada province, where men had been growing qat. The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels was blamed.
2018 Jun 18, US Pres. Donald Trump announced that he is directing the Pentagon to create a new Space Force as an independent service branch aimed at ensuring American supremacy in space.
2018 Jun 18, An audio recording that appears to capture the heartbreaking voices of small Spanish-speaking children crying out for their parents at a US immigration facility took center stage in the growing uproar over the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents.
2018 Jun 18, In Florida rapper-singer Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy (20), aka XXXTentacion, was shot and killed in what police called an apparent robbery attempt outside a Deerfield Beach motorcycle dealership. On June 20 suspect Dedrick Devonshay Williams (22) was arrested following a traffic stop. On July 11 police said they have arrested suspect Michael Boatwright (22). A 2nd gunman was still being sought.
(SFC, 6/19/18, p.A6)(SFC, 6/22/18, p.A5)(SFC, 7/12/18, p.A10)
2018 Jun 18, General Motors said it is getting rid of three Cadillac sedans and replacing them with two new ones over the next 3½ years.
2018 Jun 18, In Afghanistan the Helmand Peace Convoy reached Kabul after traveling more than 500 km (300 miles) over nearly 40 days.
2018 Jun 18, In Bangladesh Arifullah (35) was killed on a busy road outside the Balukhali camp, where he had been appointed a leader of thousands of Rohingya refugees. He was stabbed at least 25 times. Police soon arrested three Rohingya men over the killing.
2018 Jun 18, In Britain three men died after they were hit by a train in south London. The men were graffiti artists and used the tags Kbag, Lover and Trip.
2018 Jun 18, The EU said it has extended restrictions on doing business with companies or officials in Ukraine's Crimea region an d the city of Sevastopol for a year over Russia's annexation of the peninsula.
2018 Jun 18, In France eight people were taken into custody following a raid in the notorious Castellane housing estate in Marseille, the nexus of the city's drug trade.
2018 Jun 18, Germany's environment minister said the country will likely miss its goal of cutting emissions by 40 percent by 2020, an embarrassing admission for a government that wants to lead the charge on limiting climate change.
2018 Jun 18, In Indonesia a ferry carrying about 80 passengers sank in Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra, killing at least one person. A day later 94 people were reported missing and the number was expected to rise. By June 20 more than 190 people were presumed drowned after the ferry sank on Lake Toba
(AP, 6/18/18)(SFC, 6/20/18, p.A4)(AP, 6/20/18)
2018 Jun 18, In western Japan residents cleaned up debris after a powerful 6.1 earthquake hit the area around Osaka, the country's second-largest city, killing five More than 370 people were injured in the region.
2018 Jun 18, In the Netherlands a van ran into a small group of pop music fans near the Pinkpop festival, killing one person and injuring three others before fleeing the scene. A suspect turned himself in to police hours later.
2018 Jun 18, A Palestinian (24) was killed when a part of Israel's fortifications on the Gaza border blew up as he tampered with it.
2018 Jun 18, The Philippine justice secretary revoked an immigration expulsion order for Sister Patricia Fox, an Australian nun who had irked the president by joining political rallies, but said she still faces possible deportation.
2018 Jun 18, In central Poland two people were killed and at least 27 others injured when a bus carrying retirees on a seaside holiday veered off the road and into a grassy ditch in Konstantynowo.
2018 Jun 18, In Sweden three people were killed and three others injured in a gang shooting in the southern city of Malmo. The victims were all known criminals.
2018 Jun 18, Turkish and US soldiers started independent patrols in northern Syria along the line separating Turkish-controlled areas from the town of Manbij where Ankara says Kurdish militia fighters are based.
2018 Jun 18, Vietnamese state media reported that police have arrested eight more people after protests a week ago over a proposed law on special economic zones that protesters fear would fall in the hands of Chinese investors.
2018 Jun 18, In Yemen Arab coalition aircraft bombarded Houthi fighters holed up at the airport of Yemen's main port Hodeidah. The number of Houthi fighters in Hodeidah was estimated at between 2,000 to 3,000.
2019 Jun 18, US President Donald Trump said he had a positive phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and the two leaders will hold an "extended meeting" next week at the Group of 20 summit in Japan.
2019 Jun 18, President Donald Trump launched his 2020 reelection campaign in Orlando much the same way he rode to power in 2016 -- with a raucous, nationalist rally stirring fear of illegal immigration and vowing to fight for blue collar workers.
2019 Jun 18, The United States announced a $250 million military aid package for war-torn Ukraine to strengthen the former Soviet republic's naval and land capabilities.
2019 Jun 18, The US said it is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East as tensions in the Persian Gulf mounted over Iran's announcement it will not comply with the international agreement that keeps it from making nuclear weapons.
2019 Jun 18, Members of US Coast Guard Cutter Munro jumped onto a moving submarine that was smuggling 17,000 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $232 million. The bust was part of a larger mission that included 14 other drug-smuggling interceptions along the coasts of Mexico, Central and South America, that netted an estimated 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana, worth a combined estimate of $569 million. 55 alleged smugglers were captured during the mission.
(http://tinyurl.com/yxrc2qvn)(SFC, 7/13/19, p.A5)
2019 Jun 18, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom formally apologized for the state's role in the "systemic slaughter" of Native Americans.
2019 Jun 18, California-based PG&E said it has agreed to pay $1 billion to more than a dozen local government agencies affected by recent devastating wildfires including last year's Camp Fire.
2019 Jun 18, In San Diego Manuel Reynoso Garcia of Mexico (63), arrested last year in what prosecutors called the biggest international money laundering investigation ever in the city, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge. Reynoso Garcia was the last of eight defendants to plead guilty in the case.
2019 Jun 18, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to approve legislation that would suspend the sale of e-cigarettes in the city, amid concerns over underage use of the nicotine products.
2019 Jun 18, In San Francisco groundbreaking ceremonies were held in front of the Eagle Bar, the future location of Eagle Plaza, a pedestrian zone in front of the bar dedicated to leather and the LGBTQ culture.
2019 Jun 18, Kansas City, Mo., voters chose Quinton Lucas (34) as new city mayor. He and his family were often homeless during his childhood in the city.
2019 Jun 18, US authorities seized about 33,000 pounds of cocaine, valued at more than $1 billion, at the packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia. Federal authorites soon raised the amount of cocaine seized to 35,000 pounds.
(SFC, 6/19/19, p.A5)(SSFC, 6/23/19, p.A10)
2019 Jun 18, Facebook unveiled plans for a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, pledging to bring a stable virtual money that lives on smartphones and brings the "unbanked" billions into the financial system.
2019 Jun 18, Google announced that it would put $ 1 billion toward housing in the SF Bay Area.
2019 Jun 18, Algeria's military chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah said that those who oppose the army were "enemies of Algeria", as the country's protest movement demands an overhaul of the entire regime.
2019 Jun 18, Brazil's Senate rejected a decree by President Jair Bolsonaro that loosened the country's strict gun laws, dealing a blow to the far-right leader who had lobbied for lawmakers to approve the measure. The decree now goes to the lower house. For the decree to be killed, both the Senate and the lower house must reject it.
2019 Jun 18, In England far-right university student Michal Szewczuk (19), who called Prince Harry a race traitor and created an image of him with a pistol to his head, was jailed for four years and three months. The Poland-born teen was sentenced at the London's Old Bailey court alongside 18-year-old Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, who admitted two counts of encouraging terrorism after the pair engaged in the same online chatrooms.
2019 Jun 18, Chilean police fired rubber bullets and tear gas in clashes early today with miners striking at the giant Chuquicamata copper mine, as the workers tried to block access to a site operated by state-owned giant, Codelco.
2019 Jun 18, Xinhua state news agency reported that China said it will halt imports from Canadian company Frigo Royal after food safety issues were detected in one batch of pork, a move likely to fuel speculation that China is retaliating against Canada for arresting a Chinese tech executive.
2019 Jun 18, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele ruled out negotiations with criminal gangs and vowed to go after their finances in a bid to reduce violence. Bukele also promised to comply with reparations ordered by an international court for relatives of the victims of the El Mozote massacre, one of the bloodiest chapters of the country's 1980-1992 civil war.
2019 Jun 18, The EU's highest court (ECJ) ruled that a planned German highway toll for cars discriminates against foreign drivers and breaches European Union law, forcing Berlin to rethink how to charge road users.
2019 Jun 18, Employees at Radio France turned off their microphones over plans to shed nearly 300 jobs as part of a cost-cutting effort, with many of the daily programs replaced by music.
2019 Jun 18, Berlin's government moved to freeze rents for five years from 2020 in their latest bid to halt runaway gentrification. Only social housing and private property that has not been let out would be exempt.
2019 Jun 18, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras demanded that the European Union issue a reprimand to Turkey for its "illegal" gas exploration in Cyprus, after Ankara defied calls for it to cease drilling in the region.
2019 Jun 18, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam signaled the end of a controversial extradition bill that she promoted and then postponed after some of the most violent protests since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
2019 Jun 18, Indian authorities said more than 100 children have died in an encephalitis outbreak in the eastern state of Bihar.
2019 Jun 18, Iran said it has dismantled a new espionage network linked to the US Central Intelligence Agency and arrested a number of spies. Iranian state television gave details of a 2013 operation to dismantle another CIA network.
2019 Jun 18, The Japanese coast guard said than 300 North Korean boats have been forced out of Japan's exclusive economic zone near Yamatotai since May.
2019 Jun 18, New Zealand sentenced Philip Arps (44) to 21 months in prison for distributing videos of the March 15 massacre at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.
2019 Jun 18, Filipino kidnap-for-ransom gangs raided two fishing boats and abducted 10 crew members in Malaysian waters off Borneo island.
2019 Jun 18, Exiled Rwandan opposition leader Paul Rusesabagina claimed that President Paul Kagame's government had used torture to coerce a terrorism confession from rebel chief Callixte Nsabimana.
2019 Jun 18, South Korea said two of four North Korean fishermen, who were rescued June 15 off a boat drifting in South Korean waters, will remain in the country after expressing their desire to defect. The two other fishermen were sent back to North Korea through an inter-Korean village.
2019 Jun 18, In Syria clashes between pro-government forces and jihadist-led groups that control the northwest killed at least 45 combatants.
2019 Jun 18, A Syrian agriculture ministry official said the government will distribute free chickens and feed to farmers to support rural areas ravaged by years of conflict.
2019 Jun 18, State-run Anadolu news agency said Turkey has ordered the arrest of 128 military personnel over suspected links to the network accused by Ankara of orchestrating an attempted coup in 2016.
2019 Jun 18, The UN and local authorities said hundreds of thousands of people have fled inter-ethnic violence in northeastern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two weeks. Local officials last week said at least 50 people had been killed in a matter of days in Ituri province, while other sources put the death toll from the inter-ethnic violence at over 70.
2019 Jun 18, It was reported that inflation in Zimbabwe was running at 75% and that a passport now takes a year to be issued.
Go to June 19