Current events: 2026-03-24

[Wikipedia Current Events]

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Middle Eastern crisis
  • 2026 Iran war
    • 2025–2026 Iran–United States negotiations
      • The New York Times reports that the United States has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war. (CNBC)
    • 2026 Iranian strikes on Israel
      • Shrapnel from an Iranian ballistic missile wounds three people, including a two-month-old baby, in a Bedouin community in the Negev, Israel. (The Jerusalem Post)
    • Iraq in the 2026 Iran war
      • Fifteen fighters from Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), including a commander, are killed in an American airstrike on a PMF base in the Al Anbar Governorate. (AFP via BSS)
  • Hezbollah–Israel conflict
    • 2026 Lebanon war
      • Hezbollah rocket fire kills a woman and injures two others in northern Israel. (The Jerusalem Post)
      • Israeli defense minister Israel Katz states that the military will control a "security zone" up to the Litani River in southern Lebanon until the threat of Hezbollah is removed. (The Times of Israel)
• Russo-Ukrainian war
  • Zaporizhzhia strikes, Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
    • Russian missile and drone strikes across Ukraine kill at least three people, including two in Poltava and one in Zaporizhzhia, and injures several others. The attacks also damage residential buildings and infrastructure in the areas. (AFP via BSS)
  • Lviv strikes
    • A Russian Shahed drone strikes and severely damages the Bernardine Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Lviv, western Ukraine. (The New Voice of Ukraine)

Business and economy

• Australia–European Union relations
  • Australia and the European Union sign a free trade agreement after eight years of negotiations. (AP)
• Economic impact of the 2026 Iran war
  • Philippine president Bongbong Marcos declares a state of national energy emergency in response to risks to the fuel supply linked to the Iran war. (Reuters)
• BMW Brilliance recalls nearly 180,000 vehicles in China due to a defect in the air conditioning wiring that may cause a short circuit and increase the risk of fire. (AFP via The Straits Times)
• 2022–2026 video game industry layoffs
  • American video game company Epic Games announces that it will lay off more than 1,000 employees along with more ⁠than $500 million in savings from cuts to contracting and ⁠marketing amid a sharp decline in the number of people playing its flagship video game Fortnite. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

• At least 84 people are killed in flash floods across Kenya, including in Kisumu, Uasin Gishu, and Tana River counties. (The Star)

International relations

• Iran–Lebanon relations
  • 2026 Lebanon war
    • The Lebanese Foreign Ministry declares the Iranian ambassador a persona non grata and gives him until March 29 to leave the country, due to Iranian government’s financial and military support of Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah.(Al Jazeera)

Politics and elections

• 2026 Danish general election
  • Danes, Faroe Islanders, and Greenlanders vote to elect 179 seats of the Folketing. Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen seeks a third term in office during the aftermath of the Greenland crisis. (AP) (Reuters)
  • Frederiksen's left-wing bloc wins the most seats but fails to secure a majority. (Le Monde)

Space and technology

• Artemis program
  • NASA states that it plans to pause the Lunar Gateway project and redirect efforts toward developing infrastructure for sustained operations on the Moon's surface, including a future moonbase. (AFP via The Witness)
• OpenAI says it will shut down its Sora app. (NBC News)

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