December 7, 2018 (Friday)
International relations
- European migrant crisis
- Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) rescue vessel Aquarius 2 ends migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, citing sustained attacks on search and rescue by European governments, particularly Italy. (BBC)
Law and crime
- Eleven people die, including five hostages, as armed police battle robbers who had tried to raid two banks in Milagres, Ceará, Brazil. (BBC)
- Mueller special counsel investigation
- American attorney Robert Mueller is set to reveal more details about the Special Counsel investigation as he faces court deadlines in the cases of two men who worked closely with Donald Trump. (Huffington Post)
- Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton (Mark Anthony Myrie) is released from a U.S. prison and deported back to Jamaica, after serving 7 years of a 10-year drug charge conviction. (Tampa Bay Times)
- Charlottesville car attack
- A jury finds James Alex Fields guilty of the murder, in the first degree, of Heather Heyer at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Al Jazeera)
- Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou attends a bail hearing in Vancouver while she awaits extradition to the United States. She is charged by Canadian and American prosecutors with conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions in order to commit evasion of United States sanctions against Iran so as to conduct business with Iran. (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- Political appointments by Donald Trump
- U.S. President Donald Trump nominates William Barr to be the new United States Attorney General, a position he held under George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993. Heather Nauert, a former journalist and the incumbent Spokesperson for the United States Department of State, is proposed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. (BBC) (Reuters)
- 2018 Christian Democratic Union of Germany leadership election
- Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer succeeds Angela Merkel as the new chairperson of the Christian Democratic Union, one of the major political parties in Germany. (The Guardian)
Science and technology
- Discoveries of exoplanets
- Scientists from the University of Geneva announce that a previously-known Neptune-sized exoplanet, HAT-P-11b, has a slowly-escaping helium atmosphere. (International Business Times) (Phys.org)
- Chinese Lunar Exploration Program
- The China National Space Administration successfully launches Chang'e 4 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center which will attempt the first ever robotic landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019. (BBC)