Today is the 153rd day of 2025. There are 212 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1960: Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America votes unanimously at a convention in Miami Beach, Florida, to use boycotts and strikes to curb clothing imports from Japan and other low-wage countries.

OTHER EVENTS

1851: Maine becomes the first US state to enact a law prohibiting alcohol.

1863: West Virginia is admitted to the United States as the 35th state, created from the anti-slavery counties of Virginia.

1924: The US Congress confirms the citizenship of all Native Americans.

1940: Portugal begins a six-month celebration of the 800th anniversary of its founding and the 300th anniversary of the recovery of its independence.

1951: The US Government prohibits all travel by its citizens in Czechoslovakia.

1953: President Dwight D Eisenhower orders the creation of an international organisations employee loyalty board to evaluate as security risks US citizens employed by or applying for jobs with the United Nations.

1966: Former Congolese Prime Minister Evariste Kimba and three other former Cabinet ministers are executed in Leopoldville for allegedly plotting the assassination of President Mobutu.

1971: US bombers and helicopters attack North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia in response to a South Vietnamese call for help to prevent an invasion of that country.

1974: Jigme Singye Wangchuk is crowned King of Bhutan at age 18, becoming the youngest monarch in the world.

1976: Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles is injured by a bomb planted underneath his car and dies 11 days later; three men are convicted of the killing.

1999: Reggae musician and original member of The Wailing Wailers, Junior Brathwaite (born Franklin Delano Alexander Brathwaite) dies.

2001: A woman taking part in a medical experiment at Johns Hopkins University becomes the first research subject to die in the university’s history; the experiment was intended to help learn how the human body fights asthma and involved a drug that would produce an asthma-like reaction in a healthy subject.

2002: In rural south-western Mexico 16 people are jailed in connection with a massacre of 26 sawmill workers from the village of Santiago Xochiltepec two days previously; the event is believed to stem from a feud, mostly over land, between neighbouring villages.

2004: Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated television game show Jeopardy!

2009: US military officials report that a Yemeni who had been held in the Guantanamo Bay military prison since 2002 had apparently committed suicide while in a psychiatric ward.

2011: A judge in Placerville, California, sentences serial sex offender Phillip Garrido to life in prison for kidnapping and raping Jaycee Dugard; Garrido’s wife, Nancy, receives a decades-long sentence.

2014: A unity government is sworn into power in Palestine and agrees to the following: recognition of Israel, compliance to diplomatic agreements, renunciation of violence.

2015: The US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures that restrict the gathering of phone records.

2017: Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, is released and earns over US$100 million in North America during its opening weekend — a domestic record for a female director.

2020: UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet says the coronavirus pandemic is exposing “endemic inequalities” around the world; she cites the death of George Floyd and higher death toll for ethnic minorities to substantiate her claim.

2022: The jury in a defamation case brought by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard awards Depp US$15 million in damages and compensation, and grants Heard US$2 million in damages in Fairfax, Virginia.

2024: At age 27 gymnast Simone Biles wins her record ninth US Championship in Fort Worth, Texas.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Wayne Brady, American actor and comedian (The Wayne Brady Show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?) (1972- ); Irish Grinstead, American R&B singer of girl group 702 (Where My Girls At?) (1980-2023); Steve Smith, Australian cricket batsman and captain (1989- )

– AP/Jamaica Observer