Today is the 174th day of 2025. There are 191 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2008: A Pakistani court rules that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is not eligible to run in upcoming parliamentary elections because he had been convicted of a crime.

OTHER EVENTS

1888: Frederick Douglass becomes the first African-American to be nominated for US vice-president.

1943: Economic Stabilization Director Fred M Vinson rejects a wage increase of eight cents hourly for 1,100,000 non-operating railway employees.

1993: General Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria’s military voids the results of presidential elections, thus halting a return to democracy.

1994: Some 2,500 French troops head into Rwanda to protect civilians, the first outside forces sent there since United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appealed for international involvement to stop the genocide.

1996: Archbishop Desmond Tutu retires as archbishop of Cape Town and head of the Anglican Church in South Africa.

2004: Facing global opposition fuelled by the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, the United States drops a contentious UN resolution that sought to renew an exemption shielding American troops from international prosecution for war crimes.

2005: Rights groups show a smuggled video of hundreds of thousands of poor Zimbabweans living in the open in the winter cold, after the Government tore down their homes in what it described as an urban renewal project.

2006: American television producer Aaron Spelling — of Charlie’s Angels,
The Love Boat,
and Beverly Hills 90210 fame, et al — dies in Los Angeles.

2009: President Barack Obama condemns the violence against protesters in Iran and lends his strongest support yet to their accusations that a victory by hardliners in a presidential election is a fraud.

2011: Syrian troops push to the Turkish border in their sweep against a three-month-old pro-democracy movement, sending panicked refugees, including children, rushing across the frontier to havens in Turkey.

2013: Islamic militants disguised as policemen kill 10 foreign climbers and a Pakistani guide, at the base of one of the world’s tallest mountains in northern Pakistan.

2014: An Egyptian court convicts three
Al-Jazeera journalists and sentences them to seven years in prison on terrorism-related charges, following a trial dismissed by rights groups as a sham.

2016: A ceasefire agreement is signed between the Colombian Government and Farc rebels — ending more than 50 years of conflict.

2017: Saudi Arabia and allies Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain issue a list of 13 conditions to Qatar in return for lifting sanctions, including closing Al Jazeera TV.

2018: Indian chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa becomes the second-youngest grandmaster at 12 years, 10 months and 13 days.

2019: The biggest protests in Prague since the fall of communism are launched against Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, with an estimated 250,000 in Letna Plain park.

2020: Pilots numbering 125 are grounded by Pakistan International Airlines after revelations that many had cheated in exams or held fake licences.

2021: The US Supreme Court rules in favour of a teen kicked off her cheerleading team following a profane social media post, saying the school violated her right to free speech.

2022: In a 6-3 vote the US Supreme Court declares for the first time that there is a constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self defence, striking down a century-old gun law in New York that limited licences.

2024: According to Saudi Arabia, more than 1,300 people perish during the Hajj pilgrimage attended by 1.83 million Muslims, as temperatures rise to over 46 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Farenheit).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Fanny Eaton, Jamaican artist’s model (1835-1924); Alan Turing, British mathematician and computer pioneer (1912-1954); Wilma Rudolph, the first American woman to win three track and field gold medals in a single Olympics (1940-1994)

— AP/Jamaica Observer

President Barack Obama condemns violence against protesters in Iran and lends his strongest support yet to their accusations that a victory by hardliners in a presidential election is a fraud, on this day 2009.