On this day in conspiracies

A military Beechcraft Super King Air carrying Roldós, first lady Martha Bucaram, defense minister Marco Subía Martínez and his wife, two aides-de-camp, a flight attendant, and two pilots crashes into Cerro Huairapungo near Guachanamá, Loja Province, in bad weather. All nine aboard are killed. Roldós had delivered a speech in Loja hours earlier.

Japan's Diet enacts the Hate Speech Elimination Act, the country's first national law addressing hate speech, widely understood as a response to the Zaitokukai-led anti-Korean rallies. It condemns 'unfair discriminatory speech and behavior' against foreign-origin residents, though it sets no criminal penalties.

The JIT announces that the launcher has been traced to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian armed forces, based in Kursk, identifying seven distinguishing 'fingerprints' matching the vehicle filmed in Ukraine to Buk systems from a Russian military convoy.

Reporting from the epicenter (CNN, NPR) documents cases rising inside an armed-conflict zone amid deep distrust, with responders battling fear, mistrust, and rumors as much as the virus itself.