Portal:Current events/2025 May 18

May 18, 2025 (Sunday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Gaza war
- Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, May 2025 Gaza offensive
  - At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza in the last day. (Sky News) (Reuters)
Somali Civil War
- 2025 Mogadishu military base bombing
  - At least 21 people are killed, including the perpetrator, and 15 others are injured in a suicide bombing at the entrance of a military base in Mogadishu, Somalia. (Reuters) (Hiiraan Online)
Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Russia launches 273 drones at Ukraine, the largest such attack since the beginning of the war. The attack comes a day after a round of direct peace talks between the two countries, and a day before Donald Trump's scheduled call with Vladimir Putin. (The Guardian)
Insurgency in Balochistan
- Four people are killed and twenty others are injured in a bombing near a market in Killa Abdullah District, Balochistan, Pakistan. Several shops collapsed, fires were started and buildings were damaged. (The Hindu)
Syrian civil war
- Three police personnel are killed and two others are injured in a car bombing targeting a police station in Mayadin, Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. (SANA) (Al Jazeera English)

Arts and culture

Disasters and accidents

Seventeen people are killed and several others are injured in a building fire in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. (DW)
Six people are killed and eleven others are injured in a mining accident at a gold mine in Mwakitolyo Village, Shinyanga Urban District, Tanzania. (The Citizen Tanzania)
Three people are killed, including a 5-year-old, and two others are injured, including an infant, when a train strikes five civilians near a bridge in Fremont, Ohio, United States. (Sandusky Register)

Law and crime

Capital punishment in Iran, 2022 Shah Cheragh attack
- A court in Shiraz, Iran, sentences three people to death over two attacks on a Shiite shrine in 2022 and 2023 in Shiraz and several to others to different prison terms. (The Times of Israel)
Kenyan politician Martha Karua, who legally represents incarcerated Tanzanian opposition figure Tundu Lissu, is arrested at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and set for deportation. (France 24)
2025 Bielefeld stabbing attack
- Six people are injured, including the perpetrator and one critically, in a mass stabbing attack when a Syrian national stabs a group of football fans with a swordstick and knives outside of a bar in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. (Euronews) (BNO News)
Three people are injured, including an 11-year-old, in a mass stabbing attack outside of a house after an altercation in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. (Der Spiegel)

Politics and elections

2025 Polish presidential election
- Incumbent mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski leads the first round of the Polish presidential elections with 31.4% of the vote, followed by Karol Nawrocki with 29.5%. As no candidates received more than 50% of the vote, a runoff between the two is scheduled for June 1. (Euronews) (Elections of Poland) (The Times of India)
2025 Portuguese legislative election
- Citizens in Portugal vote to elect 230 seats of the Assembly of the Republic. (AP)
2025 Romanian presidential election
- Romanians vote in the second round to choose their president between far-right George Simion and independent-declared centrist and incumbent Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan. (DW)
- Nicușor Dan is elected President of Romania after winning 53.6% of the vote. (CNBC) (DW)
2025 South Korean presidential election
- Liberal Unification Party presidential candidate Koo Joo-wa resigns from his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election on June 3. (Yonhap (in Korean))
- Former People Power Party lawmaker Kim Sang-wook joins the Democratic Party of Korea, three days after he declared support for Lee Jae-myung as the party's presidential candidate and ten days after leaving the conservative party. (The Korea Herald)
The party of Argentina's president, Javier Milei, La Libertad Avanza, wins the Buenos Aires legislative election, with presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni securing the victory. (Reuters)

Sports