Current events: 2025-05-18

Wikipedia Current Events · 2025-05-18T21:17:19-0400

Armed conflicts and attacks

Gaza war
- Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip
  - At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza. (Sky News) (Reuters)
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)
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)
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. (Syrian Arab News Agency) (Al Jazeera English)

Arts and culture

Disasters and accidents

Seventeen people are killed in a building fire in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. (DW)

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)
Six people are injured, including the perpetrator, in a mass stabbing attack when a man stabs a group of football fans celebrating with a swordstick and a knife outside of a bar in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. According to police, the perpetrator is currently at large and the attack was a premeditated assault, and possibly terrorism. (Euronews) (ABC 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
- Poles vote in the first round to choose their president, with thirteen candidates participated. (The Times of India)
- The current mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski leads the first round with 31% of the vote against his conservative rival Karol Nawrocki. Due to no candidates obtained more than 50% of the vote, the runoff between two candidates are expected to be held on June 1. (Euronews)
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 centrist and incumbent Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan. (DW)
- Nicușor Dan is elected President of Romania after winning 54% of the vote. (CNBC) (DW)
2025 South Korean presidential election
- Liberty Unification Party presidential candidate Koo Joo-wa resign from his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election scheduled on June 3. (Yonhap)
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 party's presidential candidate and ten days after leaving the conservative party. (The Korea Herald)

Sports