Politics and elections

• 2025 Polish presidential election
  • Poles vote in the first round to choose their president. (Times of India)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip
    • More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours. (AP) (Reuters)
• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    • A bus evacuating civilians is attacked by a Russian drone near Bilopillia, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, killing nine people and injuring five others. (Ukrainska Pravda)
• Guyana–Venezuela territorial dispute
  • The chief of the Guyana Defence Force, Omar Khan, says that military reinforcement have been sent to the Cuyuní River area after Venezuelan civilians shot at Guyanese soldiers on Thursday, as tensions between both nations increase over a referendum by Venezuela on the Essequibo. (Infobae)
• War against the Islamic State
  • The Ministry of Interior of Syria announces that its armed forces carried out a military operation in a southern neighborhood of Aleppo, where it killed a member of Islamic State, arrested another, and seized weapons, explosives and uniforms with official insignia. A security forces member is also killed in the confrontation. (The Media Line)
• Terrorism in the United States
  • 2025 Palm Springs fertility clinic bombing
    • One person is killed, four others are injured and significant damage is reported in a car bombing at a fertility clinic near the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California, United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed the explosion was an act of terrorism. (The Desert Sun) (BNO News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Eura mid-air collision
  • Five people, including Estonian businessmen Oleg Sõnajalg and Priit Jaagant, are killed when two Robinson R44 civilian helicopters en route to Piikajärvi Airfield collide mid-air and crash into the ground in a forested area near Eura, Satakunta, Finland. (Eesti Rahvusringhääling)
• Tornado outbreak sequence of May 15–16, 2025
  • The death toll from severe weather yesterday, including likely tornadoes, in St. Louis, Missouri, and Somerset, Kentucky, United States, rises to 31. More severe weather is expected today near the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. (NPR) (AP)
• ARM Cuauhtémoc Brooklyn Bridge collision
  • Two crew members are killed and twenty-five others are injured, including two critically, when Mexican Navy training ship ARM Cuauhtémoc (BE01) with a crew of 277 people on a festive visit collides with the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, New York, United States. A search and rescue operation is currently underway. (FDNY) (Eric Adams) (The New York Post)

International relations

• Democratic Republic of the Congo–Rwanda relations
  • Hundreds of Rwandan refugees from the 1994 genocide return to Rwanda under the auspices of a United Nations program. The refugees, mostly Hutu civilians, were residing in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AP)

Law and crime

• Capital punishment in Iran, Blasphemy law in Iran
  • The Supreme Court of Iran overturns a 5-year prison sentence imposed by a Tehran court against singer Amir Tataloo and confirms his death sentence for blasphemy. Tataloo had been extradited from Turkey in 2023. (News Central Africa)
• Mass shootings in the United States
  • Three people are killed and another person is critically injured in a mass shooting outside of a nightclub in Seattle, Washington, United States. No arrests have been made. (KOMO-TV)
• Eight people are killed in a mass shooting by unidentified gunmen inside a tavern in Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A manhunt for the suspects has been launched. (CBS News)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Philippine general election
  • The twelve winning candidates of the Senate election held on May 12 are officially proclaimed as senators-elect. The Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas coalition of President Bongbong Marcos wins the most seats, with six. However, one of its members, Senator-elect Camille Villar, is also a candidate of the opposition coalition DuterTen, supported by Vice President Sara Duterte, which won a total of five seats. (Inquirer.net) (ABS-CBN News)
• Former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol leaves the People Power Party a month after the Constitutional Court of Korea removed him from office due to his short-lived declaration of martial law. (Reuters)

Sports

• 2024–25 FA Cup
  • In English football, Crystal Palace wins the FA Cup after defeating Manchester City 1–0 in the final played at Wembley Stadium in London. It is Crystal Palace's first major trophy in the club's 119-year history. (Fox Sports)
• 2024–25 Ligue 1
  • In association football, Paris Saint-Germain defeat AJ Auxerre 3-1 to become champions, lifting PSG's trophy and ending the 2024–25 Ligue 1 season. (BBC Sport)

May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine

• 1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
• 1695 – An earthquake measuring struck Shanxi Province in northern China, resulting in at least 52,600 deaths.
• 1927 – Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off explosives with timers and a rifle (aftermath pictured), causing the Bath School disaster in the Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 44 people in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
• 2009 – The Sri Lanka Army killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to bring an end to the 26-year Sri Lankan civil war.