JINAN, May 27 – An explosion occurred at the workshop of a chemical company in the city of Gaomi, east China’s Shandong Province, at noon on Tuesday, with emergency response efforts currently underway, according to the municipal emergency management bureau.
XINHUA
JERICHO, May 27, 2025 – A young man was killed at dawn on Tuesday during an Israeli occupation forces raid on the city of Jericho.
Medical sources confirmed to WAFA that 20-year-old Mohammed Yahya Asi Jalaytah succumbed to his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces during the raid on the Arab neighborhood in central Jericho.
The Fatah movement in the Jericho organizational area declared a general strike in mourning for Jalaytah.
After midnight, Israeli occupation forces raided Jericho and fired live ammunition and sound bombs at residents of the Arab neighborhood in central Jericho.
They also raided a private home, during which Jalaytah was hit by live ammunition and later pronounced dead.
The slain youth’s body will be taken this afternoon from his family’s home on Qasr Hisham Street in central Jericho to the old Jericho mosque, and then to his final resting place.
WAFA
GAZA, May 27, 2025 – Israeli bombing on Monday evening killed two Palestinian civilians and injured others across the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli fighter jets conducted a strike targeting an area to the east of Az-Zawayda town in the central Strip, claiming the life of a civilian and injuring others.
He added that Israeli bombardment targeted a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, claiming the life of another civilian.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces razed and blew up several houses to the east of Khan Younes and in the northern Strip, causing extensive destruction, and targeted anyone in the surrounding area, with the death toll exceeding 80 on Monday.
Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement and resumed its aggression on the Strip on Tuesday, March 18, carrying out a wave of bloody airstrikes across the Strip and killing hundreds of Palestinians.
WAFA
NEW YORK, May 27 – A motorboat with 13 people on board exploded in Fort Lauderdale, U.S. state of Florida, on Monday afternoon, according to U.S. Coast Guard and media reports.
Up to 11 people, including two children, were injured and transported to hospitals.
The explosion took place when the anchored boat was trying to leave the New River Triangle sandbar.
People on board were tossed into water and the cause of the explosion is unknown yet, according to Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesperson Frank Guzman.
Local fire investigators, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Fort Lauderdale Police are investigating the cause of the blast.
XINHUA
WASHINGTON, May 27 – A mass shooting occurred in a park in the U.S. city of Philadelphia on Monday night, killing at least two people, local WPVI-TV reported.
At least eight others were wounded in the gunfire in the Fairmount Park, reported the TV channel, which is affiliated with the ABC News.
The report said the shooting happened on Lemon Hill Drive at Poplar Drive in the city.
Among the people shot were at least two juveniles, it said, citing the police.
XINHUA
LIVERPOOL, England, May 26 – A car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans during a parade celebrating their side’s Premier League soccer title on Monday, hospitalising 27 people, with two seriously injured, but police said they did not believe the incident was terrorism-related.
Police said they had arrested a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area,” whom they believed to be the driver of the vehicle which struck a large group of supporters who were celebrating in the city in northwest England.
Twenty people were treated at the scene. Ambulance officials said of the 27 taken to hospital, four were children. One child and one adult were in a serious condition. Four people trapped under the vehicle had to be released by fire fighters.
Videos on social media showed people thrown into the air as the car rammed into spectators.
When the car stopped, angry fans converged on it and began smashing the windows as police officers intervened to prevent them from reaching the driver.
“We believe this to be an isolated incident, and we are not currently looking for anyone else in relation to it. The incident is not being treated as terrorism,” temporary Deputy Chief Constable Jenny Sims told reporters.
With most people off work for the Spring Bank Holiday, hundreds of thousands of fans gathered to watch the Liverpool team and its staff travel through the city centre on an open-top bus with the Premier League trophy.
The incident “cast a very dark shadow over what had been a joyous day,” Liverpool city council leader Liam Robinson said on social media.
In the aftermath, a Reuters photographer saw emergency services carrying victims on stretchers to ambulances and debris scattered on the road.
Police were unusually quick to give a description of the man they arrested.
Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in London’s Metropolitan Police, told the BBC this was an effort to cool social media speculation that the episode was an Islamist attack.
The same police force oversaw the response to the murder of three young girls in the nearby town of Southport last year, an incident which sparked days of rioting, sparked by speculation online over the identity of the attacker.
An eyewitness to Monday’s incident who gave her name as Chelsea told BBC Radio that people packed onto the street were only alerted to the danger by screams from the crowd. That enabled some to jump out of the way as the driver showed no sign of slowing.
“With the commotion, that was the only reason we looked up, and thankfully, looked up and managed to jump out (of) the way in time,” the woman said.
A Reuters witness said that before the incident, there was disorder in the city centre where the parade was due to pass, with overcrowding and spectators confused by a lack of signage about street closures or where they should go.
Liverpool last won the trophy during the COVID pandemic when celebrations were not permitted due to lockdowns.
Politicians in Britain and in Ireland, where the club is popular, thanked emergency services.
“My thoughts are with all those injured or affected,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on X, calling the scenes “appalling.” and saying that he was being updated about the events.
The team said on X it was in direct contact with police. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident,” Liverpool FC said.
REUTERS
SANTIAGO, May 26 – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric was set to travel Monday to the southern city of Puerto Varas after an unusually strong tornado whipped through the town Sunday, injuring 19 people, damaging over 250 homes, and knocking down power lines and trees.
The intense tornado surprised the 45,000 residents of the city located at the edge of Lake Llanquihue, close to numerous volcanoes.
Following the incident, Boric announced the government will take emergency measures to expedite the survey of damage to homes and property, and said “various state agencies are collaborating in the removal of debris.”
Undersecretary of the Interior Victor Ramos provided the media with an assessment of the situation Monday, saying the injured were receiving treatment, and “the supply of drinking water has been restored to 100 percent and the electrical system has been 85 percent restored.”
Puerto Varas residents took to social media Sunday afternoon to report “hurricane-force winds” that sounded like “an airplane taking off.”
Residents also shared images of fallen trees, broken glass, damaged streets, and destroyed rooftops.
Chile’s meteorological service said the unusual phenomenon registered winds of up to 180 kilometers per hour.
The National Service for Disaster Prevention and Response (Senapred) has declared a red alert for the area to continue monitoring the meteorological event, leading local authorities to suspend school classes on Monday, in addition to providing shelters for those affected.
XINHUA
LIVERPOOL, England, May 26 – A car ploughed into large crowds of Liverpool fans in the city centre during their side’s Premier League title celebrations on Monday, videos online showed, with police saying a man had been detained.
British police said they were responding to reports of a car hitting a “number of pedestrians” shortly after the team’s open-top coach carrying players and coaching staff drove through the city centre, where they were greeted by tens of thousands of fans.
An unverified video on social media purporting to show the incident showed a car driving at speed into large crowds of fans lining the street, at one point appearing to swerve away from the most densely crowded area.
Large numbers of police surrounded the vehicle shortly afterwards, with other videos showing that angry fans also tried to reach the driver. Some people were pictured lying in the road.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on X that the scenes were appalling and that he was being kept updated about the events.
“The scenes in Liverpool are appalling — my thoughts are with all those injured or affected. I want to thank the police and emergency services for their swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident,” Starmer said on social media.
Police said in a statement that the car had stopped at the scene and a male had been detained.
“Emergency services are currently on the scene,” they said.
A Reuters photographer said multiple ambulances were in the street, with a tent erected by nearby fire engines.
REUTERS
LONDON – UN World Food Programme chief Cindy McCain has rejected Israeli government claims that Hamas is looting aid trucks arriving in Gaza, The Independent reported.
The widow of late US Sen. John McCain has repeatedly advocated for Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian enclave, which was placed under a months-long blockade in March.
The first aid trucks began arriving in the territory last week, but the Israeli government accused Hamas of disrupting the distribution process, claiming to have killed six people affiliated with the group near an aid point at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Friday. Hamas said the armed men were guarding against looting.
An Israeli military spokesperson told Reuters: “Hamas constantly calls the looters ‘guards’ or protectors’ to mask the fact that they’re disturbing the aid process.”
Speaking to “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, McCain was asked by host Margaret Brennan: “Have you seen evidence that it is Hamas stealing the food?”
McCain replied: “No. Not at all. Not in this round. Listen, these people are desperate, and they see a World Food Programme truck coming in, and they run for it. This doesn’t have anything to do with Hamas or any kind of organized crime, or anything.”
She described the situation in Gaza as a “catastrophe,” and said the WFP would continue work urgently to transport food and fresh water into the enclave.
So far, the aid trucks that have entered Gaza are “a drop in the bucket as to what’s needed,” she told CBS.
“Right now, we have 500,000 people inside of Gaza that are extremely food insecure, and could be on the verge of famine if we don’t help bring them back from that.”
Contrary to Israeli claims that many of the aid trucks entering Gaza are being hijacked, McCain said they are being swarmed by “desperate” people. “Having been in a food riot myself some years ago, I understand the desperation,” she added.
AN, 26.5.2025
GENEVA, May 26 – The majority of supplies of medical equipment have run out in Gaza, while 42% of basic medicines including pain killers are out of stock, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
“We are at stock zero of close to 64% of medical equipment and stock zero of 43% of essential medicines and 42% of vaccines,” Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told reporters in Geneva.
Balkhy said the WHO has 51 aid trucks waiting on the Gaza border that have not yet had clearance to enter the Palestinian enclave, where Israel last week slightly eased a total blockade on aid imposed in early March.
“Can you imagine a surgeon (fixing) a broken bone with no anaesthesia? IV fluids, needles, bandages – they do not exist in the quantities that are required,” she said, adding that basic medications such as antibiotics, pain killers and drugs for chronic diseases were in short supply.
After an 11-week blockade, Israel – at war with Gaza’s dominant militant group Hamas since October 2023 – allowed 100 aid trucks carrying flour, baby food and medical equipment into the Gaza Strip on May 21, none of them from the WHO.
Amidst ongoing shortages of medical equipment, the WHO confirmed that it would not take part in an alternative, U.S.-backed aid plan to distribute aid, proposed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The United Nations has said the foundation is not impartial and its work could cause further displacement of civilians, exposes thousands to harm.
The GHF previously told Reuters its plan would enable aid to be delivered to people in need, without diversion to Hamas militants or criminal gangs.
Israel stopped all aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2 after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which it denied, and demanding the release of all remaining hostages taken during Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel.
REUTERS
GAZA, May 26, 2025 – At least nine Palestinians were killed and several others wounded on Monday, as Israeli airstrikes targeted multiple sites in the Khan Younis and Jabalia areas of the Gaza Strip, according to medical sources.
In eastern Khan Younis, two civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a group of people in the town of Abasan al-Kabira. Another strike, carried out by an Israeli drone, targeted a gathering in Al-Mawasi, west of the city, killing at least one person.
In northern Gaza, an airstrike hit a residential building belonging to the Abed Rabbo family in eastern Jabalia, killing at least six people and injuring others.
The attacks came hours after Israeli forces launched two massive strikes earlier in the day. A school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City’s Al-Daraj neighborhood — the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School — was bombed, killing at least 36 people, including six children.
In a separate incident, 19 people were killed when a residential home was targeted in Jabalia al-Balad, also in northern Gaza.
WAFA
DAKAR, May 26 – Seven people were killed and seven others injured when a three-story building under construction collapsed on Sunday in central Senegal, authorities said.
The number of people killed and injured may rise as search and rescue efforts continue in Darou Khoudoss, a locality in central Senegal, Mame Diene Ndiaye, commander of Fire and Rescue Group No. 2, said on Monday.
“In the afternoon, rescue teams from the Touba company were alerted to the weakening of a three-story building under construction, with several victims inside. After hours of search and rescue operations, we recorded 14 victims, including seven deaths,” Ndiaye told a press briefing.
The rescue operation mobilized significant human and logistical resources, including 35 firefighters, a specialized search-and-clearance team, and seven emergency vehicles and equipment, Ndiaye said.
XINHUA
TOKYO, May 26 – Four U.S. servicemen have been arrested in Japan’s Okinawa between May 23 and May 26 in connection with separate incidents, local media reported.
In the latest case, a 23-year-old U.S. Marine corporal was arrested on a city road in Okinawa on suspicion of driving under the influence.
While on patrol, officers noticed a car swerving and pulled it over. A breathalyzer test was conducted, which revealed a blood alcohol level exceeding the legal limit, national broadcaster NHK reported.
On May 25, another U.S. Marine, a 20-year-old, was also arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run in Okinawa. A breath test also indicated a blood alcohol level over the legal limit.
Earlier on May 25, a 26-year-old U.S. Navy was arrested in Okinawa City for allegedly trespassing on a private residence’s balcony.
On the night of May 23, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine was arrested in Chatan Town on suspicion of public indecency after allegedly exposing his lower body in public.
Crimes involving U.S. military personnel in Okinawa have been a longstanding issue. According to Okinawa Prefecture’s statistics, approximately 6,200 criminal cases involving U.S. military personnel and their dependents have occurred in the prefecture between 1972 and 2023, including serious offenses such as murder, rape, and robbery.
XINHUA
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck as people slept, igniting their belongings, according to local health officials.
The military said it targeted militants operating from the school.
Rescuers recover charred remains
The strike on the school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City also wounded dozens of people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the ministry’s emergency service.
He said a father and his five children were among the dead.
The Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals in Gaza City confirmed the overall toll.
Awad said the school was hit three times while people slept, setting their belongings ablaze.
Footage circulating online showed rescuers struggling to extinguish fires and recovering charred remains.
The military said it targeted a militant command and control center inside the school that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used to gather intelligence for attacks.
Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas.
A separate strike on a home in Jabalya in northern Gaza killed 16 members of the same family, including five women and two children, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.
AP
NEW YORK, May 26 – A mass shooting in South Carolina led to at least 11 people hospitalized on Sunday night, according to local police.
The Horry County Police Department said it was responding to “an apparent shooting incident” in the town of Little River.
As of 10:20 p.m. Eastern time (0220 GMT Monday), 11 individuals had been transported to area hospitals by Horry County Fire Rescue, and there had been reports that others arrived at area hospitals via personal vehicles, the department wrote on social media.
“This is believed to be an isolated incident. There is no risk to the community at this time,” the department said.
The shooting reportedly took place around 9:30 p.m. Eastern time (0130 GMT Monday).
XINHUA
KYIV, May 24 – Russia launched dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight in one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring 15 people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a social media post it had been a “tough night” for Ukraine, and called for new international sanctions to pressure Moscow into agreeing to a ceasefire.
In the early hours of the morning, Reuters witnesses saw and heard successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv, and a series of explosions jolted the city. The capital also reverberated with the sound of anti-aircraft batteries trying to bring down the drones.
Pictures from Reuters photographers showed an orange-red glow lighting up the city as plumes of smoke wafted across the horizon. On the top floor of one apartment building, smoke and flames billowed out of a balcony window as firefighters tried to approach.
The Kyiv city military administration and the police reported damage in six districts of the Ukrainian capital, and a total so far of 15 people wounded.
As dawn broke on Saturday, residents at an apartment building just outside the centre of Kyiv were surveying the damage caused by drones.
Dozens of windows had been shattered, and balconies on one side of the building were smashed.
“I wish they’d agree to a ceasefire. To bomb people like this,” said Olha Chyrukha, a 64-year-old resident. “The poor children! My three-year-old granddaughter was screaming scared.”
The Obolon district on the north-western edge of Kyiv was the worst hit, officials said. A resident there, 42-year-old Olha Kalina, said her apartment was struck.
She was spending the night with her own parents elsewhere, but two of her children, aged 20 and 13, were in the apartment.
“The kids rang me at three in the morning and said: ‘Mum, we’ve been hit. The balcony’s on fire’.”
Kalina rushed to the scene, and found her children sheltering in a nearby underground car park, their faces blackened from smoke.
She said the apartment was no longer habitable because of fire damage.
REUTERS
SYDNEY, May 24 – Australian authorities started clean-up efforts on Saturday after floods claimed five lives and inundated more than 10,000 properties in the country’s southeast.
The New South Wales emergency services agency said damage assessments were under way in the state for the mid-north coast region after the floods that cut off towns, swept away livestock and destroyed homes this week.
“Early estimates indicate at least 10,000 properties may have been damaged following record flooding,” the agency said in a statement. Conditions had improved since Friday in the impacted areas of Australia’s most populous state, it said.
Even so, hundreds of flood-hit residents were still in evacuation centres, State Emergency Services commissioner Mike Wassing said at a media conference in Sydney, with 52 flood rescues being made overnight.
The latest flood-linked death was that of a man in his 80s, whose body was found at a flooded property about 50 km (31 miles) from Taree, one of the worst-hit towns, police said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, forced on Friday to cancel a trip to Taree due to floodwaters, said it was “awful to hear the news of more loss of life”.
“All of our thoughts are with his loved ones and the community at this time,” Albanese said in a statement.
The floods, sparked by days of incessant rain, submerged intersections and street signs in mid-north coast towns and covered cars up to their windshields, after fast-rising waters burst river banks. At their peak, the floods isolated around 50,000 people.
Australia has been hit with more extreme weather events that some experts say are the result of climate change. After droughts and devastating bushfires at the end of last decade, frequent floods have wreaked havoc since early 2021.
REUTERS
May 24 – Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early on Saturday with drones and missiles, triggering fires, strewing debris in districts throughout the city and injuring at least eight people, the city’s mayor said.
Reuters witnesses saw and heard successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv, and a series of explosions jolted the city.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two residents had required hospital treatment and that air defence units were in action.
Klitschko said fragments from one drone struck the top floor of an apartment building in the Solomyanskyi district on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the city. One apartment building was on fire in the area as was one non-residential building.
Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said a fire had also broken out on two floors of an apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the opposite bank.
Officials also reported a fire in Obolon in the city’s northern suburbs and fallen debris on a shopping centre in the same area. They said drone fragments hit the ground in a number of other widely separated neighbourhoods.
An air alert remained in effect more than two hours after it was first declared.
The overnight strikes followed several days of Ukrainian drone attacks – some 800 attacks – on targets inside Russia, including capital Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had vowed on Friday to respond to those attacks.
REUTERS
HANOI, May 23 – Vietnam’s technology ministry has ordered telecommunication service providers to block the messaging app Telegram for not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by its users, in a move that Telegram said was surprising.
In a document, dated May 21 and signed by the deputy head of the telecom department at the technology ministry, telecommunication companies were ordered to take measures to block Telegram and report on them to the ministry by June 2.
The ministry was acting on behalf of the country’s cybersecurity department after police reported that 68% of the 9,600 Telegram channels and groups in Vietnam violated the law, citing fraud, drug trafficking and “cases suspected of being related to terrorism” among the illegal activities carried out through the app, the document seen by Reuters said.
The ministry asked telecommunication service providers “to deploy solutions and measures to prevent Telegram’s activities in Vietnam,” the document said.
After publication of the Reuters article, the government confirmed the measures against Telegram on its web portal.
“Telegram is surprised by those statements,” a company representative told Reuters on Friday.
“We have responded to legal requests from Vietnam on time. This morning, we received a formal notice from the Authority of Communications regarding a standard service notification procedure required under new telecom regulations. The deadline for the response is May 27, and we are processing the request,” the Telegram representative said.
A technology ministry official said the move followed Telegram’s failure to share user data with the government when asked as part of criminal investigations.
The Vietnamese police and state news outlets have repeatedly warned people of possible crime, frauds and data breaches on Telegram channels and groups.
Telegram, which competes globally with other social media apps such as Facebook’s, WhatsApp and WeChat, was still available in Vietnam on Friday.
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party maintains tight media censorship and tolerates little dissent. The country has repeatedly asked companies like Facebook, Google’s, YouTube and TikTok to coordinate with authorities to stamp out content deemed “toxic”, including offensive, false and anti-state content.
Telegram is accused of not applying laws that require social media to monitor, remove and block information that violate the law, according to the document.
Also, the document said that according to information from the police, “many groups with tens of thousands of participants were created by opposition and reactionary subjects spreading anti-government documents”.
The free-to-use platform with close to 1 billion users worldwide has been involved in controversies across the world on security and data breach concerns, including in France where its founder, Pavel Durov, was briefly detained last year.
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to visit Vietnam from Sunday.
REUTERS
BERLIN, May 23 – Eighteen people were injured in a knife attack in Hamburg station on Friday evening, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported, and local police confirmed they had arrested the suspected assailant.
Four victims are in critical condition and six others are seriously injured, Bild reported, saying the motive for the attack was unclear.
Police said the suspected assailant was a 39-year old woman who allowed herself to be arrested without resistance.
“So far we have no evidence that the woman could have acted with political motivation,” said Hamburg police spokesperson Florian Abbenseth.
“Rather, we have findings on the basis of which we are now investigating in particular whether she may have been in a state of mental distress.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a post on social media platform X that the news from Hamburg was “shocking.”
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” he said.
REUTERS