-
Austria, represented by JJ with the song "Wasted Love", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
- The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 was the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Basel, Switzerland, following the country's victory at the 2024 contest with the song "The Code" by Nemo. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), the contest was held at St. Jakobshalle, and consisted of two semi-finals on 13 and 15 May, and a final on 17 May 2025. The three live shows were presented by Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer, with Michelle Hunziker joining for the final.
(more)
-
Nicușor Dan is elected as president of Romania.
- Presidential elections were held in Romania on 4 May 2025, with a second round on 18 May 2025. Nicușor Dan and George Simion were the two candidates who advanced to the second round. The election was won by Dan, who will become the seventh president of Romania.
(more)
-
In the Portuguese legislative election, the Democratic Alliance wins the most seats in parliament.
- A snap legislative election took place in Portugal on 18 May 2025 to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 17th Legislature. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic were at stake.
(more)
-
A tornado outbreak leaves at least 27 people dead in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States.
- A major tornado outbreak spawned 55 tornadoes in portions of the Midwestern and Southeastern United States from May 15–16, 2025. As of the morning of May 18, the storms had killed at least 27 people.
(more)
-
In the Philippines, the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas wins the most seats in the Senate election, while Lakas–CMD, one of its component parties, wins the most seats in the House elections.
- The 2025 Philippine Senate election was the 35th election of members to the Senate of the Philippines. It was held on May 12, 2025, within the 2025 Philippine general election. The seats of the 12 senators elected in 2019 were contested in this election. The senators who will be elected in this election will serve until 2031, joining the winners of the 2022 election to form the Senate's delegation to the 20th Congress of the Philippines, with the senators elected in 2022 serving until 2028.
(more)
- The 2025 Philippine House of Representatives elections were the 37th lower house elections in the Philippines. It was held on May 12, 2025, within the 2025 Philippine general election. All 317 seats in the House of Representatives were contested in this election, including one seat for each of the 254 congressional districts in the country and 63 seats representing party-lists apportioned on a nationwide vote.
(more)
-
The Socialist Party led by current prime minister Edi Rama wins an outright majority in the Albanian parliamentary election.
- Parliamentary elections were held in Albania on 11 May 2025 to elect the 140 members of Parliament. It resulted in a fourth consecutive victory for the ruling Socialist Party (PS) led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, securing more mandates than in any previous election, with a promise of attaining European Union membership for Albania by 2030.
(more)
-
Author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi win the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp: Selected Stories.
- Heart Lamp: Selected Stories is a collection of short stories by Indian writer Banu Mushtaq, originally written in Kannada between 1990 and 2023 and translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi. Published by And Other Stories in the UK on 10 September 2024, the collection comprises 12 stories exploring the lives of Muslim women in southern India, focusing on themes of patriarchy, gender inequality, and resilience. The book won the International Booker Prize in 2025: the first Kannada-language work and the first collection of short stories to receive this award.
(more)
-
Gaza war (ongoing)
- The Gaza war which began on October 7, 2023, is an ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. The war, the 15th in the Gaza–Israel conflict, is part of the broader, unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has led to heightened instability across the region. Over 1,200 Israelis were killed on the first day of the war, making it the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Since then, more than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed, making it the deadliest conflict for Palestinians. The war has led to widespread destruction across Gaza and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
(more)
-
M23 campaign (ongoing)
- The M23 campaign is an ongoing series of military offensives launched by the March 23 Movement (M23), a Rwandan-backed rebel paramilitary group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, since March 2022. In November 2021, M23 first launched attacks against the Congolese military (FARDC) and MONUSCO, seizing military positions in Ndiza, Cyanzu, and Runyoni in North Kivu Province. This coincided with the deployment of Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) to the region to combat the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel group operating in the Congo's North Kivu and Ituri provinces.
(more)
-
Russian invasion of Ukraine (ongoing)
- On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2025, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
(more)
-
Sudanese civil war (ongoing)
- A civil war began on 15 April 2023 between two rival factions of the military government of Sudan. The conflict involves the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as Hemedti), who also leads the broader Janjaweed coalition. Several smaller armed groups have also taken part. Fighting has been concentrated in the capital, Khartoum, where the conflict began with large-scale battles, and in the Darfur region. Many civilians in Darfur have been reported dead as part of the Masalit massacres, which have been described as ethnic cleansing or genocide. Sudan has been described as facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis; nearly 25 million people are experiencing extreme hunger. On 7 January 2025, the United States said it had determined that the RSF and allied militias committed genocide.
(more)