Top World News

May 22, 2026 - World

Twelve dead as southern and central areas also suffer travel disruption, electricity outages and evacuationsHeavy, prolonged rainfall in southern and central China has resulted in weather warnings for flash flooding, landslides and waterlogging. The slow-moving band of rainfall spanned 620 miles (1,000km) and travelled eastwards across the regions on Tuesday. It was formed from the convergence of multiple bands of rain originating from the Bay of Bengal, South China Sea and Pacific Ocean.Given the accompanying low wind speeds, high daily and hourly rainfall totals have been recorded, with as much as 75mm locally in Hunan, 85mm in Anhui in a 24-hour period, and 95mm on the island of Hainan. Twelve people have died because of the flooding and hundreds of residents have been evacuated by emergency services. There were major travel disruptions, electricity outages, as well as school and business closures. Social media posts showed submerged cars and people fishing along flooded streets. Continue reading...

May 22, 2026 - World

Up to 70% of girls may be in early or forced marriages but law now makes divorce impossible if husbands disagreeChild marriage appears to have been legally recognised for the first time by the Taliban in Afghanistan, as activists say “shameful” new laws make it almost impossible for girls and young women to seek divorce against their husbands’ will.There are no official statistics on forced and underage marriages in Afghanistan, but activists say it has risen at an alarming rate in recent years, driven by the ban on girls being in education after the age of 11. Continue reading...

May 22, 2026 - World

Days after the U.S. Senate took a pivotal step that could end the war in Iran, Arizona veterans gathered at the state Capitol to urge Congressional Republicans to coalesce behind that effort.On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate voted 50-47 to advance a War Powers Resolution that could block President Donald Trump from engaging in further military conflict against Iran without congressional approval. Several Republicans broke from their party to back the resolution, but it has yet to undergo a final vote, and it’s likely to be defeated in the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.Almost every Democrat in the upper chamber, including Arizona’s Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, who are both veterans and have been vocally opposed to the war, voted in favor of moving the resolution forward. Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman voted against doing so.More than a dozen former and current military members in Arizona called on GOP lawmakers to support the bid to end the war, and lamented the deaths that have already occurred. Since the war’s beginning in February, 13 American service members have died. Ricardo Reyes, a Marine Corps veteran and the executive director of Vets Forward, a progressive veterans advocacy group, denounced any effort to dismiss those deaths as inevitable and said elected officials should think twice about the potential human toll before agreeing to continue the war.“Today, we say to every elected leader in this country: Do not dare treat these lives like the price of doing business,” Reyes said. “Don’t dare ask more families to pay that cost without any answers. Don’t you dare send more sons and daughters into harm’s way because it’s easier to escalate rather than to lead with courage.”Derek Duba, an Army veteran and top staffer for Gallego, added that wars also affect the families and communities of military members and often harm their lives for years.“The truth is, in war, there are no unwounded soldiers,” he said. “And the friends, families, and communities we return to, dead or alive, continue carrying the cost of it for generations to come. There is no ‘four to six week’ victory.”Over the past three months, Trump has offered conflicting and vague estimates on how long the war would last, claiming multiple times in March that it would end after just a few weeks.On Wednesday, Trump said that he was “in no hurry” to make a deal that could end the conflict. Last week, the president said he wasn’t concerned about the economic toll the war he launched was having on Americans.“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters.State Rep. Aaron Marquez, D-Phoenix, a veteran who was deployed twice to Afghanistan and still serves in the Army Reserve, said that he’s hopeful more Republicans will buck their party to advance the resolution. He added that military conflict should be the last resort, but Trump jumped prematurely into the war at Israel’s prompting without seeking alternative solutions.“Going to war must be exhausting all diplomatic options,” he said. “We clearly did not exhaust all diplomatic options.”Marquez added that a failure to rein in the Trump administration will be noticed by voters.The war has been widely unpopular. In a recent New York Times poll, 64% of people said they believed Trump made the wrong decision when he launched a military campaign against Iran. But that same survey found that respondents who identified as Republican overwhelmingly supported that decision.And that’s been reflected in at least one primary race. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who vocally criticized the Iran War, lost his party’s nomination to a Trump-endorsed opponent. Massie also led the charge to force the release of the Epstein files, over Trump’s objection. Trump and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein were close in the 1990s, and he is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the files that have been released so far.To memorialize the 13 Americans who have been killed so far in the Iran War, the group paused to observe a moment of silence, and then each member took turns reading their names, their military rank, and a short biography.Thomas Solnit, a Marine Corps veteran, read the name of 42-year-old Noah L. Tietjens, who served as a vehicle mechanic. Tietjens was killed along with five others in a strike in Kuwait and left behind a wife and a teenage son.“Today we honor his life and his years of commitment,” Solnit said. “We hold his family in our hearts, and we say his name because he deserves to be remembered with dignity, not lost in the noise of war: Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens.”Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].

May 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump has signaled plans for an "endgame in the Iran war," infuriating a key ally, according to a report from The Atlantic published Thursday.Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributor to The Atlantic, described how a Trump administration insider revealed that during a phone call on Wednesday with Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump determined the next steps with Iran. The president reportedly told Netanyahu his plan to negotiate a "letter of intent" and that Iran would "formally end the war and launch a 30-day period of negotiations" focusing on Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz."The purpose and effect of such an agreement should be clear: The United States is walking away from the crisis," Kagan wrote. "Trump may launch another limited strike to look tough and satisfy the demands of the war’s supporters, but it would be a performative gesture. Endgame in this case is a euphemism for 'surrender.'"Netanyahu, the source said, was not pleased."According to one U.S. official, Netanyahu’s 'hair was on fire' after the call with Trump—for good reason," Kagan wrote. "The Iran war may end up as the single most devastating blow to Israel’s security in its brief history. On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war. It will exercise leverage with dozens of the richest nations in the world, all of which will have an acute interest in keeping Iran happy. They will be unlikely to take Israel’s side in any conflict that it has with Tehran or with its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, because Iran will have the means to punish them if they do. Israel will emerge more isolated than it has been at any time in its history—and not least from its only reliable protector, the United States."

May 21, 2026 - World

Satirical project is viral sensation and outlet for protest on social media as it taps into young people’s frustrationIt began as a satirical online project after India’s chief justice compared unemployed young people to cockroaches. Now millions of young Indians are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration.A parody political party with the insect as its symbol has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humour into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach – an insect known for its ability to survive harsh conditions – as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. Continue reading...