International News from Tuesday, May 19th, 2026

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US may need to strike Iran again and that he had been an hour away from ordering an attack before postponing it.

Israeli forces opened fire on at least two vessels in an aid flotilla sailing towards Gaza on Tuesday, according to video footage and flotilla organisers, but Israel said no live ammunition was used and there were no casualties.

Ukraine blamed Russia on Tuesday for steering one of its drones into Estonian airspace where a NATO jet shot it down, the latest cross-border drone incident that has caused a political uproar in the Baltic states.

Torrential rain continued across southern and central China on Tuesday with at least 18 people killed in widespread flooding that also closed schools and businesses, and disrupted transport and power supplies, authorities said.

Twenty-six more suspected Ebola deaths were recorded in 24 hours in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said on Tuesday, and the head of the World Health Organisation expressed deep concern about the outbreak's spread.

Britain has received supplies of the antiviral drug favipiravir from Japan as part of its response to a deadly hantavirus outbreak linked to the Hondius cruise liner, the UK Health Security Agency said on Monday.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to host his "old friend" Vladimir Putin less than a week after Donald Trump's high-profile visit, as Beijing seeks to project itself as a stable and predictable power in a world shaken by trade tensions, wars and an energy crisis.

Four people have been killed in protests against fuel price hikes prompted by the Iran war in several Kenyan towns on Monday, its interior minister said, after a nationwide public transport strike stranded commuters.

Two teenage gunmen have opened fire on Monday at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California, killing a security guard and two other men outside the mosque before the suspects were found dead, reportedly from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said.