Portal:Current events/2025 May 27

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Shandong factory explosion
  • At least five people are killed, nineteen others are injured and six are reported missing after an explosion at a chemical plant in Gaomi, Shandong, China. (Reuters)
• Twelve people are killed and one person is missing when a fuel tanker collides with a van and truck near the Sebakwe River on the Harare–Bulawayo Highway between Kwekwe and Ndarama Mine in Kwekwe, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe. (Bulawayo24 News) (ZimEye)

Health and environment

• COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States
  • Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces that the United States Centers for Disease Control will remove the COVID-19 vaccine from its list of recommended vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. (NPR) (Reuters)

International relations

• Accession of Timor-Leste to ASEAN
  • Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, chair of the ASEAN, announces that Timor-Leste will officially join the ASEAN as its 11th member state in October. (The Straits Times)
• Argentine president Javier Milei ratifies Argentina's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. (The Guardian)

Law and crime

• 2024 South Korean martial law crisis
  • South Korean authorities announce travel bans on former acting presidents Han Duck-soo and Choi Sang-mok, as they are investigated for insurrection along with former president Yoon Suk Yeol, who is already indicted. (Macau Business)
• Capital punishment in Vietnam
  • The National Assembly of Vietnam begins deliberations on a government proposal to end the death penalty for some offences, including drug trafficking and some national security crimes, replacing them with life in prison without parole. (Vietnam News)

Politics and elections

• 2025 royal tour of Canada
  • King Charles III, in his capacity as King of Canada, visits Canada along with Queen Camilla on Prime Minister Mark Carney's advice. He also read the Speech from the Throne, the first reigning monarch to do so since 1977. (NPR)
• 2025 Samoan general election
  • Samoan prime minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa says that she will dissolve parliament and seek an early election after leading a minority government since January, when she was expelled from her party. (RNZ)

Science and technology

• Starship flight test 9
  • SpaceX's first flight to reuse a Super Heavy Booster ends without achieving its goal, originally planned for Flights 7 and 8, which both failed, while losing the previously retrieved booster. (Reuters)