May 5, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day in 1862, a largely untrained volunteer militia—mostly indigenous Mexican farmers and laborers, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza—defeated the well-armed French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla. The Victory, which became a symbol of resistance to foreign domination, is now celebrated as Cinco de Mayo.
QotD: "We're not looking for a fight,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a press conference on Tuesday. "Right now the ceasefire certainly holds, but we're going to be watching very, very closely."
US/IRAN/MIL – US says Iran ceasefire holds despite exchange of fire in Gulf.
Washington said Iran had not breached a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East conflict on Tuesday, following an exchange of fire between the two sides the previous day as U.S. forces attempted to force open the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. military said it had destroyed six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones, after President Donald Trump sent the navy to escort stranded tankers through the strait in a campaign he called "Project Freedom".
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation to protect commercial ships was temporary and the four-week-old truce was not over. "We're not looking for a fight," he told a press conference on Tuesday. "Right now the ceasefire certainly holds, but we're going to be watching very, very closely."
Iran fired missiles at U.S. ships on Monday and attacked the United Arab Emirates, a key regional ally of Washington, with missiles and drones.
Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said breaches of the ceasefire by the U.S. and its allies had endangered shipping through the strait, which carries a large share of the world's oil and fertiliser supplies.
"We know well that the continuation of the current situation is unbearable for the United States, while we have not even begun yet," he said in a social media post.
MORE – US intelligence indicates limited new damage to Iran’s nuclear program, sources say.
U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The assessments of Tehran's nuclear program remain broadly unchanged even after two months of a war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb.
The latest U.S. and Israeli attacks that began on February 28 have focused on conventional military targets, but Israel has hit a number of significant nuclear facilities.
The unchanged timeline suggests that significantly impeding Tehran's nuclear program may require destroying or removing Iran's remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium, or HEU.
The war has stalled since the U.S. and Iran agreed an April 7 truce to pursue peace. Tensions remain high as both sides appear deeply divided, and as Iran has choked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, blocking some 20% of world oil supplies and igniting a global energy crisis.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said publicly that the U.S. aims to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon via ongoing negotiations with Tehran.
CHINA/INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT – Blast at fireworks factory in China’s Hunan kills 26, Xi calls for probe, state media says.
A blast at a fireworks factory in China has killed at least 26 people and injured 61, flattening buildings and sending towering clouds of smoke into the sky, and prompting President Xi Jinping to order a thorough investigation, state media reported on Tuesday.
More than 1,500 firefighters, rescuers, medical personnel and police were deployed, together with 18 drones and several robots, to search for survivors and control on-site hazards after the explosion on Monday at a factory compound in Liuyang, the city in central Hunan province known as China's fireworks capital.
Authorities evacuated surrounding areas because of the risk from highly combustible black powder stored in two warehouses in the complex, Xinhua reported.
The explosion happened at around 4:40 p.m. (0840 GMT) at Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Company, according to reports by Xinhua and CCTV.
Social media footage showed smoke billowing up into clear blue skies against a backdrop of lush, green mountains. Reuters verified the location in the footage, which was posted on social media on May 4, as Changsha, the Hunan provincial capital which is responsible for the administration of Liuyang.
A Hunan Satellite TV reporter at the scene said the area had been razed to the ground, with trees uprooted by shock waves from the blasts, and there was a strong smell of gunpowder in the air.
IRAN/NOBEL WINNER – Iran Nobel winner Mohammadi ‘between life and death’ after hospitalization, say supporters.
A support committee for Narges Mohammadi, who is imprisoned in Iran, said on Tuesday, May 5, that she was “between life and death”.
Mohammadi's deteriorating health has raised the worst fears among those close to her.
Now in her early 50s, Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize while in detention for her campaign in favour of women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty in Iran. She suffered a suspected heart attack in late March and was taken to a hospital in northwestern Iran on May 1 amid rapidly deteriorating health, her family has said.
"We are not just fighting for the freedom of Narges, we are fighting so that her heart continues to beat," said her Paris-based lawyer Chirinne Ardakani at a news conference of her supporters.
US/BRAZIL/DIPLOMACY – Brazil’s Lula to travel to US for talks with Trump this week, sources say.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will travel to the United States in the coming days to meet with his counterpart Donald Trump, two sources in the Brazilian government told Reuters on Monday.
Lula will travel on Wednesday and meet with Trump on Thursday, according to one of the sources.
The two leaders had agreed on a visit by the Brazilian president to Washington during a phone call earlier this year, with initial expectations that the meeting would take place in March, which ultimately did not take place.
VENEZUELA/ECONOMY – Venezuela’s inflation rate eases to 10.6% in April, cenbank says.
Venezuela's inflation rate eased to 10.6% in April from 13.1% in March, the country's central bank said on Monday.
The inflation rate so far in 2026 has reached 90%, the bank said on its website, while according to Reuters calculations based on central bank figures the annualized inflation rate is 611.86%.
"Our economy is healthy; it's doing well," the bank's acting president, Luis Perez, said in an interview on state TV, in which he predicted single-digit inflation for May.
Perez added that the bank did not alter figures to make them more positive. "We don't cook the books," he said.
Since the resumption of relations with the International Monetary Fund last month, Venezuela has appointed current Vice President for Economic Affairs Calixto Ortega as its representative or governor to the organization, Perez added.
ETHIOPIA/SUDAN/SEC – Ethiopia and Sudan accuse each other of attacks.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260505-ethiopia-and-sudan-accuse-each-other-of-attacks
A civil war has engulfed Sudan since 2023, while neighbouring Ethiopia faces multiple insurgencies across its territory.
Analysts say the conflicts are increasingly overlapping and drawing in external actors from the wider region.
On Tuesday, Ethiopia's foreign ministry accused Sudan's army of supporting "mercenaries" with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, whose armed wing fought a civil war against the federal government from 2020 to 2022.
Relations between the TPLF and the government remain tense.
"Sudan is serving as a hub for various anti-Ethiopian forces," the foreign ministry in Addis Ababa said on X, accusing Tigrayan forces of serving as mercenaries in Sudan.
"The Sudanese armed forces have also provided arms and financial support to these mercenaries, thereby facilitating their incursions along Ethiopia's western frontier," it added.
NIGERIA/SOUTH AFRICA/MIGRATION – Nigeria evacuating 130 citizens from S. Africa after attacks.
Nigeria has announced a "voluntary repatriation" program for its citizens in South Africa, following a series of xenophobic incidents in the continent's most industrialized nation.
Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu said on Sunday that 130 people had already registered to return home.
"This figure is expected to rise," she wrote on social media, adding that "Nigerian lives and businesses in SA must not continue to be put at risk."
Two Nigerians were killed in incidents connected to South African security personnel last month, Odumegwu-Ojukwu said.
South Africa has seen an uptick in anti-immigrant rhetoric in recent months. There have been a series of protests led by groups claiming that irregular migration is hurting the country's economy.
A number of violent attacks have also been reported, mostly targeting Black Africans from other countries.
But experts have warned that immigrants are merely being scapegoated for South Africa's economic woes, and that the anti-migrant fervor is being driven by populist pundits online.
According to South Africa's national statistics agency, there are some 3 million immigrants living in the country, roughly 5% of the population, with the majority coming from the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc.
RUS/UKR/MIL – Russia declares a truce in Ukraine to mark Victory Day. Kyiv says it’ll cease fire two days earlier.
Russia’s Defense Ministry declared a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine for Friday and Saturday to mark the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, but it threatened to strike back at Kyiv if it tries to disrupt the Victory Day festivities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in response said his country would observe a truce beginning at 12 a.m. on Wednesday and respond in kind to Russia’s actions from that moment on. He did not put an end date on the truce.
The announcements on Monday come as Russia prepares to celebrate its most important secular holiday with a traditional military parade on Moscow’s Red Square pared down due to what officials say are concerns over possible Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine has been launching drone attacks deep inside Russia to counter its more than 4-year-old invasion.
APPLE/CHIPS/TECH – Apple holds talks with Intel, Samsung for US chipmaking, Bloomberg News reports.
Apple has held exploratory discussions about using Intel and Samsung Electronics to produce the main processors for its devices, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the deliberations.
Apple executives have made visits to a Samsung plant under development in Texas and, separately, also held preliminary talks with Intel about enlisting the company's chipmaking services, Bloomberg reported.
While the move would offer Apple a secondary option beyond its longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co the iPhone-maker is also concerned about using non-TSMC technology, the report said, citing worries about reliability and scale.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Intel declined to comment.
Discussions with Samsung and Intel remain at early stages as neither effort has resulted in any orders so far, the report said.
Apple warned of continuing chip supply constraints when it reported results last month. iPhone sales were held back in the quarter by supply constraints for the advanced processor chips that form the brains of the device, then-CEO Tim Cook had said.
ROMANIA/EU/POL – Romanian government collapses after no-confidence vote.
Romanian lawmakers toppled Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan's pro-EU government in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, putting at risk the country's sovereign debt ratings, its access to EU funds and the stability of its currency.
Bolojan has led a minority government since late April when the Social Democrats - the largest party in parliament - called for his resignation and then walked out of the four-party coalition and teamed up with the far-right opposition to file a no-confidence vote.
Tuesday's no-confidence motion garnered 281 votes, above the 233 needed to pass, the official parliamentary count showed.
Although a snap election looks unlikely, financial markets are concerned that the turbulence could mean Bucharest wavers in its commitment to narrowing the European Union's biggest budget deficit. Romania's leu currency fell to a record low against the euro ahead of Tuesday's vote.