Police say four victims face life-threatening injuries, suggest suspect may have have suffered a ‘psychological emergency’.
Authorities in Germany have arrested a woman after at least 17 people were injured in a knife attack at the main train station in the northern city of Hamburg.
At least four of the victims sustained life-threatening injuries in Friday evening’s mass stabbing incident, which took place in the middle of the city’s evening rush hour, emergency services said.
The suspect, a 39-year-old German woman, was arrested at the scene by law enforcement, a Hamburg police spokesperson said.
Officers “approached her, and the woman allowed herself to be arrested without resistance”, spokesman Florian Abbenseth told journalists in comments carried by public broadcaster ARD.
“We have no evidence so far that the woman may have had a political motive,” Abbenseth said.
“Rather, we have information, based on which we now want to investigate, whether she may have been experiencing a psychological emergency.”
The suspect was thought to have “acted alone”, Hamburg police said in a post on X.
Four of the victims have suffered life-threatening injuries, Hamburg’s fire department spokesman said, revising down an earlier figure.
The suspect was thought to have turned “against passengers” at the station, a spokeswoman for the Hanover federal police directorate, which also covers Hamburg, told the AFP news agency.
Ambulance and police outside the central station in Hamburg following Friday evening’s knife attack [Daniel Bockwoldt/EPA]
Images of the scene showed access to the platforms at one end of the station blocked off by police and people being loaded into waiting ambulances.
Four platforms at the station were closed while investigations were ongoing, and railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by the attack. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also expressed his shock in a call with the mayor of Hamburg following the attack.
Germany has been rocked in recent months by a series of violent attacks that have put security at the top of the agenda.
The most recent, on Sunday, saw four people injured in a stabbing at a bar in the city of Bielefeld. The investigation into that attack had been handed over to federal prosecutors following the arrest of the suspect, who is from Syria.
May 22 (UPI) — The United States will impose sanctions on Sudan after determining that its military used chemical weapons against its breakaway paramilitary forces during their civil war, the State Department said.
The determination that the government of Sudan used chemical weapons last year was made by the United States on April 24 under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 and was delivered to Congress on Thursday.
The sanctions, which include restrictions on U.S. exports and access to U.S. government lines of credit, will be imposed on June 6, following the 15-day Congressional notification period, the department said.
The Sudanese government has yet to respond to the development.
The Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a brutal civil war since April 15, 2023, following years of political instability.
In March, the Sudanese military captured the capital, Khartoum, marking a significant victory in the war that has killed an estimated 150,000 people and continues to rage.
The United States has accused both SAF and RSF of committing crimes against humanity and, last month, said atrocities committed by the paramilitary forces meet the threshold of genocide.
In January, The New York Times reported that the SAF used chemical weapons at least twice against the RSF since the war began in remote areas of the country. Officials cited in the report said the chemical weapon used was chlorine gas.
Sudan has denied the accusation.
The Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 is a U.S. law that requires the president to impose sanctions on countries determined to use chemical weapons.
Sudan is also a signatory to the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which obliges all signatories to chemically disarm by destroying their stockpiles of chemical weapons.
“The United States calls on the Government of Sudan to cease all chemical weapons use and uphold its obligations under the CWC,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
“The United States remains fully committed to hold to account those responsible for contributing to chemical weapons proliferation.”
The US will cut exports to Sudan and lines of government credit after determining banned weapons were used in the conflict between government forces and the RSF.
The United States will impose sanctions on Sudan after determining that the country’s military used chemical weapons last year while fighting against paramilitary forces.
“The United States calls on the Government of Sudan to cease all chemical weapons use and uphold its obligations” under the Chemical Weapons Convention, US Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement on Thursday.
Bruce said the US Congress has been notified of the State Department’s decision, and sanctions will be imposed around June 6.
They will include restrictions on US exports to Sudan and a block on access to US government lines of credit. Bruce’s statement did not include further details about when and where the chemical weapons were used by Sudanese government forces.
The New York Times reported in January that government forces had used chemical weapons on at least two occasions in remote parts of Sudan against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The report cited unnamed US officials who said the weapon may have been chlorine gas, which can lead to severe respiratory pain and death.
Sudan’s army and the RSF have been locked in a civil war since April 2023 following a power struggle between the two sides.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and a famine across Sudan, killing thousands and displacing 13 million people.
The US has also previously accused the RSF and its allies of committing genocide, and sanctioned top leaders like the RSF head, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
In January, the US also sanctioned Sudan’s military chief and de facto head of state, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for refusing to participate in international peace talks.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have laid out their clearest plan yet for the “Golden Dome” missile defence programme, which would include putting weapons in space for the first time.
Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he had “officially selected an architecture” for the system, designed to take down “hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and advanced cruise missiles”.
“I promised the American people that I would build a cutting-edge missile defence shield to protect our homeland from the threat of foreign missile attack,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The Golden Dome system, he added, would include “space-based sensors and interceptors”.
“ Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they’re launched from space,” Trump continued. “We will have the best system ever built.”
The announcement comes just less than four months after Trump signed an executive order kicking off the programme’s development. General Michael Guetlein – who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations at Space Force, a branch of the US military – is slated to manage the programme.
Speaking at the event, Hegseth hailed the plan as a “game changer” and a “generational investment in security of America and Americans”.
The White House displays posters for the proposed Golden Dome missile defence shield [Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press]
The White House did not immediately release further details about the missile defence system, and the Pentagon is reportedly still working out its capabilities and requirements.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that the space-based components of the Golden Dome alone could cost as much as $542bn over the next 20 years.
It noted that a high number of sensors and interceptors would be needed for a space-based system to be effective, particularly as foreign militaries like North Korea’s grow more sophisticated.
But on Tuesday, Trump outlined a much lower price tag and timeline.
“It should be fully operational before the end of my term. So, we’ll have it done in about three years,” Trump said.
He estimated the total cost to add up to about $175bn, adding that he planned to use existing defence capabilities to build the system.
But the funding for the programme has so far not been secured. At Tuesday’s news conference, Trump confirmed that he was seeking $25bn for the system in a tax cut bill currently moving through Congress, although that sum could be cut amid ongoing negotiations.
There is likely to be some variation in the total cost of the project. The Associated Press news agency, for example, cited an unnamed government official as saying that Trump had been given three versions of the plan, described as “medium”, “high” and “extra high”.
Those tiers corresponded to how many satellites, sensors and interceptors would be put in space as part of the programme. The news agency reported that Trump chose the “high” version, which has an initial cost ranging between $30bn and $100bn.
Questions over viability
As he explained his plans for the Golden Dome on Tuesday, Trump cited several inspirations, including Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system, which is funded in part by the US.
He also pointed to the work of a fellow Republican, the late President Ronald Reagan, who served in the White House during the Cold War in the 1980s.
As part of his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, Reagan had proposed a barrier to nuclear weapons that included space-based technology.
“ We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” Trump said.
But questions have persisted over the viability of a space-based defence system, its price, and whether it could ignite a new arms race.
Democrats have also questioned the possible involvement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is a frontrunner among the technology companies seeking to build key components of the system.
A group of 42 Democratic lawmakers have called for a probe into Musk’s role in the bidding process, pointing to his position as a special adviser to Trump and his substantial campaign donations to the president.
“If Mr. Musk were to exercise improper influence over the Golden Dome contract, it would be another example of a disturbing pattern of Mr. Musk flouting conflict of interest rules,” the Democrats wrote in a letter, calling for the probe.
On Tuesday, Trump did not directly respond to a question about which companies would be involved in the Golden Dome. Instead, he highlighted that the system would boost industries in states like Alaska, Indiana, Florida and Georgia.
He added, “Canada has called us, and they want to be a part of it. So we’ll be talking to them.”
Negotiations between Washington and Tehran looking shaky as Iran resists US negotiator Witkoff’s ‘red line’.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has derided demands from the United States that it halt nuclear enrichment as negotiations between the two countries hang in the balance.
“Saying things like ‘We will not allow Iran to enrich uranium’ is nonsense. No one [in Iran] is waiting for others’ permission,” said Khamenei in a speech reported by the country’s semi-official Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.
He added that he did not know whether talks would “bring results”.
Since mid-April, Washington and Tehran have held four rounds of Omani-mediated talks aimed at getting Iran to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
However, repeated clashes between the pair have thrown the next round of negotiations, which the news agency Reuters said were expected to take place in Rome at the weekend, into doubt.
US President Donald Trump ditched the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by Iran and world powers during his last term in office. Intent on striking a new deal since his return to power in January, he has revived his “maximum pressure” approach against Iran, warning last week that talks needed to “move quickly or something bad is going to happen”.
Tehran confirmed on Tuesday that it has received and is reviewing a US proposal, but Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi had said the previous day that talks would fail if Washington insisted that Tehran refrained from domestic enrichment of uranium, which the US says is a possible pathway to developing nuclear bombs.
Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67-percent limit set in the 2015 deal but below the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead. It has repeatedly insisted its programme is for peaceful purposes and is “non-negotiable”.
However, US negotiator Steve Witkoff has dubbed the continuation of the programme a “red line”. On Sunday, he reiterated that the US “cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability”.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that a deal ensuring Iran would not have nuclear weapons was “within reach”.
However, he underlined, Iran would continue enriching uranium “with or without a deal”.
In addressing the talks regarding Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, our U.S. interlocutors are naturally free to publicly state whatever they deem fit to ward off Special Interest groups; malign actors which set the agendas of at least previous Administrations.
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s political and military leaders are pointing the finger back at Donald Trump after the United States president sharpened his rhetoric during his first major tour of the Middle East.
In a speech to a group of teachers gathered for a state ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some of Trump’s comments were not even worth responding to.
“The level of those remarks is so low that they are a disgrace for the one who uttered them and a disgrace to the American nation,” he said, to chants of “Death to America” and others from the crowd.
Khamenei added that Trump “lied” when he said he wants to use power towards peace, as Washington has backed “massacring” Palestinians and others across the region. He called Israel a “dangerous cancerous tumour” that must be “uprooted”.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also told a gathering of navy officers on Saturday that Trump is extending a message of peace while threatening destruction at the same time as backing Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
“Which one of this president’s words should we believe? His message of peace, or his message of massacre of human beings?” the Iranian president said, pointing out that Trump sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a move that was internationally criticised.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting with members of the Iranian Navy in Tehran, Iran, on May 17, 2025 [Iran’s Presidential website/WANA/Handout via Reuters]
The statements came after Trump used his Middle East tour – during which he signed huge deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – to heap praise on Arab leaders neighbouring Iran and blasting the leadership in Tehran.
The US president told Arab leaders they were developing their infrastructure while Iran’s “landmarks are collapsing into rubble” after its theocratic establishment replaced a monarchy in a 1979 revolution.
He said Iran’s leaders have “managed to turn green farmland into dry deserts” as a result of corruption and mismanagement, and pointed out that Iranians are experiencing power outages several hours a day.
The blackouts, a result of a years-long energy crisis that is hurting Iran’s already strained economy, are expected to linger for the rest of this year as well, according to Iranian authorities.
The largest associations of the mining, steel and cement industries in Iran on Saturday wrote a joint letter to Pezeshkian, urgently requesting him to review a 90 percent electricity use restriction imposed on the critical sectors.
Trump, who hailed Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and lifted sanctions on Damascus, also took aim at Iran’s regional policy.
He described Tehran’s support for the fallen establishment of President Bashar al-Assad as a cause of “misery and death” and regional destabilisation.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the US president’s remarks as “deceptive”, telling state media on Friday it was the US that hampered Iran through sanctions and military threats while backing Israel and attacking Syria.
Parliament chief Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was addressing an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Indonesia, said Trump’s remarks showed he was “living in a delusion”.
Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed Trump directly on Friday and said even though Iran has beautiful landmarks, “we take pride in the elevation of character, identity, culture, and Islam”.
The sharp rhetoric in response to Trump’s latest controversial comments come days after he teased that he may start calling the “Persian Gulf” the “Arabian Gulf” soon.
This angered Iranians across the board, prompting criticism of any attempt to rename the key waterway from average citizens online, authorities, local media, and even some pro-Trump Iranians outside the country who have been advocating for US sanctions and regime change.
A banner in downtown Tehran’s Palestine Square shows numerous locations in Israel as a Yemeni dagger (jambiya) with writing in Farsi reading: “All targets are within range, Yemeni missiles for now!” and in Hebrew “All targets are within reach, we will choose”, on May 5, 2025 [Vahid Salemi/AP]
Scepticism over Iran-US deal
Both Iran and the US say they would prefer an agreement that would serve to quickly de-escalate tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, despite the latest war of words.
But after four rounds of negotiations mediated by Oman, any prospective deal – which would lift sanctions in exchange for making sure Iran would not have a nuclear bomb – still appears to face significant hurdles.
Trump said Tehran has been handed a proposal to rapidly advance towards a deal, but Iran’s Araghchi on Friday said no written proposal was produced yet amid “confusing and contradictory” rhetoric from Washington.
“Mark my words: there is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes: a right afforded to all other NPT signatories, too,” he wrote in a post on X, in reference to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior nuclear negotiator, on Friday rejected reports by Western media outlets that Iran may agree to fully halt its enrichment of uranium for the remainder of the Trump presidency to build trust.
“The right to enrich is our absolute red line! No halt to enrichment is acceptable.”
Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear accord signed between Iran and world powers three years earlier, imposing the harshest sanctions yet by the US that have only intensified during the latest negotiations.
The nuclear deal set a 3.67 percent enrichment rate with first-generation centrifuges for civilian use in Iran, in exchange for lifting United Nations sanctions. Iran is now enriching up to 60 percent and has enough fissile material for multiple bombs, but has made no effort to build one yet.
These are the key events on day 1,178 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Saturday, May 17:
Fighting
Russia is preparing for a new military offensive in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and Western military analysts said, as Russia’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov was in Minsk on Friday to discuss joint military drills in September and deliveries of new weapons to Belarus.
A drone attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk killed a 55-year-old woman and wounded four men, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces seized six settlements in eastern Ukraine over the past week. According to a ministry statement, Russian troops advanced in the Donetsk region and took control of Torske, Kotlyarivka, Myrolyubivka, Mykhailivka, Novooleksandrivka, and Vilne Pole settlements, Tukiye’s Anadolu news agency reports.
The Russian Defence Ministry released a video showing Russian forces raising the Russian flag in the settlement of Mykhailivka.
A court in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region sentenced Australian national Oscar Charles Augustus Jenkins to 13 years in jail at a high-security penal colony for fighting on behalf of Ukraine, Anadolu reports.
Ceasefire
The first direct Russia-Ukraine dialogue in three years on Friday produced good results, Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, said late on Friday. “1. Largest POW exchange 2. Ceasefire options that may work 3. Understanding of positions and continued dialogue,” Dmitriev said on the social media platform X.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said following the talks that some 1,000 prisoners from each side will be swapped “in the near future”, in the largest exchange since the start of the war in 2022.
Umerov led the Ukrainian delegation, which ended after 90 minutes in Istanbul, while Putin’s adviser, Vladimir Medinsky, negotiated on behalf of Russia. The United States delegation was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Medinsky, who was the lead Russian negotiator, expressed satisfaction with the talks and said Moscow was ready for further negotiations, including on a ceasefire. “We have agreed that all sides will present their views on a possible ceasefire and set them out in detail,” Medinsky said after the meeting.
A source in the Ukrainian delegation told the Reuters news agency that Russia’s demands were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed”. The source said Moscow had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its own territory in order to obtain a ceasefire “and other non-starters and non-constructive conditions”.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who opened the talks by welcoming both delegations and calling for a swift ceasefire, served as a buffer between the negotiating tables in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed regret after the talks at what he called a missed opportunity for peace. “This week, we had a real chance to move towards ending the war – if only Putin hadn’t been afraid to come to Turkiye,” Zelenskyy posted on X from the sidelines of a European Political Community (EPC) summit in Albania.
Zelenskyy, who did not attend the talks, said he had been “ready for a direct meeting with him [Putin] to resolve all key issues”, but “he didn’t agree to anything”.
US President Donald Trump, who has pressed for an end to the conflict, said he would meet with Putin “as soon as we can set it up” in a bid to make progress in the peace talks. “I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi as he wrapped up a trip to the Middle East.
Zelenskyy was in Tirana, Albania, on Friday with European leaders to discuss security, defence and democratic standards against the backdrop of the war. He held a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
European leaders also agreed to press ahead with joint action against Russia over the failure in Turkiye to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, Prime Minister Starmer said after consultations with President Trump.
Starmer said after the talks that the Russian position was “clearly unacceptable” and that European leaders, Ukraine and the US were “closely aligning” their responses.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced new plans for additional sanctions on Moscow after Putin failed to travel to Turkiye to negotiate with Ukraine.
US senators renewed calls on Friday for Congress to pass sanctions on Russia after Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks showed little progress, but no votes were scheduled on bills introduced six weeks ago aimed at pressuring Moscow to negotiate seriously.
Regional security
Russia and Belarus are preparing a new, large military manoeuvre together, the Belarusian state agency BelTA reports. “We plan to jointly develop measures to counter aggression against the Union State,” Defence Minister Belousov said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, in Minsk, according to BelTA. The Union State combines Russia and Belarus.
The exercise, dubbed Zapad-2025, or West-2025 in English, will be the main event of the combat training of the regional troop formations, he said. The manoeuvre is planned for mid-September, according to the agency.
Economy and trade
Russia’s economic growth slowed to 1.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, the lowest quarterly figure in two years, data from the official state statistics agency showed on Friday.
Economists have warned for months of a slowdown in the Russian economy, with falling oil prices, high interest rates and a downturn in manufacturing all contributing to headwinds. Moscow reported strong economic growth in 2023 and 2024, largely due to massive state defence spending on the Ukraine conflict.
The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), which represents the democratic countries bordering the Baltic Sea, called for new shipping rules to allow for stronger joint action against Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.
Donald Trump says he thinks the US is close to doing a nuclear deal with Iran. The US president made the comments in Qatar, where he praised the Emir for helping to push for a diplomatic solution, rather than war.
