May 20, 2015 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
- Islamic State captures the Syrian city of Tadmur from the Syrian Army with grave concerns held about the Palmyra site. (The Hindu) (BBC)
- The Chinese navy issues warnings eight times as a United States Navy surveillance plane flies over manmade islands in the South China Sea. (CNN)
Arts and culture
- Tools found near Lake Turkana in Kenya by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University are dated at 3.3 million years making them the oldest yet discovered. (AP via ABC News America)
- The last edition of the Late Show with David Letterman goes to air on CBS Television in the United States. Following his retirement, David Letterman will be succeeded by Stephen Colbert on September 8, 2015. (CNN Money)
Disasters and accidents
- A Shosholoza Meyl passenger train collides head-on with a goods train in Eastern Cape, South Africa, killing two people and injuring 20. (News24)
- A rupture of an underground oil pipeline in California's Santa Barbara County near Refugio State Beach may have released 105,000 gallons of crude oil with tens of thousands gallons released into the Pacific Ocean. Jerry Brown, the Governor of California later declares a state of emergency. (Los Angeles Times) (ABC7 Los Angeles)
- 2015 Colombian landslide
International relations
- Antigua and Barbuda recognizes the independence of Kosovo. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo)
- South East Asian migrant crisis
- The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand meet in Kuala Lumpur to discuss people smuggling and the migrant crisis. Malaysia and Indonesia agree to accept asylum seekers providing that they can be resettled or repatriated within a year. (Straits Times) (wires and ABC Online)
- Over 430 migrants are rescued off the coast of Indonesia's eastern Aceh province. (AP via New York Times)
- North Korea
- North Korea abruptly cancels an invitation for Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to visit. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
- The Korean Central News Agency claims that North Korea has the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons and place them on ballistic missiles. (CNN)
Law and crime
- Zambia lifts a ban on hunting big cats imposed over corruption in hunting concessions in the past. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
- Five big banks Barclays, RBS, Citi, JP Morgan and UBS are fined $5.7 billion after a United States Department of Justice investigation into collusion by forex traders in several countries. The investigations estimated the banks profited over $100 billion from these crimes. (The Guardian)
- An arrest warrant is issued for Daron Dylon Wint in the U.S. capital Washington, D.C. in connection to the alleged murder of four people on May 14. (WJLA)
- The legislature in the American state of Nebraska votes to abolish the death penalty. (Washington Post)
- Julio Suárez, the head of the Guatemalan Central Bank, is arrested together with the head of the Social Security Administration on corruption charges. (AFP via France 24)[permanent dead link]
Sports
- British Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton signs a three year contract with the German constructors Mercedes AMG. (CNN)
- The 2016 class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame is announced, consisting of champion drivers Bobby Isaac, Terry Labonte, and Jerry Cook; driver and builder of Charlotte Motor Speedway, Curtis Turner; and the head of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., Bruton Smith. (ESPN)