Morning Digest: Army says ‘understanding’ with Pakistan has no ‘expiry date’; Joe Biden diagnosed with prostate cancer, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on May 19, 2025

Former U.S. President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday (May 18, 2025). Mr. Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday (May 16, 2025), with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

Two too narrow entrances, one to the first floor home and another wider one to the enclosed shopping space led to the disastrously high toll in the early morning blaze in Hyderabad on Sunday (May 18, 2025.) The home and shopping complex belonging to the well known jeweller family of Poonamchand Modi is right at the entrance between Gulzar Houz and Charminar Kamaan.

The multi-party delegation being dispatched across the globe after Operation Sindoor has revived memories of a similar phase in Indian diplomatic history when a sustained cross-party campaign was carried out to project a “one India” approach to important issues like Kashmir and the communal situation. The context for the previous effort, which took place in the early 1990s, was the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a spike in violence in Kashmir, and anti-insurgency operations in Punjab.

Eight persons, including three women and a one-and-half-year-old boy, were killed in a fire accident at a garment mill in a Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) area in Solapur on Sunday. Amid stocks of cotton, the fire spread rapidly.

The Indian authorities are planning to apprise the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the latest evidence related to the terror bases in Pakistan that were destroyed by the defence forces during the precision attacks as part of Operation Sindoor, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

The Supreme Court, in a judgment, has directed Chief Secretaries of States and Administrators of Union Territories across the country to form Special Investigation Teams to examine if forest lands in the possession of their respective Revenue Departments have been allotted to private parties for non-forest activities.

Travel vlogger Jyoti Rani, arrested on charges of espionage by the Haryana Police, was being groomed by the Pakistani intelligence officials as an “asset” and was in touch with them during the Indo-Pak conflict, said Hisar Superintendent of Police Shashank Kumar Sawan on Sunday (May 18, 2025).