World Today: ISIS-Linked Women and Children on the Way to Australia
World Today returns with a roundup of the main news events from the last 24 hours. Our Friday edition, 22 May 2026, report comes from Syria.
Australians Return from Syria
A group of Australian women and children has left a camp in Syria, where fighters who called themselves the Islamic State were imprisoned and killed. ABC saw the bus carrying the group leave the al-Roj camp on Thursday afternoon. [Map] The bus was escorted by Syrian authorities and is believed to be heading for Damascus, before continuing on to Australia.
Earlier this month, four women and nine children linked to ISIS returned to Australia after years in the camp. Three of the women have since been arrested and charged by the Australian Federal Police upon their arrival in Melbourne and Sydney.
Passengers from Ebola-Hit Region Board Flight ‘By Mistake’
A plane bound for Detroit was diverted to Canada after a passenger from the Ebola-stricken Democratic Republic of the Congo boarded the flight by mistake, US officials said. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the passenger “should not have boarded” the Paris-originating flight on Wednesday (20 May), given entry restrictions to the United States designed to curb the spread of Ebola. The spokesperson said authorities “took decisive action and barred the flight carrying the passenger from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, instead redirecting it to Montreal, Canada.” Air France said the Congo passenger was denied entry to the United States under new rules requiring travellers from certain countries, including the DRC, to enter only via Washington, DC.
Elon Musk Set to Become World’s First Trillionaire
Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, which also owns Starlink and xAI, has filed to pursue an initial public offering, or IPO, on the stock market. The IPO filing did not specify what percentage of the company would be sold, but The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Musk hopes to raise between US$40 billion and US$80 billion from the sale. This would make Musk the world’s first trillionaire, less than a year after he became the first person to amass wealth of US$500 billion. If the IPO raises near the upper end of the target, the company’s share value would exceed US$600 billion, lifting Musk’s net worth to over US$1 trillion.
Air France and Airbus Found Guilty
The Paris Court of Appeal ruled Air France and Airbus guilty of involuntary manslaughter related to the 2009 crash of Flight AF447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, which killed 228 people. The aircraft was over the Atlantic Ocean when it crashed, marking the French aviation industry’s deadliest accident. Each company was ordered to pay a fine of €225,000, the maximum penalty for corporate manslaughter. On 1 June 2009, Air France Flight AF447, travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, was cruising over the Atlantic when the pilots lost control, causing the aircraft to plunge into the sea. No one survived the crash.