Is it accessible to have lists without a heading, assuming previous lists do?

Question

Assume this HTML structure:

<h2>Our latest News and Events</h2>
<ul>
  <li>news item 1</li>
  <li>news item 2</li>
  <li>news item 3</li>
</ul>
<ul>
  <li>event item 1</li>
  <li>event item 2</li>
</ul>

My question is whether the above structure is accessible and good enough, or whether I should merge the 2 lists into one so it becomes:

<h2>Our latest News and Events</h2>
<ul>
  <li>news item 1</li>
  <li>news item 2</li>
  <li>news item 3</li>
  <li>event item 1</li>
  <li>event item 2</li>
</ul>

Notes:

• In both cases the heading semantically covers all subsequent items (news and events).
• I cannot change any of the content, nor add any new headings. The data is given as is, so I can only affect the HTML (i.e combine the two lists in one).
• Both cases would have the exact same presentation (i.e there wouldn't be a visible gap between the 2 lists in the first case).

Answer 1

good question btw ;) Grabbing your example:

<h2>Our latest News and Events</h2>
<ul>
  <li>news item 1</li>
  <li>news item 2</li>
  <li>news item 3</li>
</ul>
<ul>
  <li>event item 1</li>
  <li>event item 2</li>
</ul>

I used to do something more like this with sub headings to guiding the user.

<h2>Latest News</h2>
<ul>
  <li>news item 1</li>
  <li>news item 2</li>
  <li>news item 3</li>
</ul>

<h2>Events</h2>
<ul>
  <li>event item 1</li>
  <li>event item 2</li>
</ul>

Why these solution:

1. You maintain your semantic.
2. The info list are grouped by your Heading;
3. The user after the first list know immediately what kind of information is the next one.
4. It's good for multiple list (scalable).

Answer 2

I don't think this is possible, based on your requirements.

A screen-reader user, or any user for that matter, would have to decipher what is a news item and what is an event item.

If you can't organize them by separate lists, then maybe change the link text to make it understandable.

Ex. "News | News Item 1" or "Event | Event Item 1"

Answer 3

If they are displayed visually in one group for screen users, it often means that you can use the same grouping for screen reader users too.