World Brief: October 28, 2026

Two high-speed trains collide south of Madrid and at least 68 are dead; Israel’s count leaves Netanyahu just short; Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami; the Oleshky truce spreads across Kherson; a drone strike on a Darfur market kills more than 100; and the Fed decides on rates today. Ten stories as of Wednesday morning, October 28.

1. Mora and Orgaz / Spain. A Renfe high-speed train rear-ended a stationary Iryo train just after 9 a.m. local time between Mora and Orgaz, about 140 km (100 miles) south of Madrid, sending at least two carriages down an embankment. At least 68 people are confirmed dead, with 80 treated for injuries, 15 of them critical, the BBC reports; more than 500 people were on the two trains. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure first halted six trains, and the control centre then let them move again without speed restrictions “under inexplicable circumstances.” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked,” and politicians cancelled campaigning for next month’s election. It is Spain’s second high-speed rail tragedy this year, after a January derailment killed 46.

2. Jerusalem / Israel. With results still coming in, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is the largest single party and his bloc sits just short of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, the BBC reports. Analysts caution the early count leaned toward right-wing areas, and absentee ballots, mostly soldiers’, mean a clear picture could take another day or two. Turnout topped 77%, and Arab-led parties matched or beat their previous record seat count, which could make them kingmakers. Netanyahu told supporters the right has “a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public” but stopped short of declaring victory; Gadi Eisenkot said “the public has chosen change.” Israeli stocks fell and the shekel weakened as Netanyahu’s bloc beat forecasts, says Reuters. Final official results are due by November 4.

3. Miami / United States and Brazil. Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s runoff to Lula, landed at Miami-Opa Locka airport with his wife and two daughters and left under police escort without speaking to reporters, The Guardian reports. He crossed into Argentina by land on Tuesday night, then flew a Gulfstream via Guayaquil, Ecuador. A State Department official said the family will get U.S. visas, and Donald Trump said, “They’re fine people. The election was very strange.” Lula called the flight “shameful.” Bolsonaro is under investigation in at least two criminal cases, including an alleged money-laundering scheme involving betting companies, and had ignored a Supreme Court order to hand over his passports; he denies wrongdoing, says DW.

4. Kherson / Ukraine. The truce that began Tuesday to get food and medicine into Russian-occupied Oleshky has been extended across the wider Kherson region, and no breaches have been reported, the BBC reports. U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, who helped broker it with Pope Leo XIV, said the area was expanded to give humanitarian convoys “safe passage.” The Kremlin says things are going “according to plan.” Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia says it runs until 22:59 Kyiv time on Sunday, November 1, calling it the “largest de-escalation since 2022.” Aid could roll in Thursday, with evacuations planned for Friday for the roughly 1,700 to 2,000 people left in the town.

5. Nyala / Sudan. More than 100 people were killed and 113 injured when a Sudanese military drone struck a busy market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on Monday evening, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers, which called for an independent investigation, AP reports. Many of the victims were women and children. Doctors Without Borders says its hospital received 36 bodies and more than 150 wounded, and a second strike hit a civilian neighbourhood. Nyala is held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. On October 16, a drone strike on the city’s Al Mawashi market killed at least four people.

6. Democratic Republic of Congo and across Africa. The Ebola outbreak has passed 10,000 cases: 10,091 in total, 10,060 of them in DR Congo, where 4,887 have died, with two deaths each in Uganda and Kenya and a case in Abuja, Nigeria, The Guardian reports. Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya compared its spread to Covid and warned, “We want all countries to know that they are not safe if they don’t take appropriate measures.” He meets African health ministers today. The Bundibugyo strain behind it has no approved treatment. About a third of the dead are children, and roughly three in four infected under-5s have died, per NPR.

7. Moscow / Russia. Vladimir Putin opened the third Russia–Africa Summit (October 28–29), co-chaired with African Union chair Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi. Delegations from 48 African countries are attending, including 22 heads of state by the Kremlin’s count, up from 17 in 2023, Al Jazeera reports. Putin is scheduled to meet Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed, and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is expected. Putin told the leaders Russia was their best partner and accused a West “accustomed to thinking in terms of their colonial past” of using debt to hold Africa back, Reuters reports.

8. Andhra Pradesh / India. Cyclone Arnab killed at least three people in Andhra Pradesh after making landfall and is weakening as it moves inland. It has been downgraded to a severe cyclonic storm and should become a deep depression by evening, DW reports. Northern Andhra Pradesh and southern Odisha were hit hardest, with trees uprooted and 31 houses damaged, and nearly 40 disaster-response teams are deployed along the east coast. More than 180,000 people were evacuated, per France 24.

9. Washington / United States. The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision this afternoon. It is expected to hold its benchmark at 3.75% to 4% after September’s hike, its first increase in three years, USA Today reports. Futures put the chance of another hike today under 10%, so the focus is on what Chair Kevin Warsh says about December, according to CNBC. Meanwhile, the Federal Election Commission suspended its web-facing services after “a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems,” which blocks last-minute campaign spending reports days before the November 3 midterms. Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum stressed it has “NOTHING to do with voter files,” per Al Jazeera.

10. Northern Mariana Islands and Antarctica. Governor David Apatang has declared Typhoon Condition III for Agrihan, Pagan and Alamagan as Typhoon In-fa approaches. At 1 p.m. Wednesday local time it was a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds, about 905 miles east of Saipan, and it could become a super typhoon tonight, RNZ reports. It is forecast to pass between Pagan and Agrihan around 7 p.m. Friday; Saipan, Tinian and Rota have no typhoon condition but should expect heavy showers and big surf. Down south, a UC Irvine and NASA JPL model projects that Thwaites Glacier, the “Doomsday Glacier,” could add up to 30 mm to global sea levels by 2100. That is about double earlier estimates, even without further warming, according to NASA.