World Brief, Evening: October 29, 2026

Israel’s count is done and nobody has a majority, so the fight has moved to who gets to call the result legitimate. A drone kills 14 on a Dnipro rail platform while Ukraine quietly parks its refinery strikes. The Gulf hears of mined tankers and Houthi missiles. Google sheds half a trillion dollars, Binance freezes billions, and Egypt hikes rates. Plus Brazil, Erin Patterson, sick penguins and a farewell to Patrick Stewart. Ten stories as of Thursday evening, October 29.

1. Jerusalem / Israel. Counting is finished, and nobody won outright. Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc has 48, and the two Arab-led lists have a record 19, Al Jazeera reports. Results are certified by Wednesday.

Now the argument is about legitimacy. Likud has accused the Arab-led parties of “stealing” the election and says voters were “bribed.” The Shin Bet is looking into claims of illegal funding from Qatar and Turkey, which Qatar calls “ridiculous and dangerous,” the BBC says. The acting elections director said there was “no basis for allegations of systematic violations.” Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of “an orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the election results.”

2. Dnipro and Kyiv / Ukraine; the Black Sea off Bulgaria. A Russian drone hit a busy railway platform in Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 14 more. Strikes elsewhere killed at least 20, and ballistic missiles later hit warehouses in Kyiv, The Guardian reports. The local truce in occupied Oleshky held for a third day, and both sides said an aid operation there was ready to begin.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that Ukraine has paused its long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries after pressure from President Trump. The pause is expected to last until after the U.S. midterms. Putin, meanwhile, said that if anyone wants a war with Europe, “let them prepare,” and warned there would be “no winners.” At sea, the Greek-managed container ship Contship Jet sank off Bulgaria after three maritime drones struck it. All 18 crew were rescued. It was the fifth drone attack in Bulgaria’s economic zone this month, AP reports.

3. Strait of Hormuz and Saudi Arabia. The naval arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says three tankers caught fire after hitting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and a fourth vessel struck mines farther east, according to Al Jazeera. Yemen’s Houthis claim six attacks across Saudi Arabia, including the Ras Tanura and Rabigh refineries and airports in Riyadh and Dammam. Nobody has independently confirmed those. Saudi Arabia says it shot down two ballistic missiles fired at the capital, and falling shrapnel wounded one person in Riyadh (Al Jazeera).

In Washington, Trump said JD Vance’s letter to Tehran is about medical supplies, not restarting peace talks. Iran says it has the letter but hasn’t answered, and that its conditions stand, Reuters reports.

4. New York / United States. Alphabet lost just over $500bn in market value on Thursday. Its stock fell almost 13% after Google said AI summaries in search were cutting into ad sales, the BBC reports. Amazon dropped 6% after hours on a negative $42bn cash-flow figure.

Crypto had its own bad day. Binance, the world’s largest exchange, suspended deposits and withdrawals and froze about $3bn in assets over a suspected hack. Tether and Circle froze another $2.4bn or so. Analysts at Chainalysis put the theft above $5.9bn, roughly four times the 2025 Bybit record, according to the BBC. Binance says it will cover all losses. Bitcoin fell about 5%, to below $77,000 (Al Jazeera).

5. Urda / Spain. The victims of Wednesday’s high-speed crash in central Spain are being named. The toll stands at 69, with more than 100 hurt. They include Julieta Gallego, a 24-year-old long jumper with Madrid’s AD Sprint, and Fátima Báñez, 59, a former employment minister who chaired the CEOE business federation, the BBC reports. Families have been giving DNA samples at the forensics institute in Toledo. It is Spain’s second rail disaster this year and its worst since 2013.

6. Cairo / Egypt. Egypt’s central bank raised rates for the first time since March 2024. The deposit rate rises one point to 20% and the lending rate to 21%, Reuters reports. The bank cited an “unfavorable external environment.” The pound has lost about 9% against the dollar since late September, says Forbes Middle East, and Egypt’s IMF programme expires in December.

7. Brasília / Brazil. Trump says he didn’t “take sides” in Brazil’s election but called it a “disgrace” and “a great embarrassment to the people of Brazil.” His comments came a day after Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami. The New York Times reports the U.S. government helped them leave and would likely give them permanent residency, Al Jazeera notes. Brazil’s Supreme Court had ordered Bolsonaro to hand over his passports. He lost Sunday’s runoff to Lula by more than four million votes.

8. Melbourne / Australia. Erin Patterson, the mushroom murderer, lost her appeal, and the court made her sentence tougher. Victoria’s Court of Appeal threw out her challenge to three murder convictions and one attempted murder conviction, then scrapped her 33-year non-parole period, so she will never be released, the BBC reports. The judges called the crimes “extraordinarily cold and calculated” (ABC).

9. Danger Islands / Antarctica. Scientists have worked out what killed more than 537 Adélie penguins found on a single landing ramp off the Antarctic Peninsula in 2024. Everyone suspected bird flu, but the culprit was avian cholera, a bacterial disease, NPR reports on a study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Thousands more birds probably died across the islands. Researchers say die-offs like this may happen regularly without anyone checking.

10. Los Angeles / United States. Patrick Stewart has died at 86. The stage actor became Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X. He died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” his spokesperson said, according to The Guardian. Tributes are pouring in, led by his longtime friend Ian McKellen (AP). Make it so, one last time.