The flight of far-right Brazilian politician Flávio Bolsonaro has exposed covert support from the Donald Trump administration and a network of alliances among conservative governments on the continent, encouraged by Washington, that collaborated to enable his escape. Bolsonaro’s departure for Miami — just one day after insisting he would lead the opposition to the newly re-elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — demonstrates the existence of a Latin American bloc not only ideologically aligned with Trump but willing to act according to his logic, disregarding international treaties, several analysts said.

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Russia has violated international law by recruiting foreign nationals through deception and coercion. That is the conclusion reached by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine in a report published Monday, which documents dozens of cases of people who were lured with promises of civilian jobs in Russia and ended up, against their will, fighting for the Russian Army.

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“Is she alive or not?” That is the torturous uncertainty Shayna Feinman’s family has lived with for the past four days. The last time the American woman was seen alive was more than two years ago, in March 2024, while she was walking to a friend’s house in Yavapai County, Arizona. Since then she has been missing and presumed dead. That was until October 24, when the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) of Tijuana, Mexico, announced on social media that she had been found alive. However, in a turn of events Kara Feinman, her sister, described on her Facebook page as “turmoil” and “heartbreaking,” authorities in Arizona said their Mexican counterparts were plainly wrong, having located and identified a different person by mistake.

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Americans are headed to the polls next Tuesday in thousands of contests to decide whether to re-elect or confirm members of Congress and governors, and also mayors, school board members, and judges. There are also hundreds of referendums on the ballot, although perhaps none of those votes has as much long-term potential to change the rules of U.S. democracy as Initiative 194 (I-194) in Montana.

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The news that Flávio Bolsonaro had arrived at Opa-Locka airport Wednesday morning left Luciana Ferri in shock for several reasons. First: “What kind of political figure does Bolsonaro want to be, even for his own voters, if he’s so cowardly as to skip the country and say: ‘I will not submit to the country’s judicial system, I was only a presidential candidate’?” And second: “Many immigrants here in the United States face fear and uncertainty because of aggressive law enforcement, and suddenly someone with political connections, an ally of President Trump, shows up and is welcomed with open arms.”

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Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a historic leader of Mexico’s left, died on Wednesday at age 92. Without him, it would be impossible to understand how the left has gained power in Mexico. Both the current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and her precedecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, both of the Morena party, walked arm in arm with Cárdenas during the democratic struggles of the 1980s, when El Ingeniero (The Engineer, as he was known because of his engineering degree), broke up the long hegemony of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from within, giving rise to the transition.

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Fear and uncertainty. Those are the two words most often heard at Chamartín train station in Madrid. On the face of it, everything seems normal: machines are still issuing tickets, and passengers are dragging their heavy suitcases from one place to another. There is, however, something most admit: they had doubts about traveling. The crash on Wednesday near the Urda station, in Toledo, is worrying all passengers.

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The future of the U.S. Congress — and, by extension, the prospects for Donald Trump’s second presidency — may be decided by a handful of votes in the most distant U.S. state from Washington, D.C. — Hawaii notwithstanding. Alaska is electing a senator next Tuesday, November 3, and the fight for that seat, crucial while control of the Senate hangs in the balance, has played out like a thoughtful political miniseries, or perhaps more like an absurd parody.

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The train crash on Wednesday near Urda (Toledo), in which two high-speed trains collided, has once again placed the spotlight on the situation of train drivers and other rail workers, who have been in conflict for years with the public companies that operate Spain’s rail network. The driver of the Renfe AVE and a trainee who was accompanying him are among those who have not been located after the accident, according to the latest reports. The tragedy comes just nine months after the death of one of the drivers involved in the Adamuz rail crash in Córdoba, in which 46 people died; and after the death of a trainee driver in the collision at Gelida (Barcelona), which also occurred in January. The string of disasters in such a short period of time has reignited the discontent of a professional association comprising nearly 6,000 members, who object to workers being blamed before the investigations are complete.

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Jorge Guales saw the food cart arrive. He was in car 7 of the Iryo and the train had stopped. Staff passed by offering drinks and snacks. He felt relaxed. What came next was the impact: “The hit, the deafening crash.” He tries to reconstruct what happened afterward. It’s difficult for him. Some passengers were thrown against the seats and several objects fell to the floor. He saw and heard everything, but it’s blurry. He, a 53-year-old Colombian, looked out the window and saw smoke. He stood up. The door was open. He got out and helped others to exit the train. Once outside, they walked together along a ditch and several local residents broke down a fence so they could pass through. He turned and saw the wrecked carriages. He had just walked out of one of them unharmed.

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Cornell University took another step Wednesday in acknowledging responsibility over its handling of a complaint by a former student — whose identity remains anonymous and who is referred to as Jane Doe — against seven members of a fraternity at the elite New York state school who she accused of raping her in October 2024. The faculty governing body at Cornell, known as the Faculty Senate, will begin voting on a symbolic censure resolution to condemn how the university handled Jane Doe’s case.

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Federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who was presiding over the trial of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in the United States, died Wednesday at the age of 92, according to The New York Times. It is not immediately clear who will replace Hellerstein in the high-profile case, which is scheduled to begin on June 14.

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For the second time in nine months, all of Spain is stunned by images of two high-speed trains shattered on a track in the middle of the countryside, by the appalling death toll and by the harrowing accounts of survivors of a rail crash that will have its own page in history. Almost 400 people were aboard the AVE train that, at 8.53 a.m. on Wednesday, collided with an Iryo train stopped on the Madrid–Andalucía line near Urda (Toledo), which had 146 people on board. The toll of 69 dead is still provisional. The number of injured exceeds 100. In these critical hours, it is necessary to convey to those who have lost a loved one the empathy and solidarity of all of Spanish society. The testimonies of families and survivors will be the anchor to ensure the scale of this human tragedy is never forgotten.

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The three key audio recordings of the tragedy — two exchanges between the driver of the Iryo train that was stopped on the tracks and the Atocha rail controller at the control center inside Atocha station in Madrid, and another one between the AVE driver coming up behind and the same controller — clearly show the mistakes that were made ahead of an accident that has killed at least 68 people and injured scores more. It is one of the biggest tragedies in European high-speed rail, and the second one in Spain in a year after 35 years of operation without a single fatal accident.

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Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting was a bit like a Wes Anderson film: what mattered was not so much the ending as the way the story was told. The outcome came with a spoiler alert. More than 90% of analysts expected no change in interest rates, and they were right. The Fed left rates unchanged at 3.75% to 4%, less than a week before the U.S. midterm elections, which are being shaped by an affordability crisis fueled by persistent inflation.

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Avocado harvesting has come to a halt in parts of Michoacán, Mexico’s leading producer and exporter of the fruit. Small growers have called a strike to demand a substantial increase in the price they receive from packing houses, distributors and exporters, a move that has already affected nearly half of shipments to their main buyer, the United States.

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The war in Iran has caused an earthquake in global maritime transportation, with the epicenter located in Hormuz. The blockage of this strait has forced ships to take longer routes and reduced the number of available vessels, while the insecurity caused by Iranian strikes is being passed on through soaring costs to transport goods and, above all, energy. Average earnings in maritime shipping grew 75% from last year, and remained 92% above the average of the last 10 years. It is a juicy business that’s controlled by just a few companies that dominate the market. Those that are publicly listed have seen their share value more than double.

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Dolores Huerta, an icon of the migrant community in the United States and a steadfast defender of migrant workers’ rights, died this Wednesday. She was 96 years old. The cause of death was cancer, a family spokesperson told The New York Times.

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez traveled to Urda, in the province of Toledo, near the site of the devastating train crash that killed at least 68 people after two high-speed trains collided early Wednesday morning. Sánchez said he had come to support emergency workers and those affected by the accident, stressing that a full investigation would be carried out.

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After the outburst of enthusiasm that accompanied her return, María Corina Machado and her political circle have begun a “soft” reintegration into Venezuela. The opposition leader’s collaborators say it is a strategy designed to manage energy and time the next move. Machado is preparing for a press meeting on Thursday where she is expected to provide details about her return to the country after 10 months, and to outline the strategy she intends to use to challenge the regime and push for democratic change. So far it is known that the opposition leader will launch an ambitious national tour for which significant precautions are being taken.

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