Spain Train Crash, Prison Break, Color-Changing Glass

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Adam Rogers
October 29, 2026

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A high-speed train struck another stopped train in central Spain Wednesday and killed at least 68 people while another 58 needed hospital treatment.
The trains carried 544 passengers on the route from Madrid to Seville when they collided in Toledo province. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the Renfe train had been told to resume travel without speed restrictions despite an active stop signal. It then struck the stationary Iryo train and knocked two carriages off the track. Investigators were examining its speed and how the instruction was issued.
The collision was Spain’s second major rail disaster this year involving the same two operators. In January, an Iryo train derailed near Adamuz and collided with an oncoming Renfe train in a crash that killed 46 people. A preliminary investigation identified a broken rail as the trigger for that derailment.

Authorities are searching for Jacob Morley, who escaped from Tennessee’s Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville late Sunday while serving a life sentence for murder.
Surveillance videos showed Morley breaching the prison’s perimeter fence in his prison uniform before stealing an unlocked truck from a nearby farm around 1 a.m. Monday. Investigators traced the vehicle to Marion in southern Illinois roughly 120 miles north of the prison. A resident recognized it from news coverage and alerted authorities, but a search did not locate Morley. Officials have not said whether anyone helped him escape.
The search comes as Tennessee’s prison system faces staffing shortages and violence involving inmates and employees. AP reported roughly 470 vacancies in its 6,000-person workforce, although authorities have not established that those shortages contributed to Morley’s escape.

The Milwaukee Brewers won their first World Series championship Wednesday by beating the Tampa Bay Rays 4–1 in Game 5. Milwaukee clinched the series four games to one at Tropicana Field after Tampa Bay had prevented a sweep the night before.
Starter Jacob Misiorowski allowed only two hits over 5⅔ scoreless innings before leaving because of a calf cramp. Rookie Cooper Pratt drove in two runs, and catcher William Contreras added an RBI double as Milwaukee built a lead its bullpen protected. Contreras earned World Series MVP honors.
The championship ends a 44-year wait since Milwaukee’s only previous World Series appearance ended in a Game 7 loss to St. Louis in 1982. The Brewers followed a major-league-leading 103-win regular season by going 11–2 in the playoffs. Tampa Bay remains without a championship after three trips to the World Series.

Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro fled to Miami after a court ordered him to surrender his passports in a money-laundering investigation; he denies wrongdoing. (More)

Labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta died Wednesday at 96 after decades of advocating for farmworkers and co-founding the movement that became the United Farm Workers. (More)

DNA testing linked Ted Bundy to the 1974 killing of Utah teenager Melissa Ann Smith, according to authorities who announced the breakthrough Tuesday. (More)

India evacuated more than 180,000 people before Cyclone Arnab struck Andhra Pradesh Wednesday and damaged homes and power lines while disrupting flights and train services. (More)

A Sudanese military drone strike killed more than 100 people at a market in Nyala, according to Emergency Lawyers, a rights group tracking violence in the country. (More)

Britain announced £100 energy payments beginning in January for up to 20 million eligible households in England, intended to ease energy costs and funded by a tax on banks. (More)

U.S. stock markets closed higher on Wednesday (S&P +0.28%, Nasdaq +0.27%, Dow +0.19%) as the Fed held interest rates steady and investors awaited major technology companies’ earnings. (More)

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix reported a more than sevenfold increase in quarterly operating profit Wednesday as demand for AI infrastructure pushed memory-chip prices higher. (More)

Google parent Alphabet’s shares fell more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday after quarterly profit and revenue missed expectations. (More)

Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards needs a right-knee procedure that will sideline him for several weeks. (More)

Fourth-tier Fleetwood Town eliminated Arsenal from England’s League Cup in a penalty shootout Tuesday. (More)

A California appeals court upheld actor Danny Masterson’s rape convictions Tuesday and left his sentence of 30 years to life in place. (More)

A tiny experimental flying robot resumed flight after being struck or flattened in tests thanks to flexible wings and artificial muscles, though it still needs an external power connection. (More)

Researchers embedded enzymes in compostable plastics that accelerated their breakdown in ocean tests, including deep-sea conditions where untreated samples persisted. (More)

Detectors aboard NASA’s Artemis I spacecraft measured how radiation penetrates the body near the Moon using human-shaped mannequins to help assess risks for future astronauts. (More)

Watch coral reveal its hidden patterns.

Ancient Romans used nanotech to create color-changing glass.

Forgotten attic seeds revive an ancient “miracle wheat.”

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