Spain train crash: US, Japan and Canada citizens among dead, authorities say

The train disaster, one of Europe’s deadliest rail incidents this century, killed 69 people, including 54 Spaniards

Four US citizens and one each from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia and the Czech Republic were among the 69 killed in last week’s high-speed train collision in Spain, authorities said.

Wednesday’s disaster – one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents this century – has seen victims’ relatives endure an agonising wait as forensics teams identify the dead, sometimes from individual body parts.

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Tributes paid to ‘inspiring’ Cambridge scientist who died in Spain train crash

Dr Marta Shahbazi was travelling to a conference to receive award for scientific excellence in developmental biology

An “inspiring” University of Cambridge scientist died in the Spanish train collision on Wednesday that killed at least 69 people.

Dr Marta Shahbazi, 41, an affiliate associate professor at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and a group leader at the city’s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), was travelling on one of the trains involved in the crash near Urda in Toledo province.

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Battle lines redrawn in Spain’s snap election after latest train disaster

Next month’s poll no longer the contest it was, as Pedro Sánchez finds himself forced to defend government’s safety record

One of the most dependable cliches of contemporary Spanish politics is that it never pays to bet against Pedro Sánchez. Time and time again – as leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) and as prime minister – Sánchez has shown an almost preternatural ability to profit from adversity, and to confound expectations and wrongfoot his opponents.

But next month’s snap general election, called by Sánchez after rightwing and far-right parties voted down the housing reforms his coalition government had announced in response to angry protests, may suddenly not be the contest it once was.

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Spain begins mourning period as search continues for train crash victims

Emergency services, drones and dog unit continue to comb carriages as Civil Guard sets up clinics for relatives to provide DNA samples

Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday for at least 69 people who died in a high-speed rail collision, as hospitals continued to treat dozens of injured passengers and train drivers went on strike to urge more investment in railway safety.

The trains – one from Spain’s state-owned Renfe and the other from the private rail company Iryo – were travelling from Madrid towards the southern region of Andalucía on Wednesday when they collided just before 9am. After the Iryo train came to a halt, the other slammed into its rear, knocking several carriages off the track near Urda in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha.

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Second fatal train collision this year casts doubt over Spain’s high-speed rail network

Questions were raised before Toledo crash over rail safety in a country where train travel has surged by 40%

Spain’s high-speed rail network, the most extensive in Europe and the second largest in the world after China, has long been a point of pride in the country. But Wednesday’s deadly crash – the second in nine months – has recast the spotlight on questions about safety.

Officials said at least 68 people were killed on Wednesday morning after a high-speed train slammed into another that had stopped on the tracks, leading to the derailment of several carriages. The two trains were believed to be carrying 544 passengers.

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Spain train crash: at least 64 dead after collision in Toledo province

High-speed service travelling from Madrid to Seville runs into back of another, knocking two carriages off track

At least 64 people have been killed after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province in central Spain, in the country’s second major train accident this year.

The trains were travelling in the same direction on the line from the Spanish capital, Madrid, to Seville in the south-west of the country. One ran into the tail of the other that had stopped, knocking two of its cars off the track. Authorities said the cause of the crash was not yet known.

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Opposition deepfake video of Spanish PM’s wife sparks outrage before election

Video shows AI likenesses of people linked to Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party appearing to admit to wrongdoing

A political ad from Spain’s main opposition party that used a deepfake video of the prime minister’s wife has sparked outrage and set off a wider debate on AI, as the deeply polarised country gears up for general elections next month.

Launched this week across the social media channels of the conservative People’s party (PP), the video used artificial intelligence to manipulate the likenesses of various people linked to Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party and appeared to show them admitting to acts such as soliciting prostitutes and taking kickbacks.

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‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italy was exploited by ‘hooligans’

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

A march in central Milan on Saturday to protest against rising living costs began peacefully but ended with masked rioters throwing stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and setting fire to barricades made from bar tables.

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Thousands march in Madrid after death of evicted pensioner Maricarmen

Rally to remember woman, 87, whose rent battle with investment firm triggered nationwide protests over housing crisis

About 20,000 people took part in a march through the centre of Madrid on Thursday evening in memory of María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction from her flat in the capital a fortnight before her death triggered mass protests over Spain’s housing crisis.

The pensioner, whose flat had been bought by an investment firm that sought to increase her rent by 230%, had become the public face of the crisis before her death in hospital on Wednesday night.

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Thursday briefing: Why young people are taking to the streets across France

In today’s newsletter: A youth-led movement is protesting crumbling school buildings and teacher shortages while turning adult focus onto wider educational inequalities

Good morning. In my experience, at any protest, the most memorable and encapsulating slogans are always the ones written by hand with marker pen on cardboard placards.

“School is a right, not a privilege,” read one such sign held aloft by a student in Paris, where huge youth protests over the state of high school education have brought tens of thousands of young people and adults on to the streets, with further strikes planned today.

UK politics | Kemi Badenoch has announced that the Conservatives would abolish inheritance tax on family homes if elected, prompting criticism that she is prioritising cutting taxes for the rich.

Education | Labour’s flagship changes to special education in England are at risk of unravelling because parents are rushing to secure support for their children before the system changes, new analysis has found.

Spain | María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.

Science | A type of gene therapy based on Nobel prize-winning science is safe and can partly restore sight in blind people, researchers have revealed.

Epstein | British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith warned that Jeffrey Epstein was a “sexual deviant” decades before the FBI closed in on the abuser, a Guardian investigation has found.

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María del Carmen Abascal, symbol of Spain’s housing protests, dies aged 87

Maricarmen’s eviction from Madrid apartment after over seven decades set off wave of protests against housing crisis

María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.

News of her death came two weeks after Maricarmen, as she had come to be known across Spain, was evicted from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for more than seven decades.

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In both France and Spain, ruling parties must prove they can give young protesters hope

Demonstrations over housing rights and crumbling schools are a sign the younger generation is withdrawing political consent

In Spain, tens of thousands of people in 50 cities have taken to the streets amid mounting fury over the country’s housing crisis, their feelings made plain on a banner at the burgeoning protest camp in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol plaza: “You can speculate on watches, jewels, crypto-bros and Ferraris. But not on our fucking homes.”

In France, as high school pupils clash with police in often violent protests over long hours, missing teachers, crumbling classrooms and an opaque university admissions system, the angry slogans include: “More hours in class than for sleep”, “Fund study, not repression” and “I’d like to be worrying about my maths exam, not my future”.

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‘This can’t go on’: tens of thousands protest against housing crisis in Spain

Demonstrators take to the streets of Madrid ⁠and other Spanish cities ⁠after ​new legislation fails to pass

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Madrid ⁠and other Spanish cities as they step up demands for action to tackle ⁠a mounting housing crisis ⁠after ​government measures were struck down by the opposition.

Demonstrators on Saturday waved posters calling for a general strike ⁠after the measures drawn up to address mass anger over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman in ⁠Madrid, and other housing issues, were rejected in parliament on ​Friday.

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Spanish right wing votes down housing crisis plans as protest movement grows

Opposition lawmakers join forces to defeat proposals made by Socialist-led coalition after eviction of 87-year-old

Rightwing lawmakers in Spain have rejected emergency measures put forward to tackle the country’s housing crisis, pitting a fractured parliament against the widespread protest movement that has swelled in recent days.

On Friday Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition put forward two decrees that included a range of measures aimed at improving access to housing, from a ban on evictions until 2030 to the regulation of temporary lettings and lettings by room.

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Macron says ‘welcome back’ to Burnham suggestion UK could rejoin EU

French president, speaking alongside Spanish counterpart Pedro Sánchez, says EU bid would be good news for UK and Europeans

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has reacted warmly to Andy Burnham’s suggestion that the UK could rejoin the EU.

“Welcome back,” the French leader said in English with a smile at a news conference in Madrid on Wednesday. Macron continued in French: “If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news, both for his country and for the Europeans.”

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Spain announces plan to ease housing crisis amid outcry over eviction of 87-year-old

Measures, which need to be approved in Congress, include extending ban on evictions of vulnerable people

Spain’s Socialist Workers’ party-led coalition government has approved a range of measures aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, including extending a ban on evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, after a public outcry over the eviction of an 87-year-old disabled woman from her Madrid apartment last week.

Two decrees have been approved by cabinet but will need to be approved in Congress, where the coalition lacks a majority. The government has requested a special parliamentary session on Friday in the hope of getting the decrees passed as soon as possible.

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British climber, 28, dies in fall in northern Spain

Mountaineer’s body recovered about 20 metres below the summit of Torrecerredo, the highest peak of the Picos de Europa range

A British man has died after falling about 61 metres (200ft) while descending from the summit of a mountain in northern Spain, according to local law enforcement.

The 28-year-old mountaineer fell down a vertical gully on the east side of the Torrecerredo – the highest peak of the Cantabrian mountains – on Thursday afternoon, the Spanish Civil Guard for the Asturias region said.

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Spain allows US extradition case against pro-Palestine aid donor to proceed

Lawyers for James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, wanted over alleged support for Hamas, say client is being persecuted

The Spanish government has decided to allow the Trump administration’s controversial extradition request to extradite wealthy activist James “Fergie” Chambers to continue in the country’s courts.

Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, is currently imprisoned in Madrid. It is the first known case of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.

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Japanese islands brace for Dujuan to become a typhoon again

Storm system expected to hit Izu Islands as it strengthens. Meanwhile, Atlantic hurricane season is unusually quiet

Tropical Storm Dujuan is skirting the coast of Japan and despite avoiding a direct landfall, is still expected to leave its mark. Dujuan briefly reached typhoon status on Friday before weakening to a tropical storm again on Sunday morning. But it is expected to restrengthen back to a typhoon by Tuesday morning. Sustained winds could reach 80mph (129km/h), with gusts approaching 100mph.

Although mainland Japan has avoided a direct hit, Dujuan’s track takes it across the Izu Islands, where evacuation warnings are in place. Heavy rain, flooding and landslide alerts are widespread, with high waves adding another threat to exposed coastal areas and islands.

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Pressure builds in Spain to deny US extradition request for leftwing donor

Key government meeting this month will consider US bid to try James ‘Fergie’ Chambers over alleged support for Hamas

Attorneys for James “Fergie” Chambers, the US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide who is currently imprisoned in Madrid and sought in extradition, have submitted a brief ahead of a decisive government meeting on the case.

Meanwhile, Chambers’ partner, the actor and activist Stella Schnabel, met last week with multiple members of the Spanish parliament to assert his innocence.

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