Iran said three more tankers were damaged in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, keeping commercial shipping at risk after US voters punished President Donald Trump over the war. The Revolutionary Guard said two oil tankers and a tugboat caught fire, and Iranian authorities have pointed to sea mines for earlier hits. Qatar says Washington and Tehran remain committed to mediation and are reviewing proposals. Oil fell 8% on Wednesday as traders bet on a deal, then steadied near $88 a barrel. Democrats, who won both chambers of Congress, are pressing Trump to end the war before the new Congress is seated in January.
First Lady Melania Trump will bring representatives of Russia and Ukraine together at the White House on Thursday and is due to speak about the ceasefire she secured in Oleshky, in the Kherson region. The White House says she opened the channel herself and that the truce covers one part of the front line only. The meeting happens while fighting continues elsewhere: Ukraine raised the death toll from a Russian guided-bomb attack on a school used as an aid centre in Komyshuvakha to 40, including four police officers. Officials from both delegations are expected to discuss further child reunifications and monitoring of the local truce, though diplomats caution that a regional ceasefire is far from a wider settlement.
Russian air attacks killed at least 38 civilians across Ukraine in 24 hours, including more than 30 people waiting for humanitarian aid in the village of Komyshuvakha in Zaporizhzhia region. Nine aerial bombs, some weighing about 3,000kg, hit the distribution point and collapsed a shelter roof where residents had taken cover. A missile strike also damaged a hospital in Kharkiv and injured more than 70 people. Ukraine's president said Russia fired 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles in one night, cutting power in nine regions and stopping three thermal plants. Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia as rescue teams kept searching for about 50 missing people.
At least nine Russian aerial bombs, some weighing 3,000kg, hit the village of Komyshuvakha in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, striking a school used to hand out humanitarian aid. Ukrainian authorities put the death toll at 24 before local officials raised it to 26, with five people injured. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack utterly horrific and said the settlement was hit several times during the day. The strike came days after Washington eased sanctions to allow imports of Russian diesel, a deal Zelensky described as a gift to Moscow. Fighting has also returned to the Kherson region after the war's longest ceasefire, a six-day truce.
Iran's foreign minister says Tehran has agreed a plan with Qatari mediators to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if the United States meets its conditions, while President Trump says talks are going fine but that he is in no hurry. The diplomacy was complicated by an attack on a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker in the Arabian Gulf, confirmed by operator Nakilat and condemned by the UAE. Oman is being discussed as a possible broker of a wider Gulf non-aggression pact. Shipping and energy markets are watching Doha closely, and any reopening is expected to be phased rather than immediate.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched across France on Saturday for the third weekend in a row, with students, unions and Yellow Vest supporters pressing demands over the cost of living and the state of schools. Most marches stayed peaceful into the afternoon, but police fired tear gas in Paris and Lyon after dark, and groups of masked demonstrators threw paving stones at officers on the edge of the capital. The interior ministry said at least 290 people had been arrested nationwide by the evening, far below the more than 1,000 detained during the first wave in mid-October. The movement has no single leader and lands six months before a presidential election.
Spain's transport minister has refused to resign after two high-speed trains collided near Urda in Toledo province, killing at least 69 people and injuring dozens more. A preliminary report says the moving Renfe train was travelling at 160 kph or faster when it hit a stationary Iryo train on the Madrid-Seville line. The transport minister says a computer failure stopped six trains and the control centre then cleared them to move again under inexplicable circumstances. A trade union has demanded his resignation and protesters have gathered outside the ministry. It is Spain's deadliest rail accident since 2013 and the second fatal crash in less than a year.
Israelis are waiting for about 500,000 absentee ballots to be counted after an election that left neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's allies nor the parties seeking to replace him with a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Likud took the most votes of any single list but has accused Arab-led parties of stealing the election, a claim the election committee has played down. Arab-led lists had a strong night and the Joint List said it was open to political cooperation. Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's chief rival, called for a government that serves all citizens. Israel's president is expected to task one candidate with forming a government next week, with another election possible early next year.
Two high-speed trains collided near Urda in Toledo province on Wednesday morning, killing at least 68 people in Spain's worst rail disaster since 2013. A Renfe AVE carrying 397 passengers ran into the rear of an Iryo train with 147 people on board that had stopped further up the Madrid-Seville line. Two carriages went down an embankment. Renfe says its train had been authorised to continue and struck the stationary unit for reasons it cannot explain. Spain's transport minister called the cause an inexplicable error and said the control centre's decisions will be examined. It is the second crash this year involving the same two operators.
Exit polls from Israel's main television stations showed neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the alliance led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot reaching the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority. Turnout passed 74% by 8 p.m., eight points above the 2022 race and the highest at that hour in decades. Official results are due by November 4, after which President Isaac Herzog has a week to consult party leaders and pick a candidate to form a government. Arab-led parties could decide who governs. The vote was the first national election since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and worked as a verdict on Netanyahu's wartime record and his corruption trial.