The crash, between a moving train and another that was stopped further up the track, was caused by an "inexplicable" error, the transport minister said.

More than 500 passengers were on board the trains when the incident occurred in the province of Toledo, south of Madrid.

People on a range of incomes from £4,062 to £150,000 a year tell the BBC what they made of this year's Budget.

The chancellor targets the cost of living amid global economic turmoil but opposition parties say he has not been bold enough.

EU and Canada eye now-or-never window to Trump-proof their ties Brussels and Ottawa aim for ambitious upgrade in their relationship while the U.S. president is occupied by the midterms — and before Europe’s political landscape shifts. By SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC Illustration by Hèctor Fernández for POLITICO The EU and Canada are betting they can deepen their partnership while Donald Trump looks inward at the U.S. midterms — and before European elections upend the political calculus. Their strategy is to push for the broadest possible upgrade and hope Trump is too busy campaigning to respond, four EU officials and two Canadian diplomats familiar with preparations for this week’s summit in Montreal said. Trump, whose Republican Party is fighting to retain control of Congress in next week’s midterms, has called the EU’s offer of associate membership for Canada “laughable” and threatened “serious tariffs” if the two sides get too close. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will join Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for two days of talks on trade, security, energy, education and the Arctic on Thursday. The summit “is a very strong statement,” said Mark Camilleri, president of the Canada and EU Trade and Investment Association. “I don’t think there’s any feeling that this is going to be some discreet get-together.” Canada is also looking to move before Europe’s politics shift. Ottawa wants changes to the partnership that will outlast Trump and Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally is polling ahead in France and has criticized the EU-Canada trade pact, CETA, said a Canadian diplomat. All the officials and diplomats in this article were granted anonymity to speak frankly about the summit preparations. Avoiding Trump’s ire Brussels and Ottawa are pushing to strengthen their relationship, including by cooperating more closely on trade and defense, international engagement and institutional links, according to a draft joint statement obtained by POLITICO. In her September State of the Union speech, von der Leyen emphasized that the EU-Canada alliance is “not against anyone else.” Yet officials acknowledge that a stronger alliance risks triggering retaliation from Trump. Von der Leyen, Costa and Carney “are fully aware that the eyes of the world are upon them,” said Camilleri. The Europeans and Canadians know “the U.S. is watching,” a senior EU official said, adding that the bloc and Canada were nevertheless proceeding with business as usual and pushing for the most expansive possible relationship with Ottawa. Another possibility is that the summit yields only “nice pictures” and little substance, a third senior official said, making it less likely to “trigger” the president. European capitals, EU institutions and Canada’s provinces are all waiting to see what von der Leyen and Carney agree on in their meeting, the Canadian diplomat said, adding it was impossible to pre-judge how Trump would react. Shadow of Le Pen For Ottawa, pressure comes from another direction: Europe’s electoral calendar and the rise of the far right. With Spain, France, Poland and Italy all set to go to the polls in the next year, Canadian officials want to secure concrete gains while EU governments remain receptive to closer cooperation and keep the topic front of mind, before elections across the bloc risk shifting priorities and upsetting the political balance. When Carney came to Strasbourg to lay out his vision for a closer alliance in September, he was heckled from the gallery by the far-right Alternative for Germany MEP Siegbert Droese, who led chants of “USA!” But it’s France’s presidential election in April — and the prospect of Le Pen in office — that is causing the most concern, according to a second Canadian diplomat. “It’s very fortunate we’re doing this summit now and not in six months,” the diplomat said, referring to the French election date. Canada is pushing for big, bold “structural changes” in its relationship with the EU now that will outlast Trump and Le Pen, the diplomat added. Carney has grasped the moment’s rarity and urgency and will not leave the summit without securing major wins, the first Canadian diplomat said. U.S. President Donald Trump and Canada’s PM Mark Carney at a G7 summit in France on June 16, 2026. | Pool photo by Evelyn Hockstein via Getty Images Another question is whether Brussels and Ottawa can upgrade their partnership without eventually drawing the U.S. president’s ire. The midterms might buy them some time, but the vote will not keep Trump busy forever. Trump might be even more dangerous and more likely to take out his anger on the EU and Canada after the election, given that he will retain many of his tariff and foreign policy powers even if the Republicans lose Congress, the second Canadian diplomat warned. “At the end of the day, his reaction could be anything,” Camilleri said. “We can only control what we can control.” Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

Mark Carney isn’t the climate hero Europeans think Canada’s prime minister used to be an eco-warrior. Now, not so much. By BEN MAKUCH and MIKE BLANCHFIELD in Brussels Photo-illustration by Anthony Gerace for POLITICO Ask European Union leaders what they think of Mark Carney’s climate credentials, and you’ll get a gushing response. “We see the world with the same eyes: from AI to climate change,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech last month, where the Canadian prime minister was the guest of honor. “Canada and the EU are very, very like-minded,” the bloc’s climate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, told POLITICO in an interview when asked about his hopes for climate collaboration between the two powers ahead of this week’s EU-Canada summit in Montreal. Advertisement But this rosy view sidesteps a less comfortable reality: Canada is a major fossil fuel producer whose climate ambitions fall far short of Europe’s. And under Carney, those ambitions are weakening. Last year, Canada produced more crude oil than any other country outside the big three producers, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Oil and gas are Canada’s biggest exports by far, and the industry lobby is an influential force in Ottawa. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Liberal National Convention in Montreal on Apr. 11, 2026. | Andrej Ivanov/AFP via Getty Images In his previous life as a central banker, Carney was considered a climate champion. POLITICO even dubbed him an “eco warrior” in 2018. But since taking over as prime minister last year, he has weakened Canada’s climate policies at a rate few predicted, scrapping a national carbon tax and electric vehicle mandate and opening new oil and gas projects. The list of climate laws Carney has watered down, repealed and canceled makes the EU’s own recent backtracking on green laws look minor. Some environmentalists argue it is comparable to U.S. President Donald Trump’s wholesale dismantling of environmental protections. “The track the Carney government has taken on climate and environmental regulation has been a decisive move in the direction of the U.S.,” said Tim Gray, executive director of environmental non-profit Environment Defence. Carney, he said, “seems to be all in on fossil fuels.” Advertisement Keean Nembhard, a spokesperson for Canada’s Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, told POLITICO the Carney government is “committed to fighting climate change and reaching net-zero by 2050 by taking a pragmatic and durable approach.” “This includes building major clean energy projects across the country, driving mass electrification, and making significant investment in the low-carbon economy,” he said. But Gray argued that Carney’s support for fossil fuels and weakening of environmental standards may complicate Canada’s attempts to forge closer ties with Europe, which has some of the world’s most stringent green laws. Carney with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. | Pool photo by Oliver Matthys via Getty Images Still, in Europe, Carney’s green image persists. Last week, Belgian member of the European Parliament Saskia Bricmont gave expression to this faith in Carney’s commitment to climate issues when she called on him to lead a global push to put climate back on the agenda ahead of next month’s U.N. climate summit. “Mr Carney … relaunch the fight against climate deregulation and for the restoration of biodiversity, and re-mobilize the international community around concrete, coordinated measures,” she said. Carney’s green aura Carney’s reputation as a climate champion is well earned. As governor of the Bank of England, he led a push among central bankers to take the economic risks of climate change seriously — memorably captured in his 2015 ‘Tragedy of the Horizon’ speech, in which he warned: “The catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors.” In 2021, after he’d left the Bank of England, he became a United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and launched a net-zero financial alliance with some of the world’s biggest banks. But things changed dramatically when Donald Trump took back the White House, and Carney replaced fellow Liberal Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister in 2025. At the time, Trudeau and his Liberals had been way behind in the polls, battered by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s attacks on his climate policies — in particular an unpopular consumer carbon tax. Carney’s first act as prime minister was to scrap that tax. Advertisement Following his surprise victory in the elections that April, Carney set about promoting Canada as an “energy superpower.” To the dismay of environmental groups, he supported the “Pacific Link,” an oil pipeline costing tens of billions of dollars, designed to carry Alberta crude to Canada’s Pacific coast for export to Asia. He then pushed for thawing relations with Beijing in January, a not-so-subtle pitch to find a new crude oil client that isn’t the U.S. Germany, rushing to replace its dependence on Russian energy, signed a long-term agreement in July to buy Canadian liquefied natural gas from a proposed port in British Columbia, despite backlash from environmental and indigenous groups. He also scrapped laws on electric vehicle adoption, dropped plans for an emissions cap on oil and gas companies, watered down an existing industrial carbon price and introduced legislation to weaken environmental permitting rules for big infrastructure projects, which critics dubbed the “bulldoze nature bill.” A landmark moment, according to Gray, came in November 2025, when Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Alberta, Canada’s biggest oil-producing province. That document, which promised to turn Canada into a “global energy superpower,” contained a string of promises to promote oil and gas and water down federal climate laws. A view of the Canadian Natural Resources Limited Horizon oil sands project, north of the indigenous community of Fort McKay in Alberta on May 5, 2026. | Daphné Lemelin/AFP via Getty Images So why the dramatic shift? Carney, who has repeatedly positioned energy sovereignty as a bulwark against Trump’s economic aggression, offered his realpolitik response at an event in the heart of Alberta’s oil patch earlier this month. “There’s a structural challenge of energy security and the existential challenge of climate change, and these challenges are forcing countries to think differently about where their energy comes from and on who they can rely on to supply it,” Carney said in Fort McMurray, Alberta on Oct. 1. “Even under any plausible net zero scenario, the IEA [International Energy Agency] forecasts the world will still need tens of millions of barrels of crude a day. So the question is: who will emerge as the world’s trusted suppliers? It should be us. It must be Canada.” Not black and white Carney, to be sure, is no Trump. Unlike the U.S. president, he has retained his pro-climate rhetoric and promised to develop the country’s mining of critical minerals essential for the clean energy transition. In May, he unveiled a national electricity strategy which aims to double Canada’s largely clean electricity grid by 2050 to meet soaring demand. “The path to net zero is electrification,” Carney said then. In August, he announced C$10 billion in federal support for the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project in Newfoundland and Labrador, saying it will be the largest clean energy project in North America, capable of generating enough electricity to light up the equivalent of Canada’s three largest cities. Advertisement Nembhard, Environment Minster Dabrusin’s spokesperson, also pointed to new electricity transmission lines, electric vehicle subsidies and a C$2 billion plan to retrofit homes with heat pumps. Canadian climate activist Alex Cool-Fergus said she does not think Carney “believes that oil and gas is the future,” but is simply being pragmatic about Canada’s economic reality. “The electricity strategy that came out in May was incredibly important, and actually gives us a better idea of what his thinking is for the future,” she said. Trudeau’s approach to climate change was “very much values-based, and it was about doing the right thing,” said Cool-Fergus. “I think that’s hit its limits. Carney’s approach makes more sense for the world of 2025-2026.” The limits of the partnership Hoekstra, the EU’s commissioner for climate, said he wants to deepen ties with Canada. “Given all the complications the world is facing, it is imperative to team up more closely with your closest partners,” he said. But he’s realistic about how far that relationship can go. Hoekstra has ambitions of cementing the EU into a global network of economies with carbon pricing regimes. While he conceded nothing is “off the table,” he acknowledged linking the EU’s Emissions Trading System with Canada’s “quite different” version, which varies from province to province: “You’re talking about a completely different horizon, and that is not something we would attempt in the very short run.” Advertisement document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent( "renderAd", { detail: "instory_51" })); There are, however, other ways Hoekstra believes the EU and Canada can closely link on environmental issues. “Doubling down, tripling down on electrification, on solar, on wind, on nuclear, on batteries,” he said, adding “that is one area that I think is potentially very fruitful for my portfolio.” Another is critical raw materials, a key focus of this week’s summit. Brussels is exploring ways for the European Investment Bank, the EU’s lending arm, to help finance the mining of Canadian mineral deposits that could supply the bloc with an alternative to Chinese-produced metals, with a framework agreement expected to be signed during the summit. Lithium, copper, nickel, and other key ingredients for electric vehicle batteries and clean energy technologies essential for decarbonizing Europe are abundant but often undeveloped all over Canada. Carney at the Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge in Kananaskis on June 17, 2025. | Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images This week’s summit will also explore investing in infrastructure on Canada’s east coast to liquefy and ship Canadian gas to Europe, a move that could help the EU diversify its supply away from the U.S., which, along with Norway, has become Europe’s dominant supplier since it cut off Russian gas imports following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many EU member countries will welcome success on these goals. But Gray warns that closer ties with Canada could lead to deeper penetration by the country’s powerful fossil fuel lobby, which he described as a “major, major force.” “They’ll be spending time trying to make sure the alignment with the EU is in a direction that favors them,” he said. Advertisement document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent( "renderAd", { detail: "instory_52" })); The EU’s lack of oil and gas resources — and, by extension, the absence of a powerful fossil fuel lobby — has kept climate policy relatively bipartisan in the EU. Could inviting a fossil fuel “superpower” into the fold as an “associate member” change that? “That would depend very much on what is an ‘associate member,’” Dutch Climate Minister Stientje van Veldhoven-van der Meer said.

Footage shows men, some armed, beating a US journalist and an Israeli-Russian activist in Umm al-Khair.

Government says Salim Said hit the jackpot in a scheme claiming to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Report into worker pipeline sheds light on deepening economic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang

Effectiveness of measures to help buyers on to the ladder called into question while interest rates are elevated, housing experts warn

Canada and the European Union will pursue closer ties but have dropped a proposal for associate EU membership, according to a joint declaration ahead of Thursday’s summit in Montreal. Prime Minister Mark Carney is seeking to reduce Canada’s reliance on the US, despite warnings from Donald Trump.

A rail collision in Spain that claimed at least 68 lives on Wednesday came after a train was ordered to go in "error" despite a technical failure that halted all services, the transport minister said. The first findings about the accident in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha are likely to revive questions about rail safety in Spain after another high-speed collision in January killed 46 people. FRANCE 24's James Vasina reports.

Spain reels from the deadly Toledo high-speed train collision that killed 68 and injured more than 100, sparking grief, protests and calls for resignations.

Palestinian citizens of Israel expressed optimism on Wednesday following the strong showing of Arab parties in the elections.