news.today: every major story today, at a glance

The Netherlands has withdrawn from the 2027 Eurovision Song Contest, its public broadcaster NPO announced. The country had boycotted this year's event alongside four others in protest at Israel's involvement. NPO initially said in September it would return to the competition, but has now reversed that decision. Jet de Ranitz, NPO's chair, said discussions with broadcasters initially suggested sufficient support existed, but the organisation was unable to find a suitable format for participation. She stated the decision was due to 'sensitivities surrounding the themes currently at play'. Eurovision director Martin Green said he was 'deeply sorry' but respected the decision. Ireland and Iceland have also confirmed they will again boycott the 2027 contest, while Spain and Slovenia have until December to decide.

Two high-speed trains collided on the Madrid-Andalusia line near Urda in Toledo province on Wednesday morning just after 9am. A Renfe AVE train travelling from Madrid to Seville struck the rear of a stationary Iryo train heading in the opposite direction, causing two Iryo carriages to derail and fall down an embankment. The Renfe train carried 397 passengers and the Iryo train 147. Multiple sources confirm at least 10 people were killed, though Metro, GB News, The Mirror, The i Paper and Independent World report at least 39 deaths, whilst DW News reports at least 30. The cause remains unclear, though CNBC cites reports suggesting possible human error when railway signalling systems failed. Emergency services deployed helicopters, fire crews and mobile intensive care units to the scene. Rail operator Adif suspended all services on the line.

Chancellor John Healey will present his first Budget on Wednesday, framing it as offering households and businesses 'breathing space' during what he has called a 'difficult moment' for the UK economy. International conflicts have driven up energy prices and inflation, while public finances remain stretched. The Budget is expected to include a freeze on fuel duty, measures to reduce energy costs, and removal of standing charges from gas bills, expected to save around £45 annually per household. Multiple outlets report Healey will announce plans to decouple gas and electricity prices and move green levies from energy bills to general taxation. The Chancellor says he will act 'responsibly' within Labour's self-imposed fiscal rules, but with limited scope for major giveaways. Polling suggests 70 per cent of Britons expect tax rises, though important decisions on wider tax and spending reform are expected to be deferred.

Russell Brand, aged 51, has started giving evidence at Southwark Crown Court, where he faces three counts of rape, three of sexual assault, and one of attempted indecent assault against six women over a decade from 1999 to 2009. He denies all charges. Brand told police his "very promiscuous" celebrity lifestyle had been "unfavourably reframed" into allegations, and insisted he had "never engaged in any non-consensual sexual activity". His former personal assistant told the court she witnessed him mistreating women. Brand said the 2023 documentary and media reporting had "devastating" effects, with friends and colleagues unwilling to support him.

Harry Kane won the Ballon d'Or on Monday at the London Palladium, becoming the first Englishman to win football's most prestigious individual award since Michael Owen in 2001. The Bayern Munich and England captain beat Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal to the prize after scoring 73 goals in 65 games for club and country. Downing Street congratulated Kane on his 'extraordinary achievement' and hinted a knighthood could follow, though the prime minister's spokesperson declined to confirm anything before the honours process. Kane also became the first Bundesliga player to win since 1996.

Freemantle Projects Ltd, founded in 2020, has entered liquidation and is set to close. The UK-based electrical contractor specialised in installation services and worked with major clients including British Airways, Heathrow Airport and Jet2. A resolution to wind up the company was passed on 22 October, with Molly Monks of Parker Walsh appointed as liquidator.

Charity fundraiser Michael Cullen, known as SpeedoMick, will trek to Everest Base Camp before undertaking a 1,000-mile winter walk from John O'Groats to Land's End, all in his signature blue Speedos, to raise £1 million for The SpeedoMick Foundation. Along the route he will complete the Three Peaks Challenge, climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon, with Penrith among his stops. Cullen, who has battled homelessness and addiction, said the challenge would be 'the biggest challenge of my life' and aims to support grassroots charities across the UK and Ireland.

JD Wetherspoon has introduced a UK-wide ban on Meta glasses and other smart glasses across its more than 800 pubs. The devices can record video, photos and audio, raising privacy concerns due to their ability to film without drawing attention. The ban follows growing reports of people secretly recording strangers and sharing footage online.

The US military said on Tuesday it killed five people in a strike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific. The attack was among more than 70 such strikes since September 2025, collectively killing at least 240 people, according to media tallies. US Southern Command said the vessel was operating along established drug-trafficking routes and that 'confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking', though the administration has not provided evidence to substantiate its claims. Legal experts and rights groups have questioned the legality of the strikes, arguing they may amount to extrajudicial killings, and relatives of some killed have said their loved ones were fishermen or workers not involved in drug trafficking.

A young assailant armed with two knives attacked a police officer guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade just after midnight on Wednesday, shouting 'Allahu Akbar'. The officer was slightly wounded in the face before shooting and killing the attacker in self-defence. Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said the underage attacker, believed to be from the western Serbian town of Sabac, was a supporter of Islamic State and had been monitored by security agencies. Serbia's terror threat level was raised to red, the highest, with increased police presence at key locations. Israel's Foreign Ministry confirmed no embassy personnel were injured; the mission was closed at the time. This is the second such attack on the embassy in less than three years.

Chancellor John Healey is reportedly planning to reverse a decision by his predecessor Rachel Reeves to slash the annual Isa allowance from £20,000 to £12,000 for savers under 65, a change that had been set to take effect in April 2027. Healey believes the allowance cut was the wrong tool to encourage investment in stocks and shares and would prefer to educate savers on the benefits of equity investing instead. The move has been welcomed by city experts, banks and building societies, which had warned the cut could deter saving and push up mortgage costs. The reversal is expected to be announced in Healey's first budget on Wednesday.

A zookeeper at Beekse Bergen Safari Park in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands, has died from injuries sustained in a leopard attack on Saturday. The woman, whose name has been withheld under Dutch privacy law, had worked at the park since age 17. She suffered serious head and neck wounds while in an enclosure with two male Persian leopards, which had been moved indoors due to bad weather. Despite her injuries, she alerted colleagues via walkie-talkie and was airlifted to hospital for emergency surgery, but died on Tuesday. An independent investigation is underway to determine how the incident occurred, as the indoor enclosure lacks CCTV cameras. The park said staff are typically not permitted in the same space as predatory animals. The leopards will not be euthanised.

Kylian Mbappé apologised on Tuesday after a video circulated showing him discussing a meme with his face superimposed onto that of Mao Zedong, which he described as depicting 'some guy – I think he's a Chinese dictator'. The comment prompted three major Chinese companies – beverage-maker Dongpeng, dairy producer Mengniu and cheesemaker Milkground – to end their sponsorship agreements with the Real Madrid forward. In China, jokes about Mao, the country's founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and taboo. Mbappé said his comment was 'ill-judged' and that he 'now understand[s] that it hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world'. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV suspended broadcasts of La Liga matches in response to the controversy.

A federal grand jury in Washington on Tuesday rejected the Justice Department's request to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before a House committee in 2022 about President Donald Trump's conduct during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Prosecutors in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division had sought to charge Hutchinson with making false statements to Congress. Hutchinson, a former special assistant to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Trump urged supporters to march on the Capitol whilst knowing many were armed, and described an account from another White House official about Trump lunging at a Secret Service agent when told he could not travel to the Capitol. Trump and allies have called for legal consequences against Hutchinson, whilst other lawmakers have urged the Justice Department to abandon its investigation. Grand juries rarely reject indictments, which prosecutors need only convince of probable cause rather than guilt.

Twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 39, and their brother Tal, 40, were each sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday for sex trafficking crimes in New York. The former luxury real estate brokers were convicted in March of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and multiple counts of sexual assault. During sentencing, twelve victims confronted the brothers in court, describing the psychological trauma caused by the assaults. Judge Valerie Caproni described their conduct as 'monstrous' and denied their request for the minimum 15-year sentence, which prosecutors had opposed by seeking life imprisonment. The brothers maintained their innocence in statements to the court.

Chancellor John Healey has announced that standing charges on gas bills will be scrapped from 2027 or as soon as possible afterwards. The fixed daily fees, which average £108 a year for a typical household regardless of usage, will instead be incorporated into the unit rate. The Treasury says the change could save 60% of households around £45 annually. Prime Minister Andy Burnham described it as 'basic fairness' and part of reforming the 'broken' energy market. The measure affects approximately 23 million homes. The Treasury said it will provide 'targeted mitigation' for a small number of households that may not benefit automatically, following concerns from money saving expert Martin Lewis and others that some higher users could pay more.

Arsenal lost to League Two side Fleetwood Town on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the Carabao Cup, with the match decided after Dowman was sent off for violent conduct in the 85th minute. The teenager reacted to a heavy challenge from Fleetwood midfielder Harrison Neal by kicking out, prompting a brawl. As Dowman left the pitch, manager Mikel Arteta appeared angry and spoke sharply to him. Former Arsenal player Paul Merson criticised Arteta's treatment of the youngster, arguing he should have shown support rather than public criticism. Arteta told reporters the words were 'something that we discussed before the game' but declined further detail.

US midterm elections on 3 November will determine control of Congress, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats contested. Democrats lead in national polls by nine to eleven points according to recent surveys, though several Senate races remain close. President Trump has conditioned his acceptance of results on elections being 'honest', while his administration has filed legal challenges in Democrat-led states over voter registration. Both parties are campaigning intensely, with Trump holding rallies in Texas and Ohio while former President Obama campaigns for Democrats in Georgia.

Mark Okotie, 44, has been jailed for three years and six months after deliberately running over a cyclist while delivering blood to a south London hospital on 20 March 2024. Woolwich Crown Court heard that Okotie moved his van into the left lane seemingly without looking, coming close to the cyclist on New Cross Road in Lewisham. At traffic lights, the cyclist spat towards Okotie's open window. Dashcam footage showed Okotie deliberately steering to run over the cyclist, who was knocked under two wheels of the van. The cyclist, a man in his twenties, suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis and a fractured femur, requiring surgery to insert metal fixings. Okotie was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. GB News reports that despite the conviction, he was not banned from driving.

The Golden State Valkyries moved within one victory of winning the WNBA Championship by defeating the Atlanta Dream 64–55 in Game 5 on Monday night, taking a 3–2 lead in the best-of-seven series. Kiah Stokes and Veronica Burton each scored 13 points with eight rebounds for Golden State, while Angel Reese was held to seven points but grabbed 15 rebounds for Atlanta. The Valkyries' defensive performance limited the Dream to 29 per cent shooting from the floor. Game 6 is scheduled for Thursday at 12:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, moved from its original 8 p.m. start to accommodate an Atlanta Hawks NBA game later that evening. Golden State can clinch the championship with a victory, forcing a potential Game 7 in San Francisco on Saturday if Atlanta wins.

Israel's first national election since October 2023 has produced no clear winner, with exit polls and partial results showing both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing bloc and opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's alliance well short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Most exit polls project the blocs level at around 50–52 seats each, though some give Netanyahu's coalition a slight edge. Arab-led parties, unaligned with either bloc, are projected to win a record 15–19 seats. Voter turnout reached 77.7 per cent, the highest in 27 years. Official results will be published by Thursday, though around 600,000 absentee ballots will not be fully counted until then. Coalition negotiations could take weeks or months, with no party having ever won an outright majority in Israeli history.

Arsenal, the reigning Premier League champions, were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in a shock defeat by League Two Fleetwood Town on Tuesday. The match finished 1-1 after Aaron Loupalo-Bi gave Fleetwood a 21st-minute lead, which Viktor Gyökeres equalised after the break. Arsenal's 16-year-old winger Max Dowman was sent off in the 86th minute for kicking out at Harrison Neal following a heavy challenge. In the penalty shootout, Fleetwood converted all five of their efforts whilst goalkeeper Jay Lynch saved Bruno Guimarães's attempt for Arsenal. Conor Haughey scored Fleetwood's winning penalty to send the League Two side through to the quarter-finals. Arteta appeared to rebuke Dowman as he left the pitch, later revealing he had warned the teenager before the match about reacting to challenges.

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company founded by former OpenAI researchers, filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The company is seeking a valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, which would make it one of the ten most valuable US tech companies. The prospectus highlights extraordinary growth metrics including 1,300% annual sales growth and 900% net revenue retention, but also details approximately $80 billion in half-year net losses and hundreds of billions of dollars in compute commitments. Nearly a third of the 335-page filing is devoted to risk factors, with Anthropic acknowledging that its technology could pose 'catastrophic or existential risks to humanity', a striking contrast to its founding mission. Amazon is positioned to be the largest financial beneficiary of the IPO, holding convertible notes valued at $97.9 billion as of June 30.

AI bots submitted more than 90,000 responses to a 2023 government consultation on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, accounting for 76 per cent of all 118,756 submissions received. The Department of Health and Social Care used bot-detection methods to identify the fraudulent responses, which were overwhelmingly targeted at opposing restrictions on disposable vapes. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and University of Bath say this appears to be the first documented instance of large-scale automated interference in a formal public health policy consultation in the UK. The bots were excluded from decision-making, and when legitimate responses were analysed separately, 79.6 per cent supported the restrictions. The Tobacco and Vapes Act received Royal Assent in April, implementing a lifetime ban on tobacco sales and restrictions on disposable vapes.

The Lake District National Park Authority has approved two major elements of United Utilities' multimillion-pound Windermere Programme to improve wastewater treatment and reduce phosphorus entering the lake. A temporary construction compound has been approved at an existing layby opposite Far Sawrey Wastewater Treatment Works, and a new underground wastewater system has been approved at Rydal Hall near Ambleside.

Some owners of Apple's iPhone Duo, which launched on Friday, reported that the inner screen cracked within hours or days of purchase, often after hearing a crunching noise when folding the device. Bright lines and dead pixels appeared along the hinge crease. Apple confirmed on Monday that a 'small number' of units were affected and said it would replace them under AppleCare warranty. Out-of-warranty screen repair costs $999. iFixit's teardown suggested the issue stems from the hinge design, with a metal part potentially pressing against the flexible inner display.

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro fled Brazil for the United States on Tuesday, two days after losing the presidential election to leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He left despite a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports as part of a money-laundering investigation, which he denies. Sources close to the senator confirmed his departure with his wife and two daughters. The Trump administration announced it would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family, allowing them entry to the US. President Lula called Bolsonaro's departure 'shameful', saying the Bolsonaro family's first nation was the US, not Brazil. Bolsonaro had initially said on Monday he would not leave the country and would defend himself against what he called a 'travesty' of an investigation.

Mohmed Abdulkarim, 24, and Nouman Essghir, 24, both from London, have been charged under the National Security Act 2023 following an investigation into an incident at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. Abdulkarim is charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service; Essghir with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the UK. Counter Terrorism Policing said they believe the foreign intelligence service involved is Iran. The charges follow an incident on 27 September when police stopped three suspicious vehicles near the airbase and arrested five men. Both men appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

A localised ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump took effect early Tuesday in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky in the Kherson region. The pause in fighting, which began at 3am local time, aims to allow aid deliveries and the evacuation of around 2,000 trapped residents who have endured severe shortages of food, medicine, water and electricity. Ukraine's parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, confirmed both sides were honouring the truce. The ceasefire is scheduled to last until Sunday. However, Russia continued strikes elsewhere, including on Kyiv, where Russian forces damaged the Southern Bridge and subway infrastructure. The agreement followed weeks of mediation involving Trump and cooperation with Russia's commissioner for human rights, Yana Lantratova. Al Jazeera reports that Pope Leo XIV also contributed to securing the truce through phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Microsoft announced on Monday that it is offering voluntary buyouts to approximately 60,000 employees across the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. The offer is open to staff at vice-president level and below in select teams, though certain divisions including data centre, sales and marketing roles are excluded. Employees must decide by the end of December, with departures effective 31 December. Microsoft's chief people officer Amy Coleman said the move gives staff 'the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources'. The buyouts follow an earlier voluntary retirement programme in April, when 30 per cent of around 8,750 eligible US employees accepted offers, and July layoffs affecting 4,800 staff. The company is spending heavily on artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centres.