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The Aftermath Of Israel's Elections & A Deadly Train Crash In Spain

Bolsonaro Flees To The U.S. & The Reality Of CTE In The NFL

Author

Marcus Gee-Lim
October 29, 2026

Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today we’re covering the fallout from Israel’s elections, Bolsonaro fleeing to Miami, a deadly train crash in Spain, Canada’s aborted bid to become an E.U. member, Dolores Huerta’s passing, the Fed’s interest rate decision, and a study of CTE in NFL players.

“A good will is good not because of what it effects, or accomplishes, not because of its fitness to attain some intended end, but good just by its willing … Even if by some particular disfavor of fate, or by the scanty endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this will should entirely lack the capacity to carry through its purpose; if despite its greatest striving it should still accomplish nothing, and only the good will were to remain (not of course, as a mere wish, but as the summoning of all means that are within our control); then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has full worth in itself.” – Immanuel Kant 

No Winner In The Negev

“Benjamin Netanyahu 2021” by Alexander Khanin via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the wake of Tuesday’s Knesset election, Israelis are preparing for a period of political instability that could stretch into next year. With almost 90% of votes counted, no party or coalition is projected to have a majority in the legislature – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing, far-right, and ultra-Orthodox coalition is likely to have 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, while the centrist opposition bloc headed by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is projected to hold 48.

The lack of a single clear election winner means that Israel’s Arab-led parties have found themselves in the spotlight, especially after they won an unprecedented 19 seats. Those parties could, in theory, join with either coalition to win a majority in the Knesset and form a government, but it’s unclear if Netanyahu or his opposition are willing to risk the backlash from some Jewish voters that such a move would generate.

Once the election’s results are certified, Israeli president Isaac Herzog will ask one of the heads of the leading parties to form a government. If that person fails to build a ruling coalition after 42 days, the head of another party will be given 28 days to form a government. If that fails, a third group could be given a 14-day chance at coalition building, which is the last chance. If no government is in place, elections will be scheduled for early next year, and Netanyahu will remain at the helm of a custodial government until results from that election come in.

Bailing Out Of Brazil: A Bolsonaro Family Tradition

Sometimes, the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. On Wednesday morning, far-right Brazilian politician Flavio Bolsonaro touched down in Miami just days after losing the country’s presidential election to left-wing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Somehow, Bolsonaro isn’t the first person in his family to flee from Brazil to Florida after losing a presidential election to Lula – his father Jair Bolsonaro deployed the same playbook in 2022, escaping to the U.S. after narrowly losing the presidency despite his incumbent advantage.

After it became clear that Lula had won this year’s election by a solid margin, his government moved swiftly to prevent Bolsonaro from making his great escape, ordering border authorities to block the right-wing politician from fleeing the country and requesting that he surrender his passports. According to the New York Times, Bolsonaro was able to flee to Argentina via a land border using his Italian passport, taking a private flight to Ecuador and then boarding another plane to land in Miami yesterday.

Soon after touching down in Florida, Bolsonaro issued a statement rejecting the results of Sunday’s election. “I want to say, not only to my 60 million voters but to the Brazilian people, ​that I am the elected president and that the criminals who stole Brazil’s election ⁠are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny,” he said. Bolsonaro claims that the Lula campaign’s request to extend voting hours swayed the election, but there are a few problems with that contention. First, Bolsonaro also requested an extension due to storms in some right-leaning states. Second, just 35,000 votes were cast in those extra hours, while Lula demolished Bolsonaro by a margin of 4.5 million ballots.

Two Crashes Too Many

  • Yesterday, a high-speed train crash in Toledo, a central province of Spain, saw one train collide with another that was stopped on the same set of tracks. The collision killed at least 68 people and injured dozens of others.  According to Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente, the incident was caused by an “inexplicable” order from a central railroad command center, which gave the moving train the green light to continue down a closed stretch of railway at full speed. Puente said that the train should never have been moving down that section of track (which was closed due to a computer malfunction), adding that it should have been given a speed restriction at the very least.

  • The crash marks the second deadly train collision the country has seen this year. The last incident (a derailment which killed 46 people in January) involved both of the train operators involved in yesterday’s crash. “Today all of Spain is grieving,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who recently called snap elections set to take place on November 29. “It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year.” The country has declared three days of national mourning, and Sánchez has called for increased rail safety measures to be put into place.

Pre-Associate Membership Revoked

  • In September, European Union leaders suggested that the 27-member bloc could offer “associate member” status to Canada, a move that could create a larger Western alliance with less reliance on U.S. leadership. Yesterday, the union backpedalled on that suggestion, instead releasing a draft statement stating that the two parties would work on establishing an “ever closer association” ahead of an E.U.-Canada summit set to take place later today.

  • The E.U. likely backed off of the “associate membership” gambit after certain member states objected to the move and Trump called it a “hostile act” which might lead the U.S. to stop trading with Europe “on many things.” Instead, the two parties will work on establishing a less-official but also closer relationship over the next year, with this week’s summit aimed at setting the stage for those negotiations. “The good news is it doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said. “What matters is the difference that it will make to lives of Canadians.”

Additional World News

Sí Lo Hizo

  • Dolores Huerta, a labor leader and activist, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 96. Huerta was most known for co-founding the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union and leading the five-year Delano Grape Strike. That strike involved nationwide boycotts of grapes and lettuce, eventually securing the right to collective bargaining, healthcare, retirement plans, and a wide range of jobsite safety benefits for farmworkers across California. Huerta remained active in union leadership and political organization for the rest of her life, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

  • “I hope that my legacy will be one of an organizer that organized to fight injustice,” she said in a 2025 documentary about her life. “We want to give our children an inheritance of justice, right, not jewels or property or money because they'll just fight over it. So the main thing to do is to give them this love for justice — and that is the greatest gift I think that any of us can have.”

The Fed Needs To Be Fed More Data

  • Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced that it would be holding interest rates steady in the 3.75% to 4% range as it waits for “the accumulation of more information.” The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets interest rates, will next meet in December, giving it plenty of time to accumulate that information.

  • “The ​economy is pointing in the right direction. Is the economy running too hot? Is the economy running too strong? That isn't the judgment of most of my colleagues,” said Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, explaining why the central bank didn’t implement an inflation-slowing interest rate hike. “The goal, in my view ... isn't to throw sand in ​the gears of the economy and throw people out of work. I don't think we have to do that.”

  • According to the bank, the economy is growing at a “strong pace,” but raising interest rates could dampen that growth a little bit too much. While market prices show that investors still believe the bank will increase interest rates in both its December and March meetings, the Fed will rely on more subtle tools to lower prices in the meantime.

Additional USA News

 

Grim News For Gridiron

  • According to a study published on Wednesday, roughly 75% of former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 showed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The research analyzed medical records from 2,362 deceased former NFL players (who spent an average of five years in the league), including 396 brain donors and 1,966 non-donors. Extrapolating and adjusting the rate of CTE from the brain donors to the larger cohort, researchers estimated that 74.5% of them actually suffered from CTE.

  • CTE is a brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, which is, unfortunately, basically a central part of American football. Symptoms include behavioral problems, mood instability, and cognition issues, and in some cases results in dementia. While 93.5% of the donors examined in the study suffered from CTE, less than 1% of brain samples available in public brain banks showed evidence of the disease. 27% of the former players suffered from dementia.

  • The study paints a grim picture for NFL players, indicating that the vast majority of them could suffer from CTE in the future. “We recognize these findings may cause concern for the community of living players and their families,” said the study’s senior author. “We want them to know that we and others are standing by to provide support, and that we have hope for those living with CTE … Discoveries from the brain bank have already brought us significantly closer to a diagnosis during life, at which point our most important goal will be to develop effective treatments for CTE.”

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Editor + Writer: Marcus Gee-Lim

Designer: Joe Stella