At least 39 people have been killed and scores more injured in Spain’s worst rail crash in more than a decade. The death toll is “not yet final”, said Transport Minister Óscar Puente, as investigations begin into the high-speed collision between two trains carrying a total of around 400 people. 

A total of 43 people hurt in the crash – 39 adults and four children – remain in hospital, with 13 in intensive care.

What happened?
At around 7.39pm local time yesterday, a high-speed Iryo train from Málaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz, near Córdoba in southern Spain. Carriages six, seven and eight landed on the adjacent tracks and was then hit by a train from Madrid on its way to Huelva.

Although it has “not yet been determined how fast it was going”, the Iryo train “was not travelling at such a high speed” and was able to brake following the initial derailment, said El País. The second train, an Alvia, was travelling at “200 kilometres per hour [125mph] parallel to the Iryo train at that moment”, then derailed and fell down a “five or six metres high” embankment.

Why did it happen?
The official cause is “not yet known”, said the BBC. “An investigation is not expected to determine what happened for at least a month.”

This was an “extremely strange” incident, said Puente. It occurred on a “straight stretch of track”, the train was “relatively new” and the track had been “recently renovated”, said La Vanguardia. 

The stretch of track where the crash took place “recently received an investment of more than 700 million euros (£608 million) for renovations which were completed in May”, said The Telegraph. Spain has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe, second only to China globally, with almost 2,000 miles of track.

What are the authorities doing?
Renfe – Spain’s national state-owned railway company – predicted it would take “more than four days to resume service between Madrid and Andalusia”, said Spanish newspaper ABC. 

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos because of the train crash.

“The United States is breaking up with a font because it’s just not their type,” quipped Politico after Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally changed his department’s official font from Calibri to Times New Roman. Announcing the recent switch, Rubio described Calibri as “informal” and a “wasteful” paean to diversity.

‘Restore decorum and professionalism’
Rubio “waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces” to reverse a 2023 directive by the Biden administration for the State Department to use Calibri, “which is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing”, said The New York Times. 

In an open memo, Rubio reportedly said that returning to the more traditional Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work”. His directive – titled “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper” – can be seen as another attempt by Donald Trump’s administration “to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government”, said the newspaper.

History is full of significant “typographic disputes” that become fronts in culture wars, said Robrecht Vanderbeeken in Diggit Magazine. The Vatican introduced its own printing press in the 16th century that used “exclusively Roman Antiqua”, while Louis XIV demanded an “exclusive royal typeface”, the Romain du Roi. “Is it only a matter of time before Trump wants his own golden font?”

‘Ideological straitjacket’
“A ban on Calibri may seem banal, but it reveals a deeper fear of freedom,” said Vanderbeeken. Fonts have become the “latest battleground in the culture war of Trumpism”, with Times New Roman being given an “entirely new ideological connotation”. Even though Calibri is more accessible, supports more languages and is better suited for reading on screen, the Trump administration sees it as too “woke”.

Rubio’s move can only be seen as yet another episode in the “unceasing efforts to root out DEI (or in this case DEIA)”, said Bloomberg, emphasising the final part of the acronym for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility. It highlights how the department even “pitches aesthetic minutia into sharp partisan relief”.

Russia’s Daniil Medvedev leaps into action to defeat the Netherlands’ Jesper De Jong in the first round of the Australian Open. The victorious former world No.1 is a three-time finalist at Melbourne Park but has never lifted the trophy.

Martin Keep / AFP / Getty Images

Extra-virgin olive oil has overtaken Perelló olives and Torres crisps as the “present du jour” to take to “trendy” dinner parties, said Arabella Bowes in House & Garden. The trend is being driven by the “sober curious movement”, especially at this time of year as more people look for Dry January gifts.

With around 1,600 olive varieties and “thousands of flavour profiles”, there is plenty of choice. But with each bottle lasting up to six months, an olive oil’s provenance is becoming more and more important. People are “demanding” to know “what ingredients have gone into it, where the olives were grown and who’s behind the brand”.

“Extra-virgin olive oil is now a cultural marker of taste,” Delli’s Octavia Pendrill-Adams told The Telegraph. The bottles look great on kitchen shelves and the oil is so versatile in cooking. “Premium, pretty and, crucially, ethical brands” have become a “status symbol for our pantries”, said Elinor Griffin, oils buyer at Waitrose.

I recommend treating extra virgin “like seasoning”, Katia El-Fakhri, co-founder of Glug olive oil, told The Telegraph. Use it to finish a salad or a pudding, “tasting as you go to judge the balance”. The paper’s reviewers found Glug’s Evoo For Drizzling, £16 for 750ml, “grassy, refreshing and a little appley”.

Those who “aspire to be on MasterChef” should also check out the Evoo from Two Fields Zakros, £18.50 for 500ml, said Chloe Mac Donnell in The Guardian. A top-notch brand, it is “used by restaurants including Primeur in London, Sargasso in Margate and The Pig hotel group”.

The men I know love AI and the women don’t – and I understand why
Olivia Petter in The Independent
All of the men I’ve dated recently wanted “to talk to me about AI”, writes Olivia Petter. Studies show that men use it “more than women”, and the reason is clear. “This technology has been weaponised against us since its advent”, reinforcing “gender biases” and creating “pornographic deepfakes” and “AI girlfriends”. AI “downplays women’s health issues” and “portrays” us as “subservient”. “Is it any wonder that” we might feel more “reticent about embracing” it?

No amount of defections will change the fact that Reform and the Tories are singing the same tunes
John Harris in The Guardian
The Tories and Reform are “two bands with the same songs”, writes John Harris. We are watching “a feud within the same political family” that is “driven by animosities that seem to be as much personal as ideological”. British Conservatism “has been shifting rightwards for a decade now”, and if Nigel Farage and “his ever-increasing band” of Tory defectors become “its new standard bearers”, it won’t signify “rupture” but rather a “reunion” of demotically belligerent “Thatcher disciples”.

In a time of crisis, small pleasures can offer us consolation
Jane Shilling in The Telegraph
The EU foreign policy chief “reportedly said the turbulent state of the world might drive her to drink”, writes Jane Shilling, but instead of abandoning dry January, we could “lift our spirits” with “a stiff dose of fresh air” or books about facing “hardship with courage and humour”. I recently reread Laura Ingalls Wilder’s account of the “relentless blizzards” on her family’s homestead. They “kept singing to Pa’s faithful violin” – and “without so much as a nip” of gin.