In Spain, Maricarmen has died. The 87-year-old woman’s eviction from her lifelong home sparked mass protests. Last month, she was forcibly removed on a stretcher after the private investment company which owns the building hiked her rent. After public outcry, the Spanish prime minister dissolved the parliament, which refused to pass a broad emergency housing law including an eviction moratorium, and called a snap election for November 29. The landlord eventually agreed to allow her back into her apartment, but she passed away in the hospital on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his condolences to Maricarmen’s family and loved ones, writing, “A hug also to all those who today feel this loss as our own. Rest in peace.” This is a demonstrator in Madrid.

Diana: “Taking an 87-year-old woman out of her home after she had lived in the same house for 70 years, that’s killing someone. A year ago, she had such strength, such life, such enthusiasm. It was a joy to see her. And the moment she left that apartment, or, rather, the moment they took her out of that apartment, she had to be hospitalized. And today, she is gone.”

We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

In France, hundreds of thousands of high school students and their supporters have taken to the streets for another day of demonstrations, protesting staff shortages, crowded classrooms and run-down buildings. Earlier today, France’s education minister invited student leaders to discuss their demands, pledging no further job cuts at schools.

Russia’s public health agency is denying reports of a second case of pneumonic plague associated with a laboratory in southern Siberia. In a short statement, the agency said thousands of tests had turned up no evidence that a lab worker from the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia transmitted an infection before she fell ill with pneumonia and died on October 2. According to some reports, the worker had broken a vial containing live plague bacteria. In the wake of her death, Russian officials ordered about 200 people to quarantine. On Wednesday, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said many questions remain unanswered.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: ”WHO has requested further information on the lab tests conducted on the individual who died and the contacts, more detail on what prompted the public health measures, and details about the health status of the contacts. We have also sought verification of media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.”

Fears over the plague prompted travel advisories and border restrictions in several Central Asian countries.

At the White House, President Trump said he does not believe the lab worker’s death was related to a bioweapon, and said he planned to discuss the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said no such phone call has been scheduled. On Wednesday, the U.S. issued a formal diplomatic complaint over Russia’s handling of the lab worker’s death.

President Trump traveled to San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday to rally support for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Paxton won the Republican nomination in May after Trump endorsed him over incumbent Senator John Cornyn.

Attorney General Ken Paxton: “How many presidents have we had that have done — that is doing what he is doing for us? So, Mr. President, I want to thank you for coming for me, for coming for us and for coming for Texas. We are going to win this race. God bless you.”

Trump’s campaign stop in Texas came after Axios published secretly recorded audio in which Paxton told donors that the war on Iran and resulting high gas prices were to blame for his poor poll numbers. With less than four weeks until Election Day, Paxton has trailed Democrat James Talarico in nearly every poll, despite the fact that no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott declined to attend Trump’s campaign rally in San Antonio. Meanwhile, multiple protesters interrupted the president as he spoke, including one person who was physically assaulted by Trump supporters as he tried to leave the venue.

In more election news, CNN is reporting the Department of Homeland Security’s election-fraud operation has drawn on tens of millions of records, scrutinized dozens of nonprofit voter-registration groups and considered deploying undercover agents to investigate organizations suspected of helping noncitizens register to vote. The probes are aligned with President Trump’s claims of election fraud, despite the fact that noncitizen voting occurs too rarely to affect election outcomes. A recent Reuters review found just 129 federal prosecutions under the “voting by aliens” statute created by Congress in 1996. This comes as leaders of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have told agents nationwide to ramp up the pace of immigration arrests by a thousand people per day, to a previous goal of 3,000 daily arrests, leading up to the midterm elections.

In Saudi Arabia, officials say three people were killed and 36 left wounded after Houthi fighters from Yemen launched separate attacks on two airports, including King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Dozens of flights have since been delayed or canceled. The attacks came after the Houthis warned international airlines against flying in Saudi airspace, and as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces began a counteroffensive to recapture territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast seized by the Houthis last month. The International Organization for Migration reports the number of people displaced by recent fighting in Yemen has passed 200,000.

In Ukraine, rescuers are searching through the rubble of a residential building in the northern town of Pryluky after a Russian missile strike killed at least 22 people, including five children. It follows a wave ​of Russian drones and missiles a day earlier that killed at least 11 people and damaged homes, industrial facilities and infrastructure. Residents in the capital Kyiv sought shelter in the city’s underground metro stations, sleeping on platform floors. This is a resident of Kyiv.

Lesia: “The Russians always make the same loud claims about everything, that we started it, that we’re bombing them, that we were preparing in advance to strike them. But this is what’s actually happening right now: People are forced to go into the metro and sleep there. And then we’ll all get up, go to school or work, and go about our day as usual.”

Meanwhile, Russian officials say a Ukrainian naval drone struck a Liberian-flagged oil tanker off the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, setting off a massive fire. Russian authorities say all 23 crew members, who are Indian nationals, were rescued.

The U.K.'s Maritime Trade Operations Centre said it was investigating reports of multiple casualties after projectiles struck a tanker north of Qatar. Wednesday's attack came after Iranian officials warned they would close shipping routes used to bypass Iran’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. At least nine vessels came under attack last week while navigating the strait — the highest number in any week since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Meanwhile, oil prices rose more than 2% today amid attacks on energy infrastructure across Ukraine and the Middle East.

In Venezuela, a fire sparked by a ruptured natural gas line halted the Cardón refinery, the country’s second largest with a ​capacity of 310,000 barrels per day. The company’s facilities frequently experience fires, blackouts and other disruptions, which can threaten the supply of fuels like gasoline and diesel.

The Trump administration has temporarily allowed truckers to fill up on dyed diesel, an off-road fuel normally reserved for farm equipment, as fuel costs hit record highs weeks before the midterm elections. The national average price of diesel topped $6 a gallon in September for the first time ever.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it will further weaken federal limits on methane pollution from oil and gas operations. Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said, “This move will compound the climate chaos we see mounting all around us in deadly heatwaves, floods, and storms. Vulnerable communities will be exposed to worse smog and intensified respiratory pollution, increasing kids’ asthma and other health harms.”

Tropical Storm Isaias rapidly intensified overnight to become the first Atlantic hurricane of the season. Isaias formed Wednesday in the warm waters off Mexico’s east coast. It’s tracking toward eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle, with hundreds of offshore oil and gas platforms in its potential path.

In Tennessee, death row prisoner Christa Pike was reportedly “angry and confused” in the hours after she regained consciousness following the state’s failed execution attempt. According to her lawyer, she asked “Where am I?” This is Randy Spivey, an attorney for Christa Pike.

Randy Spivey: “She has a blood clot in one of her arms. She has pneumonia. She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten. She cannot move either of her arms. Both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain in her arms. But we do know that there is a long road ahead.”

Meanwhile, in Texas, the state executed 46-year-old Jamaal Howard, injecting him with a fatal dose of pentobarbital. Howard is the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year and the first since Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike.

Democratic Congressmembers Jamie Raskin and Madeleine Dean are calling for a criminal investigation into Leon Botstein, the former president of Bard College who served for 51 years, after congressional investigators uncovered an email from Botstein to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in which Botstein asked if a young woman was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.” After calls for an investigation, Botstein resigned from all his positions at Bard College Wednesday, including his professorship and roles in Bard’s music programs.

According to a letter sent by Raskin and Dean to Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, Epstein offered to connect the young woman with Botstein to help with her plans to attend school and develop her music career, but instead Epstein pressured her to take sex education and massage courses while sexually abusing her. The lawmakers wrote, “The evidence meets the federal standard for opening a criminal investigation, yet [the] DoJ and FBI apparently had it for at least 18 months without investigating Botstein. We are demanding they investigate Botstein and other potential co-conspirators.”