2026 Midterms, Iran Talks, Stephen Miller and Godzilla Minus Zero | Nov. 7

Transcript

This is Artificially Intelligent News for Saturday, November seventh, 2026. I’m Mark Ellison. This AI-created briefing has been fact-checked against reporting and official sources available this morning.

The post-election political picture is becoming clearer. Democrats have secured control of both chambers of Congress after Tuesday’s midterms, giving them the ability to set House and Senate agendas when the new Congress convenes in January. President Trump will retain his veto power, so major legislation will still require compromise or enough votes to overcome a veto.

Control of Congress affects far more than the fate of individual bills. Democrats will choose committee leadership, determine which measures receive hearings and votes, and hold substantial authority over congressional investigations. The change gives the party a stronger platform to scrutinize the administration, even where the White House and Congress cannot agree on legislation.

The results also redrew parts of the state political map. Democrats flipped Senate seats in states including Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to the Associated Press. They also made gains in state governments. In Arizona, Democrats won control of both legislative chambers while retaining the governor’s office, their first statewide governing trifecta there since 1966.

The broad result was not simply a national tally. It reflected separate state and local campaigns, with affordability, immigration, foreign policy and the administration’s record all featuring prominently. A few races remain subject to normal canvassing and certification procedures, including a closely watched Senate race in Mississippi. But the overall balance of congressional power is no longer in doubt.

At the White House, President Trump announced that Stephen Miller will replace Susie Wiles as chief of staff. Wiles is leaving the administration and will continue working for the president’s political organization. She was the first woman to hold the job and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff across his two terms.

The chief of staff is ordinarily responsible for coordinating the president’s schedule, personnel and policy process, making the position central to how an administration functions day to day. Miller has been one of Trump’s closest advisers and a principal architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policy. Moving him into the chief of staff’s office could give him a broader role in managing policy, personnel and the White House operation. The appointment comes just days after Republicans lost Congress, and it is one of the clearest signals yet of how Trump intends to organize his team for divided government.

In Houston, Mayor John Whitmire has ordered city police to limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under the directive, officers are to contact ICE when someone is arrested on a charge that can lead to jail time or when ICE has an administrative warrant.

Whitmire said Houston should focus enforcement on people who pose a danger rather than people going about work, school or family life. He tied the decision to the election outcome in Texas, where Democrats won statewide offices including the governorship. ICE criticized the policy and said local cooperation helps its officers carry out their duties. Supporters of the order say it may make immigrant residents more willing to report crimes or seek help from police. Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city, so its approach will be watched well beyond Texas.

A serious public-health development in Wisconsin is also drawing national attention. State health officials say an infant connected to the measles outbreak in southwestern Wisconsin has died. The coroner listed measles as the immediate cause of death. It is Wisconsin’s first measles death since 1990.

Measles is highly contagious, which is why health officials place emphasis on finding contacts quickly and making vaccination available. As of November third, Wisconsin had reported 431 cases in 13 counties this year, with nine hospitalizations. The state says that is its highest case count in more than 35 years. Officials are working with local and Tribal health departments on testing, contact work and vaccination. Wisconsin says it has delivered 2,000 doses of MMR vaccine to affected communities since August, while health-care providers have administered more than 42,000 doses statewide over that period. The measles vaccine is highly effective, and health officials urge people unsure of their status to check with a clinician or local health department.

A lawsuit involving artificial intelligence and student safety is another consequential domestic story. Parents in North Carolina have sued Google, alleging that AI features accessible through their 13-year-old daughter’s school-issued Chromebook contributed to a severe mental-health crisis and suicide planning.

The complaint’s allegations have not been tested in court. The family says the school had blocked the Gemini app and ChatGPT but that AI features within Google Search remained available. Google says it is reviewing the claims and takes them seriously. The distinction alleged by the family is important because school technology safeguards can cover individual apps while generative features may also appear within broader search products. The case puts new attention on the limits of school technology controls, on how AI safety systems handle self-harm conversations, and on what responsibilities companies and school systems have when generative tools are built into products used by children.

In Los Angeles, City Council member Nithya Raman has defeated Mayor Karen Bass. Raman, who had support from the Democratic Socialists of America while stressing areas of independence from the group, will take office next month.

The result makes Bass the first Los Angeles mayor in two decades to lose a reelection bid. The campaign unfolded against lingering anger over the deadly Palisades Fire, homelessness, housing costs and public safety. Raman said voters want a city that can build housing, support creative work and address daily quality-of-life problems. The mayoral change matters because Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest city and because it adds another major-city administration identified with a more progressive governing agenda.

There is also turnover at the Justice Department. Jason Reding Quiñones, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, resigned Friday. He had been assigned to oversee an investigation focused on perceived wrongdoing by opponents of President Trump. Justice Department officials also said John Eisenberg, the department’s top national-security official, resigned. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced her departure the day before.

The reasons and timing differ for each official, and the department has not described a single common cause. But the changes leave important leadership posts in flux just as Washington prepares for a Democratic-controlled Congress with broad oversight powers.

Overseas, the conflict involving the United States and Iran remains dangerously unsettled. U.S. forces carried out new targeted strikes in Iran on Friday while Qatar continued to press both sides toward a diplomatic opening. Iranian officials are reviewing Qatari proposals meant to bridge differences over Tehran’s nuclear program and a possible ceasefire.

The reported framework would begin with confidence-building measures, then move toward wider negotiations. Such measures are intended to reduce immediate risks while negotiators test whether more difficult issues can be addressed. Iranian officials have insisted that talks require concessions that include ending the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, easing sanctions, unfreezing assets and ending hostilities across the region. The White House has not publicly endorsed the details of the proposal.

The nuclear issue remains central. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said Iran holds 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to as much as 60 percent purity, below weapons-grade but much closer to it than ordinary civilian reactor fuel. Any talks would have to confront that stockpile, inspection access and the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil-shipping route. As of this morning, diplomacy is active, but there is no announced agreement and the military situation remains volatile.

Ukraine faces another difficult morning before planned talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States. Russian missile attacks on Kyiv overnight damaged homes and commercial property, disrupted traffic over a bridge across the Dnipro River, and caused fresh power and water outages, according to Ukrainian authorities. Five people were reported injured.

The strikes came as recovery work continued in Komyshuvakha, near the front in the Zaporizhzhia region. Authorities say 55 people were killed in Monday’s bombing of a former school being used as an aid-distribution site, and dozens remain missing. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy system, while Ukraine says those attacks place civilians at risk as winter approaches.

Representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the United States are scheduled to meet Tuesday in Abu Dhabi. It would be the fourth round of Trump-brokered negotiations since February. The fundamental disputes over territory and security guarantees remain unresolved, so the talks are an opening for diplomacy rather than evidence that a settlement is near.

Now to the economy and markets. Friday was the most recent completed U.S. trading session. The S&P 500 closed at 7,376.86, up 23.13 points or 0.3 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 51,285.73, down 237.33 points or 0.5 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 24,579.42, up 264.43 points or 1.1 percent.

Those are final Friday closes, not futures or intraday figures. The different moves in the major indexes reflected a market in which technology shares recovered part of Thursday’s sharp selloff while other stocks remained under pressure. The market still logged its worst week since the tariff-driven volatility of April 2025. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.86 percent from 4.84 percent late Thursday.

The market’s focus shifted Friday morning to a stronger-than-expected jobs report. The Labor Department said employers added 165,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent. August and September payrolls were revised a combined 84,000 higher. Average hourly earnings rose 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, in October and were up 3.1 percent over the year.

The revisions matter because they add to the picture of job growth in the preceding months rather than changing only the October result. That is encouraging evidence of continued hiring, especially in professional and business services, health care, and transportation and warehousing. But it complicates the inflation picture. Faster employment and wage growth can support household income while also making it harder for the Federal Reserve to be confident that price pressures are returning to target. Investors responded by assigning a higher probability to another rate increase at the Fed’s December meeting. The next consumer-price report arrives Tuesday, so that will be the next major test of the rates outlook.

In sports, college football has one of its biggest Saturdays of the regular season. The College Football Playoff committee placed Miami first in its initial ranking, followed by Georgia, Utah and defending champion Indiana. That ranking sets up a major prime-time test tonight when number-one Miami visits number-eleven Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is currently the last team inside the projected playoff field, but committee chair Hunter Yurachek said the Irish lack the signature win held by teams above them. A win over Miami would change that conversation immediately. The rest of the schedule offers similarly direct comparisons between highly ranked teams, giving the committee fresh results to weigh before its next ranking.

Elsewhere, the schedule includes number-nine BYU at number-three Utah, number-seven Texas at number-eighteen Missouri, number-twenty-three Oregon at number-twelve Ohio State, number-five Alabama at number-fourteen LSU, and number-two Georgia at number-ten Ole Miss. The expanded playoff has made November’s weekly rankings more meaningful, and today offers several games that could quickly reshape the field.

The NBA gave fans a Friday night scoring show in Los Angeles. Luka Dončić scored 53 points as the Lakers beat the Portland Trail Blazers 124 to 118 in NBA Cup group play. The Lakers improved to 8 and 2, while Dončić’s performance continued an early-season run that has put him at the center of the league’s individual-award conversation.

The game was one of several notable Cup results. The San Antonio Spurs beat Sacramento 124 to 109 behind 30 points and 14 rebounds from Victor Wembanyama. Oklahoma City routed Memphis 128 to 97, with Ajay Mitchell scoring 35. Cleveland beat Philadelphia 119 to 95, and Boston overwhelmed Charlotte 119 to 80. It is still early, but the Cup games add meaningful group-play stakes to an already busy opening month.

A quick look at five notable results from Friday. In college football, Arizona rallied past TCU 29 to 28 after recovering a late pooch kick and kicking the winning field goal. SMU beat Virginia Tech 51 to 28. Illinois defeated Nebraska 24 to 13.

In the NBA, the Lakers held off Portland 124 to 118, and the Thunder beat the Grizzlies 128 to 97. In the NHL, Minnesota defeated San Jose 4 to 1 as the Wild continued their strong start.

And in entertainment, Godzilla Minus Zero opened across North America on Friday after premiering in Japan earlier this week. The film reunites director Takashi Yamazaki with the world of Godzilla Minus One, the 2023 film that won the Academy Award for visual effects.

Early box-office reporting put Minus Zero at about 6.7 million dollars in previews, a strong start but not a final weekend total. The figure includes special early-access screenings, so the full opening will not be known until the weekend numbers are reported. The new film is a direct follow-up set two years after the earlier story, with Japan still trying to recover when another threat emerges. Its wide North American release is notable both for the franchise’s popularity and for the growing theatrical reach of Japanese live-action films.

That is the calm morning picture for this Saturday: a changed Congress, a new White House chief of staff, active diplomacy with Iran and Russia, a market recalibrating to strong jobs data, and a loaded football Saturday ahead.

If this briefing helped, follow Artificially Intelligent News and share it with one person who would value a calm morning news summary. I’m Mark Ellison. Take care.