The Midday File — The Desk’s Report
Peña Before the Prosecutors, the Count Unmoved, and Oil Down Thirteen Percent on the Week
The news at midday on a closed-market Saturday: the week’s one completed presidency ended the morning in a prosecutor’s office in Asunción, the mediator in Doha said the talks live and progress has been made, the count in Mississippi and Alaska did not move and its published figures do not agree with each other, and the markets’ week stood settled—stocks down for a fourth week, oil down thirteen percent—under the one report of the day, Berkshire Hathaway’s softer quarter and record cash.
The Midday in Brief
Saturday at noon is a short file, and the desk files it short. The morning produced one completed act, in Asunción, where former President Santiago Peña arrived at the Attorney General’s Office to appear before prosecutors, a day after the Senate removed him over the collapse of Ueno Bank and authorities placed him under house arrest. It produced one official statement of consequence, in Doha, where Qatar’s prime minister said the mediation continues, progress has been made, and the aim is a good agreement rather than a perfect one. The count produced nothing: no new totals were reported from Mississippi or Alaska by noon, and the figures in circulation disagree with each other by several hundred votes in Mississippi, which the desk states plainly below. The markets produced a reading rather than a session: the exchanges are closed, the week stands settled at the S&P 500 down 2.7 percent and Brent crude at $98.32, down 13.3 percent on the week, and the one scheduled report of the day, Berkshire Hathaway’s third quarter, arrived at 0800 with operating earnings down 5.8 percent and a cash position at a record. The desk files the day in that order.
Asunción at Midday: The Former President Before the Prosecutors
The removal is complete, and the case has begun. Reuters’ Asunción file, filed below, reports that former President Santiago Peña arrived at the Attorney General’s Office on Saturday to appear before prosecutors, a day after he was impeached and placed under house arrest in the crisis triggered by the collapse of the digital lender Ueno. Prosecutors said on Friday that the charges against Peña were still being determined but could include influence peddling. A second account puts the appointment at 11 a.m. before the Economic Crimes and Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, with Prosecutor Silvia González confirming that Peña spent Friday night detained at his Asunción residence; after his statement is received, or his refusal to give one is recorded, prosecutors must file formal charges and request precautionary measures from the duty court. The accusations in the impeachment itself are on the record from Friday: conflicts of interest, manipulation of regulatory oversight, diversion of pension funds, and participation in an institutional cover-up involving the central bank. Peña has denied wrongdoing. Those are allegations, stated as allegations; no court has ruled on any of them.
The government that replaced him is at work, and its first subject is the depositors. Vice President Pedro Alliana was sworn in on Friday to complete the term through August 2028. The figures of the collapse stand as filed overnight: Ueno served about three million customers, roughly 60 percent of Paraguay’s adults, and held as much as $850 million in public money; regulators seized it on November 3 after its solvency fell below half the required level; the deposit guarantee covers up to about $38,000 per depositor, and preliminary central bank estimates place 97 percent of account holders fully within that ceiling, with payment required within 15 days under banking law. Alliana told compatriots affected by the collapse that they would be fully compensated, in the account filed below. What the new government has not yet put on the record by noon is the machinery: which office pays, on what schedule, and from what fund. That is the next fact in this file, and it has not arrived.
Qeshm and Doha: No Confirmation From Washington, a Statement From the Mediator
The war’s midday state is the night’s state, with one addition from the mediator. Reuters’ Saturday file on the mediation reports that Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said the country’s mediation efforts between the United States and Iran were continuing to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control; that the American administration remained willing to find a solution even after the midterm elections; that significant progress had been made; and that he expressed confidence a settlement could be reached. His sentence, as carried, is: “We cannot wait to reach a perfect agreement; we hope to reach a good agreement.” The same file records the other side of the morning: Tasnim said initial reports indicated two missiles had struck Qeshm Island with no official information on possible damage, and the United States has not yet announced any attack on targets inside Iran. The explosions reported from Qeshm in the night remain unconfirmed as to origin and damage; Iran’s claims of American drones destroyed over the island remain unconfirmed by Washington; and the mediation, by the mediator’s own statement, remains open.
Qatar’s International Media Office added the correction the morning required. Circulating reports that the prime minister had said the two sides had failed to reach an agreement are, in the office’s words, “false and misleading,” and his remarks were “deliberately distorted.” The office stated that both sides continue to work towards a deal and that Qatari mediators remain in close coordination with Washington and Tehran. The fuller statement is filed below. A claim of failure circulated, the office running the talks denied it by name, and the prime minister then said progress had been made. No agreement has been announced by any side. The larger American decision the week has waited on since Thursday—whether to resume the war in full—has not been announced by noon either.
The Count at 1200: No New Totals, and the Tallies Disagree
Mississippi has not moved, and the desk corrects its own morning figures to the range the tallies actually support. The overnight edition carried the wire’s Friday-evening margin: Scott Colom, the Democrat, ahead of Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, by 2,574 votes. The accounts the desk took in by noon do not agree on that number. One account puts the separation at nearly 2,500 votes on Friday, with an estimate of about 30,000 ballots outstanding—an estimate revised down from about 44,000 on Friday morning. A second records the Decision Desk HQ tally at 2,734 votes on Friday afternoon. A results page carrying the wire’s data shows 953,314 votes counted with 96.9 percent of the expected vote in and about 31,000 remaining, and calculates that Hyde-Smith would need 53.2 percent of the remaining vote to overtake Colom. The cocked hat on Mississippi at noon is therefore a range, not a point: Colom leads by somewhere between roughly 2,500 and 2,734 votes, with roughly 30,000 ballots estimated outstanding. The settled facts around the range are these: 9,242 affidavit ballots had been processed by Friday, mail ballots postmarked by Election Day may arrive through November 10, voters may resolve identification issues through November 10, counties certify by November 13, and Mississippi has no automatic recount procedure.
Alaska has not moved either, and its next movement is dated. Mary Peltola, the Democrat, leads Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, by 637 first-choice votes, the figure that has stood since Wednesday, with about three-quarters of ballots counted. The Saturday account of the two races files the legal position: in Alaska the skirmishing began before the voting, the Justice Department sued to block certification should the incumbent lose, and on Friday Peltola’s campaign sued the Division of Elections for records identifying rejected absentee ballots and the reasons for each rejection—records the state calls confidential preliminary data, in the suit’s own account filed below. Absentee ballots may arrive through November 18, the day the ranked-choice tabulation is expected, since no candidate has cleared 50 percent; the state is not required to report more votes before November 10. A fourth candidate, a retired teacher also named Dan Sullivan, holds about 3,600 votes, more than five times the margin, and how his voters ranked the two leaders is the open arithmetic of the race. At noon, neither Senate race has been called, for the fourth day.
The Markets’ Reading: A Closed Exchange, a Settled Week, One Report
There is no session to report on a Saturday, so the desk reports the week the session left behind. The closing account stands as filed Friday: the S&P 500 at 7,376.86, up 0.3 percent on the day and down 2.7 percent on the week; the Nasdaq Composite at 24,579.42, up 1.1 percent on the day and down 3.4 percent on the week; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,285.73, down 0.5 percent on the day and 0.9 percent on the week—the worst week for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq since June, in the week’s recap filed below. Oil’s week is the larger figure. Brent settled at $98.32, down 13.3 percent on the week, its steepest weekly fall since April 2020, and West Texas Intermediate closed at $90.83, down 12.8 percent, in the strait’s daily brief and the market accounts filed below; both benchmarks had peaked on October 30, Brent at $113.43, before hopes of an American-Iranian agreement that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz pulled the premium out. The brief records the strait itself as closed in its own accounting, with two transits recorded on October 25 against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 a day, and 132 vessels holding position away from berth at 1200 UTC. Monday’s open, by every account the desk read, hinges on the weekend’s Iran headlines—which is to say, on the file in the section above this one.
The day’s one scheduled report arrived at 0800 and was softer at the top and larger at the bottom. Berkshire Hathaway’s release reports third-quarter operating earnings of $12.705 billion, down 5.8 percent from $13.485 billion a year earlier, on weaker insurance results; net earnings of $22.112 billion, or $15,502 per Class A share, down from $30.796 billion; investment gains of $9.407 billion against $17.311 billion a year earlier; and share repurchases of about $9.6 billion in the quarter, bringing the nine-month total to about $14.4 billion. The fuller account adds that operating earnings per Class A share, at $8,907, came in above the $8,821.84 average forecast of four analysts surveyed by FactSet; that underwriting profit fell 42.9 percent, with each of the three insurance groups earning less from underwriting than a year earlier; and that the cash position reached $377.4 billion at the end of September, a record. It was the third quarter under Chief Executive Greg Abel. Berkshire’s own instruction in the release is the desk’s: the summary is not adequate for an informed judgment, and the quarterly filing is the document.
Shenzhen Stands: No New Word by Noon
The week’s largest diplomatic fact received no new word on Saturday, and the desk files it standing. Beijing’s confirmation, first made on Wednesday, that China is in communication with Washington and Moscow about a meeting of Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19 remains the position at noon, in the account filed below. The Kremlin said work is under way to arrange it. The White House has not confirmed it. The three leaders have never held formal talks together. What each capital wants differs on the record: Washington, nuclear weapons; Moscow, Ukraine discussed without Kyiv at the table; Beijing, Ukraine held to be a European conflict and not the meeting’s subject. No final decision has been announced. Eleven days remain.
The Cocked Hat
Three bearings, honestly plotted, give a triangle and not a point. On Mississippi, the tallies in circulation at noon put Colom’s lead between roughly 2,500 and 2,734 votes; the desk publishes the range and does not choose inside it. On Qeshm, the reported explosions, the claimed drones, and the confirmed Friday strike are three separate facts that the files do not join, and the desk does not join them. On the mediation, the mediator says progress; no other party has announced an agreement, a date, or a text. On Asunción, the removal and the appearance are complete; the charges are not yet filed and the allegations are not findings. On the markets, the week is settled and Monday is not. The edition closes at noon with the count unmoved, the war undecided, and one presidency ended and answering questions.