The Midnight File — The Desk’s Report
Mississippi Is Called for Mr. Colom, Nvidia Falls After Hours as Its Board Meets on Its Chief, and the Capitals Trade Fire on the Night After the Talks
The last entry of the day, filed before the log turns: the longest count in the country ended with a call at 1758 and a concession within the hour; the chip rally that closed the day gave it back after the bell on a board meeting about one man; the talks’ delegations flew home over a night of fire on both capitals; and Alaska kept the last Senate seat for another night.
The Midnight in Brief: What Wednesday Settled, What It Left Open
Wednesday settled its longest count, its holiday and its strike, and it left its newest crisis—a board meeting in California—undecided at midnight, and the desk files the day in that order. The Associated Press called Mississippi’s Senate race for Mr. Colom at 1758 ET, eight days after the vote, on a margin of 4,669 votes in the totals the wire published, and Senator Hyde-Smith conceded by telephone and on video within the hour; the Democratic caucus stands at 55, and Alaska is the last Senate race in the country without a call. Nvidia closed the regular session up 2.92 percent at $173.73, completing the reversal of Tuesday that the evening edition printed, and then fell 8 to 9 percent after hours, after The Wall Street Journal reported that its board is preparing to oust its chief executive, Mr. Huang, and The New York Times reported a relationship with an executive who reports to him; the board met late Wednesday, and at midnight no decision, no interim chief and no company statement had been announced. The delegations went home from Abu Dhabi with the prisoner numbers carried to Thursday and the envoys bound for Moscow, and in the first hours of Thursday the two capitals exchanged attacks—explosions heard in Kyiv, five drones counted down over the road to Moscow—in the wire account filed below. Tehran restated its two sentences on the day the president claimed a won war at Arlington: no enriched material leaves the country, and the strait stays shut until its conditions are met. Spain’s strike ended with its size in dispute and its housing decrees going to a vote on Thursday.
This edition closes the day continued in Edition No. 34, the Evening Watch, collected at 1800 on Wednesday, and in Wednesday’s earlier editions, Nos. 33 and 32. The wire’s Mississippi call came at 1758, as the evening watch was closing, and the evening edition—which printed both races uncalled—stands unrevised, as a log stands. Where the midnight figures differ from the evening figures, the difference is stated here, in the open.
The Count at Midnight: Mississippi Called at 1758, a Concession Within the Hour, and Alaska Alone
The count that began with 43 votes ended with a call and a concession, and both are Wednesday’s facts. The Associated Press called the race at 5:58 p.m. Eastern, in the wire account, the call account and the totals account filed below, which agree on the hour. NBC News and CNN’s decision desks projected the same winner separately, and Reuters reported that Senator Hyde-Smith had lost her re-election bid. The unofficial totals the accounts publish stand at 473,336 votes, 49.2 percent, for Mr. Colom, 468,667, 48.7 percent, for Senator Hyde-Smith, and 20,234, 2.1 percent, for the independent candidate, Mr. Pinkins—a margin of 4,669 votes out of nearly a million cast. The wire’s published explanation, carried in the explanation account filed below, says the decisive update came from Jackson County, which reported another 2,173 votes, and estimates fewer than 12,000 ballots still requiring county review. Less than an hour after the call, Senator Hyde-Smith conceded: she telephoned Mr. Colom, on his campaign’s account, and then posted a video captioned “Thank you, Mississippi,” saying, in the concession account filed below, “While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters.”
What the call makes of the Senate is arithmetic. Mr. Colom’s is the Democrats’ eighth pickup of the midterms; the caucus that convenes on January 3 stands at 55, and Alaska decides whether it stands at 55 or 56. The man carries two firsts into the chamber, both on the record of the accounts filed below: he is Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction, and the first Democrat the state has elected to the Senate in 44 years; the senator he defeated is the senator who blocked his nomination to a federal judgeship in 2023, in the history account filed below. The result remains unofficial: counties submit certified results by Friday, November 13, and the state certifies on December 3, and Mississippi law carries no automatic recount. The margins the day printed on its way to the call—3,041 at the evening’s tally, 4,404 on Wednesday afternoon in one account, 4,645 on Wednesday night in another, and 4,585 in the at-call totals one program published—stand in the Cocked Hat against the wire’s 4,669.
Alaska is now the whole of the Senate file. Ms. Peltola leads Senator Sullivan by 4,250 first-choice votes—118,926, or 49 percent, to 114,676, or 47.2 percent—on Tuesday’s update, and no new count posted on Wednesday. One account puts 84 percent counted and about 40,000 ballots remaining; another puts the remainder at about 46,000. The next count is scheduled for Friday, November 13; if no candidate passes 50 percent of the first choices, the ranked-choice tabulation runs on November 18, and the target certification date is November 25. The legal file stands where the week left it: a judge dismissed the administration’s suit over certification, and the Justice Department appealed, in the count account filed below. In the House, the wire’s results page for Florida’s 27th District carries the status Called for Representative Salazar, 124,519 votes to Mr. Rodriguez’s 123,433 after the machine recount, in the results page filed below; the canvassing board certifies on Friday and the state on November 17, in the recount account filed below. More than a dozen House races stood too early to call at the evening. Settled: Mississippi, and the size of everything except Alaska and the House margin. Open: one seat, and the paperwork.
Nvidia at Midnight: The Close Reversed, the Evening Reversed Back, and a Board Out Late
The day’s largest movement in any file came after the bell, in a company whose earnings are not due until Tuesday. Nvidia closed the regular session at $173.73, up 2.92 percent on the figures the evening edition printed, as the instrument of the chip rally that reversed Tuesday whole. About an hour after the closing bell, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s board is preparing to oust its chief executive and co-founder, Mr. Huang; minutes earlier in the evening’s sequence, The New York Times reported that Mr. Huang had also had a relationship with a company executive who reports to him, identified in one account of the Times report as the vice president of health care. The shares fell about 8 percent in after-hours trading in the wire account and the futures account filed below, 8.6 percent to $158.76 by 1959 ET in the price account filed below, and more than 9 percent in the ouster account filed below; all three figures stand in the Cocked Hat. A second wire service, CBS News, citing two sources, also reported the board preparing to oust him, and the board was meeting late Wednesday to decide, on a source familiar with the matter in the Reuters account above. Bloomberg is reported to have said the company has been working with an outside firm to identify possible replacements and is considering a temporary chief. At midnight the file holds no decision, no interim appointment and no company statement: the running file’s last update before this edition closed, stamped 0043 GMT, records none announced, in the running account filed below. Mr. Huang remains the chief executive. The allegations in this file are allegations, printed as the accounts print them; no finding has been made by the board, by any committee or by any court.
The record the board is deciding on is a week old and is printed here once, in order. On Sunday Mr. Huang admitted a relationship with a woman whom American officials suspect of working with Chinese intelligence, in the pressure account filed below. On November 8 the board opened an independent investigation and retained a former federal prosecutor, Mr. Kim, and the firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to lead it. On Monday Bloomberg reported that the company’s general counsel had intervened in the Commerce Department’s investigation into Megaspeed, its largest Southeast Asian customer, asking whether American authorities were involved in the woman’s detention in Singapore. The stock fell 9.5 percent across Monday and Tuesday to $168.89. On Capitol Hill the pressure ran on its own track: Senator Cramer of North Dakota repeated his demand that Mr. Huang resign, calling his actions a national security risk; Representative Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, gave Mr. Huang until the end of Wednesday to answer a request for a closed-door briefing, with a subpoena likely if he did not agree; and a second committee is reported to be preparing one. The company reports its quarterly results on Tuesday, November 17. Settled: the close, the fall, and that the board met. Open: the decision, which is Thursday’s first fact.
Asia at Midnight: A Wobble at the Open, a Dollar at a High, and Thursday’s Witnesses Named
The first markets to price the board meeting were Asia’s, and their verdict at the open was a wobble and not a rout. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 opened up 226.52 points at 61,475.11, a fourth straight higher open, and turned lower shortly after; Seoul’s Kospi opened 0.2 percent higher and stood 0.21 percent lower at 0915 local time; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng opened down 194 points at 24,121, and Taiwan’s TAIEX opened down 76.69 points, in the opening account filed below. A later snapshot in the Reuters account above runs the same morning the other way—the Nikkei up 0.5 percent, the Kospi up 0.2 percent, Taiwanese shares up 0.5 percent, and the broad Asia-Pacific index outside Japan 0.1 percent lower, weighed down by Hong Kong—and a third account’s open figures sit between the two, in the market account filed below. The three snapshots are printed in the Cocked Hat as three readings of one choppy morning, not averaged. Japan’s corporate goods price index rose 7.1 percent year on year in October, above the 6.5 percent median forecast. Brent stood steady at about $92.46 a barrel in early Asia trade, against Wednesday’s settlement of $92.76.
The dollar carried the rate story while the bonds were shut. The dollar index stood at 102.87 in Asian trade, its highest level since April 9 of last year on the Reuters account’s dating, after rising 0.6 percent on Wednesday as traders repriced December. The pricing in the same account puts the quarter-point increase at 87.3 percent and the half-point at 12.7 percent for the December 9 meeting—against 13.2 percent for the half-point in Wednesday’s afternoon pricing and 15.3 percent on Tuesday, all printed in the Cocked Hat. Late American futures priced the Nvidia fall and nothing else: Nasdaq-100 futures fell nearly 1 percent in the futures account above and stood 0.46 percent lower at 2131 ET in a second account, with the S&P 500 e-minis down 0.4 percent and Dow futures fractionally higher. Thursday returns the session’s missing witnesses: the cash bond market reopens after the holiday, and the official crude inventory figures, held from Wednesday by the holiday, are due. Friday’s producer price report is the next inflation fact in the file. Settled: Wednesday’s close and the dollar’s level. Open: whether the chip rally survives its own largest company.
Abu Dhabi at Midnight: The Delegations Go Home, the Numbers Go to Thursday, and the Capitals Trade Fire
The talks’ first night at home produced paper from one delegation and fire from both armies. Mr. Umerov, who headed the Ukrainian delegation, published the delegation’s own closing account: two days of negotiations concluded, the main result an agreement on a large-scale prisoner exchange, the negotiators returning to their capitals to finalize the details, in the closing account filed below. Mr. Kushner’s closing sentences in the same account stand beside it: there is currently no trust between the two sides, which he described as expected after such a conflict, and territorial issues were discussed and would be the most difficult to resolve. The numbers are Thursday’s work, as they were when the evening edition closed; the exchange is expected to exceed 2,000 prisoners in total on the Russian general’s figure of more than 1,000 a side, with the swap itself in two to three weeks, in the swap account filed below. The itinerary is unchanged: Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff meet President Putin in Moscow on Thursday, where they are expected to raise adding the European partners to the talks, and then fly to Dublin to meet President Zelenskyy.
The war’s own file added its night entry in the small hours. Russia and Ukraine exchanged attacks on each other’s capitals early on Thursday, in the Reuters account at the top of this report: explosions were heard in Kyiv in the early hours, a Reuters witness said, and it was not immediately clear whether the city had incurred damage; Moscow’s mayor, Mr. Sobyanin, said on Telegram that five drones heading for Moscow were downed, without additional details. Wednesday’s counts stand as the evening edition printed them—three killed and 11 injured in the daytime attack on the market in the Odesa region, seven wounded overnight in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, and the drone counts unreconciled between the ministry and the governor. The talks and the strikes proceeded on the same hours for two days in Abu Dhabi; on the first night after them, the strikes proceeded alone. Settled: the round is over, the exchange is agreed in principle, the delegations are home. Open: the numbers, the land, the ceasefire, and Europe’s chair—all of it now addressed to Moscow.
Iran at Midnight: No Speck Leaves, an Answer Sent by Way of Qatar, and the Strait Shut
Tehran spent the president’s holiday restating its position in three voices, and midnight collects the three without joining them. Mr. Rezaei, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said in interview excerpts released Wednesday that no enriched nuclear material will leave the country, that Tehran had communicated the decision to Moscow—which has offered to receive the material, and whose foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday that the offer stands—and that reports of a recent meeting between Iranian and American representatives in Qatar were fabricated: no negotiations are currently taking place, in the Tehran account filed below. Speaker Ghalibaf, Tehran’s chief negotiator, said in an interview published the same day that Iran had sent Washington a detailed response through Qatari mediation and was waiting for an official answer, and that the waterway will never return to its pre-war arrangements, in the conditions account filed below. The two sentences—no channel, and an answer sent through one—stand in the file side by side, unreconciled by either speaker. The seven conditions themselves remain unpublished as a text; the demands the accounts list are sanctions relief, the release of frozen assets, the end of the American blockade of Iran’s ports and an end to the fighting across the region.
On the water, the day added claims and one reported attack, and no confirmation of either claim in the file. The Revolutionary Guard claimed on Wednesday that two more tankers struck naval mines and caught fire attempting to leave the strait by an unauthorized route under American fighter protection; a maritime operations centre had received a report on Tuesday evening of a tanker struck by a projectile, in the Tehran account above. Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing three sources, that Iranian forces had attacked navigation systems on Oman’s Didamar Island, in the strait account filed below. Against the whole file stands the president’s Arlington sentence of the same day—“We won”—and the desk prints the two records as it finds them: a war claimed won from an amphitheater, and a strait claimed shut until conditions are met, with both blockades standing and no agreement in the file. Settled: the positions, restated by every authorized voice on both sides. Open: the strait, the material, and the war’s end, whenever either capital dates it.
Spain at Midnight: The Strike Ends, the Count of It Does Not, and the Decrees Go to Thursday
Spain’s first general strike in 14 years ran its 24 hours and ended, and the argument the day leaves behind is about its size. The unions’ figure stands at four million workers; the employers’ confederation put average participation at about 5 percent, and Madrid’s regional government said 9 percent of its public employees joined—three figures measuring three different things, printed as they were given, in the strike account filed below. Barcelona’s march drew 400,000 in the housing activists’ count and 55,000 in the city’s. The Interior Ministry’s running totals at 1700 stood at 919 incidents and 52 arrests, against the 476 incidents and 40 arrests the midday accounts carried; the newspaper figures carried in the Madrid account filed below put more than 280 flight cancellations on the day and at least 42 arrests across several cities. The electricity figures divide by their bases: consumption up to 1100 ran 7.5 percent below the grid operator’s forecast for a day without the strike, on the wire service EFE’s figure, while demand between 1000 and 1100 fell by as much as 15.5 percent on the figures the strike-day account filed below carried. Madrid’s Metro ran 42 percent below the same peak a week earlier; Barcelona’s ran only at the commuting peaks.
The strike’s politics move to parliament on Thursday, on the government’s own scheduling. Prime Minister Sánchez defended the strike and backed its demands; his government brings two housing decrees to a vote on November 12, and a property portal’s reading of the smaller chamber, carried in the Madrid account above, gives the broader package enough support and the lease-renewal decree no majority yet. The official campaign for the November 29 election opens on Friday, November 13. The housing deficit that made the day stands at about 750,000 homes on the central bank’s figures, growing past a million by 2028. Settled: the strike happened, on a national scale no account disputes, and the election is 17 days out. Open: how large it was, and Thursday’s votes.
The Rest of the File: Mildenhall’s Count Clarified, a Name in Kraków, and Two Files That Did Not Move
At RAF Mildenhall the week’s dispersal acquired better figures without acquiring an explanation. The flight-tracking data carried in the dispersal account filed below counts nine KC-135R tankers and three CV-22B Ospreys departing on Monday, the tankers to Ramstein, Morón and Glasgow Prestwick and the Ospreys to RAF Lakenheath; a second account counted ten tankers on Monday, and the running account filed below counts two further tankers departing on Tuesday—at least 15 aircraft over the two days, in the repositioning account’s tally. The evening edition’s 13 stands inside the counters’ range rather than against it. The security posture at Mildenhall and Lakenheath stands at Force Protection Condition Charlie, the second-highest level. What no official has supplied, on any day of the file, is the threat’s nature: the European Command and the Air Forces in Europe declined specifics again on Tuesday, citing operational security and intelligence, and the reported connection to Iran remains attributed to the reporting, not to any official statement.
In Kraków, the city’s mourning ran its last day, and the file gained a name. The British victim of the six killed in the square has been identified in The Telegraph’s reporting as James Thomas Campbell, 32, a DJ from Prestwick in Ayrshire, in the identification account filed below. The same account carries the investigation’s published details—the computer research into serial killers, the locker inscription reported by the Polish outlet Onet, more than 500 rounds and four pistols found in the car, no note and no manifesto, a specialist taskforce appointed—and the standing position that the exact motivations are still to be determined. No forensic opinion on the nine victims has been published; the wider investigation into motive and assistance continues, with the justice minister’s thread of extremism and the prosecutors’ caution unjoined, as the midnight edition of November 11 printed them. In Jerusalem, no new published fact entered the file between the evening and midnight: Mr. Kahana’s speaker vote stands for November 17 at 1600, Mr. Eisenkot’s mandate runs to December 6, and the government is unformed. In Washington, the House held no votes on the holiday, and the eight articles rest in Mr. Jordan’s Judiciary Committee, where the evening edition left them. The desk fills none of the space where those findings will go.
The Cocked Hat
Three bearings never give a point; they give a small triangle, and this paper prints the triangle. On Mississippi’s margin, 4,669 in the wire’s call and its published totals—473,336 to 468,667—against 4,645 in a Wednesday-night account, 4,585 in the at-call totals one program published (472,188 to 467,603), 4,404 on Wednesday afternoon in a third, and 3,041 in the evening’s afternoon tally: one winner, five margins, the call itself in every account at 1758. On Nvidia’s fall, about 8 percent after hours in the wire and futures accounts, 8.6 percent to $158.76 at 1959 ET in the price account, and more than 9 percent in a fourth. On Asia’s open, the Nikkei up 0.17 percent in one account’s open figures and up 0.5 percent in the wire’s later snapshot, having opened 226.52 points higher and turned lower in between; the Kospi down 0.068 percent at the open, down 0.21 percent at 0915 Seoul time, and up 0.2 percent in the later snapshot; the TAIEX down 0.24 percent at the open and up 0.5 percent later. On Brent, a settlement of $92.76 on Wednesday, $93.64 in Wednesday’s midday print, and about $92.46 in early Asia trade. On the December half-point, 12.7 percent in Thursday’s pricing against 13.2 percent on Wednesday afternoon, 15.3 percent on Tuesday and 11.5 percent on Wednesday morning. On Spain, four million strikers in the unions’ count against about 5 percent average participation in the employers’ and 9 percent of Madrid’s public employees in the regional government’s; 52 arrests and 919 incidents at 1700 against 40 and 476 at midday; a march of 400,000 in the activists’ count and 55,000 in the city’s. On Mildenhall, nine tankers in the flight data against ten in a second account for Monday, 13 in the evening edition’s count, and at least 15 departures across two days in the running tally. On Alaska’s remainder, about 40,000 ballots in one account, about 46,000 in another, and 637 votes of margin in a Wednesday-night account the afternoon tallies had already moved past. Against the triangle, the day’s single-valued facts are these: Mississippi was called for Mr. Colom at 1758 and conceded within the hour, and the caucus stands at 55 with Alaska alone uncalled; Nvidia closed higher and fell after hours on a board reported to be preparing its chief’s removal, and the board announced nothing by midnight; the Abu Dhabi delegations went home with the exchange agreed in principle and its numbers due Thursday, and the capitals exchanged fire in the night; Tehran restated that no enriched material leaves and the strait stays shut; Spain struck and stopped; and no threat was named at Mildenhall, no forensic finding published in Kraków, and no government formed in Jerusalem. Thursday holds Moscow, the numbers, Spain’s decree votes, the bond market’s return and the crude figures. The log turns.