The Midnight File — The Desk’s Report
The Airlines Close Saturday at Nearly 6,500 Cancellations With Nearly 900 of Sunday’s Flights Already Cancelled, Ms. Peltola Stands Above 50 Percent in the Latest Alaska Report With the Race Still Uncalled, and the Kremlin Confirms the Shenzhen Meeting While Its Host Confirms Nothing
The last entry of the day, filed before the log turns: a recovery day that cancelled more flights than the day it recovered from had left expected, and still promised to end on Sunday; a count that crossed its majority line in a report and stayed uncalled in the record; a meeting confirmed by two of its three capitals; and a protest movement that filled its fifth Saturday smaller than its fourth.
The Midnight in Brief: What Saturday Settled, What It Left Open
Saturday settled the size of its disruption and left its two largest appointments where Friday had put them: the airlines cancelled nearly 6,500 flights on the recovery day and had already cancelled nearly 900 of Sunday’s by 2200, against a promise of full schedules by Sunday’s close; Alaska’s latest reported count puts Ms. Peltola above 50 percent for the first time, at 50.1 percent and more than 11,000 votes ahead, with the race still uncalled; the Kremlin confirmed the three presidents’ meeting in Shenzhen on Thursday while the host government confirmed nothing on the record; and France closed its fifth Saturday of protests at 219 arrests on a turnout below the Saturday before. The flight count stands in the tracker account filed below, timed at 2200 Eastern, and the cause stands in the cause account filed below: 17 of 22 centers affected, none dark, and the question of a contractor’s mistake or a faulty router left open by the Secretary himself. The Alaska figure stands in the national account filed below, against the official total in the desk’s file, 138,240 to 127,828, printed in the count section below. The confirmation stands in the confirmation account filed below, in the Kremlin spokesman’s words, with no Chinese confirmation beside it. The French totals stand in the agency account filed below. Sunday holds one test the file can grade—the airlines’ promise for the close of business—and the week holds the rest: the President’s departure on Monday, Nvidia’s report on Tuesday, Alaska’s tabulation on Wednesday, and Shenzhen on Thursday. The desk takes the files in that order.
The Airlines at Midnight: Nearly 6,500 Cancelled on the Recovery Day, Nearly 900 of Sunday’s Already Down, and a Cause With One Question Left in It
The recovery day cancelled more flights than the evening edition’s count, and the midnight count is the day’s last. By 2200 Eastern the carriers had cancelled nearly 6,500 flights on Saturday, in the tracker account above, on the tracker’s data: more than 16,000 flights cancelled since Friday, more than 9,000 of them on Friday alone, and nearly 900 flights for Sunday already cancelled by 2200. The day’s earlier counts stand beneath it as counts at their hours: more than 5,000 cancelled by 1300, in the cause account; more than 4,000 cancelled and 3,000 delayed at the evening count, in the wire’s account filed below; and more than 10,000 delayed or cancelled together on the day, in the newspaper’s account filed below, which also carries the administrator’s estimate of as many as 5,000 of the day’s 41,000 scheduled flights cancelled. No second stop was ordered on Saturday; departures ran all day. The shape of Sunday, at midnight, is uneven and stated plainly in the tracker account: one carrier had cancelled roughly a quarter of its planned Sunday operation by late Saturday night, cancellation rates on the other carriers were trending far lower, and one airline’s officer wrote to customers Saturday evening that the night’s work was positioning crews and aircraft for a strong start. The promise on the record remains the airlines’ own, carried in the newspaper’s account: full schedule integrity by the close of business on Sunday. At midnight that promise is six hundred cancelled flights short of whole and has one day to run.
The cause gained its last fact on Saturday morning and its open question at the same press conference. As many as 17 of the 22 en route centers were affected, and none of them actually went dark, the administrator said, in the cause account: frequencies went in and out, facilities switched between primary and backup, and the stop was ordered when the count of affected facilities reached a size the agency could not explain. About 30 percent of the system’s copper wire has yet to be replaced with fiber. The Secretary’s account of the work stands: routine maintenance at a remote location, a conversion from copper to fiber that has been done across the country for decades, and a router that flooded the network. His unanswered question stands beside it, in his own words: what did the contractor do, did they make mistakes, or was it a faulty router—and the department will find out, and will hold people accountable. The contractor’s statement, in the same account, says it is supporting the investigation and takes the stop and its impact seriously. On attack, the file closed Saturday where Friday left it: zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything connected to an artificial intelligence tool, in the administrator’s words. The money moved one step: the outgoing Speaker said Saturday that his party will use the remaining 50 days of its majority to authorize more spending on the agency, in the cause account, against the $50 billion ask the Secretary carried into the weekend. Settled: the stop, its mechanism in outline, and Saturday’s cost at nearly 6,500 cancellations. Open: whose error, if anyone’s, and Sunday’s close.
The Count at Midnight: Above the Line in the Latest Report, Uncalled in the Record, and Wednesday as the Next Fact
Alaska’s count moved after the evening edition collected, and the movement is the midnight file’s one change of state. The latest unofficial results put Ms. Peltola at 50.1 percent, just above the threshold at which a candidate wins outright without a tabulation, and more than 11,000 votes ahead of Senator Sullivan, in the national account at the top of this report. The account prints no raw totals with the percentage, and the desk does not supply them: the last raw total in the file stands as the evening edition printed it, Ms. Peltola 138,240 votes, 49.84 percent, Senator Sullivan 127,828, 46.09 percent, with Mr. Heikes at 5,885, the second Mr. Sullivan at 4,560 and 855 write-ins on 277,368 reported, in the Juneau account and the full table filed below—445 votes short of the outright majority on that total. The race remains uncalled by the wire on every account the desk read, and it remains the last uncalled Senate race in the country. The two campaigns’ positions stand as they stood: Ms. Peltola’s campaign wrote late Friday that there is no mathematical path for Senator Sullivan, in the national account; Senator Sullivan’s campaign said Friday night it is waiting for every ballot to be counted, in the Juneau account. Beneath the call, the arithmetic of the transfer stands in the analysis account filed below: two preliminary readings of the released ballot data, one giving Senator Sullivan a net gain of about 906 votes in a redistribution, the other reducing Ms. Peltola’s margin by about three-tenths of a point—neither of them the official tabulation. The dates are unchanged and now near: overseas ballots may arrive until November 18, the ranked-choice tabulation runs November 18 if it is needed, and certification is targeted for November 25. The Senate stands at 55 seats called for the Democrats and 44 for the Republicans, and Alaska decides whether the majority is 55 or 56. Settled at midnight: the lead, its size in two forms, and the calendar. Open: the call, which no new percentage makes by itself.
Shenzhen at Midnight: Confirmed in Washington and Moscow, Unconfirmed in Beijing, and an Agenda Argued in Advance
The week’s largest appointment acquired its second confirmation on Saturday and kept its missing third. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting in the spokesman’s words, in the confirmation account above: an agreement has been reached to hold a trilateral meeting on the 19th between President Putin, President Xi and President Trump, in Shenzhen, on the sidelines of the APEC summit—and he gave no agenda. The White House announced the meeting on Friday. No Chinese official has confirmed the three-way meeting on the record, in the same account, and the host’s official word in the wire’s account filed below is that it is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state, and no more. The itinerary stands in the itinerary account filed below: the President leaves Washington on Monday, attends the ASEAN summit in the Philippines on Tuesday, and holds a working lunch and bilateral talks with President Xi on Thursday, their fourth meeting since he returned to office, with the trilateral as the final event of the trip; no separate meeting with President Putin is planned, and export controls on advanced chips will not be discussed, American officials said. The APEC leaders’ meeting itself runs November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, with President Xi in the chair.
The agenda is stated three ways, and the desk prints them apart. Washington’s version: nuclear arms at the top, the war in Iran to be raised, and Ukraine not on the agenda, because those talks run on a separate track—with the senior official’s standing sentence that the United States does not expect to get to any kind of agreement, in the wire’s account and the European account filed below. Moscow’s version: the Kremlin says President Putin intends to speak to President Trump in Shenzhen about efforts to end the war in Ukraine, in the European account, and his aide said on November 12 that the settlement would be discussed with President Trump in Shenzhen, in the confirmation account—against the American official’s statement that a separate meeting between the two presidents was not expected. Beijing’s version is its academics’, carried in the wire’s account: three-way nuclear talks are a nonstarter for China, whose stated position, in the vacuum account filed below, is that it is neither fair, reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join a replacement for the expired treaty. The vacuum is a fact and not a metaphor: the New START treaty, the last pact limiting the two largest arsenals, expired on February 5, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations said the two countries were then without binding limits for the first time in more than half a century, in the European account. The arsenals themselves stand apart by source, in the Cocked Hat. Settled: the meeting, its date, its place, and two of its three confirmations. Open: the host’s word, the agenda, and whether Ukraine is discussed in a room Washington says it will not be discussed in.
Dublin and the Front at Midnight: A Membership Proposal Stated in Kyiv, a Demands Paper Reported From Abu Dhabi, and No Date for a Next Round
The talks file’s new sentences on Saturday came from Kyiv, and they concern what was proposed in Abu Dhabi, not what happens next. President Zelenskyy stated on November 14 that the American delegation at the November 10 and 11 talks proposed that Ukraine gain NATO membership in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from the entirety of the Donbas region, and that he would hold a referendum on any future war termination stipulations should the United States and NATO support such proposals, in the Institute’s November 14 assessment filed below. Against that proposal stands the other side’s paper, as reported: an unofficial paper of demands circulated by the Russian delegation at Abu Dhabi, reported by a newspaper on November 13 and by a German outlet the same day, in the same assessment—the alliance to pull back its forces and bases from every state that joined since 1997, to cease expansion, and to refrain from military activity in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia; France and the United Kingdom to refrain from using their nuclear weapons to protect other European states; and Ukraine’s membership in the European Union approved, but not its participation in the bloc’s common defense policy. Neither document is an agreement; both are positions, and the distance between a membership offered for the Donbas and a paper demanding the alliance withdraw to its 1997 lines is the distance the next round, whenever it sits, has to cross. Europe’s place in that round stands where the evening edition left it: the team will sit as national security advisers at the technical level, in the advisers account filed below; the Kremlin will decide when Europe’s intentions are clear, in its spokesman’s position; and the subject was never discussed in Moscow at all, in the Foreign Ministry account filed below. The war under the diplomacy ran on Saturday at its stated tempo: 47 attacks in the Dobropillya direction on November 13 and 14 in the Ukrainian General Staff’s count, a disputed proposal for a local ceasefire at Kostyantynivka, a sixth day of satellite speed restrictions reported by Kyiv, and 96 drones launched at Ukraine overnight, all in the Institute’s assessment. The prisoner exchange agreed in principle at Abu Dhabi still carries no number in any account, and no date or place for a next round stands in the file at midnight.
The Gulf at Midnight: A Claim, a Denial, Seven Conditions, and a New Room on Thursday
Nothing was exchanged in the Gulf on Saturday in any account the desk read, and the file’s state at midnight is its state at evening, with one date added. The Guards’ claim stands: an American early-warning radar in Bahrain destroyed, in retaliation for the strike on the tower at Sirik. Central Command’s denial stands, restated in Saturday’s accounts including the denial account filed below: two drones launched toward Bahrain, both shot down, no injuries, no damage. Neither side has produced evidence the other accepts, and Manama has not spoken in the file. Tehran’s seven conditions stand unanswered, carried through the mediators, with the parliament speaker’s word that the ball is in the American court, in the mediators account filed below; the American position stands at the President’s sentence of November 12, that the United States does not need a deal, with the Vice President directed off the file and no successor named in the accounts; and the mediators are still working on an interim agreement that would restore traffic through the strait, in the same account. The blockade stands in force. What changed is the file’s calendar: the war in Iran is one of the two subjects Washington says the President will raise in Shenzhen on Thursday, which makes the trilateral the next dated occasion in a file that has had none since Friday’s drones.
France at Midnight: 219 Arrests at the Close, 106,000 in the Ministry’s Count, and a Strike Called for Tuesday
France’s fifth Saturday closed with its final numbers, and they are smaller than the fourth Saturday’s. The Interior Ministry’s closing count stands at 219 arrests across the country, in the agency account at the top of this report—against 121 at 1800 in the evening edition’s file—with incidents in Marseille, Grenoble and Lyon, bins set alight and objects thrown at police, and the ministry’s judgment that the situation remained manageable overall. The turnout stands apart by counter, as it has every Saturday: 106,000 demonstrators nationwide in the ministry’s count, 24,000 of them in Paris, across 137 events, against about 200,000 in the organizers’ count, in the same account. The count account filed below adds the day’s detail: 10 police officers slightly injured, and 52 of the arrests in Nantes alone, nearly a quarter of the national total. The movement’s direction is single-valued in both counts: down from 146,000 in the ministry’s count the Saturday before, and down from 565,000 a month ago, in the agency account. Its origin stands as the file has carried it: a school movement demanding staff, funding and repairs, joined in mid-October by the cost-of-living protests. The next date is not a Saturday: the unions have called a strike for Tuesday, in the agency account. Settled: the fifth Saturday, its size, and its direction. Open: whether a weekday strike carries what the Saturdays are losing.
The Week at Midnight: Washington Restarts Monday, the Company Reports Tuesday, and Spain’s Debate Stands on Two Dates
The capital spent Saturday out of session, and its week is written in advance in unusual detail. Both chambers are out; the Senate returns Monday at 1500 and votes at about 1730 on a circuit judge’s confirmation and on cloture for the affordability bill’s substitute amendment; the House returns Tuesday; and the Supreme Court’s order list from Friday’s conference is due Monday at 0930, in the Washington day account filed below. The asylum case the Court took on Friday will be argued in the spring, and nothing in it changes on the ground meanwhile, as the evening edition printed. The President’s public schedule listed executive time only on Saturday; on Monday he leaves for Asia. For the company at the center of the week’s other file, Saturday produced nothing new, and the desk records the standing of the file whole: Mr. Huang resigned on Thursday, Ms. Kress is interim chief, the company reports its third quarter on Tuesday, November 17, after the bell, on guidance of $108 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, and the first call will be led without its founder; and Mr. Huang’s Friday 2000 deadline for written confirmation of a December 1 interview passed with no confirmation and no subpoena in any account the desk read, a state unchanged at this midnight, in the resignation account filed below. Spain’s campaign closed its first Saturday where it spent it: the Prime Minister in Palma on the two numbers, 75 percent participation and 176 seats, in the Palma account filed below, and the mean of fifteen institutes unmoved at 31.4 for the Popular Party, 26.9 for the Socialists and 19.1 for Vox. One Spanish date moved in the telling: the leaders’ debate, carried in this paper’s earlier file for Monday, November 16, is reported in Saturday’s accounts as scheduled by the public broadcaster for Thursday, November 19, at 2200, with an eight-party debate on November 23 and the Socialists not yet accepting at the time of reporting, in the debate account filed below; both dates stand in the Cocked Hat until one is confirmed. Canada’s progress and no deal in Manila, and the appeal in The Hague, stand as the evening edition filed them. The week’s dates, in order: Monday, the Court’s orders, the Senate’s votes and the President’s departure; Tuesday, the earnings and the French strike; Wednesday, the tabulation; Thursday, Shenzhen. The log turns on all of them.
The Cocked Hat
Where the midnight’s bearings do not meet, the desk prints the triangle. On Saturday’s flights: nearly 6,500 cancelled at the 2200 tracker count, against more than 4,000 cancelled and 3,000 delayed at the wire’s evening count, more than 10,000 delayed or cancelled together in the newspaper’s, and as many as 5,000 of 41,000 cancelled in the administrator’s estimate—four measures of one recovery, at four hours, counting different things. On Alaska: 50.1 percent and more than 11,000 ahead in the latest national report, which prints no raw totals, against 138,240 to 127,828 and 49.84 percent in the last raw total in the file; and on what remains, about 91 percent counted in one estimate against 96 percent in the wire’s. On Shenzhen’s subject: Ukraine off the agenda, in Washington’s officials’ words, against Ukraine to be raised with President Trump in Shenzhen, in the Kremlin aide’s and the Kremlin’s stated intention, in a meeting with no separate bilateral planned. On the arsenals the meeting would discuss: more than 5,000 warheads each for Russia and the United States and around 500 for China, in the wire’s account, against 5,420, 5,042 and about 620 in the research institute’s January estimates. On Europe’s seat: willing to give it a try, in the envoy’s account of the President of Russia; no decision until intentions are clear, in his spokesman’s; and never discussed, in his Foreign Ministry’s. On Bahrain: a radar destroyed, in the Guards’ statement, against two drones shot down with no damage, in Central Command’s, with no evidence produced by either side that the other accepts. On France: 106,000 demonstrators in the ministry’s count against 200,000 in the organizers’, and 219 arrests at the close against 121 at 1800. On Spain’s debate: Monday, November 16, in this paper’s earlier file, against Thursday, November 19, in Saturday’s scheduling reports, with one side’s acceptance outstanding. Against the triangle, the midnight’s single-valued facts are these: Saturday cancelled nearly 6,500 flights and Sunday begins with nearly 900 already cancelled and a promise of full schedules by its close; 17 of 22 centers were affected on Friday and none went dark, and the Secretary’s question—contractor’s mistake or faulty router—stands unanswered; Ms. Peltola leads in Alaska above 50 percent in the latest report, the race is uncalled, and the tabulation is November 18; the Shenzhen meeting is confirmed by Washington and Moscow for November 19, unconfirmed by its host, with no agreement expected by the side that announced it; Europe’s team will sit as advisers, and Moscow has not accepted it; the seven conditions stand unanswered and the blockade stands in force; France arrested 219 on its fifth Saturday, on a turnout below its fourth; the Court’s orders come Monday at 0930, the Senate votes Monday, the company reports Tuesday, and Spain votes on November 29. The Overnight Watch collects at 0400.