Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom has flipped Forrest County, a once reliably Republican County named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

With 97% of votes counted in Forrest County, Colom led Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 54%-44% as of Thursday, Nov. 5. That represents a 29-point swing toward Democrats in a county that Donald Trump carried in 2024 by a 58%-40% margin.

Colom, who currently has a narrow lead among votes counted, would be the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi since 1881 during the Reconstruction era.

In academic discourse, use of the correct name is an important means of establishing professional credibility. For example, if within the fields of computer science and information science, a specific term of art, such as artificial intelligence, has gained widespread acceptance, the use of an alternative term—a term, like superintelligence, not widely accepted within the discipline—would seriously undermine the credibility of academic work (and the author’s more general standing within the field).

Donald Trump has notoriously attempted to rechristen the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” So too has he attempted to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” and he is threatening to fashion new MAGA names for an ocean, a major river, and the state of New Mexico. Trump also recently signed an executive order requiring all federal government programs and communications to use the terms superintelligence and S.I. rather than the broadly accepted nomenclature artificial intelligence and A.I. One might shrug all of this off and say, “Well, so what? It’s a free country, and all of us can still use the generally accepted names of places (Gulf of Mexico) and things (A.I.).”

Unfortunately, after Oct. 1, 2026, this is no longer the case for academics at state-sponsored colleges and universities in Alabama. H.B. 2 officially bans the use of the phrase Gulf of Mexico by any and all state employees. As a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, I find this appalling.

To congressional Democrats, Trump’s decision to promote aide Stephen Miller to serve as his chief of staff meant two things: an elevation of the aide’s extremist views and a refusal to heed the will of voters who delivered the left a historic victory.

“Stephen Miller is the architect of Project 2025, which included the push for ‘unitary executive power’ that Trump used to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies, enable the failed efforts of Elon Musk and DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency], the stripping of healthcare from millions of people, and the mass deportation agenda that led to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] killing people in the streets, separating families, locking up kids and gutting the legal immigration system,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, said in a statement.

Nvidia’s CEO is reportedly the target of a ‘Chinese spy plot’ for intelligence on American AI chips.

China’s intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and “potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.” Megaspeed is a customer of Nvidia’s, and Alice Huang also has “relationships with executives at the highest levels of the A.I. chip industry,” including leaders at Gigabyte, the NYT says.

Last week, the NYT reported that Jensen Huang was seen as the target of a “Chinese spy plot” and shared details about Alice Huang and Jensen Huang’s relationship, but the information that China’s MSS had recruited her is new.

European leaders push back against Washington’s proposal for a broader security framework, warning that Moscow cannot dictate the continent’s future as US-led peace negotiations over Ukraine prepare to resume in Abu Dhabi.

Democratic and Republican lawyers and groups trade sharp legal letters about procedures for counting ballots in tight race

Democrat Scott Colom is on the verge of winning a Senate seat in Mississippi in a stunning upset, but ballots are still being counted in a close race where Colom holds a lead of just under 2,000 votes over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. Losing ruby-red Mississippi would be the final straw for Republicans after a midterm sweep by Democrats that turned Texas and South Carolina blue.

A possible legal fight is also brewing, as both sides trade sharp legal letters about the procedures for counting remaining ballots. National voting groups and attorneys have descended upon the magnolia state, joining the local groups that worked to mobilize voters. Democratic and Republican groups, including Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic election attorneys from the Elias Law Group, have deployed hundreds of volunteers and lawyers to all the state’s 82 counties to oversee the final rounds of counting.

Three high-profile officials have resigned from the Justice Department in the days since the midterms, including Jason Reding Quiñones, the senior federal prosecutor who led a sprawling investigation into Donald Trump’s political foes.

Quiñones resigned from his position as the US Attorney in Southern Florida under pressure from department leadership, despite his willingness to pursue some of the most controversial investigations desired by the president, according to sources familiar with the matter.

John Eisenberg, who led the department’s National Security Division, also announced his resignation Friday, and Harmeet Dhillon left her post as the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on Thursday.

Paul Mackenzie convicted over deaths of children and one adult after followers were ordered to starve themselves and their families

The leader of a Kenyan doomsday sect has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult disasters in recent history.

The sentence, comprising 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years by direct homicide, came two weeks after the court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa found the cult leader guilty of the crimes.

Prosecutors said Paul Mackenzie and his Good News International church ran ​a Christian doomsday sect whose members were ordered to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ended.

A federal judge has blocked construction of Donald Trump’s arch for 14 days after a final vote approving the structure passed late Thursday despite fierce opposition from citizens who voiced concern during a marathon public hearing.

The National Capital Planning Commission, one of two federal agencies that oversees architectural and design changes in Washington, gave the final green light to build the 250-foot monument at its virtual meeting on Thursday after more than 120 citizens, many of them veterans, lined up to plead with the panel to block the project.

Within an hour of its passage, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who is overseeing a high profile lawsuit to stop construction, ruled that the administration, the defendants in the case, would be prohibited from “initiating, making or otherwise effectuating” any “construction-related activity” near the proposed site of the arch.

Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, the first Democrat to win the office since 1990, said Thursday she would build a bipartisan administration after her stunning upset in the midterm elections that shattered decades of GOP control in the nation’s second-most populous state.

Hinojosa, who will become Texas’ first Latina governor, made the pledge during her first news conference since ousting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott as part of Democrats’ wave of wins, including James Talarico flipping a U.S. Senate seat.

“We are forging a new way forward,” she said. “People are tired of the divisions, tired of the fighting, tired of the culture wars.”

Job growth surpassed expectations in October, new data showed Friday, with the US economy adding 165,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Job growth in the previous two months was stronger than initially reported, with a total of 84,000 jobs added: August was revised upwards by 53,000 to 186,000; and September gains totaled 60,000, up from 29,000.