“Bitcoin slid to about $75,740 overnight before recovering to $77,000 as U.S. midterm returns showed Democrats taking the House and closing in on the Senate, dragging stock futures and crypto lower together. … Bitcoin was not alone in witnessing a slump as CNBC reported that S&P 500 futures traded 1.1% lower, Nasdaq 100 futures shed 2% and Dow futures fell 367 points, or 0.7%. The Kobeissi Letter noted the S&P 500 was on track to open below 7,500 for the first time since July 31 as markets priced in a Democratic victory in both chambers.” (11/04/26)
“Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given the country’s highest award for women to the US First Lady, Melania Trump. The Order of Princess Olha, 1st Class, was awarded to Melania Trump for her ‘significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine’, according to the presidential decree. It comes after the end of ceasefire in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson, which allowed for the evacuation of several hundred people from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky. Russian and Ukrainian delegations – made up of ombudsmen who were involved in the evacuation mission as well as senior officials – are due to meet at the White House on Thursday on Melania Trump’s invitation. The White House said that Melania Trump had ‘independently initiated engagement between the two warring nations and successfully secured a ceasefire’. ‘This achievement marks an unprecedented diplomatic initiative by an American First Lady’, it added.” (11/04/26)
“Spain’s Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo, will run the country’s Transport Ministry until the Nov. 29 election following the resignation of Óscar Puente, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Wednesday morning. … Puente resigned on Tuesday over the Oct. 28 train crash in Toledo province that killed 69 people, calling his decision ‘a matter of political dignity.’ It was Spain’s second deadly rail disaster this year after January’s accident in Adamuz, which killed 46 people.” (11/04/26)
“U.S. prosecutors have dropped all criminal charges against a Russian scientist who was tossed into an immigration jail last year after she landed at a Boston airport with frog embryos intended for her cancer research at Harvard Medical School. Kseniia Petrova, 31, spent four months in detention following her arrest in early 2025 as she returned from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research. She was questioned about the samples while passing through a customs checkpoint at Logan International Airport, then later charged with smuggling. A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss those charges as well as counts alleging that she’d concealed facts and made false statements to government officials.” (11/04/26)
“Disney is preparing for another round of layoffs, and some managers were told to cut 20% of expenses, unnamed sources told multiple media outlets Tuesday. The cuts will be the fourth round of layoffs in 2026 and under CEO Josh D’Amaro, Forbes, Variety and CNBC reported. The Bloomberg report, which cited anonymous sources, said some departments ‘will be affected disproportionately,’ but didn’t say which ones.” (11/03/26)
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“Democrats have won control of Congress in a widespread repudiation of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, a drubbing that reached deep into reliable GOP territory. Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats in ruby-red states and battlegrounds alike: Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. They held on to battleground seats in Georgia and Michigan. In the House, Democrats flipped more than two dozen districts, some that voted for Trump by double digits in 2024.” (11/04/26)
“Four oil tankers caught fire after hitting mines while attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran said Wednesday, after it warned no one would benefit from a return to war. It came a day after US President Donald Trump said the United States had launched strikes on the Islamic republic, following reports of a raid on Qeshm, the largest island in the strait. … Indirect contact between the United States and Iran via mediators has continued with little sign of any diplomatic breakthrough, and Iran has said it is ready to reopen the strait but only if Washington agrees to a long-standing list of demands.” (11/04/26)
“A federal judge in Oregon says he can no longer assume ICE agents are telling the truth in their arrest paperwork, declaring Monday that live testimony is now ‘necessary’ after finding that warrantless arrests are still being made and facts are being ‘fabricated in official records’ by immigration officers. In a 50-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ruled that ICE repeatedly violated an existing court order governing warrantless immigration arrests in the Beaver State, with inaccurate reports, missing records and accounts that did not match what actually happened. The judge’s loss of confidence in the agency was so pronounced that he withdrew the usual presumption that government officials have properly performed their duties.” (11/03/26)
“Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight left more than 180,000 customers in the Zhytomyr region without power and heavily damaged a facility belonging to private energy firm DTEK in the Odesa region, officials and the company said. Scheduled power outages were in place across the Odesa region. About 130 settlements in the Zhytomyr region were without electricity on Tuesday morning, according to its governor, Vitalii Bunechko. No deaths or injuries were reported.” (11/03/26)
