Financial Times - Lauren Fedor / Donald Trump secures control of Congress as Republicans win House majority

• Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, giving Donald Trump’s party full control of both chambers of the US Congress and wide latitude to push a radical agenda through the legislature. 

• The House result, which came after more than a week of counting in California and other states, is a blow to Democrats, who will be minorities in both the Senate and House and unable to lead powerful congressional committees to oversee investigations into the Trump administration’s actions.

• Still, Trump will not have unchecked power over Congress, and Democrats may be able to exert leverage over his administration in narrow but meaningful ways. 

• Republican senators on Wednesday elected John Thune to replace McConnell as the leader of the upper chamber. McConnell, 82, remains a senator but said last year that he would step down from leadership following health issues.
      
   

Politico - Victor Goury-Laffont / Prosecutors request ban on Marine Le Pen running for public office in embezzlement trial

• Prosecutors on Wednesday asked that far-right French lawmaker Marine Le Pen be found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to prison and barred from running for public office — including the French presidency — for the next five years. 

• Le Pen, her National Rally party, and 24 other individuals — including current and former French lawmakers and MEPs — are accused of illicitly using European Parliament funds to pay parliamentary assistants for work on party business rather than on EU affairs from 2004 to 2016. Le Pen and her co-defendants have all denied the charges. 

• Shortly before announcing the requested sentencing, prosecutor Louise Neyton urged the court to take into account the “unprecedented” nature of the embezzlement due to the long period of time over which the system allegedly took place and the estimated damages. 

•  The defense will now be given the opportunity to make its case before the judge, who will announce a verdict date before Nov. 27. The verdict itself is expected early next year.
   

CNN - Mick Krever and Irene Nasser / Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of mass displacement in Gaza amounting to a war crime

• Israel has overseen the forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza in a deliberate and systematic campaign that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. 

• The 154-page report, published by the US-based advocacy group on Thursday, details more than 13 months of widespread destruction in Gaza that, according to the United Nations, has seen the displacement of about 1.9 million Palestinians – more than 90% of the territory’s population. 

• Israel has been accused by multiple human rights groups – and UN investigators – of military conduct that could amount to war crimes over the past year, which it has vociferously denied. Hamas has also been accused of war crimes. 

•  In October, a UN inquiry said Israel had a “concerted policy” of destroying the health care system in Gaza in what it said amounted to war crimes.
                 
   

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey / Poorer nations need $1tn a year by 2030 in climate finance, top economists find

• Poor countries need $1tn a year in climate finance by 2030, five years earlier than rich countries are likely to agree to at UN climate talks, a new study has found. 

• Waiting until 2035 to receive the funding, which is to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with extreme weather, would place damaging burdens on vulnerable countries, warned the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, a group of leading economists. 

• The study was published on Thursday morning as governments from nearly 200 countries worked on fraught negotiations over how much finance wealthier countries should provide, and how much could come from other sources, at the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan. World leaders, who had attended the opening days of the conference in Baku, left their ministers and high-ranking officials to get on with the job of forging a new global plan on climate finance, due to wrapped up at the end of next week. 

• The talks are focused on a goal of at least $1tn a year in climate finance for poorer countries by 2035. This figure comes from a previous study from the high-level group (IHLEG), a group of economists convened by Cop presidencies since 2021 and chaired by the economists Nicholas Stern, Vera Songwe and Amar Bhattacharya, which found in 2022 that about $2.4tn a year was needed.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Al Jazeera - Sami Halabi / A new deterrence for Lebanon is needed to avoid a long war with Israel 
• Bloomberg - Jessica Karl / Elon Musk’s Meme Machine Goes to Washington