Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of Egypt’s leading independent news outlet Mada Masr, faces a criminal trial this week on charges of “spreading false information,” just two weeks after being convicted of operating an unlicensed website and fined more than $50,000. A judge also ordered the publication to be shut down.

The next Congress will include about 100 new lawmakers in the House of Representatives, the largest freshman wave in decades. That also includes six newly elected members of the Democratic Socialists of America, bringing the total number of DSA members in Congress to eight. One of the incoming DSA congressmembers will be California’s Angela Gonzales-Torres, who worked two other jobs while campaigning and was massively outspent by her opponent, incumbent Democratic Congressmember Jimmy Gomez.

Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, has replaced Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff. In a recent 60 Minutes interview, President Donald Trump acknowledged that his immigration policies may be “too tough” and contributed to his party’s steep losses in the midterm elections, but in elevating Miller, he is “choosing to double down,” says journalist Jean Guerrero.

Tuesday was a historic night for progressive Democrats and, in particular, candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Six new DSA-endorsed candidates were elected to the House, and democratic socialists won mayoral races in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Providence.
“The Democratic Socialists of America had a phenomenal night, and this movement is only going to continue to grow,” says prominent leftist political commentator Hasan Piker.

The midterms saw a landslide of Latinos vote for Democrats. In Texas, California, Kansas and Colorado, Latinos who had voted for Republicans just two years ago voted for Democrats in large numbers, helping secure Democratic control of both the House and the Senate. Latino lawmakers will make up about a fifth of the Democratic majority in the House. And in an historic victory, the two most populous states in the country, California and Texas, will soon be led by Democratic Latino governors.

Mississippi’s race for the U.S. Senate remains too close to call: Democrat Scott Colom is narrowly leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by nearly 2,000 votes with 96% of votes counted as of Friday morning. Donald Trump carried Mississippi by 23 points in 2024. If elected, Colom would be the first Democrat to win the state in 40 years and the first African American since 1875, during the Reconstruction era.

Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s historic midterm elections, a comeback fueled largely by voter anger over high prices and the war on Iran. But surveys also found that corruption was a major concern, with 76% of voters telling a Harris poll that elected officials care more about enriching themselves than improving the economy for ordinary people.