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Top 5 US news stories

November 5 2025

Greg Loving

05 Nov 2025 • 7 min read

Vulcan Elements CEO John Maslin at the opening of Vulcan’s small-scale facility. Credit: Brighid Uddyback | Ox Images Photography.

Democrats Score Key Wins, See 'Path to Revival'

Newsom Scores Redistricting Win with Prop 50 Victory

Off-Year Election Turnout Drops From 2024 Presidential Pace

Trump Administration Partners with Startups to Counter China's Hold on Rare Earths

Hamas Returns Body of Last American Hostage from Gaza

…US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ENTERS 36th DAY, BECOMING LONGEST SHUTDOWN IN US HISTORY…

BREAKING…UPS Cargo Plane Crash in Kentucky Leaves at Least Seven Dead…

1. Democrats Score Key Wins, See 'Path to Revival'

For Democrats, Tuesday brought more than three big election victories. It laid out a path to revival for a party that has been dispirited and disempowered under the dominance of President Trump. Two women with centrist profiles and national security backgrounds, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, not only won their elections for governor but did so with unexpectedly large margins—by 13 percentage points or more, nearly final results showed. Both had focused on an affordability agenda, promising to lower the cost of everyday life, while linking their opponents to Trump and the MAGA movement. The two victories, along with the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, showed voters elevating a new generation of leaders, potentially infusing the party with new energy, though challenges remain. The debate between centrists and progressives over the direction of the party is unsettled, and Mamdani may offer Trump a new political cudgel.

WSJ

2. Newsom Scores Redistricting Win with Prop 50 Victory

At a time when Democrats have been searching for a win against President Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California gave them one. California voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported Proposition 50, Mr. Newsom’s measure to create more Democratic congressional seats, countering a similar redistricting effort pushed by Mr. Trump in other states to protect Republican control of the House next year. The result has sharply lifted Mr. Newsom’s political profile at a moment when he is considering running for president. And it has provided what many Democrats praised as a road map on how to fight for a party that remains adrift one year after Mr. Trump captured the White House.

NYT

3. Off-Year Election Turnout Drops From 2024 Presidential Pace

Turnout in Tuesday’s off-year elections came in well below last year’s presidential pace. In New Jersey, roughly 3.17M votes were counted for governor as of early Wednesday—about 73% of the 4,321,921 ballots cast in the 2024 general election. In Virginia, about 3.41M votes were recorded for governor—around 76% of the 4,505,941 presidential ballots in 2024. New York City was the intensity outlier: more than 2 million ballots were cast in the mayor’s race—the city’s biggest mayoral turnout in 50+ years—still roughly 72% of the city’s 2,794,960 presidential votes in 2024. (All 2025 figures are unofficial and may rise as late-arriving mail ballots are added.) What that means for the partisan math: smaller off-year electorates tend to be older and more habitual voters. Research consistently finds higher turnout among more affluent and more-educated voters, while working-class voters participate at lower rates. In recent cycles Democrats have grown stronger with many high-propensity, college-educated and higher-income voters, while Republicans have made gains among lower-propensity working-class voters. Notably, in 2024 the surge of new and infrequent voters broke for Trump, so higher turnout that year aided Republicans—an inversion of the older pattern in which high turnout often helped Democrats. In that context, the lower 11/4/25 turnout in NJ, VA and NYC likely trimmed more GOP-leaning low-propensity voters from the electorate than Democratic high-propensity voters.

citizen journal

4. Trump Administration Partners with Startups to Counter China's Hold on Rare Earths

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and private investors are partnering with two rare earth startups in a $1.4 billion deal to scale up the nation’s access to materials and technology that is crucial for producing an array of high-tech goods and military equipment. The investment in Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies is the latest stake taken by the U.S. in a handful of private companies — including another rare earths company and chipmaker Intel — since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. The White House has made it a priority to bolster the nation’s supply chain in a market dominated by China. Vulcan Elements manufactures rare earth magnets, while ReElement processes rare earth mineral ores and recycles old batteries and other products made with rare earths. The influx of cash will allow Vulcan and ReElement to ramp up their annual magnet production to 10,000 tonnes annually, the companies said. “Our investment in Vulcan Elements will accelerate U.S. production of rare earth magnets for American manufacturers,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. “We are laser-focused on bringing critical mineral and rare earth manufacturing back home, ensuring America’s supply chain is strong, secure and perfectly reliable.” The deal announced this week comes just days after Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and agreed to cut tariffs on China, which Beijing reciprocated by allowing the export of rare earth elements. Before Xi and Trump met last week, China had imposed restrictions that would have required foreign companies to get special approval to export items that contain even small traces of rare earths elements sourced from China, even if those products were made elsewhere by foreign companies. However, it didn’t eliminate restrictions that were imposed in the spring after Trump imposed his initial round of tariffs. China accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s rare earths mining and controls roughly 90% of global rare earths processing.

5. Hamas Returns Body of Last American Hostage from Gaza

TEL AVIV—The body of the last dead American hostage in Gaza was returned by Hamas after more than two years, marking the close of a painful chapter for U.S. families whose relatives were taken by the militant group. Itay Chen, 19, an Israeli-American soldier who also holds German citizenship, was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack while fighting off militants with his tank crew in southern Israel. Chen was one of around 250 hostages taken during the attack, including around a dozen U.S. nationals, according to the Hostages Families Forum, an advocacy group. The return of the hostages taken by the U.S.-designated terrorist group, especially those with American citizenship, has been central to President Trump’s diplomatic efforts on Gaza. Throughout the war, Trump and top U.S. officials frequently met with hostage families, and he has often spoken about the importance of bringing them home as part of a deal. As part of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement last month between Israel and Hamas, the militant group has returned all the remaining living hostages in Gaza and 21 dead bodies, including Chen’s body late Tuesday, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Seven deceased hostages now remain in the enclave, including one Israeli soldier, Hadar Goldin, who was captured by Hamas in 2014 and is included in Israel’s official tally. The remaining six dead hostages taken on Oct. 7 include two foreigners, from Tanzania and Thailand, and four Israeli men.

WSJ

November 5 1733: Printer and journalist John Peter Zenger publishes the first issue of New York Weekly Journal. After attacks on the colonial governor landed him in jail for libel, a jury acquitted him—a first win for press freedom in the English colonies.

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