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Top 5 US news stories

November 19 2025

Greg Loving

19 Nov 2025 • 8 min read

The shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant stands in the middle of the Susquehanna River near Middletown, Pa. CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Eli Lilly Nears $1 Trillion Valuation as Weight-Loss Drug Boom Reshapes Healthcare

Federal Court Blocks New Texas Congressional Map for 2026, Dealing Blow to GOP Redistricting; State Vows Appeal to Supreme Court

House and Senate Vote to Release Epstein Documents; Trump Pledges to Sign

Trump Administration Awards $1 Billion Loan to Restart Three Mile Island

Trump Defends Saudi Crown Prince as He Touts $1 Trillion Saudi Investment Deal

1. Eli Lilly Nears $1 Trillion Valuation as Weight-Loss Drug Boom Reshapes Healthcare

Eli Lilly is closing in on an unprecedented milestone for a pharmaceutical company, with its market valuation now hovering around $970 billion—just shy of entering the trillion-dollar club typically dominated by tech giants. The surge is being driven by rapid uptake of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, expanded Medicare access, and the looming arrival of easier-to-produce and consume oral versions expected to broaden use even further. The drugs carry the potential to significantly reduce Medicare and overall healthcare spending, sone of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing budget pressures. Because obesity contributes to costly chronic conditions—including heart disease, diabetes, and stroke—widespread adoption of GLP-1s could deliver long-term fiscal and public-health gains if the early clinical results continue to scale.The rise of GLP-1 medications could become a transformative force on par with the introduction of birth control pills in the 20th century, which reshaped social norms, women’s workforce participation, and global fertility trends. If obesity rates fall meaningfully, ripple effects could emerge across labor markets, insurance systems, and even cultural attitudes about health and body image. Critics, however, warn of unintended consequences—from pharmaceutical over reliance with unknown long-term consequences to fears that widespread use could normalize medical shortcuts for weight loss and erode cultural ideals like hard work. As adoption accelerates, GLP-1 drugs are beginning to move from a medical breakthrough into a broader societal debate.

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2. Federal Court Blocks New Texas Congressional Map for 2026, Dealing Blow to GOP Redistricting; State Vows Appeal to Supreme Court

A federal court in Texas on Tuesday blocked the state’s newly redrawn and Republican-friendly congressional map from going into effect in the 2026 midterm elections, dealing a blow to an effort by Texas Republicans and President Trump to flip Democratic seats in the state.The panel of three federal judges in El Paso, in a 2-to-1 decision, sided with civil rights groups that had sued to invalidate the map, which was part of Texas’s aggressive mid-decade push to draw new congressional boundaries at Mr. Trump’s behest. “The Court orders that the 2026 congressional election in Texas shall proceed under the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021,” the court said, issuing a preliminary injunction barring the use of the map drawn this summer.Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who directed state legislators to redraw the congressional map this summer, quickly said the state would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state filed its notice of appeal later on Tuesday.

NYT

3. House and Senate Vote to Release Epstein Documents; Trump Pledges to Sign

The House on Tuesday approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a near-unanimous vote that was a stunning turn for an effort that Republicans had worked for months to kill.Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber, which would clear it for President Trump’s signature. Mr. Trump, who toiled for months to derail the bill but reversed himself once it was clear it would pass overwhelmingly, has said he would sign it.even though the president has said he would sign the bill if it were to reach his desk, its proponents raised questions about whether the Justice Department would ultimately release the files.

NYT

4. Trump Administration Awards $1 Billion Loan to Restart Three Mile Island

The Trump Administration will give Constellation Energy a $1 billion federal loan to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania that suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979.Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that restarting the plant will help bring down electricity prices and that the administration will act to bring more nuclear generation online. “We want to bring as much addition of reliable electricity onto the grid to stop these price rises,” he said, adding that such moves will help “reshore manufacturing in our country.” Constellation announced last year that it would restart the Three Mile Island site of the country’s worst nuclear power accident, to help generate electricity for Microsoft , which needs more power to fuel its artificial intelligence business. The deal calls for Constellation to revive the plant’s undamaged reactor, which was too costly to run and closed in 2019. The power generated will be sold to Microsoft under a 20-year deal. The tech industry has a nearly insatiable demand for 24-hour-a-day power for AI data centers.The Trump administration is a strong proponent of nuclear power and has vowed to quadruple U.S. nuclear generation by 2050. The plan involves restarting existing reactors and developing 10 large-scale new ones that will expand nuclear capacity from 100 gigawatts currently to 400 gigawatts.

WSJ

5. Trump Defends Saudi Crown Prince as He Touts $1 Trillion Saudi Investment Deal

WASHINGTON—President Trump said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “knew nothing about” the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, though the CIA at the time assessed that the royal orchestrated the killing. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said Tuesday about Khashoggi after a reporter asked MBS, as the crown prince is known, about the murder. Turning to his counterpart, Trump said: “But he knew nothing about it.”The crown prince, who returned to the Oval Office for the first time since the killing, replied that, “It’s really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way,” insisting his country had conducted an investigation to ensure nothing like the assassination happens again. “It’s a big mistake.”Khashoggi was a Saudi dissident and U.S. resident who repeatedly spoke out about the kingdom’s repressive regime. His grisly murder in a Saudi consulate in Turkey led to intense blowback in Washington, with members of both parties calling for severed ties between the U.S. and the kingdom. “What he’s done is incredible in terms of human rights,” Trump said, later calling the prince, “one of the most respected leaders in the world.” MBS responded that his country would look to invest $1 trillion in the U.S. economy, adding that opportunities “are increasing more and more.”

WSJ

November 19 1863: President Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address

At the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier, was one of the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Over the course of three days, more than 45,000 men were killed, injured, captured or went missing. The battle also proved to be the turning point of the war: General Robert E. Lee’s defeat and retreat from Gettysburg marked the last Confederate invasion of Northern territory and the beginning of the Southern army’s ultimate decline.

Charged by Pennsylvania’s governor, Andrew Curtin, to care for the Gettysburg dead, an attorney named David Wills bought 17 acres of pasture to turn into a cemetery for the more than 7,500 who fell in battle. Wills invited Edward Everett, one of the most famous orators of the day, to deliver a speech at the cemetery’s dedication. Almost as an afterthought, Wills also sent a letter to Lincoln—just two weeks before the ceremony—requesting “a few appropriate remarks” to consecrate the grounds.

At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Everett before Lincoln spoke. Lincoln’s address lasted just two or three minutes. The speech reflected his redefined belief that the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality for all, an idea Lincoln had not championed in the years leading up to the war.

This was his stirring conclusion: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

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