10 things you need to know today: November 11, 2018

A man watches as the Woolsey Fire reaches the ocean along Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) near Malibu, California, November 9, 2018.

(Image credit: Robyn Beck/Getty Images)

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1. California wildfires kill 25, displace over 300,000
2. Macron leads solemn Armistice Day commemoration
3. Trump, Macron tout friendship, shared values after insult tweet
4. Turkey has shared Khashoggi recording, Erdogan says
5. Migrant caravan resumes journey from Mexico City
6. Acting attorney general reportedly interviewed to be 'legal attack dog' for Trump against Mueller
7. Florida launches recount for gubernatorial and Senate races
8. Georgia gubernatorial race remains contested
9. GOP lawmaker Rohrabacher loses congressional seat
10. Trump to award Medal of Freedom to Elvis, Scalia, and more

last updated 12 November 2018

1. California wildfires kill 25, displace over 300,000

California's Camp, Woolsey, and Hill wildfires continued to grow over the weekend, expanding to 105,000 acres, 70,000 acres, and 4,500 acres, respectively. At least 23 people have been killed by the Camp Fire in northern California, where high winds are expected to return Sunday after a brief lull Saturday. Another two people were killed in the Woolsey Fire, which along with the smaller Hill Fire has prompted mass evacuations from Malibu and other areas in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. None of the three blazes is more than 25 percent contained as of Sunday morning.

French President Emmanuel Macron led a solemn ceremony in Paris Sunday to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War I. Celebrated as Armistice Day in Europe and the broader Veterans Day in the United States, the holiday marks the Nov. 11, 1918 cessation of hostilities in the Great War. Macron's comments at the Arc de Triomphe before other world leaders, including President Trump, pointedly condemned nationalism as the "exact opposite" and a "betrayal" of patriotism. Trump, meanwhile, came under criticism for cancellation of a planned visit to an American military cemetery outside Paris, possibly due to the weather.

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Hours after President Trump declared French President Emmanuel Macron "very insulting" for his recent advocacy of a "true European army," the two leaders touted their friendship and minimized differences Saturday afternoon. "We have become very good friends over the last couple of years," Trump said of the French president. "We're very much similar in our views." Macron continued to argue for "more European capacities, more European defense," though he couched it in language closer to Trump's gripes about burden sharing. "It's unfair to have the European security today being assured just by the United States," Macron said.

An audio recording of the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul obtained by the Turkish government has now been shared with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday. He did not comment further on what the recording contains, but reiterated his call for more transparency from Riyadh, demanding information on what happened to Khashoggi's body. After initially denying all knowledge of Khashoggi's whereabouts, then claiming he died in a "fist fight" gone wrong, Saudi Arabia said in late October he died in "premeditated" murder.

The thousands of Honduran and other Central American migrants traveling together in a large caravan heading toward the U.S. border resumed their journey Saturday after several days in Mexico City. Now at about 5,500 people, the group's primary destination is Tijuana, a Mexican border city near San Diego. On arrival, they intend to seek asylum in the United States, a process made more difficult by the Trump administration's new restrictions, officially announced Friday. Asylum-seekers will now have to enter the United States at an official port of entry for their claim to be considered.

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who in this new capacity will oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian election meddling investigation, interviewed last summer to be a "legal attack dog against the special counsel" for President Trump, The New York Times reported Friday. Whitaker met with White House counsel Don McGahn in July 2017, and while he did not end up in a role on the president's legal team, the Times' sources close to Trump say Whitaker is expected to rein in Mueller's probe in his new position.

Florida on Saturday began a statewide recount for its gubernatorial and Senate races, as well as contests for agriculture commissioner and three state legislature seats. In the gubernatorial race, Ron DeSantis (R) presently leads Andrew Gillum (D) by about 34,000 votes, a gap of just 0.41 percent. The Senate race margin is smaller still, with Rick Scott (R) leading incumbent Bill Nelson (D) by a mere 0.15 percent, about 12,500 votes. The races will be subject to a mechanical recount to be completed by Thursday, and the Senate contest will receive additional scrutiny by hand because its margin is below 0.25 percent.

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) refuses to concede her race to opponent Brian Kemp (R), though he continues to claim victory. The race has not been officially called. Abrams' campaign on Saturday accused Kemp's former office of secretary of state, from which he resigned Thursday and which administers the election, of undercounting the number of provisional ballots which remain to be counted. If the provisional ballots favor Abrams, they could shift vote totals enough to trigger a recount or even a runoff election in early December.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) officially lost his re-election campaign Saturday after 15 terms in Congress. Though some ballots remain to be counted, current vote totals show Rohrabacher's challenger, Harley Rouda (D), with 52 percent of the vote and a growing lead. Despite the win projection, Rohrabacher's campaign has refused to concede until the vote count is complete, which could take up to two more weeks. Rohrabacher has been dubbed Russian President Vladimir Putin's "favorite congressman" by critics who say he is too friendly to Moscow.

President Trump will award the Medal of Freedom to seven people this coming week, the White House announced Saturday. The recipients are Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), philanthropist and GOP donor Miriam Adelson, NFL Hall of Famer and former Minnesota state Supreme Court Justice Alan C. Page, and football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach. "This prestigious award is the nation's highest civilian honor," the White House statement said. [Editor's note: This item originally mixed up the titles of Page and Staubach. It has since been corrected. We regret the error.]

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.