WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
A 'governing trifecta', Spanish downpours, and a £1bn donation to the British Museum

 
today's us election story

Republicans projected to win House

What happened
Republicans are forecast to keep control of the House of Representatives, cementing the party's full control of Washington when president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

Who said what
Ballots are still being counted in California and elsewhere, but the party's final margin is likely to be similar to the "four-seat advantage it has held for the past two years", said Russell Berman in The Atlantic.

This is certainly a win, but such a narrow majority means that the legislation "most prized on the right and feared by the left" – such as a national abortion ban, the repeal of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act and Joe Biden's largest domestic-policy achievements – is "unlikely to pass Congress", said Berman.

There are "plenty of obstacles" for Republicans' ambitious agenda, agreed Emily Brooks from The Hill. The past two years of the "historically slim House GOP majority" was marked by "intraparty disputes that, at times, brought legislative activity to a halt".

Be that as it may, Republicans taking full control of Congress will usher in a "dramatic new era of right-wing populist rule", said Stephen Collinson on CNN. Republican dominance of Capitol Hill is "just one aspect of Trump's formidable new power base". The president-elect already believes that he has "all-but-limitless power" and will be "emboldened" by the Supreme Court's recent ruling offering substantial immunity to the president for official acts taken in office.

What next?
Trump continued his "flurry of personnel announcements" yesterday, said The New York Times, announcing "one of his fiercest defenders", Matt Gaetz, as his attorney general and hardliner Tom Homan as the new administration’s border czar. More appointments are expected in the coming days.

 
 
today's europe story

Torrential rain returns to Spain

What happened
Schools have been closed in eastern and southern Spain, and some residents evacuated as torrential downpours returned two weeks after the catastrophic floods that killed more than 220 people.

Who said what
Yesterday evening the state meteorological agency Aemet raised the alert in Valencia province from orange to red. "The danger is extreme," Aemet said in a post on X. "Avoid moving around as rivers could flood. Be very careful!"

While the current storm is not predicted to be as powerful as the last, the "impact of the rains could be severe", said The Guardian, due to the "huge quantities of mud already on the ground and the compromised condition of the sewage system".

What next?
Speaking at the Cop29 climate summit this week, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation Celeste Saulo said the recent floods in Spain were a strong message to the world. "The incredible amount of rain in Spain was a wake-up call (about) how much more water a warmer atmosphere can hold," she said.

 
 
Today's crime story

Sara Sharif's father 'takes full responsibility' for death

What happened
Sara Sharif's father has admitted to beating the 10-year-old to death with a cricket bat. The taxi driver had previously tried to blame his wife Beinash Batool for killing his daughter, who was found in the family home in Surrey with multiple traumatic injuries last August. Sharif fled to Islamabad after her death and he, Batool and Sara's uncle Faisal Malik all deny murdering Sara.

Who said what
"Do you accept that you killed her by beating her?" asked Caroline Carberry, the prosecution's lawyer. "Yes ma'am," he replied.

"I take full responsibility," Sharif told the Old Bailey, admitting to causing at least 25 fractures by hitting Sara with a cricket bat. "Yes, she died because of me." But he has maintained his plea of not guilty to murder, saying he did "not intend to kill" Sara.

What next?
The trial continues.

 
 

It's not all bad

The British Museum has received a historic donation of 1,700 Chinese ceramics from the Sir Percival David Foundation valued at £1 billion, making it the highest-value gift in UK museum history. On loan since 2009, the permanent acquisition of the items, dating from the 3rd to 20th centuries, means the British Museum now holds one of the most important collections of Chinese ceramics of any public institution outside the Chinese-speaking world. Museum chair George Osborne called the donation a "blockbuster decision".

 
 
under the radar

Sudan's forgotten pyramids

Sudan boasts even more pyramids than Egypt, but its treasured archaeological heritage is increasingly under threat from its brutal civil war.

Meroë, a city on the banks of the Nile and once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush, formerly "drew intrepid tourists to see the carvings and hieroglyphs housed in some of the 200 pyramids" built nearly 2,500 years ago, said the Financial Times. But since Sudan's civil war broke out last year the site has been "deserted".

The pyramids' sole caretaker, a woman named Fozia Khalid, is "the only person standing between some of Sudan's greatest art treasures and rampaging armies accused of looting priceless antiquities". "The militias are not far," said Khalid, referring to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group locked in a battle for power with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). "I fear they may come and ravage centuries of history."

In September Sudan's national broadcaster SBC reported that the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum, considered one of the most important in Africa, had been targeted by a "large-scale looting and smuggling operation" by RSF soldiers. "Tens of thousands of artefacts" were taken, an anonymous official from the institute told The Guardian.

That same month Unesco warned that the "threat to (Sudan's) culture appears to have reached an unprecedented level". The UN's cultural heritage body has told the world's art market not to purchase any objects from Sudan. "Any illegal sale or displacement of these cultural items would result in the disappearance of part of the Sudanese cultural identity and jeopardise the country’s recovery," said a statement in ArtDependence Magazine.

 
 
on this day

14 November 1665

English physician Richard Lower kept a dog alive by transfusing blood from another dog – completing the first recorded successful blood transfusion. The World Health Organisation estimates that 118.5 million units of blood are now collected globally every year, saving millions of lives.

 
 
Today's newspapers

The Guardian leads on a Human Rights Watch report that claims Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the "deliberate and massive forced displacement" of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The government is facing a growing "business backlash" over last month's Budget, says The Times. There is a "wild west of cosmetic surgery in Britain", says the Daily Mirror, leading on an ITV investigation which has found that potentially deadly operations, including liposuction, are being carried out by people with just hours of training.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

A jumbo shower showdown

An elephant at the Berlin zoo has learned to give herself a shower, but her long wash times are irritating her fellow elephants, leading to what appear to be acts of sabotage. The Asian elephant, Mary, has developed the ability to use her trunk to lift a hose and use it like a shower head, at times even manipulating the hose like a lasso to reach her back. None of the other elephants have this uncanny ability and one younger female, Anchali, has even become aggressive towards the hose, using her trunk to cut off Mary's water flow. Researchers are looking into this "powerful act of sabotage" to examine whether Anchali is acting intentionally in "good humour" or "just trying to be mean".

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Harriet Marsden, Tess Foley-Cox and Chas Newkey-Burden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc / Getty Images; Daniel Perez Garcia-Santos / Getty Images; Surrey Police handout.