The Journal

Welcome to thejournal.ie's The Explainer, where every week we take a deep dive into a different news story.

I'm Laura Byrne, and on this episode, what do the midterm results mean for Trump's America? Well, the results of the US midterm elections represent a major shift in American politics, with Democrats making significant gains across the country and bringing Trump's control of Congress to an end.

They were predicted to take the House, but the Senate was still in play.

But no one could have predicted the numbers that now mean the Trump Republicans have been left badly damaged.

But while the president's political dominance has been dealt a major blow here, he still has two years left in the White House.

So what does this result mean for his domestic agenda, his foreign policy ambitions and the investigations that Democrats are already promising? And how might Trump respond to losing his grip on Washington? Well, we're recording this on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 4th of November, and we're joined by Larry Donnelly, law lecturer at the University of Galway and political columnist here with us at thejournal.ie.

Hi, Larry.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

And yeah, if you want more, Carl, you can have more.

He is over on thejournal.ie doing amazing work, specifically on Saturdays in his Reeling in the Year column, but he's got other bits and pieces there too.

You can also get him on social media, Carl Kinsella on Blue Sky and carl.kinsella on Instagram.

Carl, thank you so much.

Alice Mary Higgins, Independent Senator for the National University.

And Eimear Macaulay, News Correspondent with the Journal.ie.

But first, tonight we're going to breaking news out of New Mexico, where in the last hour, Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been hit with the largest ever fine against it for its business practices.

A judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay US$25 billion US dollars after a jury found the company misled consumers as part of a Cambridge Analytica data privacy case.

Welcome to thejournal.ie's The Explainer, where every week we take a deep dive into a different news story.

I'm Laura Byrne, and on this episode, the biggest public sector strike since 2009 is tomorrow, so what can we expect? Well, tomorrow, Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers are expected to strike in a dispute over pay.

Schools will close, non-urgent hospital services will be cancelled, and courts, council offices and OPW sites will shut their doors.

So unless there's a breakthrough in talks this week, we could be doing this all again next week.

Well, look, given what you've outlined, significant disruption is certainly likely for tomorrow, no matter what side of the picket line you're on.

So we will be covering it all closely here at thejournal.ie and seeing how it all plays out.

Sophie, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks, Laura.