Mwakilishi News Bulletin - Evening Edition, Wednesday 04 November 2026

Evening Edition for Wednesday, 04 November 2026. Running time 8:10.

In this bulletin

Diaspora News

1. Momanyi-Hiltsley wins landslide second term in Minnesota (see also: Kenyan-Born Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley Wins Minnesota House Re-Election in 72% Landslide)

Kenya News

1. Kenya registers over 50,000 Ethiopian refugees in Moyale
2. Ruto orders local shoes for 14 million schoolchildren
3. Most Kenyan marriages unregistered, survey shows
4. Kenyan fraud suspect arrested at JFK
5. Gachagua plans Wamunyoro Annexes in Nakuru and Meru
6. Ministry warns against Cetirizine misuse
7. Okowa elected to International Court of Justice

World News

1. World leaders react as Democrats take Congress
2. Trump suffers midterm defeat as Democrats sweep
3. Sam Mwangi wins Minnesota city council seat

Lifestyle News

1. Contraceptive use stalls as fertility gap persists

Transcript

This is the news from Mwakilishi.com.

Good evening. It's 6 o'clock this evening on Wednesday, the fourth of November, and here is your evening edition.

Coming up.

Kenyan-born Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley wins landslide second term in the Minnesota House.

Democrats seize control of the US Congress in midterm rebuke to Trump.

Kenya's Phoebe Okowa elected judge of the International Court of Justice.

Those stories, and more, in the next few minutes.

Turning to diaspora news, Kenyan-born politician Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley has won a landslide second term in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Unofficial results give her nearly seventy-two per cent in District thirty-eight A, with nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-two votes, against twenty-eight per cent for Republican Charlie Kistler. First elected in twenty twenty-four as the first Kenyan-born immigrant in any United States state legislature, she begins her new term in January twenty twenty-seven and thanked voters for their trust.

Turning to Kenya now, the government, working with the UN refugee agency and the Kenya Red Cross, has begun registering Ethiopian refugees fleeing renewed clashes in the border town of Moyale. Addis Standard reports arrivals have surpassed fifty thousand, one of the largest cross-border movements on the Kenya-Ethiopia frontier in recent times. Moyale sits directly on the boundary between the two countries. Registration establishes each arrival's identity and nationality, the foundation for protection status, food distribution, shelter and health services, as the flow continues.

Staying with Kenya, President William Ruto has directed local footwear manufacturers to produce leather shoes for all fourteen million school-going children. Speaking at the Innovation Summit at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, he said the move would create guaranteed demand for local leather and jobs for the youth. The strategy follows a June directive banning footwear imports for security officers, with all military and police boots now produced locally. Support includes the five point eight billion shilling Kenya Leather Industrial Park in Kenani, Machakos.

Still in Kenya, survey data shows more than eighty per cent of married or cohabiting women live in unions that are not legally registered. The Kenya Mini Demographic and Health Survey found only seventeen point six per cent have registered their union, and just fourteen per cent hold a certificate. Garissa recorded the highest registration at fifty-three point eight per cent, while Wajir was lowest at two point eight per cent. The share of women never married has risen to thirty-two point nine per cent.

In other news from Kenya, a planned flight to Malaysia ended at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, where US federal agents arrested the alleged Kenyan ringleader of a three hundred and sixty-nine point five four million dollar bank fraud scheme. Prosecutors say he had shipped most of his belongings to Kenya and was preparing to buy a home in Malaysia. Fourteen suspects allegedly targeted more than three thousand Americans and six major banks, using SIM swapping and spoofed phone lines to bypass security checks.

Elsewhere in Kenya, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua plans to open political operation centres in Nakuru and Meru counties as he builds his Democracy for the Citizens Party into a mass movement. Speaking at his Wamunyoro home in Nyeri, Gachagua said the so-called Wamunyoro Annexes would anchor campaigns in high-voter regions. He cited Nakuru's one point three million registered voters, a figure he projects could reach one point five million by January. He wants to model the party on ODM and win majorities in both houses.

And in Kenya, the Ministry of Health plans a tracking system to monitor individual buyers of over-the-counter medicines after a viral social media trend misusing the allergy drug Cetirizine. Principal Secretary for Medical Services Ouma Oluga warned women against inserting the tablets vaginally to create a sensation of tightness, a trend spread on platform X. He said the system could trace everyone who buys Cetirizine, while medics warn the practice causes friction, tissue trauma and micro-tears.

Also from Kenya, Phoebe Okowa has been elected a judge of the International Court of Justice, winning the majority required in simultaneous ballots of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. She takes a nine-year term on the world's highest court for disputes between states, which sits in The Hague. A professor of public international law at Queen Mary University of London, Okowa is one of Kenya's most prominent international lawyers, and her election places a Kenyan on a bench historically dominated by Western jurists.

Turning to world news, leaders have reacted to the US midterm results after Donald Trump's Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress. The European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged the incoming Congress to maintain assistance for Kyiv. Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul suggested the new dynamic could create momentum for diplomacy in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, though Chancellor Friedrich Merz is sceptical. South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa said the outcome could help repair strained ties with Washington.

Staying with the US midterms, voters delivered a sharp rebuke to Donald Trump's administration, driven by anger over rising living costs, chaotic trade tariffs, an unpopular military campaign against Iran, and a deadly deportation scheme. Democrats flipped Iowa's governorship with Rob Sand, won Senate seats in Kansas and South Carolina, and saw Texas shift blue across multiple races. Peggy Flanagan secured a Minnesota Senate seat. Consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio said a deeply frustrated electorate demanded accountability from the political establishment.

Also from the United States, Kenyan-born Sam Mwangi has won a city council seat in Minnesota in elections held on Tuesday, the third of November. Mwangi was declared the winner after polls closed, joining a midterm ballot that included all four hundred and thirty-five House seats, more than thirty senators and thirty-six governors. City councils in Minnesota adopt budgets, set property tax levies and make zoning decisions. Results continued to be reported on Wednesday as officials processed remaining ballots.

Turning to lifestyle news, Kenya's progress in expanding access to modern contraceptives has hit a plateau, leaving women in parts of the Rift Valley and Nyanza with more children than they desire. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey shows use among married women stalled at fifty-six point one per cent, while unmet need rose to sixteen per cent. In Nyamira, Nandi and Bomet, women average one point one more children than they want, though most Kenyan women say two children is ideal.

And that is your evening edition. The next bulletin is at midday tomorrow. You can read every one of these stories in full, and much more besides, at Mwakilishi.com.

Have a good evening.

Bulletins are published twice a day, at midday and 6pm Eastern. Listen to past bulletins.