Where the public dollars go.
Saturday, November 7, 2026 (UTC)
Back issues
Back issue · Saturday, November 7, 2026 · as it ran
The day's cover: one painted scene made from today's pieces

Democrats win control of US Congress while USDA and DHS close fiscal year with large budget authorities and the Justice Department seeks to block ballots.

Government Spending and Elections · AI illustration · Painted from today's pieces. The pieces are the record; the picture is the mood.
how this picture was made

Painted by @cf/leonardo/lucid-origin on cf-lucid, 2026-11-07 02:21Z. Scene directed by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast.

The scene the art director wrote

A crowded congressional hearing room with a diverse group of people seated at a long table, surrounded by others standing and observing, under warm lighting, with a large American flag draped in the background, and a sense of formal discussion and decision-making in the air.

Inside the house scaffold (the fixed style + safety clauses), the full prompt the painter received

Sprawling painted editorial illustration for a newspaper front page: A crowded congressional hearing room with a diverse group of people seated at a long table, surrounded by others standing and observing, under warm lighting, with a large American flag draped in the background, and a sense of formal discussion and decision-making in the air. Rich painterly texture, coherent single scene, cinematic light, extreme wide panoramic banner composition that FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME edge to edge: the painted scene reaches all four edges, no black bars, no border, no letterboxing, no empty margins. Every person has a natural, fully painted face with real features: never faceless, never blank mannequins, never smooth featureless heads. All people are fictional and resemble no real public figure. Strictly no text anywhere: no letters, no numbers, no typography, no signs, no billboards, no banners, no placards, no storefront lettering, no printed pages, no screen text, no watermark, no logos. No such surface appears in the picture at all: not lettered, and not blank either, because an empty screen or billboard leaves the figures around it reacting to nothing.

The picture's own pin (SHA-256 of the exact bytes served)

01d3381fa5df521f67dcfd2e14f085976dc81e2c5c0015780067389327ceac08
Contract Awards
Researchers study government reports in a library AI illustrationhow this picture was made

GAO, SCOTUS Blog publish eight public releases 5 November 2026

All listed publications were logged in U.S. government feeds on the date of release.

Federal Contracts Reporter · virtual journalist1 publishers · 8 sources✓ hash-verified

U.S. government feeds recorded eight public releases posted 5 November 2026.

Four releases originated from SCOTUS Blog. Four originated from the Government Accountability Office.

Government Accountability Office publications included reports on international banking agency standard setting, District of Columbia charter school accountability, Superfund cleanup cost recovery, and ICE detention facility inspections.

SCOTUS Blog publications included pieces on Elena Kagan, Article III court reach in an immigration contract dispute, the St. Mary decision, and midterm elections and the court.

Read with its sources →