WSJ : U.S. Warns Gulf of Possible Short, Intense Renewal of Iran War After Midte

U.S. Warns Gulf of Possible Short, Intense Renewal of Iran War After Midterms
There are new signs that the American and Israeli militaries are preparing a potential wave of strikes to muscle Tehran to the negotiating table

  • The U.S. told several Gulf Arab nations to prepare for a possible short, intense military campaign against Iran after the U.S. midterm elections.
  • President Trump is leaning toward a large postelection attack targeting Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, though he hasn’t made a decision.
  • The U.S. military is moving a Patriot system from Texas to beef up missile defenses and has moved troops off vulnerable bases in preparation.

DUBAI—The U.S. has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the U.S. midterm elections, people briefed on the conversations said.

The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the U.S. and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations.

The U.S. military is sending an additional Patriot system to Israel from Texas to beef up its missile defenses in the country, according to flight tracking data and two officials with knowledge of the movement. The U.S. has also moved troops off bases in the Middle East where they were vulnerable in preparation for an escalation, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

U.S. forces in the region have been restocking their munitions, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for strikes, some of the officials said. An additional aircraft carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit are also poised to join an armada of roughly 20 other warships operating in the Middle East next month, although some ships could rotate out.

President Trump hasn’t decided to go ahead but is leaning toward a large postelection attack that could target Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, people familiar with his thinking said.

The alternative would be to try to cut a deal. Diplomatic efforts by regional mediators continued but had yet to bear fruit.

“We may do another little Epic Fury,” Trump said at a rally last week, referring to the heavy U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign in the spring. “Or they’ll agree.”

The White House said it wouldn’t comment on “sensitive military plans that may or may not exist.”

“President Trump keeps all options on the table to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” the White House said.

The president has said he won’t attack Iran before the midterms.

The moves and related planning are meant to give Trump options should he decide to carry out a strike, people familiar with the planning said. The Defense Department said its job is to deliver such options.

Israel also has prepared plans and targets for a new attack, the Journal has reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to push for a resumption of strikes in hopes of degrading Iran’s strength and ultimately toppling the regime.

A return to airstrikes would mean a pivot from the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign. Tighter sanctions coupled with a naval blockade have cut off Iran’s oil sales for months, shut down much of its air links and cut into overland trade, tightening the squeeze on the country’s already spiraling economy.

“If there is a need to target a growing threat like missile reconstitution, President Trump should make that case publicly and with as much detail as possible,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a U.S. think tank. “⁠Otherwise, at the moment, the U.S. has a winning hand through maintaining sanctions and the blockade. It should stay the course.”

Many analysts believe Iran isn’t likely to capitulate under further attacks. Iran weathered more than 20,000 strikes by the U.S. and Israel during the most active phase of the war. It nevertheless has continued to attack ships in the Persian Gulf, target U.S. troops and warships, and bring tough demands to the negotiating table.

“I believe one of the biggest mistakes Israel and the United States continue to make is assuming that another round of strikes against Iran, including attacks on critical infrastructure or the elimination of senior officials, could somehow bring down the regime,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli military intelligence official.

Further bombing could cause the regime to further dig in and become more committed to its missile and nuclear programs, he said.

The U.S. and Israel destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear program in the shorter conflict of June 2025.

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that his agency hasn’t identified any activity to repair or reconstruct any of the facilities damaged by attacks in either of the two wars.

But he said his inspectors haven’t had access to the facilities to check and said the IAEA hasn’t been able to verify that Iran hasn’t diverted nuclear material. The U.S. has pushed Iran to allow inspectors to return, but it has resisted.

One of the remaining sites that has raised concern—Pickaxe Mountain—sits under hundreds of feet of rock.

Trump could use a fresh round of strikes to declare victory and then reduce America’s involvement in the war, even if those strikes don’t deliver a decisive blow, said Seth Jones, a defense and security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I don’t think anything is going to permanently set back their program,” Jones said of Iran’s nuclear work, but strikes would allow Trump to “start to walk away and say that you had again set back Iran’s nuclear program this time.”

Iran has warned through public and private channels that it would respond to any attack with harsh strikes on economic and civilian targets across the region. It made similar threats ahead of the war, then hit U.S. bases and diplomatic facilities as well as energy facilities and airports across the Gulf.

Any Iranian retaliation this time would come as the U.S. and its Gulf allies are scrambling to restock supplies of missile defenses strained by waves of Iranian attacks so far in the war.

Despite the damage done by the U.S. and Israel, Iran retains a stockpile of hundreds to thousands of missiles and has used the lull in fighting to shore up its defenses and prepare new plans for retaliation.

The country is assembling new ballistic missiles from stockpiled parts. Israeli officials are concerned by the speed with which Iran has been rebuilding.

Middle East mediators are scrambling to revive talks with Iran to head off a new wave of combat. So far they have had little luck, with the U.S. insisting on discussing Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran laying out tough demands for resuming talks.

WSJ : The Frustrating Wait for the Fancy Suites and Fast Wi-Fi Airlines Are Hypi

The Frustrating Wait for the Fancy Suites and Fast Wi-Fi Airlines Are Hyping
Travelers should curb their enthusiasm for promised upgrades to everything from lounges to seatback screens

NEW YORK—Tim Stehly splurged on Delta’s top-of-the-line Delta One seats to Ireland this fall, influenced by friends who raved about the airline.

The retired International Business Machines executive was no business-class newbie, having traveled on Emirates and Singapore Airlines, among others. He loved the Delta One lounge at JFK, but was disappointed by his outdated business-class seat as soon as he boarded. The pod was drab, he said, and didn’t have one of those privacy doors that are all the rage. The screen was tiny and the seats were narrow and tough to move around in when trying to sleep.

“It was not comfortable by any stretch,” he says.

That’s surprising at a time when airlines are adding frills nonstop in the race to woo business travelers and big spending vacationers.

Delta showed off swank new suites with extra-long beds, thicker padding and nooks and crannies galore just this month. Alaska Airlines raved about business-class upgrades and swank new lounges in Seattle (a pizza oven!) and Honolulu. American is bringing back seatback screens. And nearly every airline is hyping their new speedy Starlink Wi-Fi.

That doesn’t mean any of it is coming to an airplane or airport near you anytime soon. The new products are teased early and often but the rollouts are slow given the size and complexity of their fleets and, for lounges, lengthy construction timetables.

The reality is that many of the new frills you’re hearing about today are two years away, longer in some cases if you’re not in a top-tier market. For travelers like Stehly this can mean inconsistency and frustration.

I feel it every time I board a plane with crappy Wi-Fi.

During boarding for my Southwest flight from Dallas to Phoenix earlier this month, the gate agent broke the news that the Wi-Fi was out. Mere hours earlier, Southwest executives bragged that they’d be the first major U.S. airline to have fleetwide Starlink by the end of 2027.

What’s a traveler to do? Shop wisely and keep your expectations in check.

The first thing to do if the latest amenities are a must: Check out which plane you’ll be flying. No, you didn’t sign up to be an aircraft sleuth, but this will help avoid disappointment.

Airlines typically announce the aircraft type when they launch new service. You’ll also find it during booking. Check airplane seating plans on the AeroLOPA website or app, too. Sure, there could be a last-minute plane swap that will render all the research moot, but it’s a good starting point.

Stehly’s flight to Shannon, Ireland, was on an aging Boeing 767. The wide-body jets are the oldest in Delta’s fleet, some with more than 30 years of service, and headed for retirement over the next several years.

The airline won’t be retrofitting them with the plush new Delta One suites unveiled in New York. (Those are headed for Delta’s new Airbus A350-1000s, which begin arriving next summer, and on retrofitted A330s.) The 767s will get the new business-class menu and Missoni bedding Delta touted in New York, among other upgrades.

You don’t have to go far down a Reddit rabbit hole to find disappointing reports on Delta’s 767s. A post from late October about a Berlin to JFK flight on the jet called it a “very sad plane.” I wasn’t a fan on my first Delta One trip in 2024, booked so I could check out the new Delta One lounge.

So research your options in online travel forums for real-time feedback.

Mauricio Parise, Delta’s vice president of brand experience design, says the airline knows passengers want to know what to expect on each plane and is adding better images to its Delta One bookings page in December.

“What we don’t want to do is to depict something that doesn’t exist,” he says.

Alaska Airlines, fresh off its merger with Hawaiian Airlines and trying to catch up with its bigger rivals, is making a big push for travelers looking to splurge on travel. In Seattle this fall, it trotted out new business-class suites with exclusive lounges and dedicated airport check-in.

The latter is already in place in Seattle, but the new suites won’t start showing up until 2028. Ditto the airline’s first premium-economy seats, to be called Premium Reserve.

The airline’s first business-class lounge, the Aurora lounge in Seattle, won’t debut until late 2027 at the earliest. So passengers buying business-class tickets will have to settle for regular Alaska lounges until then.

I asked Alaska executives how they manage traveler expectations in the lag between flashy announcements and debut.

“It’s really on us to make sure we’re communicating with the guest in a consistent way, that we’re being open and authentic about when each of these things come out,” says Eric Edge, vice president of brand and marketing. “Our hope is that we’re being transparent.”

Few new airline amenities have been touted as much as Starlink Wi-Fi. United, American, Southwest and even Frontier are all in, each trying to get it on the most planes the fastest.

So finding poor or inoperable Wi-Fi against this backdrop is a recipe for frustration. United, which won’t have Starlink on all planes until the end of 2027, thinks it found the perfect solution to keep expectations in check.

The airline just announced a handy Starlink tracker. You can find out if your flight has it, but also check on the overall installation progress, even by major hub.

Now, if we could just get trackers for all these new airport lounges, fancier suites and seatback screens.

WSJ : China’s Car Industry Is Wowing the World—but Crashing at Home Domestic sal

China’s Car Industry Is Wowing the World—but Crashing at Home
Domestic sales have plunged, but the state-supported sector’s needed shakeout hasn’t begun; ‘so many competitors’

  • Chinese consumers bought about 22% fewer passenger vehicles through September this year compared with the same period last year.
  • China has plants capable of producing around 63 million light vehicles a year, more than triple the expected domestic sales for this year.
  • Chinese carmakers are exporting to overseas markets, with the five largest players grabbing an 11.7% share in Europe.

NANJING, China—Skyworth Auto’s ambitions are visible everywhere in its electric-vehicle showroom here. A video spins the story of a founder who, like a Chinese version of Elon Musk, slept in the factory to get the company up and running. A map touts its presence in 45 countries. A new sport-utility vehicle is on display.

Back in 2021, Skyworth said its main EV plant could make 100,000 vehicles a year. Its actual sales in China this year through September: 660.

A brutal season has arrived in China’s car market, among the most troubled in the world. Through September, Chinese consumers have bought about 22% fewer passenger vehicles this year than in the same period last year. This week, the head of a major Chinese car-industry group said sales for the full year would likely reach only 18.5 million vehicles, the worst performance since 2014.

In China, “there’s so many competitors, there’s a lot of sorting that’s going to happen, needs to happen for long-term viability,” said Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, in a call with Wall Street analysts in July.

The needed shakeout, however, isn’t happening yet in a country known globally for its advances in EV technology. The growth model that powered the industry’s swift rise is making it hard to hit the brakes now that times have turned bad, leaving the industry filled with companies like Skyworth in various states of distress.

For decades, local governments teamed up with the private sector to invest in the car industry. When EVs became a national priority in the last decade, Chinese cities—each hoping to become the Detroit of the EV era—poured billions of government dollars into local champions. The number of Chinese EV brands selling at least one product rose to a record 143 at the end of 2025, according to a tally by management consultant AlixPartners.

Now, in a country with a shrinking population, reliable big-city mass transit and a growing robotaxi industry, sales of passenger cars to regular Chinese families are unlikely to ever again record a sustained surge, analysts said. But cities and their private-sector partners are reluctant to admit that their lofty ambitions won’t be fulfilled, which would result in factory closures and lost jobs.


The industry’s woes aren’t just Beijing’s problem. Desperate for customers, Chinese carmakers are piling into overseas markets with hypercompetitive products developed in a market where workers are paid a fraction of European and American wages. Although Chinese carmakers generally can’t sell their vehicles in the U.S., the five largest players grabbed a 11.7% share in Europe in September.

“You get an earthquake in China, you get a tsunami outside,” said Michael Dunne, founder of advisory firm Dunne Insights.

Volkswagen, the global automaker most exposed to China, has embarked on its second big restructuring program in less than two years, targeting as many as 50,000 jobs. BMW is cutting around 8,000 employees following a profit warning that it blamed on accelerating declines in China. Chrysler owner Stellantis is losing money in Europe in part because of competition from Chinese brands.

About the only major market where Chinese automakers aren’t causing upheaval is the U.S., where tariffs and restrictions on Chinese vehicle technology have all but locked out the country’s automakers. General Motors and Ford are among the few automakers still pumping out relatively healthy profits.

Skyworth, which sells fewer than 100 cars a month, has benefited from local government support as it fights to stay alive—at least nominally. At two of its dealers in Nanjing this summer, a reporter found no cars, no customers and no employees. A Shanghai dealership listed on the company’s website turned out to be long-defunct. Yet the website shows new passenger-car models and advertises open jobs in research and development.

The local government of a district in Nanjing owns 5% of the maker of Skyworth passenger EVs, according to Chinese information provider Tianyancha. A year ago, that government’s website said the vehicle business controlled by Skyworth’s founder had received “the comprehensive support of government departments,” and that the government’s “concierge-style” service has cleared development obstacles for the enterprise.

Rescue force
China’s car business developed in two stages. Starting in the 1980s, state-owned industrial companies expanded rapidly, particularly through joint ventures with leading foreign automakers. The 2010s and early 2020s were a more entrepreneurial period when EV startups, often led by charismatic founders, teamed with local governments.

NIO, a Chinese EV pioneer listed on the New York Stock Exchange, was running out of money when the city of Hefei bailed it out early in 2020 with an investment equivalent to nearly $700 million. The city made NIO one of the anchors of an EV-centered industrial park in Hefei intended to employ tens of thousands of workers.

NIO stock soared as investors looked for the next Tesla, briefly making the Chinese company the world’s fourth most valuable automaker, ahead of GM.

That initial success triggered a wave of copycat deals between struggling Chinese EV makers and local governments, entrenching regional links between the private and public sectors, according to a recent paper by Fengming Lu of the Australian National University in Canberra and Xiao Ma of Peking University in Beijing.

Some startups got factories from local authorities for little money and tax credits for machinery, according to people familiar with the arrangements. Local banks provided easy financing.

In Beijing, smartphone maker Xiaomi won support from local officials for a car factory that it put up in three years, a speed unthinkable in the West. It opened in 2024 featuring cutting-edge equipment such as a huge die-casting machine that churns out entire rear-floor units—a technique pioneered by Tesla.

The proliferation of brands and vehicles has spurred widespread innovation. The world’s top battery maker is China’s CATL, which last year demonstrated flash charging of an EV battery in less than 10 minutes—a feat quickly matched by BYD, the biggest Chinese carmaker and the world’s biggest seller of EVs. Geely Automobile now says it can get a battery nearly full in less than five minutes.

Heavy investment made sense when the market was growing rapidly. As recently as 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, only a tiny elite in China could afford a family car. By the mid-2010s, more than 20 million vehicles were sold annually, making it the world’s largest car market.

Those who bet on EVs over traditional gasoline engines made the right call. In September, roughly two-thirds of new vehicles sold in China were full battery EVs or plug-in hybrids.

The problem is that the domestic growth has stopped, leaving way too much capacity. This year, China has plants capable of producing around 63 million light vehicles a year, according to data provider Mobility Global. That is more than triple the number of cars Chinese consumers are expected to buy this year.


NIO has lost more than $1 billion every year since 2021, and the stock is down 95% from its peak. Mercedes-Benz partner BAIC Motor, controlled by the Beijing city government, in late July issued a profit warning and said it was losing money because of intense competition. Even Xiaomi, which once had long waiting lists for its cars, is falling well short of its sales target for this year.

China’s struggling carmakers have a couple of options. One is to reduce prices to grab a bigger piece of a shrinking domestic pie. Chinese vehicle prices have fallen by almost one-fifth since the start of 2023, according to AlixPartners. In the first eight months of this year, the industry’s profit margin fell to a multiyear low of 3.6%, according to the China Passenger Car Association.


The second option is to export. China is on track to export 12 million vehicles this year, the car association’s head said, up from around a million annually at the beginning of this decade.

China overtook Japan as the world’s top auto exporter in 2023 by shipping inexpensive cars to Russia after Western producers pulled out. Today, the Chinese onslaught is reaching middle- and upper-income countries around the globe—the U.K., Germany, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil and more.

In the U.K., BYD is selling its flagship Seal hybrid sedan for the equivalent of around $44,000, more than $10,000 less than a similarly equipped Volkswagen Passat.

“These vehicles are sold at Chinese price points we cannot match with European cost structures,” said Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume in an August memo to staff.

In recent months, Germany’s once-towering trade surplus with China in automotive products has turned into a deficit. Germany—the country widely credited with inventing the automobile—is embracing Chinese brands, while German automakers are struggling in China.


Growth addiction
Beijing shows little sign of doing anything about its car mess, partly because it doesn’t enjoy full control. Local government officials who promoted car manufacturing are reluctant to pull the plug, said Tu Le, managing director of consultant Sino Auto Insights.

“How provincial governments get promoted is generating tax revenue, keeping people employed,” he said. “There is a disconnect between the central plan and what is happening locally.”

The average Chinese EV brand sold around 87,000 vehicles last year, according to AlixPartners, with a long tail of zombie brands below 1,000.

The rapid shift to EVs and plug-in hybrids means China also has too many old-school plants churning out cars with traditional internal combustion engines.

Volkswagen for decades dominated the Chinese market through joint ventures with state-owned automakers. It has already worked with its partners to shut three factories, helping to cut its production capacity in the country to roughly four million vehicles, from five million a few years ago.

Now the German company wants to trim by another half-million units. Last year it sold only around 2.6 million Volkswagens and Audis in the country, and this year sales have dropped by another 30%.

Volkswagen has invested heavily in a newer joint venture to develop and produce the kind of technology-packed EVs Chinese consumers now buy. Volkswagen considers the Chinese market too important to lose. GM in August extended its own key Chinese joint venture by another 20 years.

The Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing has expressed concern about what it calls “involution,” or excessive competition. It has called on automakers not to cut prices as much and to accelerate payments to struggling suppliers. In August, the government started a campaign to tighten oversight of car safety, expressing concern that “irrational competition” could lead carmakers to cut corners.

At the same time, Beijing’s ministry of commerce has warned against “hyping the so-called excess capacity of China.” It has attributed export growth to China’s economies of scale and other countries’ desire for a green transition.

At the Beijing auto show in April, nearly 1,500 vehicles were on display, and executives talked mostly about building and exporting more EVs and plug-in hybrids. More than 500 new car models were introduced in China in the first half of this year, according to Volkswagen.

One of the Chinese EV industry’s pioneers, XPeng founder He Xiaopeng, has said cars alone are no longer a viable business strategy, echoing Musk’s recent emphasis on Tesla’s Optimus robots and robotaxis. In a recent interview, He said his company was transforming itself into a builder of robotaxis and robots and the software powering them.

“It is important not to pursue low-margin growth alone,” said He, whose company fell deeper into the red this year after sales in China fell by double digits.

Last year, state-owned automakers Dongfeng and Changan simultaneously announced restructuring plans, fueling speculation about a merger and industry consolidation. But the plans were abandoned, with analysts observing that neither company’s hometown wanted to yield primacy to the other.

Lu of Australian National University said China successfully tempered excess capacity in its steel and aluminum industries in the 2010s, but cars were a harder nut to crack. “Car factories employ so many people and are so deeply embedded in local economies,” he said.

>>> US After Hours Summary: UCTT +10.7%, MANH +10.7%, ICLR +10.1%, PPG +7.4%, RB

After Hours Summary: UCTT +10.7%, MANH +10.7%, ICLR +10.1%, PPG +7.4%, RBBN +6.4%, WNEB +6.3%, ENSG +6.2% higher on earnings; INTA -17.5%, ENPH -15.8%, CSGP -11.0%, OI -8.4%, HOOD -7.4%, NXPI -7.3%, STX -5.8% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance:UCTT +10.7%, MANH +10.7%, ICLR +10.1%, PPG +7.4%, RBBN +6.4%, WNEB +6.3%, ENSG +6.2%, UMBF +3.1%, APAM +3.0%, CR +1.9%, VTR +1.5%, EEFT +1.3%, EXLS +1.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news:ULBI +144.5% (Agreed to be acquired by EnerSys for $16 per share in cash, valuing the deal at about $320 million.), SLDE +5.3% (Declared a $1.50-per-share special dividend and $0.07 quarterly dividend, both payable November 30.), KIDS +5.0% (Received FDA clearance for its pediatric femur retrograde nail system, with first procedures completed and broader commercialization planned for 2027.), AVPT +4.8% (Will join the S&P SmallCap 600 before trading opens November 2, replacing LXP Industrial Trust.), GLOB +1.4% (Launched Glob.AI OS, an enterprise AI governance platform supporting 320-plus models from more than 25 providers.)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance:INTA -17.5%, ENPH -15.8%, CSGP -11.0%, OI -8.4%, HOOD -7.4%, NXPI -7.3%, STX -5.8%, TER -5.7%, LOGI -5.2%, BBAI -4.2%, CAKE -3.2%, UHS -3.2%, LPLA -3.0%, MIR -2.7%, TRMK -2.1%, WM -1.8%, NOV -1.8%, V -1.7%, FFIV -1.6%, MCRI -1.5%, EXE -1.2%, MRP -1.2%, NTB -1.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news:RAPP -20.4% (Launches $200 million stock offering, $150 million convertible notes deal and concurrent private placement.), RRGB -2.0% (Announced two director resignations after substantially completing refranchising and securing a five-year, $115 million credit facility.), VC -1.2% (CFO Jerome Rouquet will depart November 30, with Chief Accounting Officer Colleen Myers appointed interim CFO.)