Three carriers, a thin payroll, and a G7 diesel bargain

World & Security

The Pentagon is sending roughly 9,000 troops toward the Middle East aboard a third aircraft carrier strike group and an amphibious ready group, a U.S. official told the Associated Press, as President Donald Trump again floated new strikes on Iran after the Nov. 3 midterms. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, sailing with the cruiser USS Chosin, and the USS Makin Island amphibious group—including the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage—could put three carriers in the region by the end of October, on top of the USS George H.W. Bush, USS George Washington, and USS Boxer already there. That would mean more than 20,000 sailors and Marines plus hundreds of aircraft, a crowding last seen in April for the first time since 2003. Trump, in a Time interview published Thursday, said it is “possible” he will ramp up bombing after the election and rejected Iran’s latest ceasefire offer, including an opening of the Strait of Hormuz he called “not good enough.” He also told reporters that early indications suggest Tehran is linked to a FlyDubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight. If that link is confirmed, he promised, Iran would “be hit very hard.” British authorities separately arrested a dual U.K.-Iranian national after a security incident near RAF Fairford, a base used by American bombers.

The war’s logistics are catching up with the talking points. The Pentagon awarded Raytheon a $24.4 billion, five-year contract, with two option years, to accelerate SM-6 missile production after Operation Epic Fury chewed through interceptors. The Defense Department inspector general said last month that munitions spending had produced “strategic inventory shortfalls,” and a Sept. 15 Congressional Budget Office report warned that the United States will have a reduced interceptor inventory for several years. Trump has brushed aside questions about the magazine; the contract is the quieter admission that combat-proven weapons still have to be manufactured.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at Quantico, ordered a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command—AutoWarCom—with a target date of Oct. 1, 2027, and an interim Project Agincourt run from the Pentagon’s unmanned-systems office. The memo names no commander, no budget, and no headcount, and it needs legislation Congress has not passed. Hegseth also commissioned Project Meridian, a 120-day future-warfare study co-directed by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich. Luckey founded Anduril, which sells drones to the department whose future requirements he is now helping to write; the department’s release said nothing about recusals. If you wanted a single picture of this week’s foreign policy, it would be three carriers steaming east while the industrial base tries to restock the magazine and the Pentagon’s drone czar waits on Capitol Hill.

Markets & Economy

U.S. employers added a disappointing 29,000 jobs in September and unemployment ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%, the Labor Department reported Friday, well short of the 90,000 economists had expected. Hiring dropped from a revised 133,000 in August. It is the last jobs report before elections that will decide whether Republicans keep Congress. The labor market remains the economist’s favorite oxymoron: “low-hire, low-fire.” Average hourly pay rose just 3.1% in August from a year earlier. Consumer confidence, by the Conference Board’s measure, is at a more-than-decade low. An AP-NORC poll found only 17% of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living and 26% of the economy overall—a new low—while 65% blame his policies more than factors outside his control.

Housing is not offering a consolation prize. Freddie Mac said the average 30-year fixed mortgage jumped to 7.28% from 7.03% last week, the highest since Nov. 22, 2023, and the sixth consecutive weekly increase. A year ago it was 6.34%. The 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide, was at 5.27% Thursday, up from 3.97% in late February before the Iran war. For a borrower financing a $400,000 loan, the rise from February’s 5.98% low is roughly an extra $276 a month.

Friday’s G7 videoconference, chaired by France’s Emmanuel Macron after an overnight call with Trump, produced a coordinated 100-million-barrel oil release through the International Energy Agency over four months, “front-loaded” with substantial diesel in the first 20 days. U.S. diesel averaged $6.37 a gallon Friday after a record $6.52 on Sept. 22. The G7 also agreed not to restrict energy exports to each other, undercutting Republican calls for a U.S. diesel export ban. Stocks liked the jobs miss: the S&P 500 rose 0.9%, the Nasdaq 1.5%, and traders cut the odds of an October Fed hike from 64% a week earlier to under 21%. Brent slipped 2% to $100.24. Wall Street’s message, as usual, was that a weaker labor market is excellent news for people who already have jobs in finance—and that 100 million barrels of political relief is a useful companion to a thin payroll.

Technology & Industry

Google put Tensor Processing Units into orbit for the first time aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare, a prototype for Project Suncatcher built with Planet Labs. It is not an orbital data center. The point is whether the chips survive launch, radiation, and space’s thermal sulk. Google’s longer-term pitch is that the right low-Earth orbits could deliver up to eight times more solar power than terrestrial panels; the economics still hinge on launch costs falling toward $200 per kilogram. Planet Labs made initial contact with the Tanager-2 prototype. Back on Earth, Amazon pledged more than $1 billion over five years—“Built Together”—for community college, job training, and local projects in data-center towns, plus a promise to stop using nondisclosure agreements with agencies going forward. AWS CEO Matt Garman said more than 100 data-center moratoriums are being considered and that opposition, which he called stoked by “misinformation,” threatens the U.S. AI lead. The $1 billion is about a tenth of 1% of Amazon’s projected $220 billion in capital spending this year. Microsoft already promised not to seek local tax breaks; Amazon did not.

Anthropic is considering an IPO as early as mid-November, with marketing possibly starting the week of Nov. 9, Bloomberg reported. Some prospective investors are considering a valuation of $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion. The company’s 2025 revenue was about $4.6 billion, but its operating loss exceeded $8 billion and its net loss nearly $42 billion, much of it from fair-value changes in liabilities. The FTC confirmed an inquiry into OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI firms over consumer risks; no findings or charges have been announced. Trump is expected to name Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as AI czar while Clayton keeps the intelligence job, sources told CBS News; the White House called that speculation until the president speaks. After a White House summit, Trump described a voluntary safety accord as “morally binding” and “almost like a constitution.” In Washington, that is how you describe a handshake that has not yet been litigated.

Politics & Policy

Senators left Capitol Hill Wednesday night and will not return until Nov. 9, with the dozen annual appropriations bills totaling about $1.8 trillion still unfinished—a stopgap runs to mid-December—the National Defense Authorization Act unresolved, and the farm bill still wandering. A bipartisan permitting-reform deal is teed up as a possible first lame-duck vote. Democrats have grown more optimistic about flipping the House and possibly the Senate amid cost-of-living anger, the Iran war, and unease over unrestrained AI. Agriculture Chairman John Boozman suggested, with the candor of a man not on the ballot, that some things get easier once Democrats no longer fear giving the president a win.

Courts kept rewriting immigration policy in real time. A second federal judge, Haywood Gilliam in the Northern District of California, blocked Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas pending proper notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. A Massachusetts court had already enjoined the original September 2025 proclamation. California, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon sued Trump and OMB Director Russell Vought over alleged impoundment of appropriated funds and a proposed $810 million rescission, more than half of it aimed at HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, granted review of whether noncitizens who entered without inspection and were later detained in the interior can be held without bond hearings—a 2025 DHS interpretation that the Second Circuit rejected.

Energy Innovation, a California think tank, modeled that households in the contiguous United States will pay an average $6,500 more for energy cumulatively through 2040 because of federal policy changes since Trump returned to office, with Oregon, Mississippi, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming around $9,000. The White House called the group partisan and said Trump is fixing a “grid crisis” left by Democrats. Voters, according to AP-NORC, are not yet convinced: about seven in ten say the Iran war has not been worth fighting, and only about three in ten approve of Trump’s job overall. The midterm argument is now less about who won the last campaign than about who owns the grocery bill.

Human Stories / Social Trends

Tennessee’s attempt to execute Christa Pike, 50, sentenced more than 30 years ago for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmon, collapsed after two full doses of pentobarbital. Lawyers said the team spent nearly an hour hunting for a vein—Pike, they said, tried to help them find one—and that witnesses heard snoring, choking, and struggle after curtains closed. She remains in critical condition. The state paused remaining executions. In Ithaca, Governor Kathy Hochul, losing faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, appointed Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor in the alleged October 2024 gang rape at Cornell’s Chi Phi house. Van Houten has said the woman’s initial account did not allege she was drugged or forced; Hochul said newly released information had undercut public faith in his office’s handling.

SpaceX’s Crew-13 docked at the International Space Station after an eight-hour flight, a U.S. speed record. Commander Jessica Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit. Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk’s wife is due in late November; NASA promised to keep him looped in. Off Mexico, Hurricane Rachel reached Category 3 with 120 mph winds about 245 miles from the southern tip of Baja California, while remnants of Hurricane Polo dumped a record 6.1 inches on Lincoln, Nebraska, and sent Omaha firefighters on 80 water rescues in three hours. And the Treasury began mailing $500 refunds to more than 950,000 full-price HealthCare.gov customers in 30 states—unsubsidized, often higher-income enrollees, automatically, with a letter signed by Trump. Against premiums that more than doubled for many after pandemic tax credits lapsed, it is a very specific kind of relief, arriving just in time for November.