The Wall Street Journal - 05.11.2026 — 2026-11-05

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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What's News

Business & Finance

◆ Stocks surged after American voters dealt a re-sounding blow to key pillars of Trump's economic agenda, with the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq rising 1.6%, 3% and 1.4%, respectively. A1

◆ AstraZeneca offered roughly \$10 billion to acquire Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a deal that would expand its portfolio of rare-disease treatments. B1

◆ Pharmaceutical company leaders scorned the AI industry's optimism about the technology's capacity for drug discovery, saying the complexities of the search defy the hype. B1

◆ Novo Nordisk raised its guidance for the year after noting an improved outlook for its key obesity and diabetes drugs, particularly in markets outside the U.S. B2

◆ McDonald's reported higher quarterly profit and revenue as solid performance across much of its international business offset sluggish U.S. sales. B3

◆ Uber's revenue growth slowed further in the latest quarter on weakness in its core ride-hailing business. B4

◆ BMW again cut its annual guidance, warning that its core automotive segment could slide to a loss based on a closely watched profitability metric. B5

◆ Volvo said its global sales fell 16% year-to-year in the three months through October, hit by weaker demand in the U.S. and China. B5

\- Alphabet's Google will invest \$15 billion in Malaysia to expand infrastructure, develop local talent and support clean-energy and -water initiatives. B4

Worldwide

◆ Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, a majority of governorships and more, massively rebuking Trump and Republicans by uniting around a message of affordability. A1, A3-7

◆ The president will have a veto pen for the next two years, limiting Democrats' ability to enact laws that reverse his policies and setting up potentially heated clashes. A5

◆ Vice President JD Vance vented his frustrations, blaming the Iran war for the GOP's losses and publicly repudiating the military campaign his boss still supports. A7

◆ House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wouldn't seek to lead Republicans in next year's Democratic-led Congress, starting the maneuvering to replace him. A3

\- Americans' vote for candidates and ballot measures to ban or slow data-center development could rein in artificial intelligence's rapid growth. A3

The final results of Alaska's close Senate race might not be known for weeks because of the state's use of ranked-choice voting. A3

◆ New York Attorney General Letitia James stepped back from the criminal investigation into the alleged 2024 sexual assault at Cornell University. A2

◆ A state appellate court ruled that the rollout of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax was legal and can proceed. A2

♦ North Korea accelerated a series of missile tests, spurning U.S. diplomatic overtures with a growing list of demands. A10

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New Era in Washington

Democrats keep spotlight on the economy, winning control of the House and Senate in a stinging rebuke of Trump

New York Democrats Chuck Schumer, left, who is poised to be Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, in line to be speaker of the House, celebrated the party's sweeping election victories on Wednesday and talked of delivering change.

Senate

31 not up

\*Includes two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

House

Democrats

Net gain 30

Source: Associated Press

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, a majority of governorships and more in a massive mid-term rebuke of President Trump and Republicans. In doing so, they pulled off a feat that has bedeviled them for years: uniting around a message, affordability.

As of 10 p.m. ET Wednesday

By John McCormick, Sabrina Rodriguez and Ken Thomas

The party mostly managed to keep the spotlight on the economy as candidates drove home that the Republican president's policies are hurting pocket books. Centrist and far-left candidates alike drilled down on the economy and largely avoided being drawn into culture wars that Republicans promoted on the campaign trail and that have cost Democrats in recent elections.

High fuel and food prices were a top voter concern, with 89% saying the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in how they voted for Congress, according to the Voter Poll for the Associated Press and the major television and cable news networks.

Republicans

Democrats also largely managed to pick high-quality candidates able to appeal even to independent voters in a number of critical races, including in states Republicans have dominated for decades such as Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.

The sizable Democratic win reverberated on Wednesday. Trump and Vice President JD Vance both blamed the president's war with Iran for the Please turn to page A4

By Josh Dawsey, Alex Leary, and Lindsay Wise

policies might be making America great again.

Household income was up, particularly among low-income Americans. Retirement accounts were soaring. And

AI backlash

AI backlash

Tech world rattled as voters back curbs on data centers. A3 the nation's economic growth was even better than projected.

“This is great stuff,” said Trump. He had completed his first year back in office, and his power seemed limitless. The president had complete control of Congress, U.S. business leaders were following his lead and the Democrats were in disarray.

Within days, Trump made a decision that would change everything.

Please turn to page A6

Biggest swings

Independents, Latinos made major shifts from 2024. A4

Election Results Push the Dow Up More Than 1,500 Points

Index performance on Wednesday

Source: FactSet

Markets surged on Wednesday after U.S. voters dealt a resounding blow to key pillars of President Trump's economic agenda, from an unrestrained artificial-intelligence build-out to the costly war in the Middle East.

By David Uberti, Jack Pitcher and Sam Goldfarb

Democrats swept both houses of Congress and won several gubernatorial races in part because of backlash to the data-center developments that Trump championed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3% or 1,569

Democrats' agenda

Congress will weigh Trump

probes and new policies. A5 points, notching its best day since early April 2025, when Trump paused plans to impose sweeping tariffs on most

Vance blames conflict for sinking party's chances. A7

Iran war

of the world. The S&P 500 climbed 1.6%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 1.4%.

Please turn to page A7

Foreign policy

Democrats face limits in

checking president. A7

How to Save a Rare Ferret: Tiny Gas Masks, Magic Plungers

\* \* \*

Nocturnal biologists pull graveyard shifts chasing weasels on South Dakota's prairie

BY AMIRA MCKEE

CONATA BASIN, S.D.—To the nocturnal creatures of South Dakota's sweeping prairie, Travis Livieri fancies himself an alien abductor.

On a recent night just past 2 a.m., Livieri coaxed his dusty pickup through the dark grasslands with one hand while sweeping a spotlight across a sea of prairie-dog mounds with the other. Every so often, a pair of eyes caught the beam.

Livieri doesn't need more than a glint to know what's out there. Deer's eyes flash white. Coyotes, a ghostly green.

Then, two bright emerald eyes appeared low in the grass. "Gotchal!" Livieri grinned.

For the black-footed ferret staring back, the night was about to get strange.

Livieri, a field biologist who has spent 32 autumns chasing one of North America's most endangered predators, scooped up a wire trap containing the furious, hissing carnivore and sped back to "Ferret Camp"—a cluster of trailers parked on a bison ranch.

Inside his trailer, he deployed a tool he invented: a broom handle wrapped in paper towels and duct tape, lovingly dubbed the “magic ferret plunger.” With a gentle shove, he guided the animal out of the trap and into an anesthesia chamber rigged from duct tape and PVC pipe. Four minutes later, the wild predator had collapsed into a limp, furry noodle.

“They’re cool to hold,” said Tevin Messerly, who manages the black-footed ferret program at Montana’s Fort Please turn to page A12

INSIDE

PERSONAL JOURNAL

Christmas comes early for cruise fans who can't get enough of the holiday. A11

Inside CVS's Key Decision To Split Up Health Giant

SPORTS

The 20-year-old who ended Italy's 73-year wait for a Formula One champion. A14

BY ANNA WILDE MATHEWS AND ALEXANDER SAEEDY

Inside CVS Health, a small group of top executives spent months engaged in a strategic review that developed into a secret plan: A decision to split up the \$400 billion healthcare giant, hiving off its ubiquitous pharmacies.

It was an unlikely and radical step. The stores, with CVS's signature red-letter logo, weren't only how Americans thought of CVS but also the heart of its identity as a healthcare giant. Chief Executive David Joyner, a longtime company veteran, rejected a split when he landed the top job in 2024.

This year, the CVS C-suite's annual planning exercise delivered a different verdict. The company should break off its drugstores from the Aetna health-insurance unit and Caremark pharmacy-benefit manager. The breakup, revealed Tuesday, will put

Aetna and Caremark into one company, and the roughly 9,000 retail pharmacies into another.

The logic: Its balance sheet was strong enough to support two companies, and the breakup will create more agile, focused firms. “It basically gives you confidence and strength about how each of the businesses are going to perform,” Joyner said in an interview.

The board supported the move. CVS wanted to get ahead of dynamics reshaping the healthcare market. Regulators appeared increasingly hostile to healthcare conglomerates.

The breakup is a reversal of a strategy that the company said would reduce healthcare costs and improve care by uniting insurance with its legacy retail-pharmacy business. It also promises to unwind one of the U.S.'s healthcare behemoths, and potentially

Please turn to page A2

JEENAH MOON/REUTERS

SARAH STIER/GETTY IMAGES

James Steps Back From Cornell Probe

New York attorney general appoints private lawyer to lead investigation

BY CORINNE RAMEY

New York Attorney General Letitia James is stepping back from the criminal investigation into the alleged 2024 sexual assault at Cornell University, instead appointing a private lawyer to weigh whether fraternity brothers named by the accuser will face charges.

James handed the investigation to Jacqueline Kelly, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor with experience in sex-trafficking cases who is a partner at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner. Kelly will lead a team of lawyers and staffers from Boies Schiller and James's office, the attorney general's office said.

While Kelly will report to James, James herself won't be involved in the probe and all decisions will be made by Kelly and her team. James said she was confident Kelly would "lead a fair and comprehensive investigation."

New York Attorney General

Letitia James

The case created a firestorm after the accuser, known as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit accusing the school of failing to protect her from an alleged gang rape by fraternity members. Demo-

cratic Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed James as a special prosecutor after expressing concern about how the probe had been handled by the local district attorney. But James, a Democrat who was elected Tuesday to a third term, faced criticism because her office lacked expertise in sex-crimes prosecutions—and because she had expressed solidarity with the accuser.

“What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable,” James said in a social-media post. “I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you.”

James later defended the statement, made days before her appointment, by saying she was expressing empathy.

Two potential defendants have sought to remove James from the investigation, arguing the attorney general's comments showed she had prejudged the case. A lawyer for one of them, Andrew Miltenberg, said Wednesday that he remained concerned that James hadn't formally recused herself from the case.

Kelly served in the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office for nine years. She supervised the prosecution of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was convicted of prostitution offenses. She also worked on the case of a doctor who sexually abused patients.

She earned her law degree at Columbia, and in 2007 graduated from Cornell.

NYC's Pied-à-Terre Tax Is Legal, Court Rules

Billionaires' Row in New York City. Mayor Mamdani came into office promising to tax the rich.

BY JAMES FANELLI

A state appellate court ruled Wednesday that the roll-out of Zohran Mamdani's new pied-à-terre tax was legal and can move forward, putting one of the New York City mayor's signature policies on firmer footing.

The decision reverses a lower court's ruling that said the surcharge unlawfully put the burden on homeowners to prove their residency status when city officials should have verified that information themselves. In the earlier ruling, Justice Wayne Ozzi, of Staten Island, ordered the city to redo its implementation of the tax, which targets second homes valued at \$5 million or more.

A group of property owners filed a lawsuit against the city in the summer, saying the Mamdani administration caused mass confusion when it published an online list of about 900,000 residential properties that included homes potentially subject to the tax. The list, which included owners' names, invited public scrutiny and ridicule, the plaintiffs alleged.

The appellate court said local tax assessors publish similar lists of properties and the plaintiffs didn't demonstrate that they suffered harm because of the release of the list.

"These public and pub-"

lished assessments contain much of the same information as the supplemental roll at the heart of this appeal," the four-judge panel wrote in a unanimous ruling.

New York state lawmakers passed the second-home tax earlier this year at the urging of Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who campaigned on a promise to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

The appeals court rejected "an attempt by the ultrawealthy to avoid paying their fair share," the mayor said Wednesday. "From day one, those with the most have attempted to use every legal avenue available to shield their wealth and avoid contributing more to our city."

Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the ruling will hurt local property owners. "What the city has done here is unconscionable—trying to ensnare thousands of people who don't owe this surcharge into having to prove they live in their own homes or else have to pay," he said. "But now, this lawless and chaotic data collection scheme will go unremedied."

The mayor rankled the city's elite when he announced the new levy in a video outside billionaire financier Ken Griffin's \$238 million Manhattan apartment.

As part of the rollout, the city also mailed 17,000 notices to a more targeted set of property owners than those on the online list. The narrower group needed to prove their home was their primary residence or face being subject to the tax, but the plaintiffs said many of the notices went to people who weren't subject to the tax and now had to prove their residency. They argued the city officials could have taken additional steps—including reviewing recent tax filings—to determine who was a resident of the city before sending out the mass notices.

The appeals court panel said that simply having received the notice didn't constitute a harm to the owners. "All taxpayers incur time, effort, and costs in determining and complying with their various tax obligations," the decision said. "In any event, the petitioners have not documented and quantified any actual costs incurred."

Mamdani came into office with an ambitious slate of promises to tax the wealthy and help make the city more affordable—several of which have faced legal challenges.

The pied-à-terre tax faces two additional lawsuits that allege the tax itself violates the state and federal constitutions. The plaintiffs argue the tax unfairly singles out nonresidents who can't vote against the lawmakers imposing the levy.

Why CVS Decided To Split

Continued from Page One shake up where and how patients get their medicines.

Regulators and lawmakers have shown signs of growing hostility to healthcare conglomerates like today's CVS, including state laws designed to split pharmacies from pharmacy-benefit managers. One of those state laws, in Tennessee, is set to take effect in the middle of 2028, after the CVS breakup is scheduled to occur.

The news of the split broke on election day, as a wave of Democratic candidates were voted in, many with promises to try to bring down the cost of healthcare.

Wall Street doesn't like the move. Despite earnings that beat analyst expectations, CVS shares dropped more than $12\%$ Wednesday, the biggest one-day decline since January. The company's valuation plunged by more than \$14 billion.

Among investor concerns are worries about the future of a pure-play pharmacy company, despite CVS's recently improved retail results, and questions about whether the broken-up company might lose some financial advantages.

“Virtually all the feedback is negative/doubting/questioning why now,” wrote Leerink Partners analyst Michael Cherny, who said he felt the reaction was overblown.

Joyner on Wednesday framed the divorce as a forward-looking business move that will better position the two companies for growth in an evolving healthcare market. The products that CVS has created as a combined company can continue, he told analysts, while the smaller companies will be better able to work with other firms.

The drugstores, which had

CVS Health segment revenue

PHARMACY & CONSUMER WELLNESS

\$60 billion

Sources: the company (revenue); FactSet (performance)

CVS will put its 9,000 retail pharmacies into a separate firm.

MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR WSJ

been firewalled from the company's drug-benefit unit, can now work with other healthcare payers and “leverage our footprint in very different ways,” said Prem Shah, the CVS executive who will lead the post-spinoff pharmacy firm.

Founded as the Consumer Value Store selling health and beauty products from a single location in southeastern Massachusetts in 1963, the company, renamed CVS, catapulted up the ranks of retailers as the healthcare industry grew. It sought to move into more lucrative sectors in more recent years, first paying around \$21 billion for Caremark in 2007.

The current CVS is the result of a nearly \$70 billion merger in 2018 with Aetna.

Executives at the time said the deal would position the company to tackle two of the biggest issues affecting healthcare: soaring spending and access to care, particularly for chronic conditions. Analysts said it might better position the company to negotiate with drugmakers.

Yet the combination didn't click with the company's customers. Increasing numbers of patients shopped on the internet, rather than stopping by bricks-and-mortar drugstores. Lawmakers and regulators scrutinized the business practices of prescription-benefit managers like Caremark. Healthcare costs kept rising, and employers weren't sold on the promise of fused insurance, drug-benefit and pharmacy functions.

“They’ve never been able to prove why this added business advantage for” clients such as large employers, said Adam Fein, president of Drug Channels Institute. The breakup will allow the pharmacy unit to negotiate better deals with competitors to CVS’s pharmacy-benefit manager, he said.

Behind the scenes, company officials were re-evaluating the setup. In 2024, repeated earnings shortfalls led to a plunging stock price and pressure for change from activist hedge fund Glenview Capital Management. The board began considering a shake-up. It engaged bankers as part of a study of the company's options.

Eventually, the board decided to oust its then-CEO and bring in Joyner, a CVS veteran who pledged to keep CVS intact while fixing its operations. He had worked at CVS or predecessor companies nearly his entire career, including Aetna and Caremark.

Glenview founder Larry Robbins joined the CVS board. But his firm had said it wasn't pushing for a breakup. Instead, he supported share buybacks, according to people familiar with the matter. Robbins left the board in August.

The shift that put a split back on the table was a financial turnaround at Aetna and recently improved results at the retail pharmacies. "The thing that we didn't have two years ago is the financial flexibility to be able to run and operate these businesses," Joyner said.

CVS's healthcare benefits segment, which includes Aetna, had revenue of \$143 billion last year. The unit that includes the company's 9,000 drugstores had \$139 billion in revenue, while the segment that includes Caremark had \$190 billion. Board members, meanwhile, were concerned about a range of issues including mounting regulatory pressure, people familiar with the deliberations said.

U.S. WATCH

BOSTON

Charges Tossed in Frog Embryos Case

A federal judge on Wednesday granted a government motion to dismiss all charges against a Russian-born scientist who was accused of smuggling frog embryos into the U.S.

Kseniia Petrova, who was conducting cancer research for Harvard Medical School, was indicted last year on one count of concealment of a material fact, one count of false statement and one count of smuggling goods into the U.S. She said she didn't realize the items needed to be declared.

The case began to fall apart in April, after a federal judge ruled a customs officer improperly canceled Petrova's visa over the incident. Petrova had been briefly detained by immigration officials and feared being deported to Russia and imprisoned there.

—Associated Press

Johnson Won’t Seek Minority Leader Job

BY OLIVIA BEAVERS

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wouldn't seek to lead Republicans in the next year's Democratic-led Congress following deep losses in the midterms, setting off a scramble to replace him.

The Louisiana conservative's term as speaker runs through the end of this term. He announced his decision on an all-staff call Wednesday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, while saying he planned to stay in Congress. The announcement came after Johnson spoke with President Trump, the person said. "This was not an easy decision," Johnson wrote in a letter to his GOP colleagues. "But the demands of serving in leadership are immense, and they require sacrifices not only from those entrusted with the responsibility, but also from the families who support them."

Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who have fought to lead the party in the past, both quickly announced plans to run for minority leader.

Jordan was the first GOP candidate to announce his bid. In a Dear Colleague letter Wednesday morning, he described the GOP wipeout as “a staggering day” for the party. He pitched himself as an outsider with fresh views who could lead the party after a stunning defeat and push back against Democrats’ investigations.

“For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us. That will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democrat majority,” he wrote. “I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook.”

Scalise's letter to Republicans followed about an hour later, with the current No. 2 House Republican casting himself as someone who is “ready to lead on day one.” Scalise, who survived a near fatal shooting in 2017 and has served in party leadership for more than a decade, also appeared to contrast himself with Jordan, a onetime party dissident. He wrote: “I have spent my entire career striving to unify our conference and get the best out of our members.”

The race for GOP leader will be a rematch for the two well-known Republicans, who had a messy and bruising fight for speaker nearly three years ago.

Data Centers Draw Voters' Anger

AI growth outlook is re-evaluated after election results indicate hesitancy

The biggest names in America's artificial intelligence boom gathered at the San Francisco opera house on election night for a show hosted by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Several towns in Ohio voted to halt or curb data-center projects. Voters were urged to support a ban this week in Columbus.

By Will Parker,

Anissa Gardizy

and Amrith Ramkumar

They were there to see “The Marriage of Figaro.” But over wine and passed hors d’oeuvre, executives in tuxedos buzzed about an emerging threat to their industry, people in attendance said: Election results were coming in overwhelmingly against the massive buildout of computing capacity that Silicon Valley is counting on to power its future.

'Thinking about your vote for Congress, how important to you was AI data centers?'

Source: Associated Press exit polls

Note: As of 12:30 p.m. ET Wednesday

By Wednesday morning, senior leaders at OpenAI were discussing whether the results meant the firm would have to reset expectations regarding its data-center capacity next year, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Americans' vote for candidates and ballot measures to ban or slow data-center development could rein in AI's rapid growth and become a business challenge for companies.

Tech companies were already struggling to secure enough computing power to meet growing demand for their products. If construction stalled, an already fragile situation could turn dire.

Voters backed Democratic candidates, from Ohio and Michigan to Texas and Georgia, who have been critical of data-center construction and pledged to slow or pause their rollout. More than a dozen towns in Ohio also voted to halt or restrict new development. Similar bans passed in towns in Kansas, Florida and California—a near universal rejection across dozens of measures that signals growing bipartisan opposition.

Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa lamented during her campaign that the state had become a “wild west” for data-center development. “It stops when I’m governor,” the Democrat said.

Texas, Georgia and Ohio account for more than 40% of all planned data-center capacity in the U.S., according to investment bank Evercore ISI. OpenAI's Stargate is under construction in Texas, and the company is planning another data-center effort—Project Camellia—in Georgia. Meta is building a large data center in Texas and another dubbed

Prometheus in Ohio.

Anthropic, which signaled that it could spend up to \$895.4 billion on computing power in coming years, warned investors last month in a securities filing that moratoriums could delay or prevent the construction of facilities it needs.

The vote results come against a backdrop of concern about AI over issues ranging from hacking and job losses to data centers' strain on local power and water systems.

There were few concrete details from Democrats elected on promises of everything from outright bans to more scrutiny. But slowing the rapid growth of properties that house the hardware for AI systems could upend one of the main drivers of U.S. economic growth. A large number of projects already approved for construction will continue, offering another dose of growth and investment for the near-term. Still, some future projects, some well into the planning stages, could be scrapped or at least delayed.

“This is probably going to elongate the times for the data-center buildout,” Sequoia Capital partner Pat Grady said at the WSJ Tech conference Wednesday. “That’s probably the most tangible impact of what happened with the elections.”

AI investment is projected to account for 1.9% of gross domestic product this year, according to Goldman Sachs,

the biggest share of economic growth for the build out of a new industry since the railroad boom in the 19th century. And 750,000 new jobs in the U.S. from 2023 through Sep-

tember were also tied to AI, LinkedIn estimates show.

Shares of data-center companies extended a recent stretch of volatility Wednesday, with CoreWeave sliding nearly 10% and Applied Digital falling almost 7%. Investors had sold bonds tied to CoreWeave and other companies in the sector in recent weeks due to fears about higher interest rates and their debt levels. Many in the tech industry had also been bracing for data-center activity to slow down because of bipartisan backlash. "Now with this blue wave I think it'll slow down even more," Brad Gerstner, a venture capitalist who invests in AI companies, said on the "All-In" tech podcast late Tuesday, adding that roughly $25\%$ to $35\%$ of next year's data-center buildout in the U.S. could be at risk.

Voters backed candidates who pledged to slow or pause data-center rollouts.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk poured nearly \$500 million into the midterms, while others in the sector donated tens of millions of dollars to efforts to elect candidates who would be more open to data-center development.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk said on X early Wednesday, referring to his idea of locating the facilities

in orbit to avoid challenges building them on Earth. He resides in Texas, and SpaceX is based there.

"The revolt against data centers was one of the top issues of the

2026 election," said Rep. Greg Casar (D., Texas), a progressive who was re-elected and supports a nationwide moratorium on new data centers. Casar believes the anti-AI sentiment will define future elections. "In a few years we will look back on it as just the early tremor of a much bigger AI earthquake upending American politics."

About 56% of voters nationally said data centers were either a crucial or major factor in their picks for Congress, according to a national survey conducted by polling firm SSRS.

The data-center build out has buoyed economic growth at a time when overall hiring has slowed and other economic sectors have stagnated. The boom has also flooded many rural communities with investments and property-tax revenue. Tech companies have paid for new fire houses. In Richland Parish, La., tax revenue linked to Meta paid for \$50,000 bonuses for public school teachers.

Tiffany O'Donnell, mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said at the WSJ Tech conference that two data centers under construction have been a boon to her city. They have attracted \$8 billion in capital investments and tens of millions of community benefit dollars.

Still, the projects have come at political cost. O'Donnell's family and dog were threatened by a resident angry over the data centers. Detractors have given her the nickname "Tiffany O'Data Center."

Matt Sforza, a 35-year-old teacher in Sunbury, Ohio, said Tuesday he planned to vote for a local ban on data centers. He worried about damage to the water supply and other environmental hazards.

"I think we kind of need them, just to keep up with the demands of all the things they do," said Sforza, who used to vote Republican but said he has swung Democrat in recent years. But it "feels like there might be a better way to do it than putting it right next to schools and people's houses."

The Sunbury ban passed in a landslide.

Alaska Contest Set to Take Weeks For Final Count

BY LINDSAY WISE

AND JOSEPH DE AVILA

The final results of Alaska's close Senate race might not be known for weeks, because of the state's use of ranked-choice voting.

Less than 1,000 votes separated Democratic challenger Mary Peltola and GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan as of Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. About three-quarters of votes had been counted, with both Peltola and Sullivan with less than 50% of the counted votes.

Another candidate named Dan Sullivan, an independent who Republicans say was encouraged to run to siphon votes from them, had drawn more than 3,500 votes.

In Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, the tally won't happen before Nov. 18, the deadline for absentee ballots, so the winner might not be known for weeks.

Democrats Win Control Of Texas State House

BY TERELL WRIGHT

Democrats won a majority in the Texas House of Representatives, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, following victories in the state's races for governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate. It is the first time the party has held control of the Texas House in more than two decades.

Texas Democrats needed to flip at least 14 seats to gain control and could pick up even more when all votes are counted. While Republicans maintained control of the state Senate, the Democratic victories in the governor's mansion and lower chamber diminished the GOP's power.

Democrats also won in several state executive offices, including for attorney general.

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To win control of the House and Senate, Democrats on Tuesday fractured the coalition that had elected Donald Trump to the White House two years ago.

The Voters Who Swung Congress Away From Trump Voting shifts in these groups helped Democrats win districts that two years ago backed the president

By Danny Dougherty, Aaron Zitner and Anthony DeBarros

Donald Trump won some current House districts in 2024 by as much as 66 percentage points, and in the 2026 midterms Republicans were able to hold on to the House districts where Trump's support was strongest. But Democrats were able to build a House majority by winning districts that Trump had carried by as much as 16 points.

Share of votes for Democrats, by Independents

Vote margin among Latinos

Big groups in the voter pool shifted away from Trump and his party, among them independent voters and Latino voters, particularly Latino women. Latino women chose the Democratic candidate for Congress by a margin of 36 percentage points, up from 21 points in 2024, according to a national survey of more than 79,000 voters who participated in the midterms.

Latino voters were particularly important in Texas, where they made up 25% of the voter pool. The shift there was dramatic: Trump won Latino voters by 1 percentage point in 2024. Democrat James Talarico won them by 34 points this year in his successful Senate campaign.

Share of votes for Democrats, by age

Vote margin among white voters, by college-graduation status

Democrats drew a significantly higher share of young voters in 2026 than two years earlier, gaining 20 points among those age 18 to 29.

Democrats also made further inroads with white voters, as previously thin margins among college-educated whites extended to an almost 20-point margin. While non-college whites remained a Republican-leaning cohort, even that share slipped. The shift among non-college white voters was important in states such as Ohio, where they make up half of the electorate.

Sources: WSJ analysis of Associated Press results (House districts); The Voter Poll by SSRS, conducted on behalf of seven major news organizations, interviewed about 100,000 registered voters between Oct. 19 and Nov. 3 to produce a national sample of more than 79,000 and state-level samples for all 50 states. Interviews were conducted at voting locations, online and by telephone. The overall margin of sampling error for voters was expected to be plus or minus 0.6 percentage point nationally and varies by state. (share and margin of votes); AP VoteCast (2022-24)

House map

James Talarico appeared in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday night.

Senate map

Note: As of 6 p.m. ET Wednesday

\*With $74\%$ in Alaska and $96\%$ in Mississippi expected total vote reporting, the Democratic candidate was leading by 0.3 and 0.1 percentage points respectively.

Source: Associated Press

Blue Wave Wallops The GOP

Continued from Page One party's heavy midterm losses, with Vance, a possible future presidential candidate, saying "everyone knows why we lost." Races continued to be called in Democrats' favor, including one that took out the head of the House GOP campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. Stock investors largely cheered the Democrats' gains, with major indexes rising sharply even as certain stocks and indexes took a hit because of the changing political landscape.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) told staffers Wednesday he was ruling out a bid to continue to lead Republicans when they are in the minority next year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Democrats will enter 2027 with a comfortable Senate majority—54 seats won and the party leading in two uncalled races—and a House majority expected to rival the size that Barack Obama had in his first term as president. In one of those uncalled races, Democrat Scott Colom in Mississippi was leading Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by just dozens of votes as of Wednesday afternoon.

The wins were impressive in both scale and geographic breadth, potentially altering the map for the 2028 presidential election. Starting in 2027, Democrats will hold all the governorships in all seven battleground states that decided the 2024 presidential election. And their success could expand the presidential map, making the possibility of competing for electoral votes in traditional Republican states like Texas a reality.

Democrats fielded candidates with a range of backgrounds and political profiles, some of which had endorsements from both the progressive and centrist wings, including Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer in Texas; Sam Forstag, a former smokejumper in Montana; Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker in Ohio; and two clergy members in Iowa. Those candidates all either won or were leading in their race.

The results also underscored how quickly the coalition Trump assembled in 2024 unraveled. Many of the groups, like young and Latino voters, that propelled his return to the White House swung back toward Democrats.

Democrats after two years out of power in Washington made their gains despite a deeply unpopular brand. The Voter Poll showed the Democratic Party is viewed unfavorably by 52% of midterm voters, compared with 60% for the Republican Party.

"After 2024, the Democratic brand was in the toilet. It was really at a low point and it still needs a lot of work," said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist. "But 2026 is where the Democratic comeback begins. It's going to be a bigger-tent party."

How the party moves forward in 2027 will have serious implications for a 2028 presidential primary race that will start almost immediately. Some in the party are debating the message voters sent, with progressives pointing to wins in presidential battleground states and calling for a shift to the left in the party's agenda.

"The risk for Democrats is that we start arguing about which ideological car we're going to drive before we have agreement on where we're going," said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who advised then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats touted their candidates for being messengers with credibility, committed to public service and holding a real connection to their districts, part of the party's strategy to reclaim working-class voters.

As Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, watched early

returns foreshadowing a strong night for the party, he noted that Democrats had recruited “doctors and nurses and pastors and farmers and union leaders and educators and police the New York and New Jersey suburbs and maintained his strength in northern Maine.

Those gains appeared to be dashed in this week's election: Democrats ousted Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the longest-serving GOP

officers and firefighters and combat veterans—people who have already lived a life of service to their community.”

longest-serving GOP

Democrats benefited from the pain rural America is feeling from the spike in fuel and fertilizer prices that have followed the president's trade policy and the war in Iran.

from Trump's tariffs and the Iran war.

Democrats have dominated the Northeast in recent cycles, although Trump made inroads during the 2024 campaign in

In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton snapped a nearly 100-year winning streak for Republicans in the state's Senate races. The Methodist pastor cast himself as a “radical centrist,” securing a win in a state Trump carried by 16 percentage points in 2024.

woman in the Senate.

State Auditor Rob Sand became the first Democrat to win Iowa's governorship in two decades, running almost as a nonpartisan candidate and criticizing both Republicans and Democrats as he called for more government accountability. He won by 11 percentage points, a stunning 24-point swing, from Trump's margin there in 2024.

The party also won open-seat governorships in Wisconsin and Michigan, while Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, was re-elected in a landslide victory.

cratic-held seats that Texas Republicans had redrawn to be more favorable to the GOP during mid-decade redistricting. But Democrats held both of those seats—and they flipped a Republican seat in a neighboring district that Trump won by 18 percentage points in 2024.

In ruby-red Texas, Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat, the governor's mansion and several other statewide races, a stunning feat in a state where the party hadn't won a statewide race since 1994. There, Senate candidate James Talarico and gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa ran on a populist message, emphasizing affordability, fighting corruption and taking on the billionaire class. Hinojosa's victory, in particular, sent shock waves through political circles. She unseated three-term Gov. Greg Abbott, a Trump ally and architect of conservative policies.

Democrats won Midwest races in states that Trump had won by double digits.

Jonathan Cowan, president of a group called Third Way that is trying to push Democrats more to the center, said there is a risk party progressives will misinterpret the message from voters.

In that district, Pulido, the Tejano singer, ran as a moderate focused on affordability. Part of Pulido's approach was one that a number of Democrats embraced in 2026: distancing themselves from partisan politics and criticizing their own party. His campaign slogan was "Not team red, not team blue. Team you."

"There is one fact that just can't be argued away: moderates made both the Senate and House majority," he said.

A similar campaign approach was run by state Rep. Josh Turek, who became the first Iowa Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat since 2008. The two-time basketball Paralympic gold medalist sold himself as someone willing to buck his own party, while also benefiting from headwinds faced by his GOP opponent

In New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas trounced former Sen. John Sununu, a member of the state's most durable Republican family, by

Democrats also won a majority in the Texas House of Representatives, marking the first time the party has held control of that chamber in more than two decades.

Across Texas and beyond, Latino voters swung back toward Democrats, marking a sharp reversal from 2024 when many shifted toward Trump. Nowhere was that shift more evident than in South Texas.

nearly 15 percentage points to win a Senate seat.

In the Rio Grande Valley, Republicans—at Trump's urging—had targeted two Demo-

Cowan pointed to how all the Senate seats flipped by Democrats featured more moderate candidates, with the only exception being Troy Jackson's victory in Maine.

In the Midwest, the party won races in states that Trump had won by double digits that had previously been viewed as almost permanently red.

Progressives are pointing to the Senate win of Jackson, as well as those of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota as signs their candidates can win competitive statewide races.

“Winning a single U.S. Senate seat was never the goal. The goal is to use that seat to transform our politics,” El-Sayed said in his victory speech early Wednesday. He then repeated his campaign slogan: “Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for all.”

ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES

The last piece of steel used in construction of President Trump's ballroom was put in place Wednesday, a day after his party was beaten soundly in midterms.

Trump Probes and Policy Fights: Here Is Democrats' New Agenda

Party will get power over bills, ability to conduct oversight of business deals

BY RICHARD RUBIN AND LINDSAY WISE

WASHINGTON—Democrats captured control of the House and Senate in Tuesday's election with a sweeping national wave that ousted dozens of Republicans. What will they do now?

President Trump will have a veto pen for the next two years, limiting Democrats' ability to enact laws that reverse his policies and setting up clashes that could be even more intense than the conflicts between Trump and Democrats when they controlled the House in 2019 and 2020.

But Democrats enter the new Congress with extraordinary momentum and Republicans reeling after surprise losses.

“This is a change election, and we understand as House Democrats that we need to deliver dramatic change,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) said late Tuesday. “Things are broken. We need a Congress that puts the American people first.”

The new configuration of government—with Jeffries poised to become House speaker and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) set to be promoted back to Senate majority leader—will give Democrats a chance to make some points and show voters what they would pursue if their party gained full control of the government in the 2028 election. And they will have to negotiate with Trump and Republicans over must-pass items such as legislation to keep the government open and funded.

Here is a quick look at some top Democratic priorities.

Taxes, healthcare

Republicans used their slim majorities to push through a major tax-and-spending law last year. All Democrats voted no on the bill, and they have vowed to try to reverse much of that legislation.

They will aim to undo changes to Medicaid that require recipients to work and are slated to take effect soon, as well as changes to nutrition-assistance policies that have contributed to a $13\%$ reduction in food-stamp rolls. They also will try to revive Obamacare health-insurance subsidies that Democrats expanded during Joe Biden's presidency and that lapsed under Trump.

Democrats also might attempt to undo some of the tax cuts that Trump signed into law, particularly the ones that benefited high-income households and corporations.

Trump and Musk

Democrats expect to use their new majority to conduct oversight, and they will have subpoena power when they enter the majority. The frustrated letters they have sent to the administration over the past two years will turn into demands and hearings.

“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D., Ca-

lif.), the likely chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said late Tuesday. Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who would become chairman of the Finance Committee, tweeted a single word: “Subpoenas.”

They are likely to investigate Trump's cryptocurrency dealings, his family's business ties, his construction projects in Washington, D.C., his acceptance of a Qatari jet, the tax-immunity deal he struck with his own administration and many other subjects that Republicans haven't examined.

Elon Musk, the Trump-allied billionaire, is also likely to get scrutiny, particularly for his involvement in slower Starlink speeds that impaired Ukrainian war activity.

[AI regulation] Democrats enter the new Congress with extraordinary momentum.

Democrats also are likely to focus on artificial intelligence by bringing in top executives to testify about their close relationships with the White House and pushing for the first federal regulations setting guardrails for new models. AI regulation has become a priority for

many lawmakers after a wave of hacks by recent models and warnings from industry researchers that the rapidly evolving technology could be capable of destroying humanity within the next decade.

War and tariffs

Trump's two main unilateral initiatives—the Iran war and the tariff expansion—helped push prices up and propel Democrats to victory.

But stopping the war or reversing the tariffs will be difficult because of Trump's national-security powers, his ability to veto legislation and his support among Republicans.

Blocking nominees

With Senate control, Democrats will be able to block Trump's judicial and executive-branch nominees, including any Supreme Court picks. Republicans will likely push through as many confirmations as possible before they lose power Jan. 3. But once vacancies emerge, the partisan divide will either mean acting officials in key administration positions or compromise nominees who can satisfy Democrats.

Must-pass bills

Democrats have been frustrated by the administration's actions to rescind or change spending levels approved by Congress. In spending-bill fights, they may seek additional guardrails to prevent Trump and budget director Russell Vought from sidestepping Congress, either by refusing to use money directed by Congress or by spending funds that Congress didn't approve.

Schumer Faced Doubts, Now He's Riding High

TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL/ZUMA PRESS

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday, after Democrats' decisive win.

BY LINDSAY WISE

AND SIOBHAN HUGHES

WASHINGTON—Even Chuck Schumer couldn't believe it.

The Associated Press had projected that Democrats would succeed in their long-shot effort to win back control of the Senate—and not just by flipping a few seats, but by flipping at least seven.

"Is this a night?!" the jubilant Senate minority leader asked as he greeted journalists and staffers in a courtyard of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee near Capitol Hill late Tuesday night. "Oh man! Wow, wow, wow!"

In the spring of last year, progressives and activists had bombarded the 75-year-old New York Democrat with calls to resign and primary threats after he voted with a small group of other senators who caucus with Democrats to keep the government open. The backlash was so profound that Schumer had to postpone a planned book tour due to security concerns. Schumer was cast by progressive critics as too old-school and out of touch with voters consumed with anger at President Trump.

Now, after two risky government shutdowns—and as Schumer put it, “against all odds”—he made clear he expects to coast to re-election as Senate Democrats’ leader in the next Congress, this time in the majority. Democrats will have at least 54 seats in the next Senate, with Alaska and Mississippi still too close to call.

Producing victories on Tuesday required both

Schumer and his left flank to set aside differences to serve the larger goal of winning, focused on a message of affordability and fighting corruption.

One question is whether the two parts of the Democratic coalition can find a durable accord. Political fights loom ahead, including on funding the government, restoring healthcare subsidies and possible impeachments—all of which could strain Democrats' unity. Also, some of his newly elected colleagues have made clear they aren't fans of Schumer as leader.

“We’re a big tent party,” Schumer said, noting that Democratic candidates across the spectrum all shared remarkably similar messages focused on reducing costs. “You talk about it differently in Maine than you talk about it in Kansas, but it was all the same message,” he said. “And we will be united as a caucus focusing on those issues.”

It “was like a shotgun marriage,” said Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz, who advised the campaign of Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat who defeated a Schumer-picked primary candidate. But in the end, both parts of the Democratic Party “understood the assignment” of flipping the Senate.

Now, Katz said, speaking about Schumer and Senate Democratic leadership, “my hope is that they will think a little differently about what is possible."

Some newly elected Democrats have said they don't plan to vote for Schumer as leader. Sen.-elect Troy Jackson of Maine affirmed that position this week. El-Sayed, along with Sens.-elect Juliana Stratton of Illinois and Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, have also said they won't back Schumer. And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) said the caucus needs to have a “robust discussion” about Democrats' goals and how to achieve them before committing to anyone as leader.

“I told Sen. Schumer that I’m going to support somebody else. So it’s no different now,” Jackson said on the eve of his victory.

Democrats' leader is determined in a secret ballot vote later this year. Schumer hasn't addressed his plans beyond the next two years, including whether he will run again for his seat in 2028. "This isn't about me," he said Wednesday.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said no one should doubt Schumer's job security. He called him the "principal architect" of Democrats' historic victory, citing his candidate recruitment, fundraising and messaging focus on costs and corruption. "I think he's very much to be credited and the caucus realizes it," he said.

Asked about how he would handle a possible push from progressive Democrats to impeach Trump, Schumer said the victorious party's No. 1 focus has to be addressing high costs, and going after corruption. "Look, there was such rampant corruption, there has to be some investigations, but we're not going to take our eye off the ball," he said.

The magnitude of Democrats' wins prompted Republican strategists to raise the alarm that their battered party could be looking at three daunting election cycles ahead.

“You can’t deny this is an historic and catastrophic loss for the Republican Party that will take years to dig out of,” said Steven Law, who helped build Republican Senate majorities at the helm of the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) was GOP leader. “Just the Senate losses alone will be with us through 2032, if not longer.”

Referendums Divide Voters

Many of the 145 referen-

dums on state ballots put

GOP and Trump priorities to

a public test on Tuesday, and

voters were split.

Voters backed greater abortion rights in three of four ballot fights, including a defeat of Missouri Republicans' attempt to resurrect most of the terminations ban. Nevada and Virginia added abortion rights to their constitutions, each with more than 62% support. In Idaho, voters rejected an abortion-rights measure 56% to 44%, maintaining the state's prohibition on abortion.

Symbolic measures declaring that noncitizens can't vote also passed in every state where the Associated Press has called them, including in Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota and West Virginia, and Alaska. Measures requiring voters to provide identification passed in Ohio, North Carolina and Nevada, but failed in California and Colorado.

In a continuation of this cycle's redistricting battle, Missouri voters threw out the congressional map Republicans drew in 2025 and Maryland approved an amendment that could lead to new districts in 2028.

—Maya Davis

Farm Country Goes Democrat

Fed up with tariffs and high fuel prices, farm country flipped for Democrats on Tuesday night in several key U.S. Senate and House races in agriculture-heavy states, including Kansas and Nebraska.

Farmers have long been a loyal voting bloc for President Trump and the Republican Party. But after years of financial struggles and surging costs because of tariffs and the war in Iran, some have soured on the GOP. In Iowa, the top corn- and pork-producing state, Democrats took over three of the four House seats, a Senate seat and the governorship.

Farm-industry officials and analysts expect a Democratic Congress will renew antitrust scrutiny of some of the largest agriculture companies, especially meatpackers, crop-seed producers and fertilizer sellers.

—Patrick Thomas

MAHA Leaders Make Overtures

Leaders in the Make America Health Again movement signaled a desire to work with Democrats, after their alliance with Republicans was battered in Tuesday's blue-wave midterm election. Democrats including Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, a former public-health official, have made overtures to MAHA voters.

Tony Lyons, leader of several MAHA political committees and nonprofits that backed Republicans on Tuesday, said the movement must build itself up by working with companies and politicians from any party. “There are good people across the political spectrum who want to be part of this,” he said to supporters on a livestream Wednesday.

—Liz Essley Whyte

Utah Senator: GOP Must Shift To 'Core Values'

Utah Sen. John Curtis, a first-term Republican who is contemplating a run for governor, called on his party to return to the “core values” that he said it has drifted from over the past 10 years.

“Leaders like Ronald Reagan championed limited government, free trade, resolute diplomacy and global leadership, and fiscal responsibility,” he wrote on his Substack. “Over the last decade, however, our party has steadily drifted from the principles that once defined us.”

Curtis said he welcomes those brought into the party's fold. But, "Instead of enjoying a restoration of order and integrity in our government, they read headline after headline of scandals, incompetence, and corruption."

—Natalie Andrews

How Trump Lost GOP Midterms

Continued from Page One

After campaigning on ending foreign wars, Trump wagered on one of his own, triggering a spiraling conflict that has seen the deaths of more than 20 U.S. servicemembers, cost U.S. taxpayers more than \$47 billion, and pushed up the cost of everything from freight to fertilizer.

On Tuesday, Republicans suffered losses that amounted to one of the most decisive repudiations of a president in modern history. It was likely a direct result of Trump's decision to go to war in Iran, sending gas prices up 40%, leaving many of his most loyal supporters disillusioned and effectively drawing a curtain on the Trump age.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh described the war as “the greatest political blunder in the last two decades,” and a betrayal of Trump’s America First movement.

In the spring, when advisers told Trump that the Iran war could hurt Republicans in the midterm elections, Trump told them there was plenty of time to figure it out, according to people familiar with the remarks.

While Trump publicly defended the war, privately he asked people around him whether he should change course, including junior staffers who gathered for a team photo. A White House official said Trump wasn't indecisive but always solicited feedback.

The war wasn't the only issue contributing to Tuesday's crushing defeat for Republicans. Trump also lost his advantage on immigration. An aggressive enforcement operation brought illegal border crossings to the lowest level in decades, but led to conflicts in American cities that resulted in the shooting deaths of two Americans in Minnesota last winter. On Tuesday, counties that were $80\%$ or more Hispanic favored Democrats by 40 percentage points.

Trump vacillated on immigration throughout the year, sometimes telling aides he wanted a bigger crackdown. After first lady Melania Trump complained about people she knew getting deported, he would tell other aides that the architect of his aggressive immigration efforts, Stephen Miller, had gone too far. Republicans in Texas and Florida privately complained to the White House.

At times, Trump told aides he didn't care about the mid-terms at all, said a senior administration official who talked to him. The president was tired of worrying about domestic political issues that he didn't think mattered as much as foreign policy and his legacy, the official said.

When Trump's aides told him in the spring and summer that polls showed voters concerned about his handling of affordability, he said the polling was fake, the senior administration official said.

Trump also pushed out of Senate races Republican candidates who would have faced better odds in their states, including in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas. He instead anointed candidates he believed would be loyal to him. Democrats won in all four of these states. Trump advisers played down his role in the loss, saying he attended 30 rallies and that other candidates he didn't pick would have lost too.

“It really didn’t have to be this way,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, the Republican who lost the South Carolina Republican nomination to Sen. Darline Graham after Trump swooped in. “Pride goeth before the fall. It’s going to be a wake up call for the Republican Party.”

By August, polls showed Republicans had lost their edge with voters on the economy. Trump aides grew deeply concerned in August when their internal polling showed voters overwhelmingly blamed Trump for inflation.

Advisers including Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity gently urged Trump to give more attention to affordability.

In September, gasoline prices in the U.S. shot up 16 cents in a single week. Not long after, diesel prices hit an all time high. When Democratic House campaign strategists met to decide where, district by district, to invest resources in the final weeks, they zeroed in on what they had viewed as safe Republican seats. That included open seats in Florida and Texas that Trump had won by more than 10 percentage points in 2024, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Meanwhile, national Republican strategists were taken aback by their own internal polling, which showed GOP seats under threat in deep red states and districts. On one Republican call, a pollster said, “People will mark the last week of September as the week the bottom fell out.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune repeatedly tried to bring up the affordability issue when Trump would call, people familiar with the calls said.

When Trump wanted to veto a popular bipartisan housing bill, senior White House official James Braid sent a note to other staffers asking them to help persuade the president. Trump shut down lawmakers and advisers who urged him to sign it, scuttling a news conference so late that some lawmakers arrived anyway. Aides eventually persuaded him to let the housing bill become law without his signature.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump played down high gasoline prices.

Allegations of corruption involving the administration and the Trump family became a top concern for voters.

President Trump departing after a campaign rally in Ohio last month.

Yet Trump continued to focus on pet projects including a new White House ballroom and a proposed 250-foot triumphal arch. On flights, he huddled with aides about what should be done about the Kennedy Center.

Aides said it was a waste of time to tell him to stop talking about the ballroom because he held several long meetings a week on the topic and repeatedly enjoyed giving tours.

On Monday, the day before the election, at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, Trump gave a nearly hourlong speech that aides had billed as a final argument to voters. Trump primarily talked about his renovations of the capital, including cleaning up graffiti, resodding the mall and replacing rusty pipes.

"We have a lot of great things planned for Washington," he said, but declined to elaborate. There wasn't enough time, he said, to discuss his plans for the nation.

Trump's second term

ine that he was on the ballot.

Sources: Cook Political Report (job approval); RealClear Politics (generic ballot)

Two strikes

The first big cracks in Trump's administration this year emerged on an icy Minneapolis street, well before the war in Iran.

In January, after Alex Pretti was shot in the back by a Border Patrol officer, Trump advisers including Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the officers and labeled the 37-year-old intensive-care nurse a “domestic terrorist.”

Trump, several advisers said, told aides he worried about videos that showed the killing. He instructed press secretary Karoline Leavitt to distance him from comments made by his team. He told Tom Homan, his immigration czar, to go to Minneapolis and "fix it."

When Trump took office, he saw immigration enforcement as a voter mandate. But views soured over the government's aggressive urban operations, including raids targeting Home Depot stores, chicken processing factories, construction sites and other venues where nonviolent offenders were rounded up.

Within weeks of the Pretti shooting, Trump had replaced

Noem and told her replacement to keep immigration enforcement out of the headlines. As the agency took a lower-key approach, hard-line conservatives grew agitated, and corruption allegations emerged from Noem's tenure.

The immigration crackdown that had helped get Trump elected had become an albatross. Then Trump launched missiles into Iran.

He dismissed concerns from administration officials and relied on assessments from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He repeatedly changed his message and tactics. Leavitt asked him to stop taking calls from reporters because his comments on the war were being interpreted as contradictory. An administration official said he didn't change his message and tactics but reacted to events.

House meetings, he wanted to win and move on. Political advisers hoped that it would be over by the summer, giving enough time to refocus voter attention.

The president veered from threatening the destruction of Iranian civilization to announcing deals that weren't yet ready. He surprised senior aides at other times with proclamations made to the news media that they didn't know were coming.

Chief of staff Susie Wiles and others urged Trump to sell the American public on the war. Trump eventually gave a 20-minute address from the White House, which didn't sway public opinion. Afterward, the president questioned whether the speech had been a good idea.

When his top cabinet officials met with oil executives in March, they said the Iran war would be over by April, people at the meeting said. By May, Trump told others in White

Members of Congress grew frustrated with the war and the information they were getting from the Pentagon, people familiar with the matter said. Many complained to the White House, asking what the plan was to escape before the midterms. It was crushing voter support back home, they said.

Every attempt at a deal with Iran blew up, and the president was frustrated. How do you even negotiate with these people? he complained to advisers.

Trump's MAGA base also grew increasingly restless. Some still seethed over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Others complained that he hadn't done enough to pass the Make America Healthy Again agenda. Trump continued to praise data centers, which his own polls showed were overwhelmingly unpopular.

Efforts to redraw congressional maps to benefit Republicans had mixed results, and some states defied the White House after local officials said they felt bullied.

New recruits

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who led the Democrats' bid to rewhen it was over months later. Schumer put a reminder in his calendar. Before he could call, he heard back: Cooper, who won on Tuesday, was ready.

Republicans, meanwhile, struggled. In April of last year, Thune and others traveled to Georgia to try to persuade Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to run. They spent three hours in the governor's mansion with Kemp, who was wary about the outlook for the midterms. He said he wanted to run his own race and would have to disagree with Trump at a time when Trump demanded fealty. It didn't help that Trump had recently attacked Kemp at a Georgia rally for being "disloyal" and "a bad guy." Kemp turned them down.

Trump made a series of other picks that Republicans came to regret including in Texas, where neither Ken Paxton nor incumbent Sen. John Cornyn reached 50% in the state's Republican primary, prompting a runoff.

The day after that primary, Trump called Thune to ask if he should endorse either man. The president patched in Rep. Wesley Hunt, the candidate who had come in third and forced the runoff. Hunt told them that Cornyn couldn't win.

Hunt makes a good case, Trump told Thune.

It's going to cost \$200 million to \$300 million to get Paxton over the finish line, Thune countered, a sum that would drain money from competitive states.

The base is behind Paxton, Trump said.

Thune told associates he had gotten off the phone with Trump at least six times believing he had persuaded the president to stay out of the Texas race. A draft endorsement was crafted for Cornyn. As Trump polled allies, including a group in the Oval Office, some told him that if he endorsed Cornyn, the race would be over.

By May, angry that Senate Republicans weren't passing his voter legislation, Trump instead endorsed the more MAGA-aligned Paxton, who lost on Tuesday. He came to regret backing Paxton, advisers said, complaining about his candidacy and asking if it would have been easier to stick with Cornyn.

Democrats were contending with the rise of far-left Democrats, including those who called for abolishing police and defunding the Defense Department, views that hurt the party.

Republicans planned to make Zohran Mamdani, the 35-year-old socialist who became New York City's mayor last year, the face of a party they would paint as out of touch with most Americans.

capture the Senate alongside fellow New Yorker, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, told members of her team that the political headwinds facing Trump reminded her of

2006, when then President George W. Bush struggled with fatigue among the electorate over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That sentiment gave Democrats an opening to win majorities in both chambers.

Newt Gingrich gently urged Trump to give more attention to affordability.

Members of Gillibrand's team rolled their eyes at her optimism, people familiar with the exchanges recalled. The truth was, Senate Democrats faced a brutal election map, defending seats in states Trump won, as well as need-

In September, when Trump was in New York ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, Mamdani had a surprise announcement: He had invited Trump to meet.

Republicans in the House were apoplectic, House Speaker Mike Johnson told White House officials. An image of Trump being friendly with Mamdani

would hurt Republican House candidates in New York who were running on an anti-Mamdani message. Trump aides didn't like the idea either, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and Mamdani met at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence, just as the president wanted. Johnson later told others it was an unforced error in a difficult election year.

In early September, Trump's Dallas midterm convention featured cowboy hats and empty seats but provided no boost for Republicans. The president spoke more about his Washington makeover.

In focus groups during the spring and summer, voters who didn't typically tune in to Washington news would bring up Trump's pet projects, said a strategist familiar with the group's work.

Among the comments the group repeatedly heard:

He doesn't really care about what I'm going through.

It seems like he wants to put his name on everything.

“It was about the economy,” said Chris Winkelman, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC run by Johnson allies. “It was always about the economy.”

After the reflecting pool event, he was ebullient, a person who spoke to him said. The election was going to go well on Tuesday, he said, because there was great spirit among Republicans. If not, he said, he didn't deserve the blame. He had done all he could do.

"The biggest issue is that I wasn't on the ballot," he told The Wall Street Journal.

Yet, Trump had said repeatedly that voters should imag-

IM GRUBER FOR WSJ

A supporter at an election night watch party in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, who lost to Democrat Josh Turek.

ing to flip seats in states Trump won by double digits.

Two government shutdowns over healthcare and immigration rallied Democrats. Schumer eventually landed popular recruits, including former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio.

In North Carolina, popular two-term Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had just left office last year when Schumer called and asked him to consider a Senate run. Cooper told him he was starting a fellowship and they should talk

OM BRENNER/PRESS POOL

Vance Airs Frustration on War Amid Debate About Next Steps

WASHINGTON—Vice President JD Vance spent Tuesday night in the White House East Room watching the disastrous midterm results roll in. Sitting alongside President Trump, Vance saw the Senate seat he had briefly held in Ohio flip to Democratic control, and then all of Congress.

By Natalie Andrews, Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman and Robbie Gramer

By Wednesday morning, the Marine veteran made his frustrations public, blaming the war for the Republicans' losses and issuing a rare public rebuke of the military campaign his boss still supports.

Vance's comments followed weeks of internal hand-wringing at the White House about the war's impact on the midterms and talks about whether to acknowledge publicly continuing strikes, people familiar with the discussions said.

"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote in a lengthy social-media post. He said Republican voters who had voted for Trump in 2024 showed up, but that they were mad about the war, the resulting higher energy prices and that the administration had abandoned its “America First” agenda.

Vance blaming Trump's war for the midterm results is a moment of distance between himself and the president, to whom he owes his political career, and it shows how keenly opposed to the war Vance was from the start despite repeatedly defending it publicly.

The VP staked his future on maintaining the coalition that Trump built.

The vice president staked his future on maintaining the coalition that Trump built, and he campaigned heavily in the midterms to stave off GOP losses, only to see the party fail and lose in states that haven't sent Democrats to the Senate in decades.

Asked whether Vance was right that the war was to blame for the GOP's election losses, Trump said, “I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term.” Trump added that if he had to start the war again, he would because, “You can't allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Vance, who was tapped by Trump to lead peace negotiations with Iran, suggested otherwise in his post: "If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so."

Trump told reporters of Vance's post, "I thought it was good," acknowledging that he has long known the vice president's views on the war.

The split follows months of internal debate on how to handle the conflict. In September, Vance told reporters he wouldn't call the fighting in Iran a war, but also couldn't say when the conflict would end.

Top administration officials also worked to play down the impact of continuing military operations even as the administration explored more strikes. Also in September, senior Trump administration officials held a Situation Room discussion about the Iran war's unpopularity. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others sat around the table as top officials said disclosing continuing strikes, whether defensive or offensive, would hurt Republicans in vulnerable states. They agreed advertising the assaults wouldn't help election prospects, according to people familiar with the discussion.

That idea was briefed to Trump, who agreed with the approach, the people said.

Some White House advisers have pointed fingers at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom they blame for convincing Trump that the Iran war would be a short engagement similar to the successful capture of ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, according to people familiar with the discussions. Hegseth has frequently been the voice in the Cabinet advocating to continue the war, often in opposition to Rubio, Vance and others who pushed for peace talks, some people said.

Vice President JD Vance wrote in a social-media post that the administration had abandoned its 'America First' agenda.

Despite the criticism from inside the White House, Pentagon officials and others have for weeks insisted that Trump likes Hegseth and isn't considering firing him.

Some administration officials are now pushing Trump to launch fresh military strikes on Iran and then push for peace to extricate himself from the war during the lame-duck period before Democrats regain control of Congress in

January, according to people familiar with deliberations. Others say Trump should cut his losses and wind down the military operation, exposing the deepening rifts within the administration over the war in the wake of the midterm election loss, the people said.

The Pentagon has been preparing to resume major combat operations for weeks, amassing thousands of pounds of munitions and moving additional air defense and ships to the region. A third aircraft-carrier strike group and an additional Marine expeditionary unit are moving toward the Middle East, the Journal previously reported, adding as much as 9,000 to 10,000 more troops to the region.

Democrats Face Limits in Putting Check on President's Foreign Policy

US NAVY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Naval Forces Central Command photo shows the carrier George Washington in the Middle East.

BY BERTRAND BENOIT AND KIM MACKRAEL

In the first half of his second term, President Trump used blunt tools to bend the world to his will. He imposed high tariffs on imports that rewired global trade flows and launched two military campaigns, including an inconclusive conflict with Iran that sent energy prices rocketing.

The remade Democratic Congress will have limited power to rein him in on foreign policy, leaving global affairs as one of the main arenas where he can shape his legacy.

Some Middle East officials said the Democratic triumph didn't lessen the likelihood of another round of war with Iran, possibly in the coming days.

“Trump will not be happy to be framed as defeated by the electoral base, by the Americans, and also defeated by the Iranians...he would probably do something,” said Nadim Koteich, an Emirati media and policy adviser. “This is more about his legacy than any strategic calculation.”

What a unified Democratic Congress can do is make escalation considerably more costly, said Claudio Galimberti, chief economist of Rystad Energy, a research and consulting firm. “With war funding and appointees now subject to a hostile majority, the administration faces greater institutional pressure to pursue a Hormuz deal rather than a further round of strikes,” he said.

Heavy lift in Cuba

Regime change in Havana has been a priority for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban migrants, but it is one that faded when the U.S. became embroiled in the Iran war.

Military and intervention plans for Cuba would require an extensive nation-building strategy to transform the armed forces and a moribund economy controlled by the ruling Communist Party. A huge reconstruction job would demand intense attention and suck up tens of billions of dollars in investment.

Ukraine support

In Kyiv, there was more hope than expectation of a change in the Trump administration's approach toward Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Trump has cut nearly all U.S. aid for Ukraine, pressured the country to hand more of its territory to Russia and lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In contrast, Trump has sought a rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, relaxed sanctions on Russian energy and tried to stop Ukrainian airstrikes on Russian oil refineries.

Congress can influence defense funding, including military aid to Ukraine, as well as sanctions laws, said Dmytro Sherengovsky, a political scientist at the Ukrainian Catholic University. "However, a significant proportion of operational decisions regarding military aid and the implementation of sanctions will remain within the remit of the executive branch."

NATO approach

Europe is ramping up military spending and preparing for the U.S. to play a smaller role in the continent's security, after Trump questioned U.S. membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"The U.S.'s role in Europe will get smaller and the threats against Europe are going to increase," said Giuseppe Spatafora, policy analyst for trans-Atlantic relations at the EU Institute for Security Studies, the EU's foreign-policy and security think tank.

China deals on tap?

U.S. allies in Asia worry Trump will sideline their security and economic interests in pursuit of a deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, or North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

The Democratic sweep will push Beijing to look beyond Trump, said Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University's Center for American Studies in Shanghai. Beijing will maintain an assertive posture with Washington, he said. "We feel more confident," he added, and "will continue to play hardball."

Trump Says Iran War Is Partly to Blame For Republican Losses

BY JOSH DAWSEY

WASHINGTON—President Trump said on Tuesday night that the war in Iran was partially to blame for widespread Republican losses in the midterm elections. But he maintained that he doesn't regret launching the war in February.

"Iran was a piece of it," he said in a phone interview with The Wall Street Journal when asked whether the war contributed to Republicans' poor performance in the election.

The president said he doesn't have second thoughts about the war, which has dragged down the popularity of his presidency.

Trump has struggled for months to end the conflict and complained to advisers about how it has become a constant problem.

“I don’t think about it. I did the right thing. I would have done it again,” he said.

The president said he believed the rise in oil prices—rather than the war itself—was the biggest political liability. Gasoline and diesel prices have shot up as a result of the conflict, frustrating U.S. voters.

The president rejected the notion that the results were a rebuke of his presidency, even as Republicans lost in deep-red states such as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas, and his poll numbers have dropped significantly across many states.

“It was a point in time, and I wasn’t on the ballot,” Trump said. “The biggest issue is that I wasn’t on the ballot.”

He contended that voters weren't repudiating Republicans because they were frustrated with the economy or alleged corruption inside the

Trump administration. He said he didn't regret not talking about the economy more often on the campaign trail.

The president said he had no plans to make personnel changes inside his administration, and he expressed support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has led the war effort. “I think he’s terrific actually,” he said.

The president acknowledged that some Republicans on the ballot “could have been better.”

“Some of them had a lot of flaws, and obviously they were not acceptable to the voters,” he said. “You know, you can only do so much.”

Some of the candidates who lost on Tuesday were pushed by Trump himself, including Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina. “I tried to help them,” he said.

Regarding Graham and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who lost his Texas Senate bid to Democrat James Talarico, Trump said: "Darline worked very hard, they worked hard. But they both didn't make it."

Trump didn't challenge the validity of the election results and said he looked forward to working with Democrats, but would use his “veto power” if he needed to.

“I think we’ll work with the Democrats, and we’ll get along very well with them. If we don’t, we’ll be very tough on them, they’ll be very tough on us,” he said.

He didn't answer when asked which Democrats he would work well with.

“It’s just the way the ball bounces sometimes,” Trump said of Tuesday night’s results.

Results Send Dow 3% Higher

Continued from Page One

Vice President JD Vance blamed the election losses on Trump's conflict with Iran that lifted inflation and interest rates. And a president who muscled around major companies and trading partners will now face a congressional check on his power to shape the economy.

Those themes dominated markets in recent years and they might rise to the fore again with a single social-media post from the president. There are still months to go before Democrats are sworn in. But if Wednesday's rally is any indication, Wall Street is betting on a more-predictable, more “real” economy in the final years of Trump’s term. There were losers, too, notably the chip makers and other suppliers that function as picks and shovels of the AI trade.

“This election felt like a referendum on the war with Iran and the increase in energy prices this year, as well as a referendum on data center build-out,” said Blerina Uruçi, chief U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price. “I wonder here if the market is interpreting the Democratic wave and victory as essentially the public saying, ‘OK, this is not working for us.’”

The potential regime change in markets starts with AI. Democratic wins in gubernatorial races in five states key to data-center development threaten to slow the pace of new construction. In Texas, Ohio and elsewhere, the focus now shifts further toward what those projects mean for nearby power costs, water usage and more—and away from the AI arms race among hyperscalers, and between the U.S. and China.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Elon Musk wrote in an early Wednesday post on X, his social-media platform. Shares of SpaceX, Musk’s rocketry and AI company, dropped 3.8%. Tesla, his electric-car company, fell 3.3%.

But while some investors feared a blue wave that would weigh on every cog of the AI trade, those fears were quickly left in the dust. Investors dumped shares of chip makers such as Nvidia and Micron—as well as a host of other data-center suppliers. They piled into the shares of Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon.

Data-center moratoriums that slow the pace of the AI build-out would likely raise the prices such hyperscalers can charge customers, boosting profits, analysts said. And a construction slowdown could assuage concerns that tech giants aiming to win the

AI race at all costs are going to spend too recklessly and risk a bust.

"The election is a warning call for an industry that has largely built on expectations of unchecked growth ahead," said Bob Elliott, chief executive at Unlimited Funds.

Even as Silicon Valley executives will likely face new state and federal scrutiny, Wednesday's rotation within the AI trade toward trillion-dollar giants boosted indexes as part of a rally that spanned nine of the S&P 500's 11 sectors. Banks, home builders, carmakers and major retailers ranging from Dollar Tree to Walmart all gained.

"The AI trade was taking up all the oxygen in the economy," said Michael Antonelli, a market strategist for Baird Private Wealth Management. A slowdown in the data-center boom "allows the economy to allocate money to other sectors."

Some investors hope that an emboldened Congress could ease that process by re-establishing checks on Trump's power, either by stymying deficit spending or pressuring the White House to end trade disputes and the war with Iran. After Vance said on social media that "the reason we lost is the war," Brent crude-oil futures plunged 8.7%, to \$94.62 a barrel, an apparent sign that traders are dialing back bets on renewed fighting. Government bond yields ticked lower.

Defense contractors RTX, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman also fell. A divided government could make it harder to approve military spending.

“I also think equity investors are breathing some kind of relief that the president is going to accept the results,” said Ron Albahary, chief investment officer of multifamily office LNW.

Trump still has significant power to jolt markets through renewed military campaigns against Tehran and tariff policy on certain industries—especially before Democrats are sworn in.

But the hope on Wall Street is that “this administration will make more of an effort to end the war diplomatically and to release the oil supply back into the global market,” T. Rowe Price’s Uruçi said. “And I think more regulation around data center build-out probably calms down the market, because it can interpret it as sort of providing a check on overbuilding capacity for the hyperscalers.”

Many investors cautioned against extrapolating too much from Wednesday's rally, especially after steep selloffs last week. Some warned that Democrats could pursue policies that would drag on stocks, such as tax increases.

“Democrats don’t measure their success based on the S&P 500, but that’s all that Donald Trump ever did,” said David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research and Associates.

It Will Be Hard to Halt U.S. Aid to Israel

ABIR SULTAN/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Israel plans to buy 25 new F-35 jet fighters from the U.S.

Jewish state would need about \$10 billion to pay for military equipment orders

BY JARED MALSIN

Israel has ordered billions of dollars of American military hardware beyond what the U.S. has committed to paying for, illustrating how hard it would be to phase out Washington's funding for the country.

The U.S. has already pledged nearly \$7 billion in annual U.S. military aid over the next two years. Beyond 2028, Israel would need approximately \$10 billion to pay for outstanding orders as of April 1, according to a State Department document sent to Congress and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is unclear how much that amount might have changed since then.

The disclosure comes as President Trump said on Tuesday that he plans to end aid to Israel. U.S. support for the country has been one of the issues at the center of an election that led to major Republican losses in Congress.

For months, U.S. and Israeli officials have been discussing a potential phasing out of American military aid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the country eventually should wean itself off U.S. aid, proposing to eliminate direct aid in the coming decade.

Still, Trump's comments caught Israeli officials, including some in the security establishment, off guard, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Israel is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in the world, receiving about \$3.3 billion in funding annually that can be used to buy U.S.-made military hardware, including bombs, vehicles, jet fighters and other equipment.

The funding is structured in such a way that allows Israel to use pledged future funding to buy equipment before getting the money, a system that gives U.S. and Israeli officials more flexibility when it comes to shipping weapons to the country.

In recent decades, the U.S. has pledged aid to Israel in a series of 10-year agreements, the most recent of which was a 10-year memorandum of understanding agreed to by the

Obama administration. That deal, which runs through 2028, pledged \$3.3 billion each year in U.S. military aid, known as Foreign Military Financing.

In 2024, Congress also approved about \$26 billion in additional support to Israel during the height of Israel's war in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack.

Even after those funds run out, Israel would still need another \$10 billion to pay for its existing orders, according to a letter from the State Department to the office of Rep. Joaquin Castro (D., Texas), who inquired about the funds this year. The requirements “could be covered either by FMF, national funds, or both,” says the letter, meaning that either the U.S. or Israel could end up paying for the orders.

“Even if the MOU ran its full course to 2028, there’s still \$10 billion above and beyond that, and there’s an issue of who’s going to pay for that,” Castro said in an interview.

The State Department de-

clined to comment.

The U.S. has provided Israel with a total of about \$174 billion in military assistance and funding from its founding in 1948 through May 2025, according to the Congressional Research Service, not adjusted for inflation.

U.S. lawmakers have drafted legislation that would shift funding from foreign financing to defense investments and joint production of military technologies. The co-production proposal would write U.S.-Israel military cooperation into U.S. law as part of the new annual U.S. defense policy package, called the National Defense Authorization Act, expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Advocates of this legislation said it would make it easier for the Pentagon to cooperate with Israel on procuring military technologies. Proponents hope it will build on past successes in defense cooperation, such as Israel's Iron Dome air-defense system, which included the participation of U.S. firms.

Critics say it would embed Israel deeper into Pentagon supply chains and programs in a way that would make such cooperation more difficult to repeal in a future Congress.

Unwinding the system likely would take years. Switching to a new system would raise questions about who would pay for orders that are supposed to be delivered into the future, such as Israel's plan to buy 25 new advanced F-35 jet fighters.

The co-production proposal also wouldn't address Israel's immediate needs. It remains dependent on the regular flow of U.S.-made armaments.

If Israel were to start to pay for more of its own weapons, that could mean a rise in military spending.

Winding down U.S. aid to Israel also would run up against other longstanding American policies. U.S. law commits the government to ensuring that its military exports give Israel a “qualitative military edge” over potential rivals. Cutting off aid would make that more difficult.

Current and former U.S. officials say that an abrupt end to U.S. military aid to Israel is unlikely. “It’s not plausible we stop by the end of this year” because of funding already committed by Congress, said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned during the Biden administration.

Saudis Struggle to End Hostilities With Houthis

DUBAI—After Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea and seized territory commanding the Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint, the kingdom reached out to the group to see what it would take to arrive at a negotiated halt to the hostilities. The answer it got back: \$51 billion.

By Jon Gambrell, Summer Said and Saleh al-Batati

The Houthis said that was the sum needed to cover the cost of years of Saudi strikes and a long blockade, said people briefed on the discussions. Other figures have come up since, the people said, but the message was clear: The price of an exit would be in the tens of billions of dollars. For good measure, the Houthis would want the kingdom to recognize the militants as the rulers of Yemen, effectively accepting an Iranian-armed adversary on its southern border.

The demands hammered home how Saudi Arabia faces only bad options as it tries to find a way out of the conflict it started more than a decade ago when it intervened against the Houthis in Yemen's civil war.

The fighting flared up this summer with Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities and airports, as well as the militants' offensive that has taken more territory across Yemen.

The Houthis are pressing toward Aden, the port city that is the seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government, Saudi Arabia's ally.

They recently moved to within some 50 miles, closer than at any time since 2015, when they seized parts of the city.

The price of an exit would be in the tens of billions of dollars.

No matter what path Riyadh takes, whether trying to persuade cautious allies to help more or trying to reach terms acceptable to the Houthis, there will be a heavy cost. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia still could find itself drawn into a fresh conflict across the Middle East if Israel or the U.S. launches any new attacks on Iran, which the U.S. has warned Gulf states could come after Tuesday's midterm elections.

AHMAD AL-BASHA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Saudi-backed Yemeni government fighters last month battled Iran-backed Houthis.

"The imbalance of risk between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is even greater now than it was in the earlier period of conflict between 2015 and 2022, as the impact of the strikes on civilian and energy infrastructure undermines investor confidence," said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, an expert at Rice University's Baker Institute who has long studied the region.

The Houthis "present the

Saudi leadership with few viable military options against an adversary that is well - en - trenched, dug in, and has far less to lose from a grinding war of attrition," Ulrichsen said. The Saudi government and Houthi leadership didn't respond to requests to comment.

In October, the Houthis carried out a campaign of attacks targeting Saudi Arabia. Sites have included civilian airports, crippling travel to the kingdom, as well as repeated attacks targeting oil giant Saudi Aramco, with fires or damage reported at its facilities, said Ameneh Mehvar, a senior Mideast analyst for the conflict monitor Acled.

Repeated Houthi strikes in Yemen itself have targeted areas that would serve as muster points or command centers for any Saudi-led coalition attack on the ground, The Wall Street Journal has reported. They included a strike in Yemen's Shabwah governorate that killed at least 75 people and wounded more than 200 others, the deadliest since the war reignited.

Within Saudi Arabia, officials say Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman realizes the challenge the kingdom faces. The prince, Saudi Arabia's day-to-day ruler under his father, the 90-year-old King Salman, doesn't want to negotiate fully with the Houthis without gains on the ground in Yemen to use as leverage, the officials said.

The Saudi military has launched airstrikes on the Houthis, who have alleged there have been unspecified attacks targeting their officials in San'a, the rebel-held capital. But the prince worries sending more Saudi troops to Yemen could be bloody and spark anger at home, the Saudi officials said.

Already, there have been dozens of casualties.

The Houthis' demand for cash raises the threat of the kingdom being blackmailed in the future, said Maged Al-Madhaji, a Yemeni analyst and a co-founder of a think tank called the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies. "The Houthis are demanding a great deal, and in my assessment, the financial element may be the least significant concern for the Saudis," Al-Madhaji said. "The bigger problem is establishing a precedent whereby the group can escalate militarily whenever it wants additional concessions or money."

To escalate on the ground, analysts believe Saudi Arabia needs help from its allies in Yemen, but the options are limited. The main outside ally the kingdom once had in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, withdrew entirely from the anti-Houthi campaign last December after a dust-up with Riyadh. The U.A.E. backs forces wanting to establish a separate South Yemen state, undermining Saudi Arabia's goal of maintaining a united Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has instead sought aid through its new Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan, which describes an attack on one as an attack on all. Turkey's parliament has yet to approve it. Pakistan, which has long sent troops to aid Saudi Arabia, has refused to join strikes inside Yemen.

Egypt's parliament in October approved sending military support to Saudi Arabia, though Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has said any mission would be defensive only. The U.S., meanwhile, has so far declined to offer direct support against the Houthis after fighting against the group in a week-slong campaign in 2025.

EU Gas Market Braces for U.S. Moves

A tanker on the Scheldt River near Hansweert, Netherlands.

BY GIULIA PETRONI

European natural-gas prices retreated after Democrats' victory in Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections, while traders wait to see whether President Trump will pursue diplomacy with Iran or resume strikes.

The Dutch TTF front-month contract, Europe's benchmark, fell 3.7% to 88.19 euros (about \$98) a megawatt-hour in afternoon trading on Wednesday, reversing earlier gains.

Democrats won control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, an outcome that could bring greater congressional scrutiny of Trump's foreign policy. Still, the new Congress won't take office until January, leaving the administration room to pursue its existing approach toward Iran in the coming weeks.

For gas traders, the bigger question is whether the Trump administration will order new strikes on Tehran or sit at the negotiating table. Another escalation could send prices sharply higher, pushing the European benchmark back above €100 a megawatt-hour, analysts said.

"The uncertainty remains how Iran will respond to an eventual resurgence of strikes and which energy infrastructure in the region will become a target as a result," said Florence Schmit, senior energy strategist at Rabobank. "But for now, it remains uncertain when and if such an attack will take place, especially as there are further Russia/Ukraine peace talks planned in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11."

The stakes are high because shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz have curbed exports from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, most of which were bound for Asia. The loss of supplies has intensified competition between European and Asian buyers as both regions seek to secure fuel ahead of winter.

Gas prices remain below the peaks of the 2022 energy crisis but had climbed above €100 last week—their highest levels since late December of that year—before pulling back.

LNG exports from Qatar—the world's second-largest LNG exporter—are slowly recovering, according to data provider Kpler. The country shipped 2.3 million metric tons of LNG in October, about 35% of its pre-war monthly average and above the 1.6 million tons recorded in September.

Europe's position remains vulnerable heading into winter. The region's LNG imports were just $84\%$ of their pre-war average in October, Kpler said, while European Union gas storage was only $74.6\%$ full, well below the seasonal average, amid colder temperatures in Northwest Europe. Germany also missed its $70\%$ storage refilling target.

The region faces more uncertainty from the EU's planned ban on Russian LNG imports from January 2027, which could complicate efforts to replenish supplies.

Imports of Russian LNG are set to be completely stopped by Jan. 1, with remaining pipeline gas imports ending no later than Nov. 1.

A cold snap, particularly if accompanied by weak wind generation that increases reliance on gas-fired power, could further tighten the market as Europe competes with Asia for available cargoes.

'Ultra Left' Activists Fuel France's Riots

Police suspect

student-inspired

protests have

attracted extremists

BY MATTHEW DALTON

BUSSIERE-BOFFY, France—A convoy of heavily armed tactical police arrived at dawn last month in this hamlet deep in the French countryside, where cows and horses graze near camper vans belonging to people who lead itinerant, off-the-grid lives.

They broke down the front door of a stone house and arrested a slender 34-year-old environmental activist named Hodei Ciarra Docampo. He was suspected of helping set a fire that ripped through the neo-Renaissance city hall of Limoges, in one of the most shocking acts of destruction during protests that have roiled France over the past month.

Authorities say Ciarra Do-campo, his family and the community that has gathered around them are part of an “ultra left” faction they blame for fueling the riots that have swept France. French police describe the ultra left as a loose collection of activists with various causes, including radical environmentalists, self-styled antifascists and anti-Israel militants. They are united by a willingness to use violence—or at least condone it—against the authority of the state.

French authorities have taken a tougher stance against extremist groups on both the left and the right in recent years. Some took advantage of the broader antiestablishment yellow-vest protests to clash with police. President Emmanuel Macron's government banned a number of far-left groups in the following years because of their violent opposition to the authorities. More re-

PASCAL IACHENAIUD/AEPAGGETTY IMAGES

The city hall building in Limoges, central France, was destroyed by a group of individuals who forced entry into the building during continuing protest actions in October.

cently, the government has investigated a number of far-left politicians for allegedly condoning terrorism against Israel.

Ciarra Docampo is dangerous, authorities say. He was flagged as a security threat in a secret French government database of people deemed to be extremists. In 2024, he was convicted of hitting a police officer during protests against a wood pellet factory, receiving a one-year suspended sentence.

"These are people who live in their own world, whom you can't approach," said Pascal Godrie, mayor of Val d'Issoire, a collection of towns in central France that includes Bussiere-Boffy. "To be implicated in the burning of a city hall is awful."

What began as a protest by high-school students seeking better schools has morphed into a widespread and sometimes violent expression of anger against the French establishment. Far-left activists have led violent clashes with the police. Looters have exploited the chaos surrounding the protests.

More than a thousand police and protesters have been injured. Stores across the country have been ransacked. Images of the destruction have gone viral, leaving the rest of the world to wonder whether France has become ungovernable.

Ciarra Docampo has been charged with attempted murder of a public official for allegedly setting the fire in Limoges, a crime punishable by life in prison. Officials said videos taken at the scene show Ciarra Docampo feeding a fire in the city hall by throwing a trash can inside. A court will decide Thursday whether he should be freed or held in custody pending trial.

Ciarra Docampo's lawyers said the evidence doesn't show that he helped set the fire, though they haven't addressed whether he was present at the protest. "I think the charges are very thin," said one of his lawyers, Henri Braun.

Ciarra Docampo's family and the community around them have been under scrutiny from French authorities for years.

Ciarra Docampo's father, Fernando Ramirez, who was born in Spain, is described in French court papers as an anarchist with connections to the Basque separatist movement.

Recently, Ramirez, wiry and unshaven, was standing outside his house fixing an old truck. Local officials say he is not only a Basque separatist but also a member of ETA, the militant group that sought to carve out an independent Basque state from Spain and France. He declined to discuss the arrest of his son but scoffed at the idea that he was part of ETA.

“I detest nationalism,” he said.

Eurozone Inflation Rose to 4% in October, Driven by Energy Costs

BY ED FRANKL

Inflation in the eurozone reached double the European Central Bank's target in October as energy costs continued to rise, reinforcing expectations that policymakers could hike the key interest rate again after holding it steady last week.

Consumer prices were 4% higher in October than the same month last year, accelerating from a 3.8% increase in September, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat said on Wednesday. That marked the highest rate of inflation since September 2023 and a fourth straight monthly increase. Economists surveyed last week by The Wall Street Journal expected inflation at 3.9%.

The pickup was again driven by energy prices, as uncertainty persisted about the lack of resolution of the war in the Middle East. Brent crude oil traded well above \$100 a barrel in October, while natural-gas prices also surged in the month, ahead of the European winter and with stocks already dwindling to multiyear lows.

Energy prices in October were 21% higher than a year earlier, compared with

19% in September, Eurostat data showed. Headline inflation in the 21-nation currency

2.5%

October core inflation, which leaves out energy and food components area had been as low as 1.9% in February, before the first U.S.-Israeli air-strikes on Iran.

“Given the unresolved conflict with Iran, inflation rates of this magnitude are set to persist over the coming months," said Stephanie Schoenwald, economist at Germany's KfW Research.

Despite inflation edging even further above the ECB's $2\%$ target, there are signs that spillover from escalating energy prices into other parts of the economy has been more benign than in the last inflationary surge four years ago.

ECB analysis published this week said food retailers had raised prices less frequently than in 2022 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Food prices increased shortly after the start of this year's energy shock before broadly stabilizing, the report said.

Inflation in Eurostat's grouping of food, alcohol and tobacco rose to $1.6\%$ in October, from $1.3\%$ in the prior month. That was a surprisingly strong reading, Oxford Economics economist Nicola Nobile said in a note to clients.

Core inflation—which strips out more volatile components including energy and food—held at 2.5%, the same as September, Eurostat said.

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North Korea Is Brushing Off Trump's Diplomacy Overtures

Pyongyang increases pace of missile tests and rips Washington amid hacking claims

BY DASL YOON

SEOUL—North Korea accelerated a spree of missile tests Wednesday, signaling it would stick to its guns as the Kim Jong Un regime defiantly spurned U.S. diplomatic overtures with a growing list of demands.

A photo provided by North Korea shows rockets being launched last month during an exhibition.

The test of several missiles, reported by South Korea's defense ministry, followed tests of cluster munitions and submarine-launched cruise missiles in recent weeks. The past two months have seen the most concentrated burst of North Korean testing since 2023, with a total of nine known launches.

That means Washington would face a more capable arsenal and stiffer terms if the administration succeeds in engaging Pyongyang in negotiations about its weapons program.

Pyongyang hasn't taken part in formal talks with Washington since 2019.

After the Federal Bureau of Investigation said North Korea was behind the \$6.3 billion Binance hack last week, President Trump said he would talk to the Kim regime.

“We don’t know if it’s North Korea, but if it is, we’ll talk to North Korea about it,” Trump said this past Saturday.

Kim's sister, regime spokeswoman Kim Yo Jong, reiterated her denial of North Korea's involvement in the hack

on Wednesday while pointing the finger at Washington.

"We have no need to sit face to face with such unreliable and hostile persons who refuse to abandon their policy of confrontation

while talking about dialogue," she said in a statement.

She referred to Washington's joint drills with allies and its naming of North Korea as the world's worst human-trafficking nation as evidence of American hostility.

KCNA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The regime's weapons capabilities have expanded since 2019.

Trump has said he wants to meet Kim without preconditions. But conditions are pil-

ing up on North Korea's side. Kim Jong Un's sister has demanded the U.S. halt joint exercises with Japan and South Korea, drop cyber allegations and acknowledge North Korea as

a nuclear power.

The Kim regime's weapons capabilities have expanded significantly since Trump and Kim met three times in 2018 and 2019 to negotiate North Korea's denuclearization.

Washington now faces new capabilities from solid-fuel ballistic missiles to hypersonic systems.

Engaging Kim without pre-conditions could risk granting de facto recognition to North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, while allowing Pyongyang to demand even steeper

U.S. concessions, analysts say.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that Trump was open to talks with North Korea, though a meeting hadn't been scheduled.

"The president doesn't view talks, doesn't view meeting with someone as a concession," Rubio said.

El Salvador Gambles With Military Push Into Haiti

BY JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA

AND SANTIAGO PÉREZ

Soldiers return to a base following a patrol after El Salvador deployed thousands of troops to Haiti last month.

ATRICE NOEL/REUTERS

When an ambush outside Port-au-Prince left an armored vehicle in flames and four Salvadoran military-aviation technicians missing two weeks ago, the initial response from El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele's was to send a rescue mission.

It quickly expanded into an unprecedented foreign-military campaign.

El Salvador has airlifted to Haiti more than 2,500 troops and special forces, who are now patrolling the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, establishing themselves as the largest armed contingent in the country, except for Haiti's beleaguered national police.

The deployment marks a high-stakes effort for Bukele to export his domestic anti-gang crusade abroad, potentially plunging his country's soldiers into armed combat like they have never seen before.

The operation carries enormous risk. Gangs hold roughly 90% of Port-au-Prince and control critical arterial roads for fuel, medicine and food. Salvadoran military units must now navigate foreign slums where up to an estimated 15,000 armed Creole-speaking combatants operate along narrow corridors and mountain extraction routes. Many of them are child soldiers.

"The risk of a Black Hawk Down scenario is very high," said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America program at the Stimson Center, referring to the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia and the resulting book and movie about a Black Hawk helicopter carrying U.S. forces that was shot down.

The Salvadorans' initial objective remains unresolved. There has been no proof of life and no ransom demand for the four technicians, who disappeared after an attack in Croix-des-Bouquets, 9 miles northeast of the capital. Security officials familiar with the incident fear the men were killed during or immediately after the ambush.

"The gangs are dangerous," said Carlos Ruiz Massieu, special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Haiti. "They are armed with high-caliber weapons and operate largely within an urban context," he said. The Salvadorans and other forces must do everything to prevent casualties in areas where gang members live among civilians, he said.

Bukele, who locked up tens of thousands of suspected criminals to suppress gang violence in El Salvador, had long signaled interest in Haiti. “We wiped them out,” Bukele said in March 2024, arguing that his model could apply abroad. “The same must be done in Haiti.”

Before launching the deploymment, Bukele secured political backing from President Trump. At a Mar-a-Lago Halloween party, Trump said Bukele informed him of the missing personnel. “You are running your country,” Trump said he told Bukele. “You have to do what you have to do.”

The U.S. and Colombia have provided some logistical help ferrying troops and supplies into a nation unmoored since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Salvadoran soldiers had been part of the U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force—a 2,000-troop coalition from six nations. Some Salvadorans serve with other contractors hired by U.S. security consultant Erik Prince. The four missing Salvadoran technicians were members of the U.N.-backed force.

Now, most Salvadoran troops will operate under their own commanders through a bilateral pact with the Haitian government. Several hundred will integrate into the multinational force.

Many Haitians see in the Sal-

vadoran military mission a glimmer of hope that could mark the beginning of the end of the reign of terror in which local gangs have held the country for years. "He's showing he means business.

Salvadorans had been part of a U.N.-backed force from six nations.

the hope has gone back up," said Louis-Henri Mars, the senior adviser to the Institute for Research and Action for Peace, a conflict-resolution group.

To be sure, Salvadoran troops could return home after killing or capturing some gang leaders who can be extracted to El Salvador, home to Bukele's harsh Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot, the mega-prison housing thousands of gang members who terrorized the Central American country for decades.

A successful deployment requires sophisticated intelligence and logistical capabilities, starting with a secure prison for captured gang

members in a country where prison outbreaks are common, people familiar with Haiti's security conditions said.

A military escalation risks deepening the current humanitarian crisis rocking the country and a mass exodus to the Dominican Republic. If things go wrong, Salvadorans may quickly be perceived as invaders in a highly nationalistic country. More than 1.5 million residents have been displaced within Haiti, many seeking shelter in schools. Another 11,000 have been killed in gang violence and massacres within the past two years.

Bukele has described Haitian gangs as satanic. “This is not an operation against the Haitian people, nor an invasion,” he wrote on X last week. “We came to Haiti to fight against the wicked,” he also said recently, and quoted an Old Testament verse.

The Salvadoran military presence drew a response from Wilson Joseph, a gang leader also known as “Death Comes at Any Time.” In an open letter to the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres released on Sunday, Joseph asked for the U.N.’s mediation to stop further bloodshed.

Joseph, head of the 400 Mawozo, or 400 Country Bumpkins, one of the two gangs believed to be involved in the ambush of the Salvadorans, said Bukele's "vengeful remarks, expectations, and threats" made him believe more destruction would befall Haiti.

"I fear that this situation could lead to an escalation of violence and a cycle of reprisals, of which the Haitian population would be the primary victims," wrote Joseph, who has a \$1 million U.S. bounty on his head. Instead, Haiti's beleaguered population needed "dialogue, justice and reconciliation," a process in which he was willing to take part, he said.

It was a change for Joseph, who had previously posted mocking videos of plastic buckets full of bullets to show off how well armed his men were, made fun of Bukele's anti-gang policies, and said his men wouldn't flee if Salvadorans attacked his positions.

ISRAEL

President Accepts Election Results

President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday accepted as legally binding the certified results from last week's parliamentary elections and said he would begin consultations with party representatives on the formation of a new government.

Herzog's acceptance of the results as valid dealt a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's effort to discredit the vote in which his religious-nationalist bloc lost its majority in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, while Arab-led parties made historic gains.

Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that the Arab-led parties had “stolen” the election, possibly with foreign assistance.

The Israeli president is required now to sit down with various party leaders to determine who to name as prime minister-designate—a process that could potentially bring Netanyahu's opponents to power.

Israel's election commission earlier said it had found "no evidence of irregularities."

Netanyahu's Likud party didn't respond to a request for comment.

—Associated Press

EUROPE

Fake Bomb Threats Target Airlines

Several flights across Europe received hoax bomb threats on Tuesday that prompted searches, diversions and, in one case, an escort by the Italian Air Force until landing, officials said.

The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came a day after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.

Matthew Borie of Osprey Flight Solutions, which advises airlines on flight threats, gave several hypotheses for the incidents: A single threat triggers copycat incidents; an individual or a group makes multiple threats; or operations of “hybrid warfare” by state actors or their supporters.

The focus on Europe means "there could be a Russian angle," said Borie, Osprey's co-founder and chief intelligence officer. "We need to keep in mind, though, that Iranian hybrid warfare is just as active in certain pockets of Europe as well."

—Associated Press

PARAGUAY

Digital Bank Linked To President Seized

The central bank seized a major digital lender with close ties to President Santiago Peña on Tuesday, fueling a political crisis and threatening the country's burgeoning reputation as a regional haven for investors. The takeover left millions of customers' savings and hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds in limbo.

The central bank's board voted unanimously late Mon-day to put Ueno Bank into resolution and hand its management to officials charged with assessing its finances and protecting its assets, the regulator said on Tuesday. The move came after Ueno's solvency ratio, a measure of its capital against its risk-weighted assets, fell below half the legal minimum. Resolution allows regulators to transfer a failing bank's deposits to other institutions before liquidating its remaining assets.

The bank says it has about three million customers, equivalent to roughly 60% of the adult population of the South American country, and manages \$800 million to \$850 million in public money.

—Associated Press

WORLDWATCH

VATICAN MEDIA/REUTERS

GOTTA HOST SOMEBODY: Pope Leo XIV greeted music legend Bob Dylan at the Vatican on Wednesday, when the singer-songwriter was on a break between concert dates in Italy.

PERSONAL JOURNAL.

© 2026 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

A Christmas Cruise Filled With Rabid Fans

The holiday comes in October on a high-seas extravaganza that celebrates cheesy Hallmark movies and passengers who love them

CARRY ON

DAWN

GILBERTSON

Somewhere Near the Bahamas

Thirty minutes into the

world premiere of the

new Hallmark movie

"Forgotten Holiday," the

amnesia-stricken leading

man pulls up to his

decked-out home, confused by all the decorations.

“So. Much. Christmas,” he says.

A Hallmark sentiment has never hit so close to home. I was sitting in a packed cruise-ship theater in Grinch pajamas and matching headband, fuzzy red slippers and candy cane earrings. In October.

It was day two of the annual Hallmark Christmas Cruise, a sold-out, four-night extravaganza for superfans of the cheesy holiday movies. Yes, it's a real thing, the vacation version of those 24-hour Christmas music radio stations and pop-up holiday bars.

Prices start at about \$1,500 a person and run to more than \$4,000 for suites. (As always, The Wall Street Journal paid my way.) The big draw: The chance to mingle with more than 18 Hallmark Channel stars including amnesia man Daniel Lissing. The Australian actor, on his first Hallmark cruise, called bingo on day four and

Thursday, November 5, 2026

DAWN GILBERTSON (WSJ) (5) stayed after for endless selfies.

Charters are a niche business for major cruise lines, a way to fill ships outside peak vacation seasons. Norwegian Cruise Line, which hosted the Hallmark cruise on the 4,000-passenger Norwegian

Joy, offers about two dozen themed cruises a year through its Sixthman subsidiary.

It's hard to imagine a more rabid fan base than the Hallmark devotees. Hallmark said 12 million people watched its holiday movies in the first two weeks of the annual countdown to Christmas marathon that began Oct. 16.

This isn't just a jam-packed vacation on the high seas for them, it's a passion project that begins long before the suitcases come out.

It starts with holiday merch, the tackier the better. There are Etsy shops full of Hallmark Christmas Cruise items, including one where I purchased \$24 T-shirts for the Candy Cane Sail Away party. (I was still underdressed.)

Craft store Michaels is an official cruise sponsor. But it didn't take much sleuthing to discover Amazon, Shein and Temu are unofficial benefactors in the competition to put National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to shame.

In one Facebook group discussion about cruise attire, a fan joked that she planned on “throwing up Christmas all over myself all day every day!!”

Florida real-estate executive Laurie Reader, on her second Hallmark cruise with her mom and sister, estimates she spent about \$1,500 on matching holiday pajamas, outfits, accessories and cabin decorations. They leave them behind for cruise employees. She says she's a Hallmark Channel junkie because she "loves love."

“Every single Hallmark movie ends happy,” she says. “Why am I going to spend my time watching something that makes me upset or brings me down?”

Passengers vigorously embraced the Christmas season on a sold-out, four-night cruise on the Norwegian Joy. Hallmark actor B.J. Britt, right, even posed for selfies.

Door decorating is a thing on all mainstream cruise lines. On this one, it's an interactive art and easily consumes hours for die-hards.

Two Arizona women dressed in red tutus and holiday leggings on Deck 15 brought a photo of Hallmark heartthrob Tyler Hynes on a stick for fellow cruisers to pose with outside their door. There was major disappointment when the Canadian actor wasn't in the star lineup released in June.

You couldn't walk down a corridor without seeing a cheeky holiday game or two on a magnet. Who knew my Candy Cane name was

Ranger Dazzling Jingle Crunch, my Elf name Tootsie Silver Bells?

Cruisers hang stockings on their doors and fellow passengers stuff them like Santa. By day three, mine was overflowing with tchotchkes, candy, lip gloss, ornaments, green and red bracelets and even a Bible-verse bookmark.

Don't let gifting or 24/7 loungewear fool you, though. There is no time to relax on a Hallmark cruise if you're all in.

The daily schedule is crazier than the color-coded calendar of a working mom. Trivia, festive family feud with the stars, cookie decorating, ornament making, Christmas caroling, Christmas karaoke, silent discos, Zumba and, of course, movie marathons.

One woman I met stayed on the ship during the stop in the Bahamas to watch rom-coms all day.

Every cruiser gets a personal photo opp with the stars, and many prep for it like the prom. Christmas jammies or festive sweater? Matching shirts or holiday finest? The stars greet you like a close family member (“I love your sweater”), but the photo opp is over before you know it.

The closest I got to the Hallmark actors outside the photo session: a fifth-row seat at 8 a.m. bingo. People started lining up at 5:45 a.m. to buy game cards because Jonathan Bennett, a

Hallmark cruise headliner and "Mean Girls" alumni with one million Instagram followers, was hosting with Lissing. I was in my seat by 6:45 a.m. despite leaving the silent disco party around midnight.

They joked about less-than-glamorous Hallmark movie sets (Winnipeg, Canada) and how they don't always sit through each others' movies. Bennett, in a sleeveless red Christmas sweater, entered the stage twerking to NSync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays." (He crowd surfed at another event.)

I'm no Hallmarkie and refused to stand in excruciating lines or post up hours early for major events. I got a bigger kick out of the guests and the stories that

brought them to a floating Christmas party.

Lyndsi Foster saw a TikTok video about the cruise last year. She sent it to her sister Whitney in Sweden as a Christmas gift idea for their Hallmark-movie-loving mom. They booked it the next day. Phyllis Crum, 67 years old, didn't find out until she unwrapped a green Hallmark Christmas sweat-shirt. She was in shock and soon set about buying \$500 worth of matching merchandise they paraded around in.

“It’s almost like summer camp for people that love Christmas movies,” said Whitney Andelius, 34.

Mark Tiedeman, who runs a manufacturing

company in California, booked the cruise with his wife the second they got off a waiting list because she watches Hallmark movies year-round. He even watched some movies in preparation. Just don't ask him the name of his favorite. He only knows it had a firefighter who meets a girl with cats.

The only bit of bah-humbug? An unhappy ending to the cruise when high winds delayed our return to the Miami port by several hours. Passengers with flights that day had to scramble to rebook.

Cruise organizers made the best of it in Hallmark fashion. They added another bingo session, handed out leftover souvenirs and showed movies on a big screen.

I walked off the ship in my Christmas slippers.

A Mixed Experience With Rome VIP Service

BY DAWN GILBERTSON

The following first appeared in the WSJ's weekly Travel newsletter.

You've probably seen influencer videos touting the magic VIP greeters who work at crowded European airports. It sounds like a dream in this era of messy passport lines.

Many of you asked whether they are worth it after I weighed in on the pros and cons of airline VIP services this summer.

So I booked SkyVIP Service for my arrival in Rome. I paid \$491 for two people with a 10% discount I found online. The company's sales pitch: Avoid long lines at the airport with our personal VIP assistance.

My greeter, a lovely woman named Sabina, met my 84-year-old mom and me shortly after we de-planed. She grabbed my mom's carry-on bag and asked if I wanted her to grab my backpack.

Not too long in, though, I wondered what I was paying for because there was no speeding through the airport initially. It wasn't any fault of the service. My mom requests a wheelchair to and from gates to avoid long walks. Rome is one of those airports where you take a bus to passport control and baggage claim, at least on certain airlines including American. And it requires wheelchair passengers to take a separate van. This arrived much later than the bus. When my mom got off the van she didn't have a wheelchair because it went to needier passengers. Sabina told us it would take 30 minutes for one to arrive.

So with my mom's blessing, we walked to passport control. This is where being escorted started to pay off. We went through a priority line (Sabina says that's not always allowed) that saved probably 20 minutes over the regular line.

In baggage claim, she picked up a luggage cart picked up a baggage cure and picked all of our bags off the belt. I can certainly do this myself. But I was grateful for the assist since I had so little sleep on the red-eye flight that my Oura ring recorded it as a nap!

The taxi line is where the magic happened. There must have been at least 100 people waiting to get to central Rome. There's a fixed rate for those trips, so it's often more

SkyVIP Service at a Rome airport cost \$491 for two people.

attractive than a ride-share.

Sabina politely maneuvered us to the front of the line in minutes with no shortage of side eye from other passengers.

I certainly wouldn't plunk down \$500 for two on most trips. But, as with the airline VIP services, there are special occasions and travel partners and business trips where you have to hit the ground running. For those it could make sense.

Do some math to help you decide if money is not unlimited. Which travel upgrade would bring you more joy? American dangled a last-minute upgrade to premium economy on my nine-hour flight to Rome for \$296 per person. I was ready to jump on it until I found out it was a middle seat.

My mom, meanwhile, can't stop raving about the VIP airport experience.

The Math: \$67.82

Frontier Airlines' fare revenue per passenger in the third quarter, compared with \$39.74 a year earlier, a whopping 71% increase.

Travel-arious:

I snorted when I saw this Threads post about luxury travel ads on Hulu and thought a lot of you could relate, too.

"I just had an ad for the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection on Hulu and I just want them to know that if I could afford that I wouldn't have (expletive) Hulu with ads."

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers to AeroLOPA, the website and app that offers detailed airline seat maps including grades for each seat. It steered me away from an extra legroom seat I had booked on an American 777-200. The website is free, but there's a fee for the app.

Jeers to the shortage of airport wheelchair attendants. We had to wait 20 minutes for one at Miami International Airport ahead of the flight to Rome despite having reservations.

To subscribe to Dawn Gilbertson's Friday travel newsletter, go to wsj.com/newsletters.

This Year's Flu Season Starts Unusually Early

Early findings suggest people aged 15 to 25 years old have less effective antibodies to a mutated influenza strain

BY JENNIFER CALFAS

A

mutated strain of influenza is helping fuel an early start to the flu season, prompting experts to urge Americans to get ASAP.

their shots ASAP.

Positive flu tests for this time of year have hit highs not seen in a decade, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

“We’re seeing January-level transmissions currently,” Dr. Alex Greninger, a microbiologist at the University of Washington, referring to the West Coast specifically.

Here's what you need to know.

What's going on with this year's flu?

This year's flu season started unusually early, particularly on the West Coast where cases popped up in late August, some two months earlier than usual.

So far, the flu season is dominated by a strain of H1N1, the type that caused the 2009 flu pandemic.

But the latest strain has a specific mutation, called G155E, that is likely playing a role in the season's early spread. Even those who have been exposed to H1N1 might not have as much natural immunity to this mutation.

“We’re seeing seasonality go out the window, specifically for H1N1,” Greninger said. “If there is a big enough immunological gap that opens it up, it doesn’t really need the help of winter.”

Who is most at risk for this mutated strain?

Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, found that people aged 15 to 25 years old have less effective antibodies to this season's flu, according to early findings that haven't yet been peer reviewed.

Bloom said the findings, based on lab work, might show that adults with exposure to H1N1 from before 2009's pandemic could have more immunity to this year's flu.

“We suspect the reason is that influenza antibodies are shaped by lifetime exposure histories,” Bloom said. “The 15 to 25 age group, that’s sitting right on the age group of people that you

would expect there's a good chance their first exposure was in 2009 or shortly thereafter 2009," which may not provide sufficient protection.

Will the flu shot still protect me?

The short answer: yes. But it won't be clear until later this season exactly how effective the vaccine is.

This mutation clearly emerged after drugmakers updated seasonal vaccines, so existing shots appear to be partially mismatched to this year's flu, Bloom said.

"I would probably expect it to be a slightly mid- to lower-vaccine-effectiveness year because we know that there's this new muta-"

A flu mutation emerged after drugmakers updated the vaccines.

tion that came in and it's good enough to spread in the population early," Greninger said.

The efficacy of flu vaccines varies each year. Last season, the flu shot was 31% effective at preventing flu-related hospitalizations across all ages, according to early estimates from the CDC.

Current flu shots do include strains of H1N1 and the type of H3N2 that spread last season.

Experts say it is also possible other strains of influenza may emerge throughout the season, which might align more with what is in the shots.

Where is the flu spreading?

The flu normally starts in the Southeastern states, but this year it started on the West Coast.

In California, more than 15% of flu tests are coming back positive—compared with around 1% this time last year, according to state health-department data. San Francisco reported its first flu-related death of the season in early October.

Doctors at Seattle Children's Hospital in Washington were treating children with typical symptoms of flu in October—fever, dehydration and respiratory issues—at a volume more typical for December, said Dr. Mersine Bryan, a pediatrician at the hospital.

What kinds of flu shots are available?

A number of flu shots are available. Flu vaccines from companies like Sanofi, GSK and CSL Seqirus are produced by growing flu viruses in eggs—a process that has been used for decades. There are other approaches, too: Sanofi's Flublok is made synthetically in labs. The company said one study found patients who received this vaccine had lower hospitalization rates than adults who received other flu shots.

Federal health officials recommend people ages 65 and older receive higher-dose flu vaccines, like Sanofi's Flublok or Fluzone High-Dose, and CSL Seqirus's Fluad. Older Americans are at higher risk of flu-related hospitalization and death.

A new option is available for some adults this year. The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna's mRNA-based flu vaccine called mFlusiva this year for adults ages 50 and older. These shots can be made quicker than egg-based shots, a prospect virologists say could allow the company to more swiftly update its vaccine to better align with strains spreading during the respiratory season.

It would take federal authorities deciding to update this season's flu shots for Moderna to roll out a newer vaccine this year.

Dr. Anna Durbin, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research, said the hope with the mRNA vaccine is that officials could meet later in the year if any flu-vaccine strains need updating.

“You can make the vaccine very quickly,” Durbin said of mRNA shots. “If we do see that it is potentially more effective, then that may drive FDA to have another meeting so we can have the best flu vaccine ready for the public for the flu season.”

What does this mean for the rest of the flu season? It is too early to predict how these early trends might impact the rest of the flu season, particularly in terms of severity of the virus, hospitalizations and deaths.

It is possible this early start to the season might lead the U.S. to experience two big waves of the flu season—one early in the winter and another around the start of spring, experts said.

The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

ZZZ TOP | By Shmuel Schmell

Across

1 Glades

critter

5 Lessens

gradually

9 Highest-

grossing film

before "Star

Wars"

13 "Filthy"

money

15 Cruise stop

16 Lighted sign

17 Deal costs

18 Face-to-face

exam

19 UMD athlete

20 Reptile with a

powerful bite

23 Ytterbium's

atomic

number

24 Coral island

25 "\_\_\_\_ we there

yet?"

26 Sultan

Haitham

bin Tariq's

subjects

29 Retired M&M

color

32 Smallest musical group

34 Sajak's successor on "Wheel of Fortune"

36 Bagel buy

39 In shape

40 Make ashamed

41 Swore

43 Film that earned Will Smith and Jon Voight Oscar nominations

44 Collarless shirt

45 Home of the Mets

47 Reuters rival

50 The Crown & Anchor, on "Ted Lasso"

51 TV star's recognition

54 Kids' all-nighter, and a hint to this puzzle's theme

58 Ammonia feature

59 Mimicked

60 Sister of Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Attina, Adella and Alana, in a Disney film

61 Secret hideout

62 Flat bread?

63 Gabriel, Michael, Raphael or Uriel, e.g.

64 Big Apple fashion label

65 Next-smallest musical group

66 IDs on W-2s

Down

1 Like some voting shares

2 Strip on the table

3 Ti to ti, e.g.

4 Fancy flapjack

5 Amerigo Vespucci, for one

▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles.

27 Tangential remark

28 Hoop hanger

29 Lipton leaves

30 Dray tower

31 Utmost degree

32 Rep. opposer

33 Singular

35 Hitter's stat

36 Common combo vaccine

37 Refined stuff

38 Saldaña of "Emilia Pérez"

39 Bill addition

42 Legal document division

43 Tingling sensation initialism

46 Must

47 Strips ships, e.g.

48 Illegally distilled whiskey

49 Peaceful episodes

50 Crooner Como

52 Film-rating org. that dropped the second A in 2019

53 Rambling stories

54 Minn. neighbor

55 Cut of beef

56 Abbr. on a dial

57 "I came," to Caesar

58 Vintage

6 Six-time French Open champ

7 Tantrum thrower

8 Island near Martinique

9 Docking spot

10 Rink jump

11 Item worn in a sting

12 Letters on Indy cars

14 "Monday Night Football" channel

21 "Am \_\_\_\_ late?"

22 Mischief maker

The Great Ferret Rescue

Continued from Page One Belknap. “They’re kind of like slinkies.”

Slipping its head into a mini gas mask, Livieri launched into a meticulously choreographed exam: combing its fur for plague-bearing fleas, plucking ticks, injecting vaccines, microchipping it between the shoulder blades, pulling a hair sample and logging its weight.

Minutes later, the dazed animal woke up with a hissing start.

“It’s like something out of a horror movie for them,” said Livieri. “They must be thinking ‘What the hell?’”

Livieri, 55, is one of a handful of biologists pulling night shifts across the

Great Plains t save the black-footed ferret from extinction.

B u t drought, plague and dwindling numbers of prairie dogs, ferrets' main food

source, have battered the population in the area, dropping counts from 250 three years ago to roughly 50 this season. Some nights, he can drive 12 hours without seeing a single one.

“Doing the spotlight surveys are brutal,” said Jesse Boulerice, a research ecologist with the Smithsonian Great Plains Science Program in Montana. “It’s like this weird torture for a cool reward.”

Surviving the shift requires a stocked truck. Livieri relies on Caramello bars, Mello Yello and coffee to keep him up.

“You really can’t be playing Pink Floyd out here, you’ll blink and it’ll be sunrise,” he said, turning up his hair-metal playlist. His biggest rule: no country.

Black-footed ferrets are small, nocturnal and elusive.

Travis Livieri coaxes a black-footed ferret from a trap into tube for transportation.

They also have a knack for winning over their handlers.

“They act so tough, but yet they seem so fragile,” says Holly Hicks, a wildlife coordinator for Arizona Game &

Fish. "If you ever get

one that will dance around the buraround the bur-

row for you, I

mean, that

changes your

life forever

because it's

just so

funny."

The ferret's

The ferrets are small, elusive, and have a knack for winning over their handlers.

ultimate problem is genetic: They are profoundly inbred. Thought to be extinct until a Wyoming farm dog dragged a dead one home in 1981, every living ferret descends from just 18 wild survivors. Because they are all “kissing cousins,” as Livieri puts it, they fail to express a protein that helps fight the bacterium behind the medieval Black Death.

Plague infects ferrets and humans alike, so emergency room doctors in nearby Wall and Rapid City are trained to proactively treat field technicians if they show up with body aches.

To give the species a fighting chance, genetic researchers have cloned ferrets from preserved tissue samples to introduce fresh genetic diversity into captive populations. Field teams have deployed thermal drones to spot darting ferrets that glow hot pink under the infrared cameras.

Crews also mount paint-ball-style “triple shooters” to ATVs, blasting peanut-butter flea-killer pellets across prairie-dog towns.

Once a year, several dozen of these biologists assemble into a strike team, sharing staff and gear across Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

It's a thankless job, but the die-hards live and breath ferrets. Livieri met his wife at an American Ferret Association convention in Colorado. At their wedding, bridesmaids walked down the aisle carrying domestic ferrets. Today, they share their home with four rescues.

As the first light of dawn spilled over the Badlands, Livieri drove the newly vaccinated kit back to the burrow where her green eyes had flashed a few hours earlier.

He first hand-released wild ferrets on these grasslands in 1996. The kit he processed tonight was roughly 20 generations removed from those originals.

“Ferrets rule my life,” Livieri said. “I chase weasels for a living, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.”

ARTS IN REVIEW

EXHIBITION REVIEW

An Icon in the Making

The Musée d'Orsay tells the long saga of the Statue of Liberty's creation

BY J.S. MARCUS

At the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition, the young French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi learned about the construction of the

Suez Canal, under way since 1859. He began to imagine a colossal lighthouse sculpture, placed on a huge plinth at the canal entrance, in the form of an Egyptian peasant woman holding up a torch. In 1869, the year the canal opened, he made a trip to Cairo to show his sketches to Isma'il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt.

The khedive wasn't impressed, and Bartholdi (1834-1904) set about revising and reimagining his monumental peasant. A few decades later, now recast as a torch-bearing version of the allegorical figure of Liberty, she made her way to the U.S., in the form of some 350 copper pieces forged in a Paris workshop, which were then reassembled on a small, underused island at the entrance to New York Harbor. Oct. 28, 1886, was declared Liberty Day in New York City. President Grover Cleveland presided over the official dedication of the statue, with an internal framework designed by Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame, and which rose, on its pedestal, 305 feet tall. The origin story of the Statue of Liberty and the long saga of her construction and installation are the subject of a fascinating exhibition at Paris's Musée d'Orsay, "Auguste Bartholdi: Liberty Enlightening the World."

MUSÉE D'Liberty Enlightening the World.

Though Bartholdi—who generally went by the name Auguste— designed one of the world's most recognizable monuments, he has somehow slipped into relative obscurity. “Liberty Enlightening the World”—as Bartholdi himself named his statue—was his best-known creation, and by any measure his life's work. But he was also responsible for a number of other notable public sculptures in France and the U.S.

A native of Alsace, which a humiliated France was forced to cede to the new German Empire following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Bartholdi designed a 36-foot-tall red-sandstone lion in nearby Belfort, commemorating French resistance to a Prussian siege. And for decades Paris's Place des Ternes, just above the Arc de Triomphe, was dominated by another Franco-Prussian War memorial—his 30-foot-tall Monument to Aeronauts, commemorating balloonists who kept the besieged French capital in touch with the rest of the country. The Lion of Belfort is still a massive attraction in eastern France, and the fanciful Ternes monument, melted down for its copper content during the Vichy regime and all but forgotten, is recalled at the beginning of the show with photographs.

The gradual transformation of the Orientalist Egyptian peasant into the Neoclassical Statue of Liberty is documented in a panoramic installation of drawings and clay sketches. There is a beguiling consistency between the initial Suez work, with a torch meant to represent progress, and Bartholdi's evolving depictions of Liberty, whose torch was meant to symbolize the ability of freedom to lead mankind out of the darkness.

Bartholdi's Liberty descended from a wide range of similar figures, dating all the way back to the French Revolution. The most influential was the militant heroine of Eugène Delacroix's 1830 painting invoking that year's July Revolution, "Liberty Leading the People," shown wearing a Phrygian cap, associated with the original French Revolution's militant Jacobins, and brandishing a musket and bayonet. The show exhibits numerous iterations of the Liberty figure, from as far back as the 1790s. By the early 1870s, when Bartholdi was drafting version after version, he got rid of the cap, opting instead for a seven-pointed crown; in place of a weapon, Liberty was given a tablet inscribed with July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals. This is in marked contrast with some of the other

Liberties on view, like the 1839 small bronze work by French sculptor David d'Angers, whose Romantic ideas animated his figure's menacing weapon and defiant headgear.

In the dizzying shifts of 19th-century French politics, when artists might be anything from Royalists-for-hire to dyed-in-the-wool proto-Communists, Bartholdi “was not a revolutionary,” commented Juliette Chevée, director of Alsace’s Bartholdi Museum, in an email interview. She says the sculptor, together with French jurist and abolitionist Édouard Laboulaye, who first thought of a liberty-themed gift to the U.S. following the Union victory in the American Civil War, regarded the Statue of Liberty “as a

monument that should not call for liberty imposed by violence, but rather through law and justice." Ms. Chevée collaborated on the show with Orsay sculpture curator François Blanchetière.

Early 1880s photograph by Pierre Petit of the fabrication of a plaster model of the statue's left hand, left; 'The Head of the Statue of Liberty at the Universal Exposition of 1878,' by Henri Saintin, above; and a Bartholdi model (c. 1875) of the statue, below.

Bartholdi and Laboulaye spent about 10 years drumming up funding for the project, and the show presents a compendium of 19th-century commercial imagery, derived from magazines, posters and advertisements meant to publicize the statue-in-progress.

The immense torch-bearing arm, the first part of the statue to be completed, was sent to muster up buzz at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. An American photograph of the disembodied arm looming above the Philadelphia fairgrounds is matched by an 1878 painting showing the statue's head, which made a cameo at that year's Paris Universal Exposition. A matter of years later, in 1884, the completed statue was a temporary landmark in Paris itself, before being disassembled for its trip across the Atlantic.

In the show, images of the Statue of Liberty rising above northwest Paris, captured in a photograph by Albert Fernique and a painting by Paul-Joseph-Victor Dargaud, follow on Bartholdi's own various sketches, drawings and paintings of the work in its early stages, variously mounted on alternative pedestals or fronting fictive landscapes. Bartholdi's imposing 9-foot bronze version of the final Statue of Liberty (1889), part of the Musée d'Orsay's permanent collection and on view just inside the entrance, seems prosaic by comparison. The new show, though rather diminutive in size, celebrates the Statue of Liberty as reverie, as a dream not yet come true, and the effect couldn't be greater.

Auguste Bartholdi: Liberty Enlightening the World

Musée d'Orsay,

through Jan. 31, 2027

Mr. Marcus writes about art and design for the Journal and other publications.

FILM REVIEW | KYLE SMITH

'Wild Horse Nine': Black-Comic Beauty

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in the film, written and directed by Martin McDonagh.

WHEN 'WILD HORSE NINE' begins with an aging CIA man describing President Kennedy's assassination as a "success," you know you've entered the onyx-black seam that is Martin McDonagh's sense of humor. Yet if the writer-director has made one of the year's funniest comedies, he has also made one of its most poignant. An inveterate chronicler of hilarious and profane hit men has, in a way, gone soft. If a movie about murder can be bittersweet and tinged with beauty, this one is.

A cranky, offensive yet somehow lovable John Malkovich plays an old Company assassin named Chris. He's wrapping up his life, but there's one more coup to pull off: It's 1973, and together with his younger partner, Lee (Sam Rockwell), Chris is in Chile to overthrow and murder Marxist president Salvador Allende to install a right-wing junta.

But first: a mini-break. Chris and Lee jet off to Easter Island for a relaxing jaunt and to see the "big heads," as they persist in calling them. What captures Chris's imagination, however, is the island's graceful packs of wild horses, as well as two young women (Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas) who adore Allende.

Back on the Chilean mainland, the men's boss, operations chief MJ (Steve Buscemi), calls Lee to fret about what he is hearing about Chris's increasingly gross indiscretions. "Problematic," MJ declares. Among Chris's many unforgivable actions is telling the Socialist

women about the coup that he is about to engineer. MJ also thinks Chris, who is writing a memoir, might be preparing to tell the world everything he knows about the JFK assassination, which he can't allow.

Recycling the same idea he used in his first feature, 2008's "In Bruges," which also was about amusing reprobates larking about and snarking about a tourist trap, Mr. McDonagh crafts both a sharp-cornered spy plot and a rumination on life's missteps. The dialogue—especially Chris's—goes off in extravagantly weird directions. Mr. Malkovich's trademark worked-over delivery makes the toxicity sublime.

Mr. McDonagh, whose other films include "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "The Banshees of Inisherin," has Chris outline a theory on how the best cheese-producing countries are gay, explain why he likes to use a picture of a dwarf with a basketball to disguise his bombs, and note that a favorite Hank Williams song is about a suicidal bird.

Lee can hardly believe it when, after Chris tells the young Socialists about the CIA's imminent destabilization plot, one of them invites the codger to sit down for a chat while she is sunning herself. But we can believe it, because Chris may be a monster but he seems like merely an imp.

Even in a career as exceptional as Mr. Malkovich's, this performance stands out for its balance of registers; the menace and lethality intermingle with charm and vulnerability. His long and distinguished résumé of creeps, oddballs and villains lends a deep foundation to this role. His professional choices and Chris's are equally dark.

Mr. Rockwell, though first-rate as always, has much less pointed dialogue and is reduced to playing, essentially, the straight man for much of the movie. He does, however, participate in a brutally funny verbal tussle with his character's nervy

wife, played by Parker Posey, as she attracts attention from other CIA operatives. Tom Waits also turns up, radiating his usual hangdog appeal, for another tangential but important scene.

Nobody, except maybe Quentin Tarantino, writes dialogue to compare with Mr. McDonagh's flame-thrower wit. He's less showy as a director but does shape several powerful set pieces—some sad, some crazy and some both. Routinely dubbed a "bad boy" when he debuted as a young playwright, Mr. McDonagh is now in his 50s and seems newly concerned with the human need for connection, even among horrible men.

Though he would scoff at anything so banal as a fable of lost innocence, audiences will ponder to what extent Chris is meant to be an American allegory. His galloping self-confidence is all surface; he knows his best days are long behind him. The swagger has become a lounge act. Or, if you like, he's a wild horse himself—strong, impulsive and admirable in some ways but ultimately a dumb beast.

Or maybe that's just aging. As Chris notes, you develop a tendency to regret things, though most of us have less to regret than he does. If the melody of Mr. McDonagh's script is black comedy, the harmony is its sense of mistakes made and things lost. "She's life and I'm leaving it," Chris observes of one of the young women. On the other hand, Chris isn't going to mope too much; he's a killer, after all. "Still got it!" he notes at a climactic moment. True of Mr. Malkovich as well; he and Mr. McDonagh bring out each other's best in one of the year's best pictures.

[SPORTS] The 20-Year-Old Who Ended Italy's Wait for an F1 Champion

Kimi Antonelli is the first Italian to win the world title in 73 years. He did it in a German car.

Kimi Antonelli celebrates after winning the Formula One title. He has been in the Mercedes system since he was an 11-year-old go-kart prodigy.

BY JOSHUA ROBINSON

F

ew countries have contributed more to the oil-spattered history of Formula One than Italy. This is the country that gave the world the red of Fer-

rari, the speed of Monza, and legions of rabid fans who are forever on their fifth espresso.

Which is why Italy's decades-long failure to produce a world champion driver had always felt so confounding. Dating back to the 1950s, F1 has crowned Germans, Brits, Brazilians, and even an American named Mario Andretti without raising the Italian tricolore.

But on Sunday in Mexico City, 73 years of exasperated gesturing came to an end when Kimi Antonelli became Italy's first F1 world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.

During that baffling streak, Italians strode out into the world and challenged for the America's Cup, won the Tour de France, and dazzled British royalty at Wimbledon. They won two World Cups and three Nobel Prizes in literature. Eight of them went to space. At home, nearly 60 governments rose and fell. And still, the wait for an Italian to be the world's best at driving like a maniac dragged on.

Now, it can say a gigantic gra-zie mille to a 20-year-old boy racer from Bologna.

“For 73 years, our country has waited for this moment,” F1 chief executive and former Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said. “And today an entire nation will celebrate one of its own reaching the very pinnacle of our sport.”

Never mind that he did it in a German car. Antonelli has been in the Mercedes system since he was an 11-year-old go-kart prodigy. The team mentored him through the various development series and spent over \$10 million on honing his talent before he ever lined up on a Grand Prix grid. Finally, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff decided he was ready for the step up to Formula One ahead of last season and handed him the seat vacated by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

"If we commit, we commit," Wolff said. "And I think what we earn for it is loyalty."

If Italy's barren run was going to end, it was unlikely to come at

the wheel of a Ferrari anyway. La Scuderia, as the team is known, hasn't produced a machine worthy of a constructors' championship since 2008 and no Ferrari driver— of any nationality—has won a title since Finland's Kimi Raikkonen in 2007.

A Thriller in Champions League Play

Real Madrid players react after Federico Valverde's goal in the 92nd minute in a 3-2 win against AEK Athens.

“Kimi Antonelli is Formula One world champion,” Italy’s sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, wrote in small print on its front page on Monday. “Thanks to his talent, the car, and not racing in a Ferrari.”

Beyond its choppy recent record, Ferrari had historically shied away from actually.

away from actually putting Italians in the cockpit—an order that came from the founder himself, Enzo Ferrari. The man who did so much to associate the country with the red paint and horsepower explicitly avoided hiring his own countrymen after too many of them

“Mamma mia, Kimi!” five-time major tennis champion Jannik Sinner said in a video message to him. “Remember, all of Italy is proud of you.”

died in fiery wrecks. (Even the official newspaper of the Vatican turned on Enzo, once calling him “an industrial Saturn who continues to devour his own sons.”)

That collection of circumstances is why Italians were left to watch the rest of the world rack up titles while they spun their wheels. It also explained the explosion of national joy on Sunday evening.

1953

The last time

an Italian

(Alberto Ascari)

won the F1 title

“You’ve made all Italians dream,” said speedskater Arianna Fontana, the country’s most decorated Olympian.

For Antonelli, the relief came pouring out before he even crossed the finish line in Mexico.

He sobbed over the radio inside his helmet. And he fought back tears again as two of the sport's all-time greats, Hamilton and Max Verstappen, raised him onto their shoulders. Not only had Antonelli held off those world beaters all season, he had also become the youngest

world champion in the history of the sport.

Barely five years since he started racing actual cars, he could now celebrate the most prestigious title in motor-racing—by leading a huge Italo disco sing-along.

“This weekend I did feel a bit more tense,” Antonelli said. “But I’m just so happy that we got it done.”

Three Minutes, Four Goals, and the 1-in-5,216 Comeback

BY ROBERT O'CONNELL

IT WOULD BE HARD TO IMAGINE a hockey team in a more dismal spot than the one the Winnipeg Jets were in late on Tuesday night.

The Jets had gone winless in their previous nine contests. They'd lost their last game by seven goals. And with three minutes remaining in the final period, Winnipeg trailed the Montreal Canadiens 4-0.

In the history of the National Hockey League, 5,215 teams had trailed by that massive margin with so little time remaining, according to Stats Perform. Not a single one of them had ever pulled off a comeback.

Then came Winnipeg.

With an unprecedented onslaught of four goals in the final 2 minutes and 40 seconds of Tuesday's game—followed by a clinching fifth in overtime—the Jets became known for something other than their recent run of misery. All of a sudden, one of the sorriest teams in the NHL had pulled off the greatest comeback hockey has ever seen.

“We needed something to happen,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “Some kind of crazy thing to happen.”

In fact, it took a whole host of crazy things, which may actually have started several minutes before their first goal hit the net. That's when Tyrel Bauer, one of the NHL's most fearsome fighters, decided to take out his long-simmering frustrations by dropping his gloves.

Bauer squared off with Canadiens enforcer Arber Xhekaj, fighting him to a draw—and, much more importantly, giving his teammates a spark that they desperately needed.

“Every time he steps on the ice and he does something like that,”

forward Kyle Connor said, “it fires us up.”

That dust-up would have been lost to history were it not for what Bauer did next. Not content with throwing a few haymakers, Bauer quickly notched a “Gordie Howe

Down 4-0 late in the third period, the Jets tied the game in regulation before clinching the game in overtime.

Hat Trick”—the hockey term for recording a fight, a goal, and an assist. Bauer’s wrister with 2:39 remaining started the scoring, and his feed to a teammate just over 40 seconds later cut the Canadiens’ lead in half. Suddenly, a comeback became faintly believable.

Still, every scrap of statistical history was working against the Jets. Forget four goals in three minutes—Winnipeg averages just 2.44 goals per game this season, the third-lowest mark in the league.

But sure enough, a pair of goals from Connor in the final minute—a pair of surgical strikes from nearly the same exact spot on the ice—tied the game. And when Dylan Samberg glided into open ice and fired home the winner in overtime, what started with fisticuffs had ended in history.

“I don’t know if I’ve wanted to win a hockey game more in my life,” Bauer said, blood still shining on his knuckles.

As Winnipeg faces broke into wide smiles after the win—with varying numbers of missing teeth—there was only one point or disagreement. Did those punches thrown by Bauer really save the day?

“Well, no, not really,” Arniel, his coach, said. “But I’m not going to discount what he did. It’s pretty amazing.”

Trump vs. Trump, the Final Act

UNRULY

REPUBLIC

By Barton

Swaim

"Pretend I'm on the ballot," President Trump advised last month. Evidently a lot of voters did. In retrospect, the line nicely captures Mr. Trump's al-

most unfailing ability to act against his own interests.

That has been his propensity since the moment he descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. Listen to the impromptu talk he gave on that occasion and ponder the series of loosely connected gibes and wildly overstated claims. In a way, the event was a disaster. Nearly everyone scorned it—everyone, that is, except the sizable plurality of Republican voters Mr. Trump needed to blaze through the subsequent primaries.

His supporters heard a candidate who, whatever else might have been true about him, didn't operate according to ordinary political calculations. The following year, he won. He won again in 2024. But as Tuesday's election has reminded his party, there's only so much advantage to be had from ignoring ordinary political calculations.

Which is why the GOP tends to lose when Mr. Trump is in charge. The GOP lost in Virginia and New Jersey in 2017 and lost the House in 2018. In 2025 Republicans lost in Virginia and New Jersey again and on Tuesday night suffered the worst defeat in a generation.

Never has so successful a politician so consistently spoiled his own and his party's advantages. Mr. Trump's fans know this. Speak to them at rallies and they will refer to his latest own-goal and roll their eyes and say they wished he hadn't said or done it but they love him all the same. Press further and you'll find the own-goals are in some mysterious way part of the appeal. Mr. Trump doesn't view political reality, or reality, in the way other politicians do. That his bumptious comportment and cockamamie rhetoric have appealed to so many people for more than a decade is a measure of the electorate's weariness with conventional political behavior.

A century from now historians will read the catalog of Mr. Trump's self-defeating conduct and puzzle over how such a man won the presidency twice. The crude social-media tirades don't earn new supporters; they repel potential ones. Mr. Trump's insistence on driving allies from public office—John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy—has made his life harder. No one forced him to elevate the all-but-certain losers Ken Paxton and Darline Graham, but he did.

The habit extends to international affairs. Mr. Trump threatened to take Greenland by force and for a moment seemed serious. Later he asked for military assistance in Iran from the European allies he'd insulted. He didn't get it. In a similar vein, all Mr. Trump had to do to install a conservative ally as Canada's prime minister was nothing. Instead he joked about making Canada the 51st state and gave the victory to Mark Carney, whose government promptly cozied up to China and generally sides with America's critics abroad.

Never has a politician so consistently acted against his own and his party's interests.

Nobody forced Mr. Trump ahead of the 2024 election to promise the full release of Jeffrey Epstein's "client list" and so elevate the myth that the financier led a sex-trafficking ring. A moment's reflection would have told him that if no such list existed, as indeed none did, he would appear, in the minds of people who thrilled to his promise, to be part of the conspiracy to hide the truth. So it came to pass.

Mr. Trump has sometimes advanced policies that afforded him no political benefit but that furthered noble aims even so. The demolition of Iran's nuclear program and military belongs in that category, as does his rough treatment of elite universities that allow approved bigotries to flourish.

But you can puzzle all day over some choices and never find the upside. The advantage to be gained by sending the Justice Department after Lisa Cook, James Comey and Jerome Powell is zero. Pretending to ban selected media from the White House may scratch some itch, but please don't stoop to the belief that this or related attacks on the press advance Mr. Trump's aims or help his party or expand his base of support.

Some forms of political self-harm you can laugh at. Others you can't. The president refuses to enforce a law, passed by large majorities in Congress, requiring the divestiture or ban of the social-media platform TikTok, even as it spreads hatred of both America and Mr. Trump. Wantonly slapping tariffs on a constantly changing assortment of the world's goods had the effect of debilitating growth and alienating merchants and consumers forced to pay more for affected imports.

Mr. Trump's backward sense of his own interests has given him a strange quality of authenticity that his supporters love and his critics must sometimes envy. But the political benefits of authenticity diminish sharply once lame-duckery begins. His fans care about the future and will look forward to the applicants hoping to follow him. Which brings to mind the single most self-defeating decision of Mr. Trump's second term: his choice of a running-mate who, as anybody might have foreseen, would not scruple to sabotage him.

The GOP's Defeat Was Truly Massive

By Karl Rove

Both parties agreed on this tumultuous midterm election's essential point. President Trump wanted voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” With his approval at 38%, Democrats happily agreed.

The results were catastrophic for Republicans. They lost almost everywhere, including places where defeat was once unimaginable.

Republicans dropped from 53 in the Senate to no more than 46, with losses in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas as well as Georgia, North Carolina and Maine.

In the House, Democrats are expected to have around 258 seats, a pickup of at least 43. Many Republicans in supposedly safe districts narrowly escaped defeat.

Democrats gained at least five governorships, giving them a majority for the first time in 16 years. The entire statewide GOP ticket in Texas lost. Democrats also picked up at least 500 state legislative seats, and flipped at least 11 chambers, including the state Houses in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. They will take full control of the legislatures and governorships of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and possibly Arizona.

This midterm will be remembered decades from now. Republican losses were massive and consequential. What explains the scope of the GOP defeat?

The national environment was toxic. In the NBC News exit poll, nearly half of voters said the cost of living was a “crucial” consideration in their vote. Another 40% said it was a “major” factor. Nearly two-thirds said Mr. Trump’s policies made the economy worse while 62% said they raised prices.

With numbers like that, Republicans were going to have a tough night. But the president made things much

The party lost not only the House and Senate but crucial state legislatures.

worse. Nearly 2 of 3 voters said he had the wrong priorities. Sixty-two percent said he put his personal interests above the country's while 90% said government corruption was a “crucial” or “major” factor in their vote.

Mr. Trump's frequent rallies made him the center of attention. He dominated coverage with wild accusations, sloppy insults, and over-the-top bragging. He weirdly focused on the physiques of male candidates. No discipline, no forward-looking message, no substantive line of attack. Just whatever came to his mind as he rhetorically meandered for more than an hour at each rally. He called it "the weave." It was really a mess.

Mr. Trump also repeated President Joe Biden's mistake of telling voters not to believe their own experience. They were witnessing, he claimed, "the most successful economy" in "a Golden Age of America." This angered—even enraged—voters concerned their paychecks were growing slower than prices.

The president thought promising every adult \$5,000 if they voted Republican would swing the election. It backfired. Most Americans took it as a thinly veiled bribe he knew he couldn't deliver.

Republican losses would have been smaller if Mr. Trump spent more time being president and less as campaigner-in-chief. Disciplined messaging focused on economic concerns might have improved his standing and lifted more GOP hopefuls.

Then there was candidate quality. Plenty of Republican candidates were awful, especially those handpicked by Mr. Trump. The most prominent of these losers was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. His Senate campaign cost nearly \$500 million, and it wasn't even close. He lost by 12 points and became the first Republican nominee to lose a Texas U.S. Senate seat since 1988.

Mr. Trump ended the mid-term with remarks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The event was poorly staged and strangely disconnected. He focused on the pool's renovations, how he changed the White House lawn with a better quality of grass and other physical upgrades in Washington. He had charts and photos of his handiwork. No wonder voters believe the GOP is unconcerned about the cost of living and the economy.

Apart from the outcome, the president got what he wanted from the midterms. He was the center of attention and chose his party's nominees in key contests. He escaped the White House, drawing comfort from the adulation of true believers who packed his rallies.

This midterm defeat, one of the worst in a half-century, leaves the Trump presidency crippled. There's no chance of confirming a conservative Supreme Court justice in the next two years, and maybe the next six. Republicans who have been afraid to break with the president will now do so, if only for self-preservation. The president will dodge responsibility and blame others. He's already proclaimed on X, "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE." Not true.

Mr. Trump can't escape blame so easily. He and his policies and candidate choices burned the Republican Party to the ground.

Mr. Rove was senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush and is author of “The Triumph of William McKinley” (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

Democrats Won—Now Don’t Blow It

By Tom Suozzi

We won. Democrats gained control of Congress. Now what? We need to govern. Our time is limited, and our to-do list enormous. Running headlong into impeachment would be politically self-destructive. I understand the temptation. The MAGA machine spent millions attacking me. Vice President JD Vance came to my district and called me “the worst congressman in the entire United States.”

But Americans didn't vote for another two years of political warfare. They want relief from rising costs, leaders who work across party lines, and a Congress that actually solves problems.

My CPA background taught me to think in percentages. Democrats should devote 75% of our time to the cost of living and affordability and the other 25% to rigorous oversight.

Our constitutional over-

sight responsibility should be guided by the interests of the American people. An investigation into the Trump family's business dealings, including their cryptocurrency ventures, must examine the effect on Americans' pocketbooks. When Democrats probe whether the Pentagon or Elon Musk shut down Ukraine's access to Starlink, we must assess the national-security consequences.

We must resist a third impeachment and focus on governing.

But we campaigned on affordability. Let's start with restoring the enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans refused to extend. Reverse the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Medicaid cuts. End most of President Trump's tariffs, raise the minimum wage, strengthen unions through the PRO Act, and expand opportunities for families to build wealth, including the Trump Accounts. Let's also protect Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable earnings.

We should take up comprehensive immigration reform, combining border security and the removal of dangerous criminals with due-process protections, while also delivering a functional asylum system, professional enforcement, and permanent earned work authorization for law-abiding immigrants. Oversight will expose Mr. Trump's immigration abuses. Only legislation can fix the system.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the labor force, the economy and national security. We can work across party lines to encourage innovation while protecting workers and consumers.

Finally, we must scrutinize the administration's decisions on spending, healthcare, energy and national security, especially the wars in Iran and Ukraine, and develop a clear plan to replenish munitions and ensure readiness.

Some Democrats will demand a third impeachment of Mr. Trump. That would become another partisan spectacle, drowning out the issues voters elected us to address. I will oppose any impeachment process based on political anger, revenge or retribution.

The measure of Democrats' success won't be how many headlines we generate or scores we settle. It will be whether families can afford healthcare, housing, groceries and a better future.

As a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, I know Republicans and Democrats can work together without abandoning their principles or constitutional duties. Mr. Trump made this election a referendum on himself. Voters delivered their verdict. They expect results.

Mr. Suozzi, a Democrat, represents New York's Third Congressional District.

BOOKSHELF | By Matthew Rees

Building Bodies With the Basics

The Glass Box

By Calum Marsh

HarperOne, 352 pages, \$30

In 1995 Greg Glassman was 38 years old and muddling along as a personal trainer in the laid-back beach town of Santa Cruz, Calif. He owned neither a home nor a car, and he and his young son were between residences. They were living temporarily with a friend, her boyfriend and her children.

Mr. Glassman hardly seemed like a figure who would soon disrupt the multibillion-dollar fitness industry. But the training regimen he developed for clients in a local gym would attract a passionate following of fitness enthusiasts drawn to his unorthodox methods. The company he founded in 2000, CrossFit, would eventually have thousands of affiliates in the U.S. and internationally. The story

of CrossFit's rise—which was alternately helped and hindered by Mr. Glassman's intense personality—and how it altered the fitness industry is skillfully told by Calum Marsh in "The Glass Box."

“Step into almost any gym in the world today and you will see kettlebells, medicine balls, rowing machines, and even buckets of chalk, each of which CrossFit helped normalize for gymgoers,” Mr. Marsh writes. The author is a reporter on culture, arts and sports; he chose this subject,

he notes, in part because he's one of the many who took up CrossFit training. The influence of Mr. Glassman's ideas, he suggests, goes well beyond the company itself. “Whenever you see a ‘fitness boot camp’ or a class advertised as ‘high-intensity interval training,’ you are seeing the legacy of CrossFit.”

Mr. Glassman is the antithesis of what one might expect from the founder of a highly successful fitness chain. He is 5 feet 7 inches tall, walks with a limp (stemming from a childhood bout with polio) and, as Mr. Marsh writes, has a “truculent streak.” The book contains numerous accounts of Mr. Glassman’s readiness to unleash his ire. One critic is the subject of a “lengthy tirade” while a former colleague earns a “campaign of loathing.”

Mr. Glassman's central insight—he is largely self-taught—was to incorporate a variety of challenging exercises into a single training program, which would vary from day to day. The tools are basic. While typical gym customers might jog on treadmills or use Nautilus machines, Mr. Marsh writes, "Glassman would teach his clients how to perform a textbook-perfect barbell clean . . . then have them throw a heavy medicine ball toward the ceiling twenty or thirty times, then have them jump rope for ten minutes." The session might end with walking lunges—and a kettlebell held aloft—in the parking lot.

The company's “brand of strenuous, no-nonsense exercise” and its emphasis on grit, Mr. Marsh suggests, matched with a sense of “militaristic zeal” that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. CrossFit surged in popularity among soldiers. By the mid-2000s Mr. Glassman’s program had been adopted by U.S. Army trainers at Fort Bragg, N.C., as well as by the Special Operations Command of the armed services.

The growth of CrossFit—a fitness company built around high-intensity, low-tech workouts—owed a great deal to its army of followers.

The company's growth is even more notable given that it was largely a product of word-of-mouth recommendations from its adherents. Mr. Glassman had a strong aversion to spending on traditional forms of advertising. He wanted CrossFit locations to have a spartan appearance—no soft lights or fancy sound systems—which led to their becoming known within the fitness community as “boxes.” (Glass fixtures are not part of the aesthetic—the book’s title seems to be a play on the founder’s name.)

Mr. Glassman also evinced little interest in money. Early in the company's history, he charged gyms only a small fee to use the CrossFit name. He abandoned a paid-subscription model for the company's CrossFit Journal, a mix of fitness-oriented information and commentary, even after it had become a significant revenue source. In 2010 he resisted a lucrative partnership offered by the shoe company Reebok until they met virtually all of his terms.

The culture that developed around the company owed much to the community of its most involved customers. Beginning with a group of around 70 competitors in 2007, Mr. Glassman invited athletes to compete annually in a variety of fitness categories. The event became known as the CrossFit Games, which was covered by ESPN (and later CBS). The games were largely run with volunteer labor: Such willingness to work for free was emblematic of the passion of CrossFit followers. When Covid-19 lockdowns shut down CrossFit locations throughout the country, Mr. Glassman waived the fees these gyms owed.

Mr. Marsh, who characterizes the devotion of CrossFitters as “cultlike,” writes of spending a day at a CrossFit event in France, where several people approached Mr. Glassman with tears in their eyes and told him he had saved their lives. But “The Glass Box” is also littered with stories of Mr. Glassman’s reckless spending and dictatorial rule. Speaking with the author, Mr. Glassman bluntly characterized his leadership style: “I’m driving the bus. I want you to sit in the back and tell me who I ran over—not tell me where to drive.”

That attitude was tested after Mr. Glassman made an ill-advised social-media post in June 2020, which some interpreted as trivializing the death of George Floyd. Hundreds of gyms declared that they wanted to drop their affiliation with CrossFit. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Glassman resigned as chief executive and sold the company for \$200 million (equivalent to around \$249 million today).

CrossFit peaked in 2018 with more than 15,000 affiliated locations spread across more than 100 countries. Today there are fewer than 10,000. The reasons for the decline vary, but the biggest one may be the copycat effect: Gyms and health clubs throughout the world have become more like CrossFit. If your next workout is more focused on kettlebells than treadmills, you'll know the reason.

Mr. Rees is a senior fellow at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Trump Reckoning Arrives

Republicans emerged from their victory in 2024 with a rare chance to advance the cause of conservative reform and

consolidate a new majority coalition. Voters rendered a crushing verdict Tuesday on their missed opportunity by sweeping them from power in the House and Senate.

Republicans may console themselves that midterm defeats in second presidential

The President's 2024 coalition rebukes his second-term priorities and performance.

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defeats over the decades when they have re-

sorted to tariffs. Oof, they did it again.

The Iran war added to the cost problem on added to the cost problem on fuel prices in particular. But the bigger trouble with the war is that Mr. Trump has never explained his strategy or been consistent in his war aims. He changed, sometimes by the day, on whether peace or more war was at hand. Voters have stopped supporting

terms are common. But this was more than a normal defeat. The loss of Senate seats and governorships in states that had become GOP redoubts will have ramifications for years to come. So will the cascading losses down ballot in state legislatures.

True to form, President Trump is already blaming everyone else, but he is the main architect of this rout. He'll say the Senate didn't break the filibuster or pass his Save America Act. But neither would have saved the GOP this year, even if there had been enough votes to do either. He'll blame Karl Rove and Texas Sen. John Cornyn for the shocking defeats in the Lone Star State, but failed Senate candidate Ken Paxton was his man—and his choice helped bring down Gov. Greg Abbott too.

Mr. Trump is directly responsible for at least three Senate defeats: Mr. Paxton when he could have endorsed Mr. Cornyn instead; North Carolina, where he drove Sen. Thom Tillis from running for re-election; and Darline Graham, whom he pressed to run to replace her late brother, Lindsey Graham, despite her lack of political experience or policy knowledge.

Throw in Georgia, where his war on other Republicans divided the party and kept Gov. Brian Kemp from running for Senate. Mr. Trump has now helped Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff win twice, first with his special-election fiasco in 2021.

More broadly, the President's erratic and self-indulgent second-term governance has alienated much of the coalition he assembled in 2024. He won a second term on the promise to repeat the economic success of his first. But this time he insisted on imposing universal tariffs, often willy-nilly, that have raised prices for many goods and been especially damaging in Iowa, Kansas and the Farm Belt. His senseless trade war with Canada hurt Republicans in Michigan, Maine, even Texas.

His 29% job approval on the economy in the second term tells much of the story. In the first term he stuck mostly to the traditional GOP policy mix of tax cuts and deregulation, with a smattering of tariffs. It worked. In the second he went all-in on tariffs in April 2025, and even after his tariff defeat at the Supreme Court he continued to impose them in different ways. The public didn't approve from the start, and among Hispanics the disapproval for tariffs in October was 81%.

As former Sen. Phil Gramm warned on these pages, Republicans have suffered many similar the war because they aren't sure Mr. Trump knows how to win it.

Voters also rebelled against Mr. Trump's seeming preoccupation with his pet personal causes—the ballroom, the arch—and how he and his family have grown richer during the second term. No less than 88% of voters mentioned “corruption” as their top concern in an October Fox News poll, a higher percentage than the 85% who said inflation.

Democrats linked costs and corruption in their ads to damaging effect. Even if the link isn't fair or true, it played to the frustration of voters that the President's family is doing well while they are not. The charge of corruption is likely to haunt Mr. Trump across the next two years, as Democrats in Congress investigate the deals and details.

Most important for the GOP Congress, the man in the White House failed to provide the leadership and salesmanship to help the party's narrow majorities do more than the one big tax bill. He was preoccupied with exacting revenge on his political opponents, attempting to vindicate his claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and promoting dubious worries about voter fraud this year. But the voters said in resounding fashion that the Presidency isn't about him.

Republicans tried countless times to refocus his attention, but he always veered into political retribution, or talking about the Reflecting Pool, or something. His only notable proposal for the next two years was a political bribe—\$5,000 to every American if Republicans kept the House and Senate. Republicans in turn had nothing of note to say that they wanted to accomplish in the next two years.

\* \* \*

The Republican wreckage left by this defeat doesn't foretell what will happen in 2028. But it does call for soul-searching. Tariffs and mass deportation are no substitute for rising real incomes. Playing to the bro MAGA base is no substitute for persuading Hispanics, independents and suburban swing voters who abandoned the party on Tuesday.

Note to Vice President JD Vance: The “working class” coalition that is supposed to be the GOP’s future can’t be bought off with child subsidies, support for the Teamsters, or industrial policy corporatism. They want the broad-based prosperity of the first Trump term.

Going into 2028, the GOP needs a debate about what it stands for after Donald Trump, and let's hope it starts this week.

Will Democrats Misread Their Victory?

Democrats won an historic midterm election victory Tuesday, and congratulations on again having real legisla-

tive power. The question now is what lessons Democrats will take from their triumph, and whether they'll return to the same mistakes of the Biden era that cost them so dearly in 2024.

The first essential lesson is that voters are handing Democrats power because they wanted to rebuke President Trump. They think he failed to deliver on his promise to lower prices, and they don't like his excesses on the rule of law, tariffs, mass deportation, and crony cashing in.

Americans voted to rebuke Trump, not for a repeat of Biden-era left-wing overreach.

Voters weren't endorsing the Democratic Party, which stands at 29% approval in the latest NBC poll, below even the 38% for the Republican Party. Voters also weren't embracing a Democratic policy agenda, since the party didn't offer one. Candidates chanted “Trump” like an incantation and then talked about costs and corruption. They offered little specificity about how to reduce costs.

One Democratic priority is sure to be investigating the executive branch and the Trump family businesses, and some oversight is warranted. Mr. Trump's misuse of the pardon power, his cryptocurrency plays, and Don Jr.'s investments in firms that do business with the government are all worthy subjects. Ditto for the government loans to or investment in private firms, especially those in which Trump family companies have stakes.

frustrations of divided government. Unfortunately for the country, given the \$40 trillion debt and last year's \$2 trillion deficit, Congress typically papers

More scrutiny on policy matters could also be usefully informative. Who really throttled Ukraine's Starshield satellite access? And let's learn more about the U.S. agreement with Alejandro Betancourt, the Administration's politically connected partner in its preferential deal to exploit Venezuelan oil resources.

The political danger is that Democrats won't be able to control themselves. They didn't in Mr. Trump's first term, and it cost them politically. One key test will be whether they can resist the calls to impeach him again. Nancy Pelosi didn't, and her efforts merely solidified the President's Republican support. Unless Democrats uncover something serious enough to get Republican Senators to convict after a House impeachment, they would be wise to settle for oversight and informing the voters.

Legislatively the next two years will feature the over disagreements by spending even more.

Did Democrats learn a lesson from Mr. Biden's spending binge, which fueled the inflation that cost him re-election? As workers worry about energy prices, will the party go straight back to climate mandates and

subsidies for expensive electric cars?

Ditto for other ideological excesses from Mr. Biden's time. Democrats pushed hard for H.R.1, their bill to nationalize election rules on California's model, including overriding state laws against ballot harvesting. Will that reappear? Likely new House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries has called for “dramatic Supreme Court reform,” which won't get Mr. Trump's signature. But if Mr. Jeffries keeps talking that way, it will be a serious reason for voters not to trust his party with total power in 2029.

If he and likely Senate leader Chuck Schumer want a better path, they could seek compromise with Republicans to benefit the country. Permitting reform is one example. Another might be immigration.

Mr. Trump has sometimes spoken of wanting to help “Dreamers” brought to the U.S. as children. Democrats, meantime, have castigated the President for killing the border bill negotiated in 2024 by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, which would have codified a stricter legal standard for asylum. Such a change to the statute is worth Mr. Trump’s support, since it would outlast him and make it harder for the next President to reopen the southern border.

One difficulty for Democrats will be the radicals in their ranks. The House “squad” will double in size, and the socialist left will feel empowered. New York Rep.-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier has argued that it’s immoral to deport even violent criminals. Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed wants to purge Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, for the offense of believing Israel has a right to defend itself. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has floated a Supreme Court with 13 Justices.

None of that will improve the party's approval rating. It could also lead voters to conclude in 2028 that the post-Trump Republican Party doesn't look so bad after all.

[LETTERS TO THE EDITOR] The Healthcare System's Bad Payment Models

In “Maryland’s Cautionary Preview of ‘Medicare for All’” (Cross Country, Oct. 31), Chris Pope correctly identifies acute operational strains in Maryland’s hospitals, including long emergency-department wait times. However, drawing a straight line from Maryland’s localized revenue caps to a federal “Medicare for All” framework’s inevitable failure is a structural misdiagnosis.

As a practicing physician and health-policy analyst, I oppose federal single-payer models. Centralizing control under a massive federal bureaucracy won't solve the healthcare system's problems. But Mr. Pope is mistaken in using Maryland's model as a preview of universal coverage. It is an isolated regulatory island surrounded by a fragmented, national fee-for-service ecosystem. One can't judge universal coverage's mechanics by observing one localized compromise.

Even so, Mr. Pope is right to note that Maryland's global-budget system, which allocates lump sums to hospitals instead of allowing them to get more revenue for each additional patient they treat, forces institutions to ration care under static revenue

limits while operating within a market-driven environment.

I would add that while a massive government takeover of the healthcare system isn't advisable, neither is the fee-for-service status quo. A model that ties physician compensation directly to volume and intensity pushes doctors to prioritize rapid-fire transactional visits over comprehensive patient relationships.

Rather than swinging between rigid revenue caps and the volume-focused models, we must build a system designed for patient benefit and physician sustainability. Doctors should be compensated based on expertise and time rather than volume.

Maryland's experiment with global budgeting serves as a reminder that any healthcare system focused solely on manipulating financial metrics while ignoring clinical realities will fail. True reform requires a system that respects the human element of medicine—both for patients who need care and physicians who dedicate their lives to providing it.

EM. PROF. ERIC WARGOTZ, M.D.

George Washington University

Grasonville, Md.

Are Graveyards Relevant in the Modern Era?

Regarding Faith Bottum's “The Days of the Graveyard May Be Numbered” (Houses of Worship, Oct. 30): Ms. Bottum is correct that something is lost when “the dead are dislocated.” When she writes that the Catholic Church recognizes cremation as “legitimate and reverent,” however, she weakens her argument.

It is true that the Catholic Church hasn't banned cremation outright since 1963, but under Canon 1176 §3 of the Code of Canon Law, the Church “earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the deceased be observed.” This was reiterated in the Vatican’s 2016 instruction “Ad resurgendum cum Christo”: “The Church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased.” The instruction further stated that burial is “above all the most fitting way to express faith and hope in the resurrection of the body.”

This gives cemeteries a deeper purpose than providing “socially recognized places to grieve.” The same instruction forbids keeping ashes at home or scattering them and requires they reside in a sacred place so the dead are not forgotten, remain in our prayers and are honored in the body which awaits resurrection. Cemeteries also provide a necessary reminder to us living of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell, which are too often obscured, especially when the dead are dislocated. PATRICK FISCHER

My wife and I attended an end-of-life seminar at our local church last week. Our pastor said he has yet to officiate a single funeral which involves a burial. My dad is buried locally here, but in 26 years I've only visited the grave twice, and that was when my brother came to town and wanted to see it. People might visit the grave of a spouse or a child, but how many visit the grave of a parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt? My brother has researched and found the gravesite of our paternal grandparents but has been unable to find the ones for our maternal grandparents as the operator of the cemetery was unreachable and the site is overgrown with weeds. My wife and I have seen all this and asked ourselves: What is the point of a grave-site? Our legacy is what we build with our lives through the people we touch, not at a stone in the middle of a field.

CHRIS SOBOLEWSKI

Fountain Hills, Ariz.

The Dangers of a Democratic Wave Election

In her column “The Case for a Historic Wave” (Declarations, Oct. 31), Peggy Noonan expressed her hope that Republicans would get wiped out in the election: “This is what I hope for: that it won’t be a close election, that the outcome is unmistakable. Let it be a clear and obvious rebuke—a rejection, a rebellion, a rout.”

This thinking is based on the naive belief that Democrats are capable of governing without perpetuating further divisions. The blue tsunami will undoubtedly result in pushes for open borders, abortion on demand, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, voting rights for noncitizens, men playing in women's sports, people with deviant views of sexuality lecturing kindergartners, a 13-member Supreme Court and condemnation of Israel.

Washington Irving's Meeting With Explorer William Clark

In his review of “A Washington Irving Sketch Book” by Phillip Lopate (“America’s First Star Author,” Fall Books, Oct. 10), Micah Mattix mentions Irving’s account of a trip to the West in 1832. During this trip, he visited William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Irving’s report of that meeting with Clark is significant; it was at the time the only information available about the fate of Clark’s enslaved body servant, York, who had accompanied him on the expedition to the Pacific and back. Irving reported that Clark said he had freed York, who started a drayage business and later died of cholera in Tennessee. Further details emerged in the 1980s when letters from Clark to his brother Jonathan came to light. However, the manumission papers for York have not yet been discovered; the documentation of Clark’s having granted York his freedom remains elusive at this time.

PHILIPPA NEWFIELD

Former president, Lewis and Clark

Trail Alliance

San Francisco

Letters intended for publication should be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please include your city, state and telephone number. All letters are subject to editing, and unpublished letters cannot be acknowledged.

What common good does Ms. Noonan hope will result from a government run by today's Democrats?

JACK KENESEY

Arlington Heights, Ill.

Ms. Noonan hoped for a big wave. She got it. But the Democratic Party's severe lurch to the left, along with its embrace of socialism and antisemitism, causes me to file this one under "be careful what you wish for."

GORDON GOULD

Boulder, Colo.

Hillsdale Resembles Ralston

I enjoyed reading Tunku Varadarajan's “The Navy SEALS of Western Civilization” (The Weekend Interview, Oct. 31) about Ralston College’s efforts “to counter ‘the failure, the corruption and the crisis of our elites.’” Or more simply, to reinstate the study of the values of Western civilization. This is much needed.

But I was surprised that Mr. Varadarajan didn't mention other schools of higher education that offer training in the classics. Take one such example: Hillsdale College in Michigan has been promoting the study of Western civilization and other classical ideas for more than 180 years. Like Ralston College, Hillsdale is free from any federal government funding and offers bachelor's and master's degrees. It operates programs in both Michigan and the District of Columbia, and it provides classical education training and curricula for the K-12 level.

TED BARTELSTONE

Creve Coeur, Mo.

Pepper ...

And Salt

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Uh, guys . . . I’m pretty sure penguins are not built for this ‘flock together’ thing.”

Republicans Forgot How to Win Elections

ADAM GRAY/GETTY IMAGES

Republican Ken Paxton got trounced in Texas' Senate race.

By John Cornyn

E

ven before the polls closed on Tuesday, an epic blame game had begun. How did Republicans fumble the success of 2024 into this

midterm meltdown? How did we lose so many Senate seats, including in my home state of Texas, a conservative cornerstone for more than three decades and a state Donald Trump carried by 14 points in 2024?

Die-hard Never Trumpers will rush to eulogize the MAGA movement. Some populists will shop a stab-in-the-back narrative that blames the traditional conservatives

It took arrogance to shrink the coalition while running unlikable candidates with bad personal character.

they themselves chased away. But both sides miss the point. This week's beat-down wasn't only foreseeable, it was foreseen—because our party forgot four basic rules of coalition politics.

First, successful coalitions add, they don't subtract. In 2024, a unified Republican Party dominated among the white working class, won Hispanic men outright and won the largest share of black voters since the 1970s. Lifelong conservatives and first-time Republican voters all embraced our message of lower prices, border security, cultural sanity and American strength. This year, losing candidates like Ken Paxton and Mike Collins shrank the tent, obsessing over “RINOs” and political theater. In Texas, statewide candidate Bo French poisoned the well even further with blatant bigotry against Indian-Americans, anathema to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. When nominees show contempt for voters and request a smaller Republican Party, voters oblige them.

The second forgotten lesson was even simpler: Be likeable. We are no longer in 2010, when articulate, appealing conservatives like Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey challenged “establishment” candidates over real policy differences. Today, it is fringe challengers who play down voting records and policy in favor of performative politics. A strange reverse personality test has taken root. If a candidate talks like an affable, reasonable person, he must be a sellout. If he makes bizarre comments or has past scandals, that’s considered authenticity. The oddball Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky (who lost his primary this year) once described his base as seeking “the craziest son of a bitch in the race.” This is a losing mindset that Republicans must outgrow. It selects for nominees who can’t win general elections.

Third, when you win, do what you promised. In 2020, President Biden won a narrow mandate to restore normalcy, but advisers talked him into open borders, inflationary spending and unrestrained wokeism. In 2024, the American people rebelled and hired back President Trump to re-create the strong pre-Covid economy that Republican policies teed up during my time as Senate Republican whip. Voters remembered the 2019 economy—low inflation, low unemployment, real wage growth—and trusted Mr. Trump and the Republicans over Kamala Harris and the Democrats to protect their pocketbooks.

What have those kitchen-table voters received since? There have been some significant policy wins that I proudly backed, such as the Working Families Tax Cuts, deregulation and sensible energy policies. But in key areas, Mr. Trump repeated Mr. Biden's mistake and misread his mandate. Voters wanted to retool our trading relationships, but got arbitrary “Liberation Day” tariffs that raised prices without creating incentives for long-term reshoring. Voters wanted secure borders and peaceful streets, but got hyper-aggressive immigration enforcement. The Iran conflict came with no attempt to persuade the public. And Mr. Trump signaled disconnection by focusing on sideshows like swimming-pool liners in the Reflecting Pool. Americans elected the Donald Trump who put on the apron of the Golden Arches and got a plan for a Triumphal Arch instead.

Fourth, character and integrity still matter. When Republicans force voters to choose between policy and personal character, it is unfair to them and suicidal for us. Here in Texas, traditional conservatives and independents were asked to swallow an almost comical list of personal scandals and improprieties. Pre-election polls showed that corruption had surged toward the top of voter anxieties, thanks to flawed midterm candidates and a parade of unsavory headlines out of Washington. Voters won't trust Republicans to cut fraud and scams out of government programs until we cut them out of our own ranks. Party leaders have to stop excusing the inexcusable and police our side of the aisle—or voters will continue to police it for us.

I was honored to spend four decades serving the people of Texas as a judge, attorney general and a U.S. senator. I never lost a general election. I am sorry that because of unforced political errors, my party, this administration and our country will miss an opportunity to make progress that was within reach.

But I remain optimistic, because a better playbook is right in front of us. We know what the American people want because they showed us: a big-tent Republican Party, competent, focused on Americans' daily concerns, with room for traditional conservatives and MAGA supporters alike.

That is the path back to a governing majority in 2028. Anyone who is willing to turn the page, restore integrity and rebuild our party can count me in.

Mr. Cornyn, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Texas.

This Time, Trump Defeats Himself in a Rout

I've been writing "Trump throws it all away—again" columns practically since the Pete Hegseth Signal chat bumble in March 2025.

BUSINESS

WORLD

By Holman W.

Jenkins, Jr.

With luck, this will have been our last Trump-vs.-Trump election.

That means the last in which Democrats could ignore the chaos and policy insanity in their own camp because they had Donald Trump to run against.

At least one of two parties—the Republicans—might also finally have a reason to take stock of the rare act in 2024 that made this moment possible. In one of the worst decisions by a party ever, the Joe Biden Democrats decided Mr. Trump would be their ticket to making an unpopular, senile Mr. Biden re-electable.

Mr. Trump wanted to be on the ballot this week. He was. Compared with the opportunity he was handed, his second presidency has been a colossal failure. His 2024 election might have been a vindication for the ages. He'd already won on his central issue after Mr. Biden, attempting to save his presidency, reimposed control of the southern border in his final year.

Democrats essentially abdicated the 2024 race, though they didn't realize it, when they used their prosecutorial power to help Mr. Biden pick his opponent. Their goal was a Democratic Hail Mary—defending a Biden presidency that had already exposed itself as a bait and switch. Moderate Joe, from personal weakness, had sold out in office to a leftwing activist agenda that his voters, in choosing him, had deliberately said they didn't want.

The plan failed. Mr. Trump, the beneficiary, would inherit an economy bouncing back from Covid. He would inherit the AI boom. He couldn't reverse Mr. Biden's inflation, but he could declare victory over it.

Most of all, he could have let his opponents rather than himself be seen as the representative of chaos.

Instead, he went off the rails with his immigration overkill, his unnecessary tariff wars, his gratuitous baiting of friends and allies. He rolled the dice on Venezuela and somehow took the fact that he rolled double sixes as evidence he would do the same in Iran.

Democrats will need to find a direction and not just continue being the party of ‘Not Trump.’

Mr. Trump's defenders say the fights he picked in his second term were of transcendent importance, worth it even at the expense of shrinking his coalition or blowing it up.

News for these folks: The country is going to be around long after Mr. Trump is gone. His policy excursions aren't going to be the last word on anything. America would have benefited a lot more if Mr. Trump could have left in 2029 with an above-water approval rating, communicating to the political class a simple verdict: The public doesn't want the new socialism or racist identity politics. It wants something resembling the traditional American peace, prosperity and national strength that Mr. Trump sought to embody.

This was Mr. Trump's chance to move the country by moving his opposition to the center, as he did on the border and police funding. In a polarized environment, he needed only to get his approval above $50\%$ to have many purple-state Democrats less keen on opposing him. In his first term, Mr. Trump expanded his base just by not being the guy he replaced—recall the stock market rally when investors spontaneously admitted how much the Obama regulatory crusade had undermined animal spirits.

He had the same chance in 2024. He needed only to do and say less. But his Iran war, I said at the time, was Mr. Trump at his trumpiest, however much the Tucker Carlsonites see it as a betrayal. It was born out of a fantasy of unlimited

Trump success that has been the essence of his PR since he entered public life. Witness how he constantly invokes the Nobel Prize he'll never get as if talking about it gives him nearly as much satisfaction as receiving the prize would.

But, America, the Lord sheds his ironies on thee. Mr. Trump's success as well as failure has put in play a group of voters wrongly characterized as the white working class.

You're about to observe as much in the ferocious fight that will divide the Democrats. It will pit those who want to be a party of pro-America, pro-prosperity normies vs. those for whom exhibiting contempt for Middle America is the essence of self-esteem.

Mr. Trump may have lost. His voters may yet win, becoming the swing-vote battleground over which future elections are fought.

The biggest lack from Tuesday's outcome is Democrats' lack of a leader, somebody who can turn them into a party of responsible government rather than just a party of not Trump.

This Is the Last Chance to Confirm Originalist Judges

By Michael A. Fragoso

“Leave no vacancy behind.” That was Sen. Mitch McConnell’s motto going into the 2020 lame-duck session, and it’s one that Senate Republicans need to embrace over the next two months. After the party’s abysmal showing in the midterm elections, this will be the last opportunity for some time in which to confirm constitutionalist judges. Recent lame-duck sessions provide valuable lessons for today.

In 2020, facing the reality that President Biden would select a very different kind of judicial nominee, Majority Leader McConnell marched through the executive calendar, confirming 14 Article III judges. As today, Republicans held 53 seats and their leadership worked to keep them present and voting. (This time, the majority will decline to 52 on Dec. 15, when Ohio Sen. John Husted's appointment expires.) Importantly, control of the Senate in January was uncertain at the time owing to two pending runoffs in Georgia, so Democrats lacked an incentive to maximize their opposition.

This was a lesson Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had learned four years later, when he confirmed 22 judges during the 2024 lame-duck session. But he was unable to confirm four circuit-court nominees. At the outset Republicans demonstrated a willingness to use delay tactics to fight him at every turn and make Democrats pay a procedural price for their judges. Unlike in 2020, Republicans knew they would be in control in January.

Mitch McConnell played hardball during the 2020 lame-duck session. This time it will be even harder.

Rather than spend six weeks engaged in parliamentary trench warfare and banking on the vagaries of attendance, Mr. Schumer chose to cut a deal with Minority Leader McConnell whereby Mr. Schumer wouldn't bring up the appellate nominees who likely lacked majority support in exchange for Mr. McConnell's not engaging in obstruction on the district-court judges.

The 2018 lame-duck session turned out very differently. There was a 51-49 Republican majority and 13 circuit judges pending. The Senate confirmed only one of them because

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Sen. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) refused to support the rest unless Mr. McConnell brought up legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired. The majority leader didn't and Republicans went on to confirm all the circuit nominees in the 116th Congress, when their majority expanded to 53 seats.

Republican senators should learn from these experiences in the current lame duck. With Democratic control pending, they should expect Mr. Schumer to pull out all the stops on obstructing their judicial agenda, which means they will need to be there and vote yes to clear their backlog. Majority Leader John Thune can succeed only if his members show up.

Unlike in 2018, pending vacancies won't be filled next Congress. They will languish, at best. Which means a temptation to re-create Mr. Flake's gambit should be resisted. He was taking what he saw as a principled stand, but it failed; the Mueller legisolation never passed. To borrow from Mr. McConnell again, senators need to decide whether they want to make a point or make a difference. Mr. Flake was left making a point. Any similar bold stances against President Trump today at the expense of judges will be similarly doomed to point-making—whereas constitutionalist judges on the bench will make a difference.

The pending nominees in the Fifth and Eighth circuits would solidify two of the most originalist courts in history for the foreseeable future. The district-court nominees include young Federalist Society all-stars who will serve for decades.

Insofar as understandably ornery Senate Republicans are interested in putting distance between themselves and the president after the midterms, confirming these judges is the best way to do it. A little-known fact about late 2020 is that the first Trump administration put great pressure on Republican leadership not to confirm so many judges. Perhaps because of the administration's "policy" on who won the presidential election, they wanted executive-branch officials to take priority. Mr. McConnell refused, preferring appointments for life over those that would expire within weeks. The White House went so far as to pull an executive-branch nominee with connections to Mr. McConnell's Kentucky in a futile effort to coerce a course correction.

Republican senators can make a difference and send a message by putting the Constitution first and confirming the originalist nominees now pending. Petty or parochial squabbles with Mr. Trump may get favorable headlines today but they will be forgotten in a week. A judicial appointment can last a lifetime.

Mr. Fragoso is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell, 2021-25.

Notable & Quotable: Ranked-Choice Madness

Kimberley A. Strassel from the Journal's live election-night coverage:

In Alaska, one thing is already clear: Plenty of voters spent confusing moments in the voting booth, including contemplating two Senate candidates named Dan Sullivan.

Ever since the New York Times reported that Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola's campaign was behind the dirty "Decoy Dan" trick—recruiting a doppelganger named Dan J. Sullivan to draw voters away from the real Sen. Dan S. Sullivan—the Beltway refrain has been that Alaska did enough distinguishing to make the ballot clear. That's a hoot.

Even before Decoy Dan, Alaskans were stuck with a byzantine system of ranked-choice voting (RCV). Instead of picking just one of several candidates, voters receive a complex grid, with a line of names down one side, ranked positions along the top, and 25 bubbles—for each separate race. A 2025 Political Behavior study looked at U.S. jurisdictions that use RCV, and found voters in those contests were nine times as likely to have their votes rejected because of improper markings.

Now add in two Dan Sullivans, as well as the gamesmanship that is a feature of RCV. Official GOP organizations have tried to educate their voters on the best Senate strategy, namely, the need to rank “all” the Dans on the ballot, to ensure that even if they misrank the two names initially, their votes will ultimately go to Sen. Sullivan. Yet an outfit deceptively calling itself the Center for Honest Voting sent false-flag mailers telling Republicans that Donald Trump wants them to “trust” their “first choice” and “only vote once.” What’s more, different races call for different voting strategies.

In the runup to Tuesday, I spoke to several voters who wanted to re-elect the “real” Sen. Dan Sullivan, but who remained unclear as to his middle initial. Several more had been told to vote only once in the House contest—for U.S. Rep. Nick Begich (which makes sense, as he’s the only Republican in that race)—and assumed they should similarly vote only once in the Senate race. Others had been told to “rank the red” (the GOP advice in the governor’s race, which features three Republicans and one Democrat), but they were confused because only one Dan on the sample Senate ballot (the “real” Dan) had an “R” after his name. Should they mark the other Dan? Or not? At least one confided that she was so daunted by the whole thing that she was debating not voting at all.

Hopefully, Alaska's result is clear enough to avoid a prolonged Senate dispute. But no voters should be subject to this kind of ballot mess.

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AI Pivot Foils Bitcoin Miners

Profit margins shrink as rush to operate data centers swamps industry's market

BY VICKY GE HUANG

Last year, Ben Gagnon set out to turn facilities that had been geared to “mine” bitcoin into data centers eager to power the artificial-intelligence boom. It seemed like a perfect way to sidestep a crash in crypto and pivot to the hottest thing on Wall Street.

It turns out that life as an AI data center is just as rocky.

The CoinShares Bitcoin Mining and Digital Power ETF, which surged 72% in 2025 on the back of a furious AI rally, is down about 30% this year. The fund holds shares of neoclouds like CoreWeave and Nebius as well as Core Scien-

tific, CleanSpark and other bitcoin miners transitioning into data centers, making it particularly exposed to the recent AI rout.

“It’s surprising that we could leave bitcoin and find a

market that is somehow more volatile than bitcoin, but we found it," said Gagnon, chief executive of Keel Infrastructure, formerly known as Bit-

farms.

Cracks in the AI trade widened last week as investors sold off shares of tech giants like Alphabet and Intel. And

Bitcoin firms started turning to AI as mining became more costly.

neocloud providers sat at the epicenter of the selloff, squeezed by heavy debt loads and rising borrowing costs. That sell-off has in part been fueled by mounting skepticism from

high-profile industry figures like Elon Musk, who warned that debt markets have effectively shut out any company that doesn't have substantial revenue outside of AI data centers.

“That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but not many,” Musk said in a recent X post.

Bitcoin miners started turning to AI as mining, the practice of using vast computer power to solve equations to unlock the digital currency, became increasingly costly. Surging competition further squeezed profit margins. And “halving” events, which cut the number of bitcoins earned by miners in half every four years, forced companies to seek other sources of revenue. The crypto crash also eroded the value of miners’ bitcoin reserves.

Coreweave, originally founded as an Ethereum mining venture before pivoting to AI, was an early success story. As the company surged in value and secured Nvidia as a backer, other miners quickly Please turn to page B9

Sources: the company (sales); FactSet (performance)

American Bikers Can't Stop Buying Harley-Davidsons

Carl Sprinkle bought a limited edition Harley-Davidson Street Glide trike this summer.

BY JOHN KEILMAN

Carl Sprinkle only went to a Harley-Davidson dealer to buy new foot pegs for his 16-year-old motorcycle. But then he saw it: a limited edition, three-wheeled Street Glide with a trio of ghostly eagles adorning its obsidian paint job.

Price tag: \$46,000.

Sprinkle took it home after selling his camper and trading in another Harley.

"I spent an hour there arguing with myself, dropped a deposit and tried to figure out how to buy it," said Sprinkle, a 68-year-old retired union pipe fitter who lives in Indiana. "There was no way I wasn't going to have that motorcycle."

His purchase helps explain why Harley is bucking a downturn in sales of leisure products: High interest rates, punishing gas prices and broad economic anxiety have dented sales of everything from RVs to boats.

But that downturn hasn't come for Harley. In its primary market of North America, the bike maker has recorded yearover-year retail-sales growth in each of the last four quarters, and is on track for the first full-year increase since 2021. Globally, sales are up 4% so far this year.

Harley stock is up more than 60% since the start of the year, and some long-skeptical observers, who have watched the company's bike sales drop precipitously over the last 20 years, are changing their views. James Hardiman, an analyst at Citi, upgraded his rating to Please turn to page B5

Holmes Movie Generates Buzz For Sriracha Turkey-Jerky Maker

BY RUTH SIMON

Ricky Hirsch would never have guessed that his big break would come from a prison vending machine.

Hirsch, the founder of startup munchie maker Think Jerky, was watching poker on TV at his Austin, Texas, home last month when an employee texted that one of his company's signature products was in the Nathan Fielder documentary about Elizabeth Holmes. His sriracha honey turkey jerky was Holmes's prized snack at a Texas federal prison.

The next day Hirsch headed off to the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in Austin. When the company's jerky appeared on the big screen, Hirsch said he curled up into a ball and even briefly covered his eyes.

“I was so overwhelmed,” said Hirsch, who handed out samples to filmgoers after the movie ended.

Following the cameo, online sales of the sriracha flavor jumped 345% on the company's website, worth about \$25,000 in additional sales. Fielder fans started designing Think Jerky costumes for Halloween and debating the jerky scenes on Reddit threads. “I’ve never thought about turkey jerky as much as I have in the last 2 hours,” one commentator wrote.

Following its appearance in the documentary, sales of the sriracha flavor rose 345% on the company's website.

For the company, “The brand awareness is unquantifiable,” Hirsch said. Hirsch and his startup experienced the game-changing break that businesses big and small seek in this viral age: a buzzy hit.

Today, brands selling everything from gummies to sneakers and water bottles try to become part of the zeitgeist. It can make the difference for a firm's survival or success. Yet as Hirsch is now learning, converting the narrow window of attention into sustained sales is almost as hard as capturing it in the first place.

“Often you are so excited about it that you think it may last, but it may not. Often it doesn’t,” said Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

INSIDE

RESTAURANTS

McDonald's profit rises as international business offsets sluggish U.S. sales. B3

One challenge, he said, is to hold on to that initial attention and turn consumers just learning about the business into long-term buyers, users or fans. Another challenge is coming up with enough product to meet demand.

Business News

Uber's revenue growth slows on weakness in its core ride-hailing business. B4

BY LAUREN THOMAS

AND XAVIER MARTINEZ

Astra Bids for Obesity Drug Firm Rhythm

AstraZeneca recently made a roughly \$10 billion offer to buy Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that would expand its portfolio of rare-disease treatments.

The U.K. pharmaceutical giant offered to pay \$124 a share for the biotech last month, the people said.

Rhythm specializes in treatments for metabolic conditions and severe obesity.

Its shares were trading Wednesday afternoon at around \$95 apiece before The Wall Street Journal reported on the offer. They closed up 28% at \$110.68 following the report, giving the company a market value of roughly \$7.6 billion. AstraZeneca had a market value of close to \$300 billion.

AstraZeneca expressed interest in Rhythm previously, the people familiar with the matter said.

The British drugmaker, Please turn to page B2

Pharma CEOs Skeptical Of AI as Cure-All

BY XAVIER MARTINEZ

The promises are grandiose: Anthropic's chief executive said artificial intelligence could cure most human diseases within a decade. Another tech exec joked that AI researchers have started smoking cigarettes because they are so confident AI will cure lung cancer.

Pharma executives don't buy it. "That's complete BS," said Jeff Leiden, executive chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, recalling a recent conversation with a tech leader who claimed AI would cure $90\%$ of human disease in the next seven years.

Vertex has used roughly 50 AI companies to comb through its data set of 10,000 drug compounds, Leiden said. Not one managed to generate a working drug.

Hirsch, a former Wall Street trader, launched Think Jerky from his Chicago living room a dozen years ago. The thin strips of seasoned and dehydrated meat were his favorite childhood snack, but Hirsch said meat snacks had a masculine aesthetic. He wanted to broaden the market by appealing to

“It just doesn’t work by itself,” Leiden said, “and any company that says they can do that—at least in our experience, we’ve looked at most of them—it’s not true.”

Please turn to page B2

Executives leading the com-

Please turn to page B2

Gene Editing Gives Crops a Way To Warn Farmers of Distress

BY YUSUF KHAN

What if a plant facing attack from insects or disease could send out an early-warning signal by, say, emitting a glow or turning its leaves purple?

A handful of startups are using gene editing and sensors to do just that, programming plants to “tell” farmers when they are under stress before visible symptoms appear.

The idea is that if plants can show they are struggling earlier, farmers can take targeted action to nip problems in the bud.

Instead of spraying huge swaths of farmland with fungicides and herbicides to stave off pests and disease, farmers can treat small sections of their crop as needed, reducing reliance on chemicals that eventually leach into soil, waterways and drinking water.

Insignum-grown corn turns purple when fungus attacks.

“Plants naturally give us visible information about their physiology in a number of ways—wilting, for example,” says Alexander Jones, a professor at the University of

Cambridge who focuses on plant biology. “But these signs can come too late for us to act.”

Shely Aronov, chief executive of California startup InnerPlant, explains that when plants are attacked they start to activate genes to protect themselves.

“Those reactions happen very fast and they’re different, depending on the stress,” she says.

InnerPlant's technology works by engineering plants at the DNA level. Those traits are then passed down to the seeds they produce. "It's kind of like adding a line of code, so that once the plant is reacting to, say, fungal pressure, it's going to start producing a protein that creates an optical signal," says Aronov.

Please turn to page B2

QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in today's edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren't cited in these indexes.

A

Alpbahet.....B4,B9

Amazon.com.....B9

American Airlines.....B2

Anheuser-Busch InBev..B10

Anthropic.....B1

AstraZeneca.....B1

B

BMW.....B5

Boston Beer.....B10

C

CleanSpark.....B1

Core Scientific.....B1

CoreWeave.....B1

CVS Health.....A1

D

Deere.....B2

Diageo.....B10

Dine Brands Global.....B3

DoorDash.....B4

E

Eli Lilly.....B2

G

GSK.....A12

H

Harley-Davidson.....B1

HP.....B4

I

Instacart.....B4

K

Keel Infrastructure.....B1

Kraft Heinz.....B3

M

McDonald's.....B3

Meta Platforms.....B4,B9

Microsoft.....B9

Moderna.....A12

N

News Corp.....B4

Novo Nordisk.....B2

O

Oracle.....B2

P

Pandora.....B4

Pernod Ricard.....B10

R

Rhythm Pharmaceutical...B1

U

Uber Technologies.....B4

V

Vertex Pharmaceuticals...B1

Volvo Car.....B5

Z

Zhejiang Geely.....B5

INDEX TO PEOPLE

A

Albahary, Ron....A7

Amodei, Dario....B2

Antonelli, Michael....A7

Aronov, Shely....B1

B

Broussard, Bruce....B4

C

Cahillane, Steve....B3

Cecchetto, Alberto....B4

Chauvet, Thomas....B4

D

Dadhania, Piral....B4

Dede, Kevin....B9

Devereson, Alex....B2

E

Elliott, Bob....A7

H

Hardiman, James....B1

Hirsch, Ricky....B1

J

Joyner, David....A1

K

Kempczinski, Chris....B3

Knudsen, Karsten Munk..B2

L

La Corte, Luigi....B2

Leibfried, Dan....B2

Leiden, Jeff....B1

Levien, Meredith Kopit....B4

Lores, Enrique....B4

M

Mohler, Kyle....B2

Morse, Teddy....B5

Musk, Elon....A5,B1

N

Nedeljkovic, Milan....B5

Nobile, Nicola....A9

P

Peyton, John....B3

Porat, Ruth....B4

R

Robbins, Larry....A2

Rosenberg, David....A7

S

Shah, Prem....A2

Soriot, Pascal....B2

Starrs, Artie....B5

Stirling, Trevor....B10

T

Todaro, John....B9

U

Uruçi, Blerina....A7

W

Walmsley, Emma....B4

BY DOMINIC CHOPPING

Novo Nordisk Raises Its Guidance

The company is launching a Thanksgiving turkey stick, produced in collaboration with four-time James Beard award winner Andrew Zimmern.

“I’ve had a robust career,” said Gand, who has worked with Julia Child, hosted a Food Network cooking show and written cookbooks, “but never thought my jerky would be in the movies.”

Novo Nordisk raised its guidance for the year after noting an improved outlook for its key obesity and diabetes drugs, particularly in markets outside the U.S., as it continues the rollout of its new weight-loss pill.

Analysts had expected Novo to raise its guidance on strong uptake of the Wegovy pill in recently launched markets.

Think Jerky sells its products online and at about 10,000 locations, mostly hotel gift shops, gas stations, retailers and specialty stores. American Airlines includes Think Jerky products in its first-class snack baskets.

The Austin-based company doesn't have enough staff—just four full-time employees and four contractors—to easily compete for national grocery and convenience-store accounts. And it had spent “close to zero dollars on marketing,” Hirsch said. “I don’t want to make a \$1 million mistake with my own money,” said Hirsch, who hasn’t taken any money from outside investors.

The Danish drugmaker said Wednesday that it expects adjusted sales and operating profit to range between a 2% decline and 2% growth at constant exchange rates this year, better than prior guidance for a decline of up to 6% for both metrics.

Shares climbed 5.6% in European trading Wednesday.

Novo said third-quarter sales of its Wegovy pill reached 5.39 billion Danish kroner, equivalent to \$807.2 million, compared with the 4.5 billion kroner expected in a FactSet poll of analysts.

Analysts had expected Novo to raise its annual guidance on a strong uptake of the Wegovy pill in recently launched markets.

The company is grappling with intensifying competition in the weight-loss market that has seen Eli Lilly's rival shot

He isn't sure how Think Jerky made its way to the federal prison in Bryan, Texas, where Holmes is serving her sentence for defrauding investors. "It would have to be through a distributor," Hirsch said. "I'm trying to figure it out and thank them."

erode Novo's market share in the injectable segment. At the same time, patent exclusivity for the key ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic has expired this year in countries such as India, Canada and Brazil, with further countries soon to follow, opening the door to generic competition and lower

Germany, with further recent launches in Mexico, Spain, France and Poland.

prices.

Though it is still early days, the company said the initial performance of the pill outside the U.S. is “encouraging,” with sales reaching 1.22 billion kroner in the quarter.

Novo said adjusted group sales in the third quarter grew 6% from a year earlier to 79.2 billion kroner, while adjusted operating profit grew 34% to 31.72 billion kroner.

Continued from page B1 women.

Additional launches in other markets are planned during the fourth quarter, and Novo expects the pill to be available in more than 20 markets in 2027.

Hirsch didn't ignore the power of celebrity. He signed up a handful of well-known chefs to lend their support, including two-time James Beard award winner Gale Gand. She developed Think Jerky's sriracha honey turkey jerky.

Hirsch, however, pursued a quainter tack. He wanted to get people to buy his product without the recommendation of an influencer or benefit of word-of-mouth. His jerky's white minimalist packaging would cause shoppers to stop at store shelves and take a look, Hirsch calculated. "My thought was that you have to have packaging that, when it's on the shelf, people will purchase it without knowing anything about the product," Hirsch said. "Where we have to compete is on packaging and aesthetics. When people try it, hopefully they will like it."

However, Novo's weight-loss pill, first launched in the U.S. earlier this year, is racking up strong sales and has given the company a lead in the new market. Since launching stateside, the pill has become available in the U.K., the United Arab Emirates and

Turkey Snack Gets Movie Buzz

A prison spokesperson said the vending-machine operator is an independent contracting company. “We do not control what product is in the vending machines,” the spokesperson said.

Both metrics beat expectations, with a FactSet poll forecasting adjusted operating profit of 28.66 billion kroner on sales of 73.65 billion kroner.

At a time when many people's taste is shaped by YouTube videos, TikTok shorts and Instagram posts, companies hire influencers and deploy sophisticated social-media and marketing campaigns to gain a measure of notice from consumers.

Meanwhile, Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen, a 27-year company veteran who has been finance chief since 2018, will leave Novo at the end of the year to pursue other opportunities, the company said. He will be succeeded by Galderma CFO Luigi La Corte.

A few AI-native biotechs—such as Insilico Medicine—have gotten drugs into late-stage testing.

Drugmakers Skeptical on AI Cures

Continued from page B1

panies that discover new drugs say AI isn't going to cure cancer anytime soon. They are dimming the hype around the technology's use in drug research, saying human biology is too complicated even for superintelligence.

Drugmakers are certainly using AI—even to create new drugs. It is helping researchers pick targets, fine-tune experimental medicines and identify which patients would be good candidates for the treatments. Leiden says it is useful as a scientist's co-pilot.

Yet in the race to integrate AI into medicine, a sharp divide has emerged between Silicon Valley's promises and what pharma executives say are the harsh realities of drugmaking.

"If we are in the industry long enough, we quickly learn to be humble," said AstraZen-

eca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot. “Disease is complicated, biology is complicated. To say AI is going to cure cancer is maybe a little bit of a jump.”

Silicon Valley players see drug development as a lucrative opportunity.

The British drugmaker recently signed a

deal with AI biotech Institro worth \$40 million up front to discover new heart and weight-loss drugs, and signed an agreement with Oracle to help streamline the process for recruiting patients to clinical trials. A recently opened research-and-development site in Cambridge, Mass., uses AI to help speed up experiments.

McKinsey senior partner

Alex Devereson, who focuses

on AI in drug development, said the technology can design new experimental medicines quicker than before, but that doesn't mean it is coming up with workable drugs. Around

one-quarter of mid-stage to late-stage failures in drug development can be traced to safety problems because drugs have “off-target” issues, he said, meaning they do unintended things within the body that lead to unwanted or even harmful side effects. Current AI models struggle to predict this.

“Investment is flowing to the problems that are easiest to solve, not the problems that are most important,” Devereson said.

Venture capital and private-equity firms invested \$8.4 billion globally into AI drug discovery in 2025 alone, up from roughly \$4 billion two years prior, according to data from McKinsey. Yet only a few AI-native biotechs—such as Insilico Medicine and Generate Biomedicines—have gotten drugs into late-stage patient testing and the Food and Drug Administration hasn't cleared any of them yet.

Still, Silicon Valley's largest players see drug development as a lucrative opportunity prime for disruption. "I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in \~5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posted on X in September.

Anthropic bought a stealth-mode biotech earlier this year and recently bought a one-person biotech running an almost completely AI-enabled operation. OpenAI announced it bought an AI drug-discovery biotech last month.

Research chiefs including George Yancopoulos—Regeneron's chief scientific officer and holder of more than 1,000 patents—see the potential for AI to assist in the lab but don't see it as a revolution.

“AI is not going to just miraculously come in and tell us how to do things and cut things from 15 years to five years,” Yancopoulos said.

Gene Edits Give Crops An S.O.S.

Continued from page B1

In the case of InnerPlant, that optical signal is a glow given off by the plant that is invisible to the human eye but detectable by tractors with cameras in the field, drones or satellites.

InnerPlant is backed by farming-equipment giant Deere, which invested in the startup in 2022 and has equipped its John Deere smart tractors with cameras that can detect the signals being given off by the plants.

"The plant being able to tell you itself what is going on versus you having to look for visual effects was very compelling," says Dan Leibfried, vice president of marketing and shared services at Deere. "InnerPlant is definitely one of those disruptive technologies that I fundamentally believe will transform the industry over time."

Elsewhere, Indiana-based Insignum AgTech is designing corn crops whose leaves turn purple in reaction to fungal diseases and pests. "When you see disease it's too late," says Chief Executive Kyle Mohler. Insignum uses gene editing to "switch on" traits already within the plant's DNA. "Plants have the ability to respond to disease within minutes from where it starts, but we [the farmers] just do not know for days or weeks," says Mohler, adding that Insignum's technology allows farmers to react much more quickly.

Plants engineered by Living Sensors give off an optical signal when exposed to forever chemicals in the soil.

Hurdles await

Some scientists say plants designed to emit early stress signals could provide a productivity boost to farmers battling climate and environmental pressures.

“We're looking at both population growth and changes in global temperatures having impacts on agricultural productivity over the next century, so all of these technologies can help eke out more yield, as growing conditions get stressed in different ways,” says Sean Cutler, plant biology professor at the University of California, Riverside, and a co-founder of Living Sensors, which uses a technology similar to InnerPlant's to detect forever chemicals, known as PFAS, in soil.

Stopping issues such as herbicide drift, where farmers spray chemicals onto their land and through wind it moves miles away and damages other crops, would be another advantage, he says.

How quickly these plants work their way into the wider food chain, however, remains a question. Most of the technologies are still in the testing phase, and will require regulatory approval thereafter.

There are other hurdles that could hinder adoption. Some markets, like the European Union, ban the sale of food that has significant edits to its genome like the kind designed by InnerPlant and In-signum. In the U.S., there are some gene-edited crops on the market but many consumers remain wary, worried that genetically modified or edited foods might carry health risks. Adopting new plants also could be costly for farmers, especially if they have to invest in new technologies such as drones and satellites or tractors with cameras.

High costs, slow approval processes and outright bans to using these kinds of technology “makes it tough for these sorts of biology companies to get off the ground and thrive,” says Jones, the University of Cambridge professor. Still, he says he believes “the drawbacks are few and minor and no longer justify the legal and policy roadblocks.”

AstraZeneca Makes Bid For Rhythm

Continued from page B1

which has become a cancer-drug powerhouse under Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, has targeted \$80 billion in sales by 2030. To achieve that, it will have to supplement its pipeline with deals, analysts say. The company reported \$58.7 billion in sales last year.

Rhythm's drug and drug candidates, for rare forms of obesity, would further Astra-

Zeneca's efforts to push into one of the fastest-growing and lucrative markets.

The company is developing several obesity GLP-1 drugs, including one licensed from China-based Eccogene for \$185 million in 2023.

In January, it said it licensed a suite of obesity and diabetes drug programs from CSPC Pharmaceuticals, also based in China, for \$1.2 billion upfront.

Rhythm's medicines, including a treatment approved for a rare disease called acquired hypothalamic obesity, would also add to AstraZeneca's pipeline of rare-disease drugs. Its \$39 billion purchase of Alexion in 2021 made AstraZeneca one of the leading players in rare-disease therapies.

The British drugmaker has become a cancer-drug powerhouse under Chief Executive Pascal Soriot.

McDonald's Profit Jumps on Overseas Boost

The company has rolled out a series of deals and introduced new items such as dirty sodas and other high-margin drinks.

Higher results come

amid continued

sluggishness of

domestic operations

BY CONNOR HART

McDonald's reported higher profit and revenue in the latest quarter, as solid performance across much of its international business offset continually sluggish sales in the U.S.

The burger chain posted third-quarter net income of \$2.49 billion, or \$3.51 a share, compared with \$2.28 billion, or \$3.18 a share, in the year-earlier period. Stripping out one-time items, earnings were \$3.57 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet anticipated adjusted earnings of \$3.38 a share. Total revenue ticked up

1.1% to \$7.16 billion but fell shy of Wall Street estimates for \$7.28 billion.

Global same-store sales rose 1.5% in the three months ended Sept. 30, topping analyst expectations for a 1.3% gain. In the U.S., comparable sales fell 0.2%, hurt by weaker traffic trends that were largely offset by check growth, McDonald's said.

Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski said McDonald's delivered another quarter of global growth, led by solid performance across much of its international business. Trends began to improve in the U.S. during the recent period, he added, following the chain's increased focus on value.

McDonald's has been working to win back inflation-weary customers—especially lower-income consumers, who have reined in spending over the past few years. The company has rolled out a series of deals and introduced new items such as dirty sodas and other high-margin beverages.

The company in June introduced a new global business strategy, leaning on menu upgrades, improved customer service and new store prototypes in a bid to drive sales. The company also named a new president of its U.S. business.

More recently, McDonald's in September laid out a plan to spend around \$8.5 billion to help its franchisees make investments in equipment and their operations to better compete with fast-food rivals. The company needs to capture more market share in order to increase sales, executives previously said, as customer-traffic growth in its major markets is expected to be flat in the coming years.

Source: the company

The McDonald's report comes after rival Burger King last week said its U.S. turn-around was gaining traction. The chain—which just wrested back the No. 2 spot for U.S.

MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES

burger chain sales from Wendy's—said U.S. same-store sales grew 8.4% in the third quarter.

'HALIA JUAREZ FOR WSJ

Dine Brands said increased focus on value, menu innovation, and culturally relevant marketing boosted restaurant sales.

Applebee's Owner Logs Revenue Rise

BY CONNOR HART

Dine Brands reported higher sales in the latest quarter, though profit slipped as expenses climbed.

The owner of Applebee's Neighborhood Bar + Grill and IHOP posted a third-quarter profit of \$4.6 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with \$7.3 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier.

Stripping out one-time items, earnings were 82 cents a share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected adjusted earnings of \$1.01 a share.

Revenue rose 15% to \$248.9 million, topping Wall Street models for \$239.7 million. Dine Brands attributed the gain mainly to an rise in company-owned restaurant revenue from stores that were acquired and opened over the past year.

Total cost of revenue grew 25%, while general and administrative expenses ticked up 2.8% on higher professional-services fees and employee-related costs, Dine Brands said.

Same-store sales increased 0.9% at Applebee's, with off-premise sales accounting for 23% of the sales mix. At IHOP, comparable sales were up 0.8%, and off-premise sales accounted for 21% of the mix.

Chief Executive John Peyton said both Applebee's and IHOP achieved comparable sales growth thanks to Dine Brand's increased focus on value, menu innovation, culturally relevant marketing and sharper operational execution.

“We’re focused on supporting the future of our brands, including expanding our dual-brand program, improving our company-owned portfolio, and accelerating our remodel pipeline,” he said. “We remain confident in the strategy we’ve laid out.”

Kraft Heinz Lifts Sales View for Year

BY KELLY CLOONAN

Kraft Heinz bumped up its sales forecast for the year and said its turnaround plan is gaining traction.

The updated forecast came as the maker of Kraft Mac & Cheese reported lower third-quarter profit and revenue. Both metrics came in above Wall Street's

wall Street's expectations.

The stock rose 3.8% Wednesday.

For the full year, Kraft Heinz now expects organic net sales to fall between 1.3% and 0.5%, compared with its prior projection for a decline as steep as 2% at the low end of the range.

Kraft Heinz also updated its profit outlook, guiding for adjusted earnings per share of \$2.07 to \$2.13 for the year, up from \$2.03 to \$2.09 previously.

Chief Executive Steve Cahillane said the company's plan to turn around its U.S. business and accelerate growth internationally is on track.

“Relative to last year, our market share, sales, and volume trends are improving in every region,” Cahillane said. “We are increasingly meeting consumers where they are, and giving them more reasons to choose our brands.”

Profit and revenue fell in the third quarter, however.

Third-quarter profit was

\$544 million, or 46 cents a share, compared with a profit of \$615 million, or 52 cents a share, a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings per share were 53 cents, compared with analyst estimates of 42 cents, according to FactSet.

Revenue fell 2% to \$6.12 billion, compared with analyst estimates of \$6.09 billion.

In North America, the company's biggest market, sales declined $3.4\%$ . Sales in international developed markets slid $5.6\%$ , while emerging markets saw a $14\%$ increase.

#Dadication

fatherhood.gov

IAU DINH/AP

Uber Revenue Growth Decelerates

AROLINE BREHMAN/REUTERS

Ride hailing lagged behind other units that showed growth.

Ride hailing shows weakness, pressed by fuel costs and labor competition

BY KELLY CLOONAN

Uber Technologies' revenue growth slowed further in the latest quarter on weakness in its core ride-hailing business.

The San Francisco company said revenue from its mobility unit, its biggest segment, fell 2% in the third quarter as elevated fuel costs, tighter local labor conditions and competition for drivers prevented it from meeting demand in several international markets like India and Brazil.

Uber said it has responded to those pressures by investing in driver acquisition, retention and reactivation in markets where demand is outpacing supply, a move it said has led to signs of improvement in October.

Uber's delivery and freight businesses, meanwhile, continued to grow with revenue up 23% and 34%, respectively. Overall, Uber's revenue rose 10% to \$14.77 billion, slowing from increases of 12% in the second quarter and 14% in the first quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected \$14.66 billion. The company said changes in its business model in the U.K. hurt revenue growth by 8 percentage points in the latest quarter.

Source: S&P Capital IQ

Uber's gross bookings, which tracks the value of all rides and deliveries, climbed

20% to \$59.82 billion, but similarly decelerated from the first two quarters of the year.

Trips, a measure of ride and delivery orders in the period, rose 16% year-over-year to 4.06 billion, as the company attracted more monthly active customers and those users bought its services more frequently.

Third-quarter profit was \$512 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with \$6.63 billion, or \$3.11 a share, a year earlier. The recent quarter includes a \$476 million net loss from revaluations of Uber's equity investments, while the year-ago period includes a \$4.9 billion benefit from a tax valuation release and a \$1.5 billion net benefit from revaluations of the company's equity investments.

Adjusted earnings per share were 88 cents, compared with analyst estimates of 86 cents, according to FactSet.

Looking ahead, Uber said it would pump the brakes on its recent deal activity to focus on integrating acquisitions it has already announced. This year, the company has acquired chauffeur service Blacklane and parking app SpotHero, and announced deals to buy German food-delivery company Delivery Hero and catering platform ezCater.

Uber was also previously in talks over a potential deal for grocery delivery giant Instacart. Uber Eats' rival DoorDash last week announced its agreement to acquire Instacart for \$17 billion.

As it looks to focus on integration, Uber said it expects minimal to no further deals through at least 2027, apart from investing in its autonomous vehicle strategy.

The company, which works with dozens of autonomous-vehicle partners, said it plans to concentrate its spending going forward on a smaller group of partners where it expects the strongest returns.

For the current fourth quarter, Uber forecasts adjusted earnings per share of 95 cents to 99 cents.

Uber shares rose about 4.9% Wednesday.

Pandora Sales Increase Sends Shares Higher

The Danish jeweler's stock soared 11% Wednesday following its results and guidance.

BY ANDREA FIGUERAS

Denmark's Pandora reported an acceleration in sales growth for the third quarter despite a challenging consumer environment as it heads into the crucial festive shopping season, sending its shares higher.

The jeweler logged revenue of 6.69 billion Danish kroner, or \$1 billion, for the three months ending in September. This was 4% higher on year on a like-for-like basis, improving from the 1% rise seen in the previous quarter. In October, like-for-like sales climbed 1%.

The third-quarter results confirm the progress made in the previous quarter, with North America and Europe improving further, while Asia and Latin America continue to deliver strong growth, Citi's Thomas Chauvet and Alberto Cecchetto wrote in a note. The performance in October appears encouraging despite no clear evidence of a broad-based consumer recovery, the analysts said.

Copenhagen-listed shares climbed 11% Wednesday.

Analysts at UBS said that the growth trajectory suggests that the new strategy under Chief Executive Berta de Pablos-Barbier is gaining traction.

In addition to other measures aimed at driving growth, Pandora said earlier this year that it would start selling platinum-based jewelry, expanding the range of precious metals used in its portfolio to reduce dependence on silver.

The pilot test of platinum-

plated jewelry was launched in the Netherlands in July. Following what the company deemed “encouraging results,” the test has been expanded to a broader range of countries like the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Pandora said it is on track to initiate the transition in 2027.

The jeweler narrowed its guidance for the current year toward the upper end of the range and now aims to deliver organic revenue growth of between 2% and 3% this year. It also expects an earnings before interest and taxes margin in the range of 22.5% to 23%.

Its previous forecast, which was itself increased in August, anticipated an organic increase in revenue of up to 3% and an Ebit margin between 22% and 23%.

Pandora has potential for further upgrades to the margin target for next year, depending on the execution of its strategy to implement platinum-plated jewelry, RBC Capital Markets' Piral Dadhania said in a note.

The company raised its Ebit margin view for next year to a range of 14% to 15% including one-offs and to a range of 15.5% to 16.5% excluding one-offs. It had previously seen a margin above 12% and more than 14%, respectively.

HP Names Ex-GSK Executive As CEO

BY COLIN KELLAHER

HP hired former GSK chief Emma Walmsley as the tech company's chief executive.

HP said Walmsley, who was at the helm of drugmaker GSK from early 2017 until the end of 2025, will join the Palo Alto, Calif., company on Jan. 4.

Bruce Broussard, an HP board member who stepped in as interim CEO in February 2026 when Enrique Lores decamped to take the top post at PayPal, will become board chair on that date, succeeding Chip Bergh, HP said.

The appointment of Walmsley, who has served on the board of long-standing HP partner Microsoft since 2019, comes after HP in September warned of an industry slump in personal-computer unit volumes that it expects to persist through 2027. A shortage of memory chips and soaring costs forced HP and other PC makers to sell fewer laptops at much higher prices.

International Data Corp. recently estimated that worldwide PC shipments fell 4.9% in the second quarter and forecast further declines in 2027. Prices are expected to rise 20% across the industry this year, according to IDC.

Walmsley, who become the first woman to run a top-tier pharmaceutical company when she was named GSK's CEO, led the company through the Covid-19 pandemic, tensions with activist Elliott Management and a portfolio shake-up that included the spinoff of its consumer-healthcare business.

EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES

Emma Walmsley

FAZRY ISMAIL/SHUTTERSTOCK

The campuses will sustain over 9,000 local jobs annually.

[Meta Launches Debut Euro Bond Sale] Google Set to Invest \$15 Billion in Malaysia

BY MIRIAM MUKURU billion, through the sale of four-year, six-year, eight-year, 12-year, 18-year and 38-year euro bonds. The six-part offering follows the Facebook and Instagram owner's \$15 billion, five-part dollar bond issuance on Tuesday.

Meta Platforms launched its debut euro-bond offering on Wednesday, seeking to raise more than \$9 billion, according to LSEG data.

a favorable entry point for investors, CreditSights analysts said in a note. “Meta’s [euro debt] issuance across six tranches offers an opportunity for euro investors to diversify their tech holdings,” they said.

BY YING XIAN WONG

The tech company is aiming to raise €8.25 billion, or \$9.23 leave room to participate in future bond deals at possibly better entry prices as tech companies are expected to issue more debt in the coming years.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Alphabet's Google will invest \$15 billion in Malaysia over 2027 and 2028 to expand its digital infrastructure, develop local talent and support clean-energy and water initiatives.

The proceeds from the bond sale will go toward general corporate purposes, according to LSEG data.

more than 9,000 local jobs an-

ually, it said.

The construction phase for the campuses is expected to contribute an average of \$1.1 billion annually to Malaysia's gross domestic product and support more than 37,000 jobs a year in each of the next two years, the Alphabet unit said.

Google plans to build new campuses in the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Its first Malaysian campus at Elmina Business Park in Selangor is already operational.

The euro-bond issue offers

Once operational, the facilities are projected to sustain

This week, Google committed \$160 million to shared water infrastructure in Negeri Sembilan to support its planned data-center operations while improving water access for local communities.

“This investment aligns with Malaysia’s development priorities, providing the foundational computing capacity to deliver the upside of innovation across the country while adding local power and water resources as our operations scale,” Alphabet and Google Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said.

Google plans to add more than 1 gigawatt of clean-energy capacity to Malaysia's national grid and launch programs to train about 800,000 Malaysians over the next five years.

Nonetheless, CreditSights analysts recommend investors

Digital-Subscriber Gains Lift Top Line At New York Times

BY KELLY CLOONAN

The New York Times quarterly revenue gained as the company added digital subscribers at a faster clip.

The news-and-media company on Wednesday posted a third-quarter profit of \$97.4 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with compared with \$81.6 million, or 50 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.

Adjusted earnings per share were 68 cents, compared with analyst estimates of 64 cents, according to FactSet.

Revenue rose 9.7% year over year to \$768.5 million, compared with analyst estimates of \$767.2 million.

Digital-only subscription revenue grew 15%, while digital advertising revenue gained 12%.

Number in millions of the news-and-media company's total subscribers

13.8M

tal-only subscribers sequentially, more than it added in the previous two quarters.

New York Times said it added about 420,000 net digi-

The company ended the quarter with about 13.8 million total subscribers.

Chief Executive Meredith Kopit Levien said the quarter marked sustained momentum, with subscriber growth driven

by strong engagement and retention across the company's portfolio.

For the current fourth quarter, New York Times guided for total subscription revenue to increase 9% to 11% from the

previous year, with a 12% to 15% gain in digital-only subscription revenues.

The company expects total advertising revenue to increase by a mid-single-digit rate.

The company's shares fell about 1% to \$66.50 on Wednesday.

[BMW Again Slashes Its Outlook] Weakness in U.S., China Depresses Volvo Sales

BY DOMINIC CHOPPING

Volvo Car said global sales fell 16% on year in the three months through October, with demand hit by continued challenging market conditions in the U.S. and China.

The Swedish automaker, which is majority-owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, sold 141,656 cars in the period, down from 168,967 in the same three months the year prior, it said Wednesday.

“Sales during the three-month period reflect challenging market conditions in China, as increased competitive pressure from local players and a weak macroeconomic environment continue to impact demand,” Volvo Car said.

In the U.S., market conditions also remain tough, with low consumer sentiment and the removal of incentives for electric and plug-in hybrid cars hitting demand, Volvo added.

Overall, the company's sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid models fell $3\%$ in the period and accounted for $55\%$ of all Volvo cars sold globally.

Underlying demand for the company's fully electric cars remains strong in Europe.

Automaker says a key metric could record a loss and deliveries could fall deliver a margin above 2% for the full year, it said.

The company vowed to slim its workforce and boost efficiencies. Above, a BMW iX3 model.

BY ADRIÀ CALATAYUD

MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

BMW again cut its annual guidance, warning that its core automotive segment could slide to a loss for a closely watched profitability metric, as the group moves to speed up its restructuring program.

With problems mounting for the industry, several European carmakers are shifting up on their plans to overhaul their operations—shedding jobs, shuffling model lineups and—in some cases—changing course on their strategies.

A slump and price wars in China's auto market, the global expansion of Chinese carmakers and trade frictions all contributed to cloud the outlook for Europe's auto industry.

BMW vowed to slim its workforce and boost efficiencies through the use of artificial intelligence under its new chief executive, Milan Nedeljkovic. In September, the company said it would cut divisions and management roles by one-fifth, after reaching agree-

U.S. Bikers Boost Sales Of Harleys

Continued from page B1

“buy” after seeing sales grow month after month. “Enough of those begin to stack up, and we started to look at this through a different lens,” he said.

Harley Chief Executive Artie Starrs said new models have helped to unleash pent-up demand. The three-wheeled “trikes” aimed at older riders were refreshed with extra ments with labor representatives earlier in the year for a plan to shed thousands of jobs.

Fellow German makers of luxury cars Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Porsche are all in the midst of their own restructuring programs.

“Current developments in our industry call for decisiveness and swift implementation. We will therefore specifically intensify and accelerate structural

horsepower and comfier suspension. The company also introduced two midtier bikes, the Super Glide and the Deadwood.

“I certainly am not going to say that we’re not subject to economic conditions,” Starrs said. “I’m just going to say that there’s an enthusiasm and love for getting on your bike that is quite powerful, and at least from what we’re seeing right now, is outrunning some of the macro factors in North America.”

Dealer Jason Bremer said much of the turnaround comes down to offering products people want to buy. His three dealerships in Minnesota and Texas have sold the new trikes as fast as they can get them, he said, measures," Nedeljkovic said.

BMW slashed its auto-segment profitability outlook for the second time this year. It forecast an earnings before interest and taxes margin at its core auto business to range from minus 0.5%—indicating losses—to positive 0.5% for the full year. In June, BMW lowered its guidance for the metric to between 1% and 3%. It projected auto deliveries to

while the midtier bikes have also generated excitement.

"People are looking for camaraderie, and they're looking for something to do," he said. "They're looking for their next sense of joy."

David Pauloski, 45, who lives near Pittsburgh, traded in a Harley Low Rider ST for a Super Glide this year. He said his new bike's red, white and blue paint job appealed to his sense of patriotism, while its \$16,000 sticker price was modest by Harley standards. "For the first time, I saw a limited-edition Harley that was a really good value proposition," he said.

Teddy Morse, whose Ed Morse Automotive Group owns six Harley dealerships, said fall moderately this year, having previously expected them to decline slightly.

The company said the guidance changes stemmed from a nonoperating hit to results that it expected to book alongside fourth-quarter earnings, as it decided to expand and intensify portfolio and structural measures. Without the restructuring effects, BMW continues to expect its auto segment to

those relatively inexpensive motorcycles, as well as rebates and company-offered interest rates as low as 1.99%, have helped to get customers in the door.

"When you do that, pushing cheaper bikes, you're going to have a much larger pool of people who can buy," he said.

Harley is hoping to add to its sales growth next year. New additions will include the Sprint 440, the smallest bike in Harley's collection, which will retail for less than \$6,000 in the U.S., and the Sportster 883, a revival of a classic model that will go for about \$10,000.

Those bikes could be particularly important in Europe, which has seen retail sales de-

High demand for BMW's Neue Klasse models, a new generation of cars, led the company to introduce additional production shifts and to begin phasing out previous vehicle and technology generations earlier, it said. The company also plans to implement a restructuring program faster than it previously anticipated.

For the third quarter, BMW reported a net profit of €1.46 billion, or \$1.63 billion, down from €1.67 billion a year earlier. At the group's auto segment, earnings before interest and taxes plunged 40% to €901 million as sales fell and its margin shrank to 3.4% from 5.2% a year before, it said. The result beat analysts' expectations of €794 million, according to consensus estimates provided by BMW.

BMW reported a 30% drop in earnings before interest and taxes of €1.59 billion for the group as a whole, against consensus expectations of €1.71 billion. Group revenue fell to €30.45 billion from €32.31 billion, as BMW shipped fewer cars because of weakness in the Chinese auto market. Analysts forecast quarterly revenue at €29.85 billion.

cline 6% so far this year.

Starrs said the Sportster once accounted for up to 40% of sales for some European dealers; it was pulled from the lineup in 2022 because the engine didn't meet the continent's clean- air standards. That issue has been fixed, the company said.

Harley predicts that by the end of this year, it will sell 135,500 to 139,000 motorcycles worldwide. Even on the low end, that would beat last year's total of 132,535.

But it is still a fraction of the 344,000 bikes sold during Harley's peak year of 2006. Hardiman said longstanding concerns about the brand's aging ridership haven't gone away.

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[MARKETS DIGEST] Dow Jones Industrial Average

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High, low, open and close for each trading day of the past three months. | Last | Year ago | Trailing P/E ratio | 20.78 | 24.73 | P/E estimate* | 19.57 | 22.74 | Dividend yield | 1.49 | 1.73 | All-time high | 54349.12, 08/05/26 | Current divisor 0.1682481652835

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