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Polls open this morning for a midterm election that will decide control of Congress, with all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships on the ballot and more than 57 million early ballots already cast. Two developments overnight frame the vote. US forces struck Qeshm Island off Iran’s southern coast late Monday, the first American attack on the island since June; Iranian state media reported the explosions, and US officials speaking anonymously to the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press characterized the action as “defensive strikes.” The attack followed an Iranian report that the Revolutionary Guard had destroyed an American MQ-9 drone east of the Strait of Hormuz. In Washington, the Supreme Court denied the Justice Department’s request to set aside 20,000 California ballots, a one-line order that leaves the state counting. Polymarket, the prediction market, puts the House at 94.5 percent Democratic and the Senate at 77.5 percent Democratic on election morning. ...

On the morning before the midterm elections, Iran’s foreign ministry put a two-day clock on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. A spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said Tehran could restore the passage within two days if Washington accepts its terms, shortening the seven-day timeline Iran first proposed through Qatar in September. The conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the unfreezing of Iranian assets abroad, the lifting of sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, and an end to the American naval blockade of Iranian ports. Crude fell 4.47 percent to $99.47 a barrel in early electronic trading, down from $102.95 in the weekend’s last print. A deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, was in Doha on Monday to help draft a preliminary agreement, with Qatar mediating, and China’s special envoy, Zhai Jun, was moving between Tehran, Muscat and Riyadh. None of that is a deal. The same spokesman said any attack would meet a response he called powerful, immediate and comprehensive, and the vote is Tuesday with the House already priced at 94.5 percent Democratic. ...

Ninety Days From Today Count it out on a calendar. Ninety days from this morning is January 30, a Saturday, which means this window closes on the last weekend of the first month of a new year. Between here and there sit two Federal Reserve meetings, on December 8 and 9 and again on January 26 and 27; a midterm election on November 3, two days from now; a Treasury quarterly refunding on November 4; an October employment report on November 6; October inflation on November 10; Nvidia’s quarter on November 17; a Thanksgiving on November 26; November employment on December 4; November inflation on December 10; a government funding deadline on December 11; a Christmas on December 25; a new Congress seated on January 3; and the December employment and inflation reports in the second week of January. ...

Ninety Days From Today This is the fourth installment of a series I started on September 3. Same calendar discipline, same premise, new window. Ninety days from this morning is January 30, a Saturday. The furniture in the room first. The Federal Reserve meets twice between here and there, on December 8 and 9, which comes with a fresh Summary of Economic Projections, and on January 26 and 27, which does not. In between sit a midterm election on November 3, two days from now; the Treasury’s quarterly refunding on November 4; a White House hearing on the removal of a Fed governor on November 5; October employment on November 6; October inflation on November 10; Nvidia’s fiscal third quarter on November 17; a Thanksgiving on November 26; November employment on December 4; November inflation on December 10; a government funding deadline on December 11; a Christmas on December 25; a new Congress on January 3; and the December employment and inflation reports in the second week of January before the Fed meets on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh. ...

A federal judge in Miami dismissed President Trump’s defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, with prejudice, ending his second attempt at the case and barring another. The refiled complaint sought $10 billion. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles had thrown out an earlier version in April, and the order holds that the president did not plausibly allege actual malice, the standard that requires knowledge a statement was false or reckless disregard for whether it was. The same weekend, Qatar’s liquefied natural gas carrier Al Mayeda was struck by what its owner called unidentified objects in the Gulf on Friday evening, a company statement said on Sunday. No crew member was hurt and no party has claimed the attack. Crude closed the week above $102 a barrel, and a struck gas carrier in the Gulf is the kind of fact an oil market prices at Monday’s open. ...

The State Department approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors to Ukraine on Friday, a package worth $2.1 billion, and by early Saturday Volodymyr Zelensky had welcomed it while warning that delivery may not begin for years. The department’s statement gave no timetable. Two people briefed on the decision told the Guardian that the interceptors have not been built yet and are not expected to reach Ukraine until a couple of years into the 2030s. Canada, Germany and Norway will pay through the Jumpstart program, with national contributions financed by the European Union’s Ukraine Support Loan, and the State Department said no American funds are involved. Friday’s trading repriced risk across the board. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.86 percent to 25,436.999, the S&P 500 fell 1.82 percent to 7,580.07, and the VIX rose 12.91 percent to 19.42, while gold dropped 3.63 percent to $3,884.90 an ounce. Gold falling with equities rather than against them is the part of the session that does not fit the usual pattern. The pack carries the prices and not the cause. ...

At 12:01 a.m. Eastern today the list of Canadian goods that pay a 50 percent duty to enter the United States changed. Proclamation 11076, signed on October 23 and published in this morning’s Federal Register, removes one set of products from the additional duty imposed under Proclamation 11048 and adds another, and the change applies to goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from a warehouse at or after that minute. It is the second time the scope has been rewritten since the duties took effect. The duties stack on those imposed under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, and they rest on section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which caps them at 50 percent and lets the president amend, suspend or revoke a section 338 proclamation whenever he judges the public interest to require it. The document names neither the products it spares nor the products it adds; both lists sit in annexes. ...

A deregulatory package crossed the Federal Register in a single morning. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule removing outdated requirements from child support enforcement and a companion proposal for block grants. The Personnel Management Office rewrote the rules for federal human capital management. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed to rescind the Super Emitter Program, the mechanism by which it catches oil and gas operators releasing large volumes of methane. The Department of Agriculture opened its guaranteed rural loan program to homes with income-producing accessory dwelling units. Three are final rules, effective November 30 and December 28. Two are proposals, with comment periods closing November 30 and December 16. The Register’s two-day window carried 206 documents in all. ...

Israel’s election returned no clear winner. Partial results from the Central Elections Committee give Likud the largest single party at 27 seats, with the bloc around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at 54 and the bloc around Gadi Eisenkot at 50, neither close to the 61 seats a Knesset majority requires. Tuesday night’s exit polls had split three ways: Kan 11 and Channel 13 tied at 51 to 51, Channel 12 with Netanyahu ahead 52 to 49, Channel 15 with 55 to 49. Official results are due November 4. After certification the president tasks the member most likely to assemble a majority, who then has 28 days to form a government and may take up to 14 more; if that fails another candidate is tried, and continued deadlock could force another election. The Tel Aviv 125 fell as much as 3.5 percent in early trading Wednesday, and the prediction market moved hard: Polymarket’s next-prime-minister contract, which priced Eisenkot at 62.1 percent on Tuesday morning, this morning stands at 44.0 percent for Netanyahu and 27.1 percent for Eisenkot. ...

Israelis voted Tuesday in the first general election since the October 7 attacks, with 7.3 million people eligible and the final surveys showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 77, level with the centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot, 66. No party was expected to approach the 61 seats that a majority in the 120-member Knesset requires, so the count may take days and the coalition bargaining weeks. The election is the day’s central fact: a government that has set Gaza policy for three years is being renewed or replaced by an electorate that has not been asked since the attacks. ...