The hour's dominant thread was the push for a deal to end the US-Iran war and the market relief it brought. Mediators kept working despite public threats from both sides to resume fighting ¹. Trump said the US may have to 'give them the hammer' ². An official said Iranians had left talks in Doha while a draft proposal for a US deal circulates ³. China and Oman, during Sultan Haitham bin Tariq's Beijing visit, called for a US-Iran ceasefire and restored passage through the Strait of Hormuz ⁴. Israel held its highest alert on the eve of the US midterms, with possible escalation involving Iran in view ⁵. Oil fell almost 4% on hopes of progress in those talks ⁶. The dollar slid to a one-month low on softer oil ⁷, and US equity futures climbed as oil retreated, easing a selloff in AI shares ⁸. The war's cost shows in Ryanair, which is weighing pay freezes and leaner crews as jet fuel costs are expected to rise by about €2bn ⁹. In the Russia-Ukraine war, the standout was a mirrored cyber incident. Ukraine's Air Alert app and Russia's emergency ministry app were hacked within hours of each other and sent fake nuclear-attack warnings ^10,11. Meanwhile, the end of a ceasefire brought renewed strikes. Russian forces hit a Kherson hospital with a drone ¹² and a DTEK energy facility in Odesa Oblast, causing outages ¹³. Ukraine's General Staff said Russia used the pause to rotate troops and bring in ammunition ¹⁴. NASA data suggest a major Russian oil hub in the Volga region is burning after Ukrainian strikes ¹⁵. Separately, US officials including Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are pushing to resume Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine, which European officials largely reject ¹⁶. Ahead of Tuesday's US midterms, more than 50 million Americans have already voted ¹⁷. Michigan drew the most attention, with one name linking separate stories. Rep. Haley Stevens dropped Democrat Abdul El-Sayed to endorse Republican Mike Rogers ¹⁸. In a separate report, two staff at a vendor for Rogers' campaign are registered as foreign agents for Israel ¹⁹. OpenAI and Anthropic are running election war rooms for the first time ²⁰. In crypto, Binance saw $7B in outflows after its hack ²¹, and a sentiment index sank to 30 ²². In China, the PBOC refreshed an asset-swap facility after A-shares' worst slump in almost a decade ²³. Elsewhere, Belgian PM Bart De Wever is set to offer his resignation after budget talks failed ²⁴. The UN's 35-year Western Sahara mission expired after a Russian veto ²⁵. A web scan also found that a supporter of Russia has won Bulgaria's presidential election .