Election Day in the US dominated the hour, but the sharpest development came just before it: US airstrikes hit Iran's Qeshm Island hours ahead of the midterms ¹. Washington described them as defensive strikes against Iranian sites near Hormuz ², and they were the first US attack on the island since June . Diplomacy is running in parallel. Pezeshkian signalled more of it ³, and both sides are reviewing mediator proposals to prevent full-scale war ⁴. Trump said he is in no rush to decide whether to resume a major bombing campaign . Even so, officials have leaked potential plans for joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities after the midterms ⁵. Oil prices climbed after the strikes ^6,7. Saudi Aramco reported a 34% rise in third-quarter net profit to $36.25 billion, supported by elevated oil prices offsetting supply disruptions from the Iran war ⁸. On the vote itself, Republicans hold 53 Senate seats and Democrats need a net gain of four ⁹, with all 435 House seats up ¹⁰. Readers should discount early tallies, which have run 4 to 9 points more Republican than final results since 2018 ⁹. Democrats are poised to win the House despite a pre-election NBC poll showing only 29% of registered voters view the party positively versus 38% for Republicans ¹¹. GOP candidates have also sharply cut mentions of Trump in their general-election ads ¹². Election administration is its own front. A federal judge rejected an NAACP bid to stop the Justice Department from deploying federal law enforcement staff as poll monitors ¹³, while another judge barred the administration from demanding that California officials segregate ballots of suspected noncitizens . The administration has charged only 236 people with voting fraud offenses despite asserting widespread noncitizen voting ¹⁴. In Ukraine, Russia struck energy infrastructure in ten oblasts overnight ¹⁵, knocking three DTEK thermal power plants offline ¹⁶. Russian strikes also destroyed a Dnipro hospice, forcing the evacuation of nearly 50 terminally ill patients ¹⁷. The diplomatic calendar is filling at the same time. A Russian delegation led by Medinsky heads to Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 for trilateral talks ¹⁸, NATO confirmed a Brussels meeting on security guarantees for Ukraine ¹⁹, and Washington is readying a request for NATO allies to contribute more toward arms shipments ²⁰. Elsewhere, eurozone governments must nominate Christine Lagarde's successor at the ECB by November 6, with Pablo Hernández de Cos and Klaas Knot the frontrunners ²¹.