No End in Sight for Iran War

there's no end in sight to the iran war as pete hegseth extends deployments to the middle east there's a lot of physical and psychological pressure especially on sailors members of the u.s navy who are spending a long time at sea and i think what we're going to see is probably more strain on those forces as a result plus we'll look at what that means for energy prices going into the winter heating season and russia gains the upper hand in ukraine with a barrage of new drones it's thursday september 3rd i'm luke vargas for the wall street journal and here is the am edition of what's news the top headlines and business stories moving our world today defense secretary pete hegseth is extending the deployments of american troops in the middle east well into 2027 part of an open-ended strategy that's aimed at giving president trump options for how and whether to continue the conflict u.s officials say that trump has discussed declaring the war over but has also told aides that he thinks an economic pressure campaign which includes a blockade of iranian ports will eventually force the regime to collapse journal middle east correspondent jared malson told me that so long as the u.s wants to keep that option on the table the military will need to be close by it is a military operation the blockade does involve number one redirecting ships that try to run the blockade and they're also shooting at some of these ships when ships don't comply with the navy and their orders to steer away from iran they shoot at these ships and they disable them and sometimes those can be deadly strikes there are thousands of sailors and soldiers involved along with many warships helicopters that are involved in policing the blockade and for all of that to have an effect it has to go on long enough for it to bite in a letter to families pentagon leaders said they understood that the longer tour would weigh heavily on military households while the prospect of an extended war in the middle east is bad news for consumers with oil and natural gas prices set to rise going into the winter heating season that's being compounded by a lack of gas in storage with countries unable to buy cheaper natural gas earlier in the year as energy reporter matt dalton explains prices are lowest kind of coming out of the winter and into the spring even in the summer and so you can buy cheaply then you can avoid buying more expensively in the winter when prices are much higher when european gas demand peaks and so now that pricing structure wasn't there in fact the price for delivery in the summer was more expensive than the price for delivery in the winter so that that gas is going to be more expensive than people were anticipating and that is going to flow through eventually into household heating bills and electricity prices and while that may remind some listeners of the energy crisis following russia's invasion of ukraine matt dalton has more to say about that matt says that europe has become more resilient since then the continent's demand for natural gas is about 20 percent lower than it was then the reason is europe built a lot of renewables which lowers gas needed for power generation a lot of factories have become more energy efficient and so that reduces demand and also households have turned down the thermostat so for all those reasons that could ameliorate the crisis then you know we also have new lng export capacity coming online from the u.s. and we also have new lng export capacity coming online from the u.s. the u.s. is now the world's largest lng exporter and those facilities will put new supply into the market and help keep prices down they won't be able to replace the production lost from qatar but they certainly will help another potential factor is the prospect of an exceptionally warm and stormy winter the world meteorological organization this morning said that el nino has now become firmly established in the tropical pacific and is expected to strengthen significantly the wmo is forecasting the will see an increased risk of floods in some places drought in others and additional extreme heat globally ukraine is facing a new threat from the air in the form of russian drones powered by jets for several days now kiev is faced almost continuous air raid alarms as upgraded weaponry slips past ukrainian air defenses our anastasia malenko is here to discuss how moscow's latest technological upgrade is reshaping the battlefield and whether and how ukraine can respond anastasia i feel like it wasn't very long ago we were talking about how ukraine had managed to puncture holes in russia's air defenses and strike targets sometimes hundreds of miles into russian territory and now it seems like the tables have turned to a degree indeed ukraine continues to strike russia of course but in the recent weeks russia stepped up its attacks especially when it comes to the new generation of jet powered drones that it's using to attack cities across ukraine but primarily cave these days so as russia has been attacking ukraine with shahad type drones since fall 2022 and that basically set off an innovation race with ukrainians coming up with various ways to shoot them down ranging from mobile air defense units firing at these drones in the sky to coming up with the drone interceptor technology which basically meant that they would be sending interceptor drones to intercept shahad's flying in the sky but because of the speed of these new jet powered drones it is way more difficult to shoot them down in these conventional ways so right now ukraine is relying on f-16s as well as other types of air defense but they have fewer tools to combat this new threat not least when in addition to their speed being an issue but the fact that russia is firing so many of them indeed these drones just keep coming towards the capital which has made the normal daily life quite difficult so the air force said that since july russia has used five times more of this type of drone so they're really scaling the technology since thursday until sunday russia fired about 1500 drones to attack ukraine and about 800 of those were jet powered okay so this has gone it seems like to to seemingly sort of the top of the pile in terms of the weaponry russia is using here i guess where does that leave key of these things are really hard to to intercept especially at scale is there any equipment that could be useful so i think when it comes to this technology ukraine is betting on its own innovation zelensky said that there are four companies which are currently working on the new generation of interceptor drones to start going after these much faster drones and shoot them down he's hoping to scale this technology come fall i mean if they can do that it's just more proof right of how quick these eras of technological innovation are in this war because we're also reporting this week that ukraine is rolling out its own weapons that are highly damaging to russia there's just basically continual innovation here indeed i mean ever since ukraine decided to take war to russian territory and go after its factories and logistics hubs and military industrial complex it's been really batting on its homegrown drone industry as well as its nascent missile industry my colleague alistair mcdonald he wrote about ukraine's growing ability to strike deep inside russia which is in part thanks to long range drones which can fly up to 1500 miles and they're hoping to double that range to 3000 miles by next year the defense technology companies are innovating very rapidly and very much prioritizing the range the speed as well as the payload of long distance drones trying to bring more of russia within reach and basically hitting back its invaders i've been speaking to wall street journal contributor anastasia malenko anastasia thank you so much for bringing us this story thank you for having me coming up ford rolls out an ev truck for the masses to compete with tesla and in a litmus test for global expansion autonomous cabs at the mean streets of london those stories and more after the break ford is setting an ambitious sales target for its upcoming electric truck aiming to sell more than a hundred thousand units of the fathom in its first year starting around thirty thousand dollars the kentucky built truck represents ford's push into the main stream market following billions in losses on earlier more expensive evs like the f-150 lightning we understand that ceo jim farley has dubbed the low-cost design ford's new model t moment if met sales target would place ford in rare company alongside tesla though the aggressive push comes as us ev demand faces headwinds from the phase out of federal tax credits open ai has been hit with thirty new lawsuits over a february mass shooting in canada families of the eight victims alleged that the ai company was negligent violated product liability standards and aided and abetted the massacre by failing to alert police after the suspect described violent scenarios on chat gpt months before the attack open ai which considered contacting authorities prior to the shooting but refrained said it's since tightened its law enforcement referral protocols the filings add to a growing wave of litigation testing whether ai companies can be held liable for real-world harm linked to their chatbots broadcom has reported soaring q3 profits thanks to demand for its custom chips large ai labs are driving much of that as broadcom ships new product to the likes of google open ai and meta but even as ceo hawk tan forecast that chip demand wouldn't let up in the coming years he acknowledged wall street concerns that data center construction could become a limiting factor we can ship significantly more Question to some, in our minds sometimes, Sometimes it's, are they going to be, even as we ship the chips, going to be deployed on a timely basis? Broadcom shares are down off hours. And finally. We're on track to be live in 15 cities by year end. We've got a NeuroLucid launch coming in the Bay. We've got Zeus coming in Vegas. We've got Wave in London and Tokyo. We expect to be in L.A. and San Francisco in 2027. We expect to be in perhaps San Francisco and Miami in 2028. And then 28 different cities globally by 28 as well. That was the CEO of Uber last month talking about its grand plans to roll out robo-taxis worldwide. Ambitions that will be put to a test starting today as it begins offering rides around London in conjunction with British startup Wave. Company officials say that's success in the city, which has grown. 15 times as many cyclists and pedestrians on its roads compared to San Francisco. And which features a less grid-like street design would serve as a proof point that robo-taxis can work basically anywhere. London's cabbies had mixed reactions to today's rollout. It took us four to five years to qualify to be a taxi driver. They're not going to be able to navigate around the streets of London. No chance. Without a driver, I think it's an excellent waiting to happen. If London cabbies do get. phased out, I would be very sad. I think London and the world, but London most specifically, would lose a unique thing. The knowledge and the bespoke taxi. But ultimately, people will decide. And if they don't want us, we'll go. Let us know in our Spotify comments if you're Team Robo-Taxi or Team Black Cab. I'll see you there. And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.